Gateway to the Midwest

Discussion about reviews and strategies for user created scenarios made for RT3 version 1.05 and earlier.
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OilCan
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Gateway to the Midwest Unread post

This is intended to be a fun, simple, unrestricted game. 1.05V but works just as well on 1.06V. Goals are to connect cities across the midwest (no haul goals, PNW or CBV). St. Louis is meant to be the gateway or connection point - but, of course, a player can start anywhere on the map. This is a fairly large map, on purpose, to give the impression of the vastness of the midwest states. I am using this same map for a very different game featuring the Missouri-Pacific RR: I thought it might be fun to just build track and run trains on the map as it is, before I complicate it with pre-built AI track.

The player can build their own empire with no competition or can add up to 6 rivals (or nuisances depending on how they do). The game starts in 1870 & allows up to 60 years of play - plenty of time to reach the gold medal.

I think the start up map is too rich in resources and would appreciate someone else's opinion.
I'm not sure all the cities are smoothed sufficiently and would appreciate feedback on that.
I know the rivers still need some help in places where they run uphill.

The terrain is from digital elevation data so should be fairly representative to real world - with some exaggeration of elevation on purpose. The map colors are from Google maps.

All comments to improve the game would be appreciated.

NOTE: Beta was removed on Sept 2. Final version is in the map archives.
Last edited by OilCan on Tue Sep 02, 2014 10:37 am, edited 1 time in total.
AdmiralHalsey
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Re: Gateway - Build from St. Louis - BETA Unread post

Interesting. I'll download this and get back after playing it for a bit.
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Hawk
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Re: Gateway - Build from St. Louis - BETA Unread post

I fired the map up and looked around and noticed right off the bat that there's no iron anywhere on the map. I didn't see any events that added iron either.
That pretty kills any steel production. Some iron would be nice. :mrgreen:

There's a boat load or three of livestock and cotton. I guess clothes and meat should do OK, if the map isn't a little over saturated with it. I'll play a little and see.

I think I'll start in Oklahoma City for my first attempt, and with no AI. Oklahoma City looks to be a decent sized city and fairly centrally located. Not to mention it being a required connection.
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RulerofRails
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Re: Gateway - Build from St. Louis - BETA Unread post

I played this one twice in 1.05, the first time powering through it solo without AI in 11 years. I then decided to set harder goals so that I would actually play the map for a decent time span, seeing that this is a 60 year map. Here is my result:
Gateway beta done.jpg
To give the AI a chance to get established, I decided to issue no bonds or stock and not buy any industry or build hotels etc. I laid only connected track starting in St Louis and didn't connect to a city that the AI already had, once I merged with them I got the connection count for "their" cities. I also waited until I had 51% ownership of my own company before buying any shares in the AI companies. By the time I had bought up the majority stake of my company, most of the AI were in stock buyback mode. 5 of the AI started in the southwest, with the one in Memphis giving me some headaches as it forced me to take the long route round to get down to New Orleans. I just managed to get there before the AI did. The Memphis one didn't seem to be very interested in expanding south of Cleavland instead coming north and even crossing over my tracks on its way to Des Moines. It was the Dallas one that almost made it to New Orleans as he managed to get to Morgan City and Natchez before I could. (Maybe the rivers are a little confusing around New Orleans anyway). Here is a route map showing the extent of AI's expansion.
Gateway beta AI routes.jpg
Gateway beta AI routes.jpg (51.08 KiB) Viewed 5662 times
I had a non-fatal margin call when depression hit not long after I had started investing in the AI, but I was forced to sell a lot of shares in the AI that reduced my holdings considerably. This prevented me from getting a majority stake in 4 of the AI companies. I was using the bait/flush method of wasting my PNW to drive up share prices to get the AI chairmen/investors to sell. I also wrongly focused on the smallest company first which only connected two cities. Anyway, convincing the AI to accept a merger was fun. I have figured out that if other investors are splitting the stock such that the AI company chairman doesn't have 51% or more of his company stock a takeover is possible sometimes at less than double the market cap provided that your company is doing better than his. I had to make the last takeover after 1900 and my setup with 8 car trains wasn't very profitable as without a caboose I had a spike in breakdowns up to 82 per year from 230 trains (all Consolidations except for some Dukes that came for mergers with the AI). This put my 5 yr weighted return in the negative and was worse than the AI that were paying good dividends and slowly buying up industry. I eventually turned this around by electrifying with the 2-D-2. Electrification cost around 25M. Retiring all my engines wiped over 30M from my profits that year, but the new 2-D-2s cost only 12M. My profit tripled from the previous year and eventually settled at over double the previous amount. After 5 years or so my 5yr weighted return had become around 5-10% more than the AI's. This caused the last one I needed to accept my merger offer. I didn't bother to takeover the last two, both were small, but owned a fair amount of industries. The larger one made it to a 50M book value with a max of around 4.5M profit in a year. I think I remember seeing larger AI in 1.06, combine this with the increased chance of industry investment will probably make playing the way I did tougher in 1.06.

Ok, enough about strategy! I didn't see any unacceptable grades on the AI lines. I agree that there are plenty of resources on this map especially in the southeast around Baton Rouge. I can see that this is good for the AI. Seeing that industry isn't a goal on the map, I don't view it as being a real problem. The sparse trees will help computer performance. My older machine seems to slow the most when I get over 300 trains on a map. I wish that we could make the game use more than 512MB of RAM for graphics. I am sure this is my issue here. I wish there was a way to code an event to destroy all the AI trains in exchange for some cash when you merge with them. They are pretty sensible with track on this map, but routing is still a bit poor. My least favorite task is having to sift right through my train list and try to find them to put some sense into their routes after a merge. Just to get the connection, a merger isn't necessary here, but the way I was playing made me wish for it.

Smoothing some of the cities in the hilly parts of the map is a good idea. There aren't too many that I felt need it though. I am not sure if it bothers you, but I noticed that the valley that runs up the far west of the map tends to have some logging camps that are hard for demand in Santa Fe to reach. Maybe a bit of a smooth in the valley would help to keep them from sitting completely idle. Seeing city connections are the goal here, I don't know if anyone is going to be bothered to run a dedicated line all the way out there to catch the logs or potential lumber.

Its great that you are getting the painting straight from Google now! I am sure that saves a lot of your time. The only small thing I noticed is the newspaper for connecting 5 cities goes far below the "newspaper" page. Maybe you meant to shorten it to correspond with the others? Anyway, I enjoyed the map. !$th_u$! Maybe I should try it again in 1.06 to see the difference with AI behavior.

@Hawk, you probably saw it by now, but there is plenty of steel available at some of the warehouses. Also, is the image I attached too large? If I try to convert it to say 75% it goes all blurry and 50% is probably too hard to read.
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OilCan
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Re: Gateway - Build from St. Louis - BETA Unread post

Hawk wrote:I fired the map up and looked around and noticed right off the bat that there's no iron anywhere on the map. I didn't see any events that added iron either.
That pretty kills any steel production. Some iron would be nice. :mrgreen:
Hawk, the midwest does not have a steel production area. There are warehouses on the eastern cities of the map and ports which provide steel, shipped in from other places. The midwest is cattle country. BTW, I read that today's US herd of cattle is the lowest since 1953 - that's not good.
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OilCan
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Re: Gateway - Build from St. Louis - BETA Unread post

RulerofRails wrote:I played this one twice in 1.05, the first time powering through it solo without AI in 11 years.
11 years! Wow. I am impressed. My first run with no AI took 18 years. But I got distracted trying to corner the textile market & buy every cotton farm. :-?
To give the AI a chance to get established, I decided to issue no bonds or stock and not buy any industry or build hotels etc. I laid only connected track starting in St Louis and didn't connect to a city that the AI already had, once I merged with them I got the connection count for "their" cities. I also waited until I had 51% ownership of my own company before buying any shares in the AI companies.
You are being too kind to the AI. There are two events which secretly give the AI extra cash. I give the AI no such quarter and usually begin investing in them soon after their first January stock price adjustment.
I had a spike in breakdowns up to 82 per year from 230 trains (all Consolidations except for some Dukes that came for mergers with the AI). This put my 5 yr weighted return in the negative and was worse than the AI that were paying good dividends and slowly buying up industry. I eventually turned this around by electrifying with the 2-D-2.
I neglected to give trains a 1 level boost in reliability which I usually do in the setup of a game. Thanks for pointing this out.
My least favorite task is having to sift right through my train list and try to find them to put some sense into their routes after a merge. Just to get the connection, a merger isn't necessary here, but the way I was playing made me wish for it.
Try this: pause game play for the merger, take over the AI, find train #1 and reroute/reconsist - or retire-, move down the list of trains doing the same, take over your parent company, proceed with the merger. (This assumes you have controlling ownership of the AI company.)

I will smooth more cities, especially in the hilly part of TX and smooth the valleys of the Rocky Mts. And I'll check the 5 city newspaper. Thanks for the helpful comments.
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Re: Gateway - Build from St. Louis - BETA Unread post

RulerofRails wrote:Also, is the image I attached too large? If I try to convert it to say 75% it goes all blurry and 50% is probably too hard to read.
I don't know what you're using to resize images, but here's that same image resized all the way down to 800 wide. To me it actually looks more clear than yours. Also, big images like that get cropped on the right side when attached as a post. The viewer then needs to click the image to view it full size. Not a problem. Just letting you know in case you didn't notice.
What I sometimes will do is add text below the image telling folks to click on the image to view full size.
Gateway beta done-sm.jpg
Gateway beta done-sm.jpg (99.34 KiB) Viewed 5652 times
783 KB is pretty big for a jpg, but it's no problem.
OilCan wrote:Hawk, the midwest does not have a steel production area. There are warehouses on the eastern cities of the map and ports which provide steel, shipped in from other places.
Yea, I know. I just like creating a steel and auto complex, hauling all the raw materials. :mrgreen:
OilCan wrote:The midwest is cattle country. BTW, I read that today's US herd of cattle is the lowest since 1953 - that's not good.
Thanks to drought and rising feed prices (corn being used for a gas additive and other things). Then you have this pig virus - PEDv - that's attacking the pig population and genetically altered chickens that aren't fertilizing eggs, it's no wonder we can't afford to put meat on the table.
And don't even get me started on GMO vegetables. !*th_dwn*!
OilCan wrote:And I'll check the 5 city newspaper. Thanks for the helpful comments.
Here's what I saw.
Newspaper.jpg
Newspaper.jpg (138.08 KiB) Viewed 5652 times
BTW! Starting in OK. City was a bust, so I started a new game in Dallas. Maybe I should start again and build my empire out of St. Louis. I'm at Jan. 1884 and I only have 24 cities connected. ^**lylgh
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RulerofRails
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Re: Gateway - Build from St. Louis - BETA Unread post

In my solo run I started with a Corpus Christi to San Antonio line and a Textile Mill in Laredo. There is always room for improvement and some of the industries I bought that time were not the best possible investments. The Ammo and Weapons revenue helped give early cash. I kept investing in industry while expanding slowly up to Dallas. By the time I reached Dallas I had around 7M of bonds mainly invested in industry, but made the decision to keep the rest of the bonds solely for rail expansion, ignoring industry throughout the rest of the game. I branched back down to Houston then across New Orleans, then up the Mississippi to St Louis via Cairo, and on to Omaha via Kansas City. After that I was filling out the network in various places that I thought would make me the most money.

I didn't do anything special that run except waiting a year or two to add Maintenance Sheds. Maybe this was helpful in the beginning, but I think it didn't make so much difference by the end (this may help explain my breakdowns as I did this both plays and sometimes I forget to build them at the right time :oops:). I also looked in each new station I built for where express wanted to go, so the first train I bought would make the most of the instant passengers available when a city is connected to a larger network. Suppose I have some cities G-H-I-J-K-L. L being the new city I just connected. Normally (depends on distance mainly), this strategy will mean the first train I buy for that station will be L-H followed by a second run of L-I. Then a second train to do the L-K to L-J routes normally starting in K to bring in any fresh cargo unless L has a big supply. I don't consider this micro-managing cause I don't come back and reset the routes later, they stay how they are. The main point is that the first train has a slightly longer route. As always I like to think that this gives me an advantage on passenger revenue obtained, but as is the case with most of my ideas it may not make as much difference as I believe. Believing you have an edge can help mentally. ;-)

Both runs I only built large stations. Starting in St Louis I don't think it is possible to connect 5 cities right off the bat without using a bond or the medium/small stations. Starting in other parts of the map it is likely possible. Obtaining the bonus will give your share price a bump, but whether you want it right at the start of the game is debatable. Obviously, just starting somewhere with 5 close cities isn't a good strategy unless it combines with a good supply of cargo for you to haul and make money with.

I was purposely giving the AI a good chance, I think it is a fun concept and am trying it again in 1.06. The AI would really only be a nuisance if you simply connected to their cities with your own track. I wish they would grow larger, though. I noticed that the AI are randomized (?I got different ones in 1.06 at least?). When playing in 1.05 I got George Hudson and Daniel Drew as AI chairmen. This probably helped me though, because I could get them to sell their big lumps of stock so I could buy it later in the game. They eventually managed to buyout the 48% or so of my company that I didn't own and George Hudson was worth 103M at the end. So far, I haven't noticed an improvement in the 1.06 AI. Probably I am getting more experienced with the start, but I am keeping much closer to the AI profit-wise this time. I was wrong about New Orleans' river crossing being confusing, as an AI started there connecting it to Houma. Will let you know what happens with them.

@Hawk, I changed the size I play RT3 to something with a strange height/length ratio. For some reason it looks clearer on my screen. I think I will put it back to what I used to use when taking screenshots. I will also try to remember to turn the quality down next time. Thanks.

PS. What did you guys think of the "loop" track in my screenshot? The Memphis Southern was the proud builder of that track, I have no idea why. **!!!**
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Re: Gateway - Build from St. Louis - BETA Unread post

RulerofRails wrote:PS. What did you guys think of the "loop" track in my screenshot? The Memphis Southern was the proud builder of that track, I have no idea why. **!!!**
I don't think I've ever seen an AI do that. I know I've never done it. **!!!**
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OilCan
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Re: Gateway - Build from St. Louis - BETA Unread post

I've never seen the AI do that loop thing either. I thought you did and I was trying to figure out what the advantage of that would be. :lol:

And yes, the AI tycoons are random.

I think I know what happened to the 5 city headlines. Sometimes when editing events, I move my cursor oddly - I'm not sure what I do exactly- and the events begin to scroll. The text of the event being edited is pasted into one or two events below before I can move the cursor and stop the scrolling. I usually catch it and correct the changes: must have missed it this time.
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Re: Gateway - Build from St. Louis - BETA Unread post

Hawk wrote:BTW! Starting in OK. City was a bust, so I started a new game in Dallas. Maybe I should start again and build my empire out of St. Louis. I'm at Jan. 1884 and I only have 24 cities connected. ^**lylgh
I usually look at the cargo flow on a map before choosing a starting city. I want the first few cities to be receiving or stacked up with cargo so my trains have something to immediately haul. I think those first 3 cities are critical.
And on this kind of an open, large map, you could start several 3 city links cherry picking the cities richest in resources and then link them over time.
Just a thought. !#2bits#!
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Re: Gateway - Build from St. Louis - BETA Unread post

OilCan wrote:I usually look at the cargo flow on a map before choosing a starting city.
I agree, if you don't at least look at the general overlay you are playing the lottery. As I have said before, look out for the high value cargoes available. !*th_up*!

Starting several unconnected networks may be good if you start those around San Antonio, St Louis, New Orleans and possibly Denver (more costly). I lean towards waiting to build up a connected network when the distances between resource rich areas aren't that far, this way I try to support my running costs with passenger revenue. Playing with AI, you might get swamped at some of your "short lines" or the AI might run on your track and give you free cash. Good to mix up strategy, however having large areas of your constantly growing network paying early connection bonuses (10-20%) both way on trips gives a "shock" profit factor that I feel is unmatchable if you are out for fastest win.
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Re: Gateway - Build from St. Louis - BETA Unread post

I'm in 1907 with 73 cities connected, including all the required cities, and I'm getting a bit bored. I've been buying industry just to make it a little more interesting. I've been burning too much track. ^**lylgh

I think I'll start again, this time with all the AI I can add. Let's see if I can buy them all out. :mrgreen:
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Re: Gateway - Build from St. Louis - BETA Unread post

I finished my play through against the AI in 1.06. Here's a screenshot just before I took over Dallas & Sulfur Springs, at a cost of all the money I had (56.1M):
Gateway beta 1.06.jpg
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The 1.06 AI ended up making things easier, as they put their attention towards buying up lots of industry which slowed down their buyback schemes. I didn't bother pursuing a controlling stake in the two companies which had less than ten cities connected between them. They stopped expanding once they had connected to each other to focus on industry, so one of them ended up being the biggest AI company making up to 6M a year profit with a book value of 70M at the end. I had plenty of time to obtain a controlling stake in the others, so mergers were considerably cheaper than in my 1.05 play.

I have thought a bit more and you probably should lighten the resources. Here is how the Alcohol situation looked in 1898 which is only really halfway through the map. That's quite a lot of Alcohol! I think the AI will survive with less to haul especially in 1.06. I have to limit the number of trains to around 300 or my system creeps along so when I play I am unable to take advantage of all those stacks of cargo. I will play maps how they are. The seeding density is at your discretion. If industry was necessary I would probably get slightly annoyed when some new start-ups appeared on the map and stole and diverted grain and rice supplies from ones I owned. As it is (a rails game), I don't care so much. I didn't pay full attention to this, but this map overview gives an idea of how many Breweries/Distilleries I had. Some densities such as that of the Textile Mill and Meat Packing Plant looked ok in the few minutes I looked at them.
Gateway beta Alcohol.jpg
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Re: Gateway - Build from St. Louis - BETA Unread post

Great feedback. Thanks. !$th_u$!
Yeah, it is a rails game and one that came to me as I was testing the map for another type of game. I was enjoying building track and hauling cargo as I monitored how the map economy was evolving - and I thought some others might enjoy such a leisurely game as well.

It is a large map for a rails game and Hawk is right, it gets boring after awhile. I may lower the number of city counts for each medal.

The abundance of resource and size of the map actually works very well for the Jay Gould's Missouri-Pacific theme game story that I am now working on. The player needs the resources to build capital for mergers. I did not realize what a unscrupulous scoundrel Jay Gould was until I delved into his story. !*00*!
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Re: Gateway - Build from St. Louis - BETA Unread post

Hey OilCan I have a question regarding your maps. Why do you always have no crashes set and only give the player 10-15 engines to use?
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Re: Gateway - Build from St. Louis - BETA Unread post

AdmiralHalsey wrote:Hey OilCan I have a question regarding your maps. Why do you always have no crashes set and only give the player 10-15 engines to use?
The first answer is easy: I just don't like being bothered with train crashes. I think they are too frequent, so I turn them off. Its a personal choice. I play my own maps a lot so I tailor them. A player is more than welcome turn train crashes back on again. Sadly, there is not way to offer a player a choice during a game; it has to be set through the editor as a special condition.

Your second question surprises me. I don't follow a rule to limit the number of trains, I guess it just works out that way. One thing I do is omit trains that don't appear (not available) during the time span of the game. The editor flags a validation error if lots of trains are selected. The second thing I do is drop one train when two are very comparative in speed, cost and performance. In my test runs, if I always choose one train between two comparative choices, I'll drop the one I never ever chose - why keep it? The third thing is if the map is in Europe, I omit the North American trains and visa versa. So, I guess I do weed out the trains but I don't try to get to a certain number - it just comes out what it is.

I guess that's one of the reasons for the beta testing. If one feels like there are too few train choices, then let the game maker know.

Good questions. !*th_up*!
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Re: Gateway - Build from St. Louis - BETA Unread post

Personally, if I'm playing a North America map, I don't want a bunch of European trains in the selection list. Same if I'm playing a European map. No need for North American trains in the selection list.
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Re: Gateway - Build from St. Louis - BETA Unread post

On the topic of the engines, why was the Duke included? Isn't it a European locomotive? Does it have some significance in the scenario you are making?

The 1900-1909 period doesn't have a decent loco available (except the 2-D-2 in 1904 which I used even though it isn't realistic) as all the current engines drop performance drastically. I know the options for engines aren't that great on the American side in 1.05 and even 1.06 (that's why there is the half finished Cowboy engine add-on). Maybe you could consider an engine boost for the Consolidation with an associated cost to try to fill this gap. Another idea that came to me while playing is the possibility of increasing the cost of bridging the Mississippi maybe south of the junction near Cairo to try to simulate its width. This could help to define track-laying strategy by reducing the number of crossings the player builds. Just an idea.
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Re: Gateway - Build from St. Louis - BETA Unread post

OilCan wrote:
AdmiralHalsey wrote:Hey OilCan I have a question regarding your maps. Why do you always have no crashes set and only give the player 10-15 engines to use?
The first answer is easy: I just don't like being bothered with train crashes. I think they are too frequent, so I turn them off. Its a personal choice. I play my own maps a lot so I tailor them. A player is more than welcome turn train crashes back on again. Sadly, there is not way to offer a player a choice during a game; it has to be set through the editor as a special condition.

Your second question surprises me. I don't follow a rule to limit the number of trains, I guess it just works out that way. One thing I do is omit trains that don't appear (not available) during the time span of the game. The editor flags a validation error if lots of trains are selected. The second thing I do is drop one train when two are very comparative in speed, cost and performance. In my test runs, if I always choose one train between two comparative choices, I'll drop the one I never ever chose - why keep it? The third thing is if the map is in Europe, I omit the North American trains and visa versa. So, I guess I do weed out the trains but I don't try to get to a certain number - it just comes out what it is.

I guess that's one of the reasons for the beta testing. If one feels like there are too few train choices, then let the game maker know.

Good questions. !*th_up*!
The first one makes sense however the second one you seem to have misunderstood. I mean why do you only choose so few locos when you can tick the boxes that say NA Loco's only, EU Loco's only and WORLD Loco's only? That should make sure no loco's from the wrong region make it in. You can still uncheck it afterwards and drop the loco's you want while keeping the region for them correct. Main reason I don't like that is due to me liking to play beyond the end of the scenario just to see how well I can run the RR.
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