Missouri-Pacific Railroad - (Goulds MoPac Empire) - BETA Version

[OilCan]

This is a *1.05V* BETA. This is a tycooning and PNW type game - just like Jay Goulde would have liked it.

The player is offered to recreate the Goulde era of the Missouri-Pacific (MoPac) Railroad - 1876 to 1915 - when Goulde built a kingdom of railroads in the midwest USA. The player is Jay Goulde.

The game goals are:
#1: Personal Net Worth of $200M (G), $100M (S), $50M (B)
#2: No rival railroad companies left on the map (G), 3 rivals left (S), 5 rivals left (B)
#3: Missouri-Pacific must remain on the map (not taken over by another company)
#4: No company debt at end of game (G,S)

There are nine rival AI companies at the start of the game.

The player starts with ownership in 5 companies: 60% in Missouri-Pacific (you're Chair); 75% in St. Louis-Iornton-Southern; 25% in Cairo-Little Rock; 25% in Texas-Pacific; 25% in Central Union; 0% in other 5 railroads.

<> This is indeed a true BETA in that not everything has been fully tested. Any comments, suggestions or ideas to improve the game are very welcome.

Note: Beta Version removed 6/18/15

[RayofSunshine]

Guess I am the first to make any comments.

WOW. What a scenario. Really has everything a player wants in a scenario challenge.

Okay, I should have gotten a Silver Medal, but played thru year 32 of a 30 year deadline. I had $0 debt, and nearly had the $200K for the Gold.

Although I had the majority stock of 3 railroads, the merge requirments were too large. My largest revenue:
$34.5K but railroads TX $55.7k - DEN 65.5, and RIO 53.6k at the end, and there was that difference thru most of the game.

That being said, if only played in the Medium level. The only other problem in that of getting the Silver, was that of not being able to get "access" to Albuquerque in the NM territory. Not able to purchase, and no railroad was built into it either.

I was a little surprised when in the 32nd year that there was the newpaper indicating that the $20 gold coin was being issued. I would have thought that being that the game deadline was in the 30th year, that this notice would not be part of the scenario. UNLESS, a player takes the option to continue beyond getting the medal.

Don't know what I would have gotten if I had normally tested the scenario in Export, but even in the Medium, I wasn't able to get the Gold. Be interesting to see what other players might have in comments. Don't know if there will be any suggestions. Believe that most everthing has been "covered" to complete the program.

Thanks OilCan for another of your imaginative creations.

[Wolverine@MSU]

I played this one too. An excellent scenario and very imaginative. Nice map, easy grades and aggressive AIs. I played on Expert and got the Gold in 1899. I bought into AIs early on, gaining a controlling share in most of them within the first 4 years. I pretty much let them go their merry way for a few years, allowed them to expand, and focused on Mo-Pac by buying/building industries and building high-profit connections to the existing Mo-Pac lines. I also helped the AIs and myself by building connectors, or short-haul rails to supply raw materials to my industries. A lot of those loads travelled mostly over AI rails, but the industry profits far outweighed the incidental payments to AIs for use of their lines/stations. The only "dirty trick" I went for was the coal deal, but now I'm playing again (from a save from 1880) and didn't bite on that one this time. I went into debt to the tune of $9 Million or so to get control of most of the AIs, and fortunately the economy stayed robust (Prosperity) for several years.

Once the AIs were making good profits, I maxed out their dividends to pay down my debt, and then started issuing and buying stock to gain an even larger share of their stocks. High dividends meant that in essence, they were financing my stock buys: Issue stock in January and buy them up (going into debt), but then recovering through the year as dividends were paid out. I didn't have Mo-Pac paying me any dividends so I had extra cash for expansion. I merged with a couple of them after a few years (the ones I had enough cash to do) and that brought up my own cash to where I could buy even more Mo-Pac stock. After about 7 or 8 years, I had predominant control over most of the AIs (70- 95% share) and very little personal debt. The economy weakened, eventually going to Depression, sending the AI share prices way down, and coupled with aggressive selling, I drove the prices down even farther to the point where I could easily merge with them. Even though it meant a slight loss on my original investment, I bought them at prices way-way below their CBV/share. I used the cash I got from the mergers to buy even more Mo-Pac until I eventually owned all of it. At that point my PNW had tumbled from ~$160M at the end of the Prosperity to ~$100M at the depths of the Depression, but within a couple of years, the economy rebounded and my PNW just kept going up and up. Mo-Pac was awash in profits, so I used it to pay off the Bonds I took out as Mo-Pac as well as the ones I incurred by frequent takeovers and management of the AIs during the "growth years". It took a few years to get all the debt paid off, but that seemed to dovetail pretty well with my PNW growth as the economy improved.

I only saw one mis-spelling, but I don't remember exactly where. If I run across it in my replay, I'll write it down and report it.

I too give my thanks to OilCan for this one; I've been waiting for a new scenario to try out.

[OilCan]

Okay, I should have gotten a Silver Medal, but played thru year 32 of a 30 year deadline. I had $0 debt, and nearly had the $200K for the Gold.

Not sure how you squeezed out an extra 2 years of play. I'll look at the timing again.

Although I had the majority stock of 3 railroads, the merge requirments were too large. My largest revenue:
$34.5K but railroads TX $55.7k - DEN 65.5, and RIO 53.6k at the end, and there was that difference thru most of the game.

It helps to gain controlling stock of these companies and then work to keep them from expanding too fast: buy useless industry, sell profitable industry, build unconnected track, that sort of thing...

The only other problem in that of getting the Silver, was that of not being able to get "access" to Albuquerque in the NM territory. Not able to purchase, and no railroad was built into it either.

The player has to take over an AI railroad that has access to NM to gain access for the player.

I was a little surprised when in the 32nd year that there was the newpaper indicating that the $20 gold coin was being issued. I would have thought that being that the game deadline was in the 30th year, that this notice would not be part of the scenario. UNLESS, a player takes the option to continue beyond getting the medal.

I do not recall a newspaper message about gold coins. I'll take a look at that too.

Glad you enjoyed the game. One has to enjoy toying around with AI players to enjoy this type of game. An early strategy to get ahead of the AI is key in this game.

[OilCan]

I played this one too. I played on Expert and got the Gold in 1899. I bought into AIs early on, gaining a controlling share in most of them within the first 4 years.

That's the key...an early strategy on how to deal with the AIs, because they are being fed cash to expand. I plan to add a 'read-me' note to the game zip folder which gives some hints on how to build an early strategy.

Once the AIs were making good profits, I maxed out their dividends to pay down my debt

Yeah, this often requires taking over Chair of each AI about twice a year, but its well worth the effort. I find it helpful to turn on the blue dividend line on the stock chart to keep tabs of the AI's dividends.

After about 7 or 8 years, I had predominant control over most of the AIs (70- 95% share) and very little personal debt.

Once you get to this point, you are truly the 'Master Tycoon' of the game. You are in control of and running multiple railroad companies. It is a great spot to be in - it keeps one busy, but a good busy.

If you do select a 'dirty trick', I'd like to know if you detect any discernible change in the AIs - if that is possible. I know the coal trick works, the false mistress, the strike and the dishonest bookkeeper work as well. Not sure the rumor one has much effect.

[RulerofRails]

I had a hard drive failure, my PC is still not quite restored perfectly, but I can play again. So I had a chance to play the map at last. I wouldn't call just one play a proper test, but everything I saw so far looked good except I did notice that there was some degradation on the coastline that is visible in the reflections. You can see this in the screenshot below which has waves turned off. I am pretty sure this can easily be fixed by replacing the bmp of the file in the hex editor. I am also not sure if this is very noticeable on other people's machines.

The AI behaved pretty sanely, so that's good. One thought I had was that maybe Jay Gould could be in the title for the map. Some other maps such as North-South Corridor by EPH also feature the Missouri Pacific, this might be a good way to make the map stand out more for its story as well. Just an idea.

I did a rather hurried play, and to make things quicker I decided not to do routine searches for newly seeded industries, and I didn't use my trick of exploiting the price differentials when expanding to new cities. Because I focused on passengers, these conditions aren't that limiting here. I also never jumped company chairmanships, staying with Missouri-Pacific throughout the game. I have said before that I don't enjoy this technique. I am realizing that I have far too much strategy to worry about in my own company, and using/controlling AI companies just opens too many doors and my brain can't handle that many strategy calculations on the fly. So in that sense, maybe I didn't play this as intended.

The "dirty tricks" events seem to fit the spirit of the game, but from a strategy viewpoint of getting the medal, similar to what Wolverine did, I never took a bad effect for the AI. I like to do things to help the AI and I have a suspicion that this is better strategy here. I want the AI to grow as fast as possible since I am holding a majority share in all the AI companies early in the game thanks to the generous starting cash and share allocation. No doubt there are other strategies especially if you get behind compared to the AI, where you may want to slow the AI down, but in my game the interest payments and investment returns (profit I made on the growth of their shares) were responsible for more than 25M of the PNW for the win. I will have to play this again just for fun in order to be any help in testing these events.

My start was a Textile Mill at a Cotton Farm just across the river from Vicksburg, along with a connection to Columbia, and one of the Ironton mines. I found that with this seed at least the Columbia connection was good for freight and it was also good as a passenger exchange between St. Louis and Kansas City. This gave 1M profit in the first year. By year 5 I had merged 4 companies, partly for their access rights and also to get a line down the eastern strip of the map. The other AI that were out of my way, I couldn't hit with an early merge strategy especially when my game stalled with a Depression for the entirety of the 4th and 5th years, so profits sunk when I was holding 11M bonds at just over 11% average interest. The dividends the AI companies paid helped me quite a lot with dividend payments before I took them over later in the game, one by one as opportunities arose. There was a short time when I built a couple of industries apart from Hotels/Post Offices, but then switched into full-on saving mode first to make the final mergers and then to crank up those dividends and repay bonds just before the medal. Economic timing was good as I finished in Boom Times, but made enough mistakes that I am sure the medal can be gotten in half the given time (1 year less). I really enjoyed launching Jay Gould into the realm of the stinking rich. Thanks for a nice map!

Win, some degradation on shoreline.jpg (53.67 KiB) Viewed 11136 times

[RulerofRails]

Played this one through until 1901 to do a better test by leaving the game running at normal speed all the time and only merging the Texas Pacific once I had seen all the events except a few newspapers. My computer's normal speed slows up by mid-game, but the difference in time to a win was 3 years longer than my first attempt. I was surprised by this as I was leaving lots of potential behind this way. Anyway, the Galveston event made my computer "freeze" for so long that I thought it had crashed, so I reloaded multiple times trying to figure out what this "crash" was. I suspected the AI of doing something crazy, but in the end it turns out to be a performance issue. I'm glad it's not a bug.

This time I took all the events to hinder the AI. They appear to be working. The cheap coal slowing their trains up wasn't enough to give me the speed bonus. This is probably due to my running 8 car trains though. It is fairly early in the game for the 20% increase in maintenance cost to have a great effect since the AI haven't gone engine crazy yet. But then again, the AI are getting some cash helps, so this is basically cancelling some of that bonus effect. The effects of the early ones do seem a little weak from my observation, but the random nature of the profits the AI make with their demand-following routing system can cause far bigger hits to their profits until they get setup with a few industries. I am not sure if you intended the book-cook event to continue running once that company is merged? It was two years after the event was applied that I took over that company and then I got the personal benefit from this throughout the game even though that company was non-existent. The saving I got on the merge was around 200k (around 10% off). When the strikes come along the AI are larger, so these can be much more useful to strategically make a merge or two. In my game the Pullman strike combined with the flood disaster and my trains were showing a speed of 1 for all the entries on their speed/grade table. On the overall, the balance of these events works the way things are in my opinion.

One question about the AI. I see many map-makers chose to do so, buy why pre-build medium stations for the AI? I realize that doing it this way gives the player something to upgrade after a merge, but my preference would be to see the AI doing better in the early game because they have significantly more cargo to haul. Especially the Rio Valley would benefit from catching river traffic and being more likely to capture meat straight from the Meat Packing Plant in Laredo. Medium stations put the AI at a disadvantage compared to the player (I use large stations 99+% of the time).

[OilCan]

I did notice that there was some degradation on the coastline that is visible in the reflections. You can see this in the screenshot below which has waves turned off. I am pretty sure this can easily be fixed by replacing the bmp of the file in the hex editor.

'Easily'? Maybe. The hex editor is a mystery to me. I've seen several posts regarding the hex editor; never able to understand them.

One thought I had was that maybe Jay Gould could be in the title for the map.

A smart idea. I'll probably do this.

[OilCan]

I am not sure if you intended the book-cook event to continue running once that company is merged? It was two years after the event was applied that I took over that company and then I got the personal benefit from this throughout the game even though that company was non-existent. The saving I got on the merge was around 200k (around 10% off).

Good observation. I will fix this.

On the overall, the balance of these events works the way things are in my opinion.

My limitation was that since Gould died mid-way through the game, all the dirty tricks had to occur during this shortened time frame. I wanted to stagger the dirty tricks through time and not annoy the player with too many too close in time - so some had to occur while companies were still small. I also wanted the player to get a sense of the scheming, unscrupulous mind of Jay Gould, so several dirty tricks are offered instead of 1 or 2.

One question about the AI. I see many map-makers chose to do so, buy why pre-build medium stations for the AI? I realize that doing it this way gives the player something to upgrade after a merge, but my preference would be to see the AI doing better in the early game because they have significantly more cargo to haul. Especially the Rio Valley would benefit from catching river traffic and being more likely to capture meat straight from the Meat Packing Plant in Laredo. Medium stations put the AI at a disadvantage compared to the player (I use large stations 99+% of the time).

So, this is a very good question. I'm not sure I have a definitive answer. Maybe part of it comes from seeing how other map makers set up their AI track, maybe part of it comes from how I choose stations (I tend to choose a medium station unless size of town warrants a large station or I own an industry in that town; then I come around later and upgrade stations), maybe part of it is not wanting to give the AI too much growth too fast and control their growth by event or takeover.
On hindsight, I can see where large stations for the AI would have helped them become more established early in the game. I'll certainly keep this thought in mind.

[RulerofRails]

'Easily'? Maybe. The hex editor is a mystery to me. I've seen several posts regarding the hex editor; never able to understand them.

The hex editor displays code and that stuff boggles/confuses the human mind. They can display code for all types of files and there are many types available to download for free that all do basically the same thing (display the code with some options to search/organize/bookmark etc.). I said this process was easy because it is simply a matter of finding the location of the bmp part of the file (co-ordinates provided by Wolverine in this PDF, enter them into the search function in the hex-editor) and then a simple copy paste/replace of all the hex numbers/code up to the end of the map file. The question here is, whether or not your map is degraded at all. If your map looks perfect on your machine, it is probably an issue with my gfx instead of degradation.

Others could also check to see if the map looks right on their PC. The "blocky coast/rivers" is the only "degradation" I get and notice on my machine. This "degradation" disappears when the bmp data is restored from just after the map was painted was completed. I have yet to see a good illustration of the degradation others see.

Gumboots told me that what I see isn't what he sees, but he is running win7 64-bit. I have failed to see screenshots that demonstrate the "blue-bleeding" effect well as it seems difficult to spot. What I do know is that the map's size does reduce with every save so it is losing some detail. I know you have said that you normally enter all finished events into a blank map, so I am surprised to see this on one of your maps and therefore suspect it could be something with my gfx and therefore not worth worrying about. If it turns out to be degradation and not an issue only for me, I am happy to do the procedure if you want. All I would need is an early version (but with graphics painted/applied) to copy from.

[Wolverine@MSU]

I just noticed that the state borders between Colorado and Oklahoma are not correct. You've got Oklahoma notching out the southeast corner of Colorado.

[OilCan]

I just noticed that the state borders between Colorado and Oklahoma are not correct. You've got Oklahoma notching out the southeast corner of Colorado.

You're right! Actually, it looks like I short changed New Mexico; it's northern state boundary should line up with Oklahoma's. I'll fix it. Thanks for catching it.

[Bcbuhler]

Well I haven't been around here for a while but saw a new map so I decided to give it a try. Since I haven't played RT3 much in the past 9 months I decided to play on easy. I read the post about how passengers work before playing so I built had express trains between most 2 star cities which worked fairly well. I bought Industries once in a while but most of the industry came from Ai's I purchased. I finished in May 1894 with 144 trains and a fairly impressive network I'd say.

[OilCan]

I finished in May 1894 with 144 trains and a fairly impressive network I'd say.

Well done! Glad you liked the game. I tend to forget to look at the final number of trains at the end of a game. 144 trains sounds like a lot of trains.

[Hawk]

The final version of this map is now available in the archives.

[low_grade]

Just played this on Expert, gold in 1902, though just postponing paying off the bonds for the win for a few years to see what more events pop up, but eventually got bored and took the win. PNW at like $340M.

I ignored the main line at first, Just built to Columbia and re-routed trains. And I played a dirty trick on Alexandria, my first target. I capped his station with short sections of my own track so that he couldn't build! I did go for rail over industry early, NO, Baton Rouge, Alexandria. And yes, Textile Mills then, Kansas City had enough cotton and wool passing through on its way north that I had a ready stream to catch there, and New Orleans got another mill to capitalize on its stack of cotton. Some lumber. Tried steel in St Louis but had a hard time getting the coal to cooperate. Plenty of profits to be had, and great PAX early by connecting to the AIs.

Tycooning-wise, I had enough cash (sold shares to just over 50%) to buy into quick majority holdings in many of the AIs, in the first few years with bonds and stock issuing/repurchasing I bought an AI a year and connected St Louis to Little Rock, then down to my Alexandria network, which Houston's AI had already connected to (my next target.) And yes I built segments to connect the AI to each other and me. And I just kept buying stock until there was none left to buy, holding my debt from margin buying to $10M, then when my purchasing power was over $40M I let my personal debt get to $20M, with dividends always paying it down. For the last 4 or so AI, I was saving up like $9M, $12, $25. Since I was majority shareholder I never opted for any of the dirty tricks. I also never switched charmainships, just let the AI do its thing. The last few were expensive, and required years of saving... but with $30M+ in annual profits, it was just a matter of time. And then I smacked myself on the forehead and did as other have done, sold boatloads of shares until stock prices were 1/4 of CBV, then bought the remaining two AI which had a combined $135M CBV before I started selling for like $35M. Lol! I could have used this trick on the last 4 expensive AIs and finished the game years earlier, maybe 1896 or so.

Oh, and I have a modern gaming laptop, but when Galveston blew, I thought the game had crashed at first. Then I recalled that even bulldozing a water tower causes the game to freeze for 4-8 seconds, so I waited. 20-30 seconds later the game resumed, lol! RT3 must have some self-restrictive code to still bog down a Core i7 6700 with a GTX 970m video card...

Overall another great offering from OC! Kept me busy, made me think hard (taking over multiple large AI's and rerouting all those trains...,) and entertained me with a good story!

[OilCan]

Kept me busy, made me think hard (taking over multiple large AI's and rerouting all those trains...,) and entertained me with a good story!

Thanks for the kind comments. There is an older sibling to this game (same map and same AI) called Gateway to the West in which there is no storyline except to connect key cities and thrash the AI. This game theme was well received, so I carried the same theme into my Alaska game and then into my Russia game. I am currently doing test laps with a new game, Zambia, which also follows the same game theme, to an extent.

[RayofSunshine]

I know I have played this scenario a time previous, but when I clicked on the link in your previous tread Hawk, I am not able to find it in the North American scenarios. But not the first time I have not been able to locate stuff. LOL

[Hawk]

It's on Page 2. Remember, all the map listings are in alphabetic order.

[low_grade]

I wanted to make an Alaska Scenario, centered on the WP&Y (White Pass and Yukon) out of Skagway, a close detail map, the natural terrain from satellite is amazing! I'll go play your Alaska scenario now, the Gateway one was a bit easy, but you certainly developed as a scenario designer, and I'll probably play all your designs eventually.

Check this out:
http://wpyr.com/history/