Latvian Republic 1920

Discussion about reviews and strategies for user created scenarios made for RT3 version 1.05 and earlier.
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Latvian Republic 1920 Unread post

Update: I've split the posts about my 768x512 Latvia map, now named Latvian Republic 1920, from Juriko's original thread for his Latvia map (Latvia v1).

This new topic will be the support and pontification thread for the new scenario.
It is available in the RT3 map archives on this link: Latvian Republic 1920


I got the final version done for the 100th anniversary of the declaration of the Latvian Republic. (0!!0)

This scenario will play just fine with default 1.05 cargo cars and locomotives, if you prefer to use those.

Personally I prefer to play this scenario with my custom cargo cars, and with some custom locomotives. As extra locomotives I use the 1.06 G10 and 264T Suburban Tank, as well as my SR Schools Class 4-4-0. This gives a good range, that is fairly representative of Latvian rail in the 1920's and 1930's.

My revamped version of the G10 is attached to this post.
The revamped 264T Suburban Tank is in the archives on the the New Engines page.
The current SR Schools Class (beta version) is attached to this post.

I also use custom .lco and .car files for the locomotives, to give better balance between them. Those are attached to this post.


Anyone wanting to talk about Juriko's original scenario should go to the other topic, which you can find here. (0!!0)


Start of original post, before thread split:

I just had a brainwave. It may have occurred to someone else before, but it hadn't occurred to me. *!*!*!

There was this idea that at some point we'd make a new version with the correct proportions for the area. Being in one of my random bursts of enthusiasm for RT3 stuff, I had a look at that. First thing is: what size to make it?

Hopefully the existing scripting can be transferred to the new map with very few changes being required, and hopefully it will have the same playing feel to it. Given the proportions have to be substantially different, I figured that making the new map to have the same diagonal length as the old map would be the best bet. If corner to corner distances are the same, a lot of the train trips and hopefully a lot of the economy should work the same.

Edit: Just ran a few numbers through a spreadsheet. Results for distance from Riga, in map pixels, are shown below.
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RIga_to_City_comparison.jpg
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Started with a basic heightmap from MicroDEM, covering the area from 20.4 E to 29.5 E, and 55.4 N to 58.7 N. Resized this to 769x513 to generate a basic 768x512 .gmp. Diagonal on the old map is (896^2 + 320^2)^0.5 = 951.4. Diagonal on a 768x512 is (768^2 + 512^2)^0.5 = 923.0. This is as near as you can get with the multiples of 64 required for .gmp's. Despite this, the new map has more land area. Maximum area for any given diagonal length on a quadrilateral is when it's square, so correcting the east-west stretching of the old map has increased the land area because it's closer to square than the old long and narrow one. OTOH, distances cargo needs to travel is close to the same in a lot of cases, so it's worth trying.

I added the existing cities, and their basic building densities (taking from the existing map). The positions are taken from GeoHack and are accurate to real life, even though they don't always match the relative positions on the old map. I haven't done all the city recipes and territories yet, but that's on the list. Also threw in an extra 6 Lithuanian cities: Klaipeda (a major port), Panevezys, Roskiskis, Siauliai, Telsiai, and Utena. Juriko requested some more Lithuanian cities, and these seemed to fit well with the now-correctly proportioned map. The six new ones have building density at 100% for the moment. There is scope for a few more cities in Russia if we think they're worthwhile. Ditto Estonia/Saaremaa. Looking at the overview of the map, my gut is saying perhaps one more city in Lithuania, maybe one or two more tucked down in Poland, and perhaps another three spread through Russia. I think Estonia is generally about right, although I am tempted to add one more town to Saaremaa.
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768x512_basics.jpg
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Next thing to consider is detailing the map. A satellite image overlay using BMP2GMP is the obvious choice here, but for now I wanted something quick and easy. I also wanted something that would show me where the rivers run in real life. This is where the brainwave happened: use the DEM itself. :-D

This is good because a/ you will already have it and b/ it will already match the .gmp precisely, with no screwing around to correct the projection. The usual heightmap colour scale is horrible, but a bit of hue/contrast/etc adjustment in Photoshop works wonders. It very easily gives something that's a useful approximation to terrain painting, and is easy enough on the eyes to work with for now. It also clearly shows a lot of the river courses. (0!!0)
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Brainwave.jpg
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This idea could be extended a bit. Say you wanted a clearer indication of some terrain-related feature. You could just use a colour selection on the original .bmp from Microdem and crop out a layer to suit, then flatten the image into a suitable .bmp and import it into the game map. It's also an obvious way of painting territories without guesswork since you can overlay borders temporarily and replace the .bmp later.

Anyway that's where it's up to. Frankly the slowest part of it was getting all the latitude and longitude coordinates together, but I found something helpful there too. Wikipedia is the usual source for me, and Wiki pages for any city will usually give the coordinates. The problem is that they are most likely going to be in degrees, minutes and seconds, but on the other hand sometimes they will be in decimal. I can work with either of those, but mixed formats are a nuisance for this. However, the coordinates on the Wiki page are linked, and the link goes to the GeoHack page for that city, and the GeoHack page has coordinates in decimal format. This is awesome because decimal format is fast and easy to work with. ::!**!

So I made a basic little spreadsheet to calculate the positions of the cities for me, and had them applied to the map in no time. !*th_up*!
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Re: Latvia (beta) Unread post

Good work. !*th_up*! The difference in look is amazing. :shock: I'm also quite curious if it will play the same, since with everything scrunched north-south on the old one I always felt that price differentials were a bit weaker than normal. The rivers also contributed. There will also be a longer journey over water from Riga to Liepaja, so that will be good to decrease the fishing aspect too.
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Re: Latvia (beta) Unread post

Dunno about that journey by water. As the cow flies, or crow if you like, the straight line distance from Riga to Liepaja is 28% less. Haven't tried to get the distance around the coast yet, but I'm not sure it will be all that different. **!!!** Not a problem either way.

Anyway, for the moment, I have set the new Lithuanian cities to the same industry weightings as Gulbene. That seems to be a fairly standard middle-sized city recipe for industry, and the cities I picked for Lithuania are pretty major ones. So on that last point I gave them 65% starting density for buildings instead of Gulbene's 48%. The exception was Kleipada, which I set the same as Riga but with building density set back to 100%. These are obviously just starting points so we can see what happens.

I've now got all the territories and regions sorted (borders can be tweaked a bit later), and all the industry weightings for cities, along with the briefing and several other details. The only thing left to do now is transfer the event scripting. Once that is done, we should have a playable map. (0!!0)
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Re: Latvia (beta) Unread post

Righty o then. I got the event scripting transferred to the new map. I've given it quick run through for 8 years, and it all seems to work so far. !*th_up*!

Generally it's looking very workable. The cities being positioned as in real life is already making me rethink some standard ways of connecting things for this map. Distances seem as manageable as the old map. A few runs will be more challenging, and a few other runs will be a bit easier.

The change in proportions is quite breathtaking when you are used to the old map. Suddenly Riga and Jurmala look like spots where you could actually build cities. The terrain is more interesting overall. The enlarged land area combined with the heightmap from MicroDEM has really brought a lot of detail to life. Lakes just fit where they ought to (there is a huge one between Pskov and Tartu, that forms part of the Estonian/Russian border). I haven't got rivers done yet. Those are going to be an important detail as they affect cargo flow and rail building costs. At least on this setup it is easy to see where they naturally go, so doing them shouldn't be too difficult. Also needs some trees, but those are a piece of cake.
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First_alpha_test.jpg
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First thoughts are:

1/ It may be necessary to slightly increase seeding densities for some industries.
2/ Lithuania is going to be a big thing on this map. It is potentially a major area of interest.
3/ One thing I expected, and was keen to see happening, was the way a fresh map would get rid of the residual demands that are locked into the old map from early betas. It behaves completely differently for initial cargo flow, which is good.

I'll trundle along with it and get a few more things done, then let an alpha loose for the mob. (0!!0)
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Re: Latvia (beta) Unread post

Ok, rivers are done, or done enough for now. Lot of rivers in Latvia. They must have got a special deal on them. Everybody's back yard seems to come with a river. *!*!*!

So I threw the main ones in for now. I haven't put names all over the place yet, but that's not important for testing. Bear in mind that this map is still a bit rough. It's purely for getting an idea of how the economy will work with the new proportions. Better eye candy can come later. !*th_up*!

One thing I have noticed is that the more compact proportions of the new map are easier to handle on screen when playing. The overview has an easier time of it, and the map is easier to spin around. I've just got it sorted to alpha stage, but don't have the energy to do any real testing tonight. It seems to seed well, going from a couple of quick checks, but it needs people to give it a few good runs. I've attached a zip of the .gmp in case anyone wants to have a crack at it. Any and all feedback is welcome. :-D
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Re: Latvia (beta) Unread post

Fixed a few glitches in the event scripting, some of which have been around for ages but nobody ever noticed. :mrgreen:

Also cleaned up the lakes and rivers around the Riga area a bit, as some of the lakes were chewing too much real estate and made building too difficult. Plus some minor terrain tweaking in general. I do think the new map is seeding well on the whole. There seems to be a good variety of playable seeds, with substantial differences between them. I think this is due to the extra breathing room giving the random generator a bit more to work with.

Edit: Alpha zip removed.
Last edited by Gumboots on Sun Jan 28, 2018 7:18 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Latvia (beta) Unread post

Just had a thought about this. The Pskov haulage goal has always been a bit of an afterthought. Offhand I can't remember how it started, but it's never worked that well or been very interesting. With the accurate proportions of this map bringing Lithuania into play as a viable proposition, it stands to reason that some sort of goal for Lithuania would make sense. It'd expand the scenario and prevent it being just a straight re-run of the earlier map.

So, I was thinking that perhaps the Pskov haulage goal could be either dropped or made optional. Instead of that, have a Diesel haulage and/or production goal. If the Pskov warehouse is coded to not produce Diesel (it can easily do something else) then the only source of Diesel on the map becomes the refinery at Mazeikiai, if that seeds. This automatically provides an incentive to go there, and with the accurate positioning it is no longer right on the Lithuanian border. You have to go into Lithuania to connect it. There are several ways this could be handled:

1/ Leave things as they are, but add a mandatory Mazeikiai connection goal. That doesn't seem to fit with a game has always relied on haulage goals.

2/ To prevent Oil Refineries being built anywhere you like, such as Ostrov, set the price of them to +300% in every territory except one: namely a new Mazeikiai territory. That territory could even have a slight reduction of 20% or whatever. That way if the usual one fails to seed, which happens sometimes, you'd have to go there and build your own unless you wanted to pay $9,800k to build it elsewhere.

3/ The haulage goal could be just from Mazeikiai territory to anywhere at all, or could even be to Ostrov. I usually run oil trains from Ostrov anyway, and Diesel is a natural cargo for the return trip. Alternatively, the target could be another Lithuanian city. The port at Klaipeda is an obvious option.
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Re: Latvia (beta) Unread post

juriko wrote: Sun Oct 22, 2017 2:42 pmAlso we discussed with my son the idea to create a new map called “Rail Baltic”. Of course we will use experience earned with this map (especially an event composition, geography, thank you again Gumboots), but may be there is any good resource for map creators?
I was just looking around on the web, as you do, and stumbled across a great resource for pre-WW2 Baltic scenarios.

http://maps.mapywig.org/m/Baltic_states_maps/

It includes a really great range of maps. One of the best is a 1933 tourist map of Latvia. Not only is it a lot of fun (I'm seriously tempted to overlay it on a game map just for a laughs) but it gives a good indication of which areas of the country specialised in which industries. Liepaja was obviously a major whaling port, while Ainazi specialised in fishing. There was logging north of Limbazi and down near Bauska, the resorts at Jurmala and Saulkrasti are shown, and people at Riga liked shooting at ducks. :lol:
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1933_tourist_map.jpg
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There is also a road map for travellers...
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1934_road_map.jpg
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...as well as a range of more serious maps. The quality and resolution are superb. The originals are 8000px wide. !*th_up*!
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Latvia temporary 1 Unread post

I'm going to try the new version now. Hate to bring bad news, but we can't raise the price of a specific industry (Oil Refinery), only for ALL.

There is an issue where if you disable an industry in the editor, this will also disable it's produced cargo. So pre-placing the Oil Refinery and turning it off, also wont work. A map I saw recently, (Thirst of the Irish, IIRC) got around this somehow. It had been started as a game then taken back to the editor and saved as a map. This is normally a bad idea, but I wonder if it would work if pre-placed buildings were temporarily removed with density set to 0% (or you loaded in 1.06 debug mode without pre-game simulation)? **!!!**

Other way would be to just restrict production elsewhere.
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Re: Latvia (beta) Unread post

Bother. :-P So much for that cunning plan. :lol: I'll have to think of something else then. Restricting production is a good idea in terms of functionality, but it would be an evil thing to do to someone if they didn't know about it. I can just see someone spitting chips because they forked out $2,700k for their own refinery and it doesn't do anything. :mrgreen:

I knew about disabling the buildings, so yeah we can't use that trick.

Looks like a simple haulage goal to a Lithuanian city might be the sensible option. That ensures territory access, and if the seeded refinery is there you'd naturally want to buy it. Otherwise, if someone wants to make diesel in Ostrov I suppose they can.
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Re: Latvia (beta) Unread post

I've given this my first solid play through. Found a couple of minor scripting glitches (copied the Camelback extension event from the P8 equivalent, but forgot to change the type of loco *!*!*!) but generally everything seems to flow well. The economy starts slow but ends up partying big time. It's still definitely winnable, but requires a slightly different approach to the original version. One thing that's obvious now is that although Lithuania has great potential, Poland is pretty pointless. Druja is actually on the Daugav River, so a large station on the Latvian side captures Druja. That means you get all the haulage without needing to pay access cost.

The terrain is pretty good but needs some touching up here and there. Ditto the rivers. I'll get all of that sorted before worrying about trees and painting.

The extra land area is noticeable, but distances are still very manageable. I'm not sure I'd ever want a larger map in RT3 though. I'm inclined to think this one is close to the comfortable limit. Makes for great train rides anyway. !*th_up*!
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Re: Latvia (beta) Unread post

Gotta love old map sites! Also, I did play halfway through the first 768 alpha until a CtD upon laying track (argh 1.05...) Only feedback is I was annoyed with the number of furniture factories popping up around Riga... Otherwise seemed to play well, but hard to say, as I used the start to practice your robber-baron tactics and started in May with $3.5M, so can't really comment on difficulty. But, it did seem like resources were more stretched out in the old perspective, but much easier to get to now, almost too thick.
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Re: Latvia (beta) Unread post

Bugs (Lativa_768_a6)
Kolka event needs to test for Years Elapsed instead of Game Start Year.
Valka/Valga should be on the border. That's why the town is split in two in real life (since 1920).

Just messed around with starts and looking through the stats. Went to do a little comparison with the old one. What do I find? More than the projection is warped on the old map. Daugavpils and Liepaja are at basically the same latitude on the old one.

Messed around with the new one to explore its feel. I don't think the question is about difficulty yet, I don't think it's a problem, but if it were, it's easy with some small tweaks to the medal targets and/or adjusting bonus compensation.

New one behaves differently in a few ways. More of Lithuania means that we get a center of landmass (taking some account for city density) down around Bauska - Birzi. Being on the border, this can't play too much into an initial network. The lakes on the river between Jelgava and Riga are blocking demand transmission. I managed to fix the one behind Jurmala by laying a river through it, but this trick didn't work for the one right near Jelgava. Anyway river branch west from Jelgava is diverting demand. There's also transferability between rivers east from Livani. All these things play into the Bausaka center feeling (actually it's more or less the center of a currently isolated river system). With the old version, Riga wasn't center but the river setup and having edge of map conditions not that far south did make it feel like the center. There is no problem with this. It's just a difference.

If the economic makeup in the constraints of the game engine aren't quite as unique it's worth it for the realism. On the old map Liepaja is on the same latitude as Daugavpils which is obviously not right. The player needs to focus on Riga anyway.

I would probably tend to work on the regions a bit more. I had trouble navigating the site you linked to. Did you find some illustration of resource distribution? Also, did you purposely set one of the regions to have 2% Lumber Mill chance? I think that cities need a bump on that, because a couple times the out-of-city one was the only one on the map. The new map has about 50% more land cells. It also has roughly 50% more resources on it (based on the counts). With only a few more cities and stronger differential potential, there is more haulage and potential profit to be had.

The old map has the feel of being about Latvia. So we don't lose any of that, even though we have access rights to factor, I would suggest making the cost of doing business outside Latvia higher. Such as higher track/station/maintenance costs, slower engine speeds/station load times, reduced output on owned industries. Not too much effect, just something to make the player pay attention that he should develop Latvia with higher priority. I think it's realistic that a Latvian company is at some disadvantage outside home borders.
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Re: Latvia (beta) Unread post

low_grade wrote: Sun Jan 14, 2018 9:38 am Gotta love old map sites! Also, I did play halfway through the first 768 alpha until a CtD upon laying track (argh 1.05...) Only feedback is I was annoyed with the number of furniture factories popping up around Riga... Otherwise seemed to play well, but hard to say, as I used the start to practice your robber-baron tactics and started in May with $3.5M, so can't really comment on difficulty. But, it did seem like resources were more stretched out in the old perspective, but much easier to get to now, almost too thick.
The seeding seems much more varied with this map. All the slider settings and regions are taken from the old map, but the behaviour is a bit different so I expect some tweaking will be needed.

As an example, when I was doing the initial testing for seeding I was commonly getting starts with plenty of logging camps across the map, but zero lumber mills. Rather than adjust sliders for every town, I decided to allow them to seed (ie: not 0%) on the central region. I figure this is fine since IRL they are often not in towns. Funnily enough, they are often where the trees are. :mrgreen: A slider setting of 2% seems to work well. It will drop the occasional mill out into a suitable spot, which is all that's required to avoid starts that are $0 everywhere for logs.

Then there are the cows at Tukums. On the old map it was common to have lotsa moos around Tukums, which made a good supply for the placed meat packing plant at Sigulda. Moos don't seem to like Tukums much anymore. They have all wandered off for greener pastures. Maybe they decided they don't like being sent to meat packing plants, and have gone off to play on the new wide open spaces with the deer and the antelope. **!!!**

Another weird thing was the port at Kliepaja. It seems to love making ports there. With a slider set at 60%, same as Riga, it would often seed with two ports and sometimes three. Even if it seeded with two it would pop up a third one very quickly, so I had to knock the slider down to 30%. Parnu port was another odd one. That flatly refused to seed even though the city centre could not be any closer to the water. I had to resort to placing that one.

I haven't noticed a problem with furniture factories yet but will keep an eye out for it. Anything else that seems over the top can be scaled back too.I think that what is happening is that although the map is not much shorter than the old one east to west, because it's nominally 12% shorter but has less Baltic Sea in the west, the much greater height (60%) is allowing far more resources to seed for a given width. So it's like they're about as stretched out horizontally, but are stacked in more layers vertically. The old map had an event at the start of the game, for a 20% production increase for livestock, logs, milk, and wool. I'll disable that as a starting point !*th_up*!

It may also be worth adding a couple more regions to give finer control. There are several available in the list. Ditto territories, if we need them.
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Anyway, game goals.

Poland: Given that Poland has no real purpose now, I'm inclined to leave it that way. It's only a snippet of Poland anyway so I think the best option is to leave the access cost as it is, but when the trade treaty is signed in 1929 reduce the access cost to zero. That way you won't be able to buy seeded resources there at the start of the game, but will get free access 9 years later if you want to take advantage of it. Although it may be worth adding one city that is definitely in Polish territory.

Lithuania: I have decided that I'm definitely going with a Diesel-to-Kleipada haulage goal. This seems the obvious way of getting Lithuania into play, and in most seeds will mean a natural connection via Mazeikiai. It will also require connection to Russia to get the required oil. I think I will remove the Automobiles-to-whatever conversion from the Pskov warehouse, and set up Kleipada port to supply Automobiles for Diesel on a 1:1 basis. This should give natural two-way traffic once you have the gumption to do the connections, and help flow of Automobiles for seeds that only have one port at Riga. Speaking of which...

Daugavpils: Automobiles don't seem to want to go there by themselves anymore, but as they are still shippable if you set the right consist I don't think it's a problem.

Ventspils: Clothing to Ventspils seems ridiculously easy now. It racked up 50 loads buy the end of 1926, purely through natural cargo flow and without me even trying. That one may need to be increased.
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Re: Latvia (beta) Unread post

You posted this while I was composing the other one. :-D
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RulerofRails wrote: Sun Jan 14, 2018 2:36 pmBugs (Lativa_768_a6)
Kolka event needs to test for Years Elapsed instead of Game Start Year.
Valka/Valga should be on the border. That's why the town is split in two in real life (since 1920).
1/ I changed all connection events to use years elapsed, so they play the same no matter which optional starting year you use (the available range is 1914 to 2000).

2/ Alpha 6 borders were a quick and rough guess at it. I'm already up to Alpha 7 on my box. I found a Latvian good map from 1928 (yay old map sites!) and overlaid that onto the .gmp temporarily (yay bmp2gmp!) after correcting the projection to match the DEM (yay Photoshop warp tool!). Borders have been fixed now. :-D
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Just messed around with starts and looking through the stats. Went to do a little comparison with the old one. What do I find? More than the projection is warped on the old map. Daugavpils and Liepaja are at basically the same latitude on the old one.

Messed around with the new one to explore its feel. I don't think the question is about difficulty yet, I don't think it's a problem, but if it were, it's easy with some small tweaks to the medal targets and/or adjusting bonus compensation.
Agree with all of that. I think the old map was made purely by guesstimation, combined with a desire to fit certain important cities on the projection the RT3 tool threw at them. Which is quite understandable. And I am going to tweak a few goals and bonuses, but generally the scripting seems to have transferred very well.
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New one behaves differently in a few ways. More of Lithuania means that we get a center of landmass (taking some account for city density) down around Bauska - Birzi. Being on the border, this can't play too much into an initial network. The lakes on the river between Jelgava and Riga are blocking demand transmission. I managed to fix the one behind Jurmala by laying a river through it, but this trick didn't work for the one right near Jelgava. Anyway river branch west from Jelgava is diverting demand. There's also transferability between rivers east from Livani. All these things play into the Bausaka center feeling (actually it's more or less the center of a currently isolated river system). With the old version, Riga wasn't center but the river setup and having edge of map conditions not that far south did make it feel like the center. There is no problem with this. It's just a difference.
I'm fine with removing or tweaking minor lakes if necessary, although from a first run through I am not sure it's needed. Jurmala seemed to be fine to me, but I'll take a closer look. I want to make rivers and lakes a feature of this map since they are a major feature of the region. I'm sure this is why Juriko included an option for cheaper bridges. ;-) This map has the potential to be very scenic without a lot of trouble. I'm finding it very appealing already.

Speaking of rivers, I know they are still a bit wonky on places. That's on the to-do list. It's the reason that most rivers are not cut into the plains yet. I deliberately laid them out with height change disabled, so I can get the courses right before cutting them in.

Edit: I just tried that idea of running a river through the lake at Jurmala. It works very well. Looks even better than before, so all lakes that can have rivers running through them will get that. !*th_up*!
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I would probably tend to work on the regions a bit more. I had trouble navigating the site you linked to. Did you find some illustration of resource distribution? Also, did you purposely set one of the regions to have 2% Lumber Mill chance? I think that cities need a bump on that, because a couple times the out-of-city one was the only one on the map. The new map has about 50% more land cells. It also has roughly 50% more resources on it (based on the counts). With only a few more cities and stronger differential potential, there is more haulage and potential profit to be had.
I agree the regions need more work. I haven't got into resource distribution yet, but will take a look at it. Let me know if you find anything useful. The out-of-city lumber mills were deliberate, for the reason you mention.
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The old map has the feel of being about Latvia. So we don't lose any of that, even though we have access rights to factor, I would suggest making the cost of doing business outside Latvia higher. Such as higher track/station/maintenance costs, slower engine speeds/station load times, reduced output on owned industries. Not too much effect, just something to make the player pay attention that he should develop Latvia with higher priority. I think it's realistic that a Latvian company is at some disadvantage outside home borders.
I was thinking of making building (and maybe buying) in Russia more expensive, and as mentioned earlier perhaps even having Russia handled by a territory-restricted AI, so that you would have to run on AI rail to haul to and from Pskov and Ostrov.

Other than that, Juriko seemed to want a Baltic rail feel to the thing, but I'm open to tweaks once we have more experience with how this thing plays. !*th_up*!
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Re: Latvia (beta) Unread post

Quick thought to discourage excessive use of robber baron tactics early in the game: script things so that every time a company is started, if company #ID > 1 all territory access costs increase by 50%.

Edit: Just tested this. Company ID number isn't necessary. It just has to check the number of companies in existence. If that is greater than 1 (and it will always have to be if you are trying robber baron) then it triggers the effects.

Also had an idea which is so much fun that I think we need to have it. No need to increase access cost for all territories, just for Russia. It's necessary to buy into Russia anyway, and at 50% increase for every company other than your first it will rapidly put a damper on any aspiring robber barons. After just three companies have been created, access to Russia will be $6,750k. A fourth company will bump it over $10 million.

So give the event a newspaper, and every time you start another company the Soviets get grumpy about capitalist exploitation of the working class and put their access cost up 50%. :mrgreen: Of course, once you have already bought access to Russia this won't matter, although they could still demand bribes for continued access.
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Re: Latvia (beta) Unread post

You'd also have to make it no mergers, then, as it's easy enough to gobble back up the companies you spawn, and in fact that's what I did to make sure they couldn't get into trouble, at almost no cost. Just disable starting multiple companies, it adds nothing to the scenario. Fun to think about, but save it for another scenario.

Also, buying into Russia and haulage to Pskov in my opinion was less about Latvia and more about making the game take longer. I'd be all for reducing resource seeds in all territories but Latvia. I could be argued to increase seeds in countries that Latvia actually connected with by rail, but only if I get historical newspapers! If we're trying to flesh out the game, like Oilcan can do, I want to see dialogues notifying me in a timely manner what goals/rewards are available, to keep me going. Most of this scenario is blind. Wow! I just got $1M I didn't know I was going to get for something I didn't know I should do! Great strategy, Jeff! (my name) Hmmm... after the spa towns are connected, how about every January, set economy to Prosperity if it isn't already boom if you transport... 50 pax in Latvia the previous year? Or gamewide?
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Re: Latvia (beta) Unread post

No, you don't have to do anything about mergers. Say you are starting with your original company, and you trash it. To merge a company you have just trashed, you have to start another company. That means there is more than one company in existence. That triggers the effects. It's ironclad, because you can only do the merger if there are two companies in existence.

Or, say you still have your original company, and you want to keep that, but you want to start another one and trash that. Same applies. Event fires when company is created, finds more than one company, access cost goes up. You can't get around it.

I'd have to check back, but IIRC the Pskov thing started because it was on Juriko's map and it seemed like a wasted section of the map. There was no need to go into Russia at all, or Estonia or Lithuania for that matter. Half the map was wasted. So it wasn't so much trying to make the game take longer, as trying to expand your options and make the game more interesting. But then although the Ostrov thing works well (at least if you decide you like running long oil trains and getting the refinery working :-D ) the Pskov thing has never been that good as either a challenge or as fun. Which is why I'm considering dropping it and replacing it with Diesel to Kleipada. Diesel to Kleipada would be interesting and fun. !*th_up*!

And the scenario does tell you what bonuses are on offer, with detail, and does tell you when you have met the criteria. I know it does. I bloody well did all the coding for them, and have seen them fire in play more times than I care to remember. :-P What do you think all those dialogues popping up are for? If you don't read them, that's your lookout. :lol:
If you connect Riga to the resort towns of Jurmala, Saulkrasti, Sigulda and Tukums, within 3 years, Latvian tourist companies will pay you $600,000!
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[Company Name] connects popular tourist resorts!
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Latvian travel companies want to connect Riga to Kolka, capital of the Livonian Coast (Latvian: Libieshu krasts). This territory is historically inhabited by the Livonian people, or Livs, the indigenous inhabitants of Northern Latvia and Southwestern Estonia. It is located in Northern Courland and encompasses twelve Livonian villages.
If you connect these cities within 6 years, they will pay you $1,000,000!
-------------------------------------------------------------
[Company Name] connects Riga to Kolka!

Livonian Coast is ready for tourists from the rest of the world.
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Latvian industry requires steel! You are appointed to haul at least 10 loads of steel to Latvian factories. Industry leaders promise to pay you $500,000.
-------------------------------------------------------------
[Company Name] hauls steel to Latvian industry!
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Latvian industry wants the industrial centre of Daugavpils connected to the sea port of Liepaja. Connect them within 6 years and you will be paid $1,000,000!
-------------------------------------------------------------
Trans-Latvia rail link completed!

[Company Name] connects Daugavpils to Liepaja!
-------------------------------------------------------------
The Latvian government wants a rail connection to Pjarnu. If you can connect Riga to Pjarnu within 4 years, they will pay you $800,000!
-------------------------------------------------------------
Latvia linked to Estonia by rail!

[Company Name] connects Riga to Pjarnu!
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The Latvian, Estonian and Lithuanian governments wish to connect their economic centres with a modern railway. Your task is to connect Riga to Mezeiki and Tartu within 3 years. If you succeed, you will be paid $500,000!
-------------------------------------------------------------
Rail Baltica is completed!

[Company Name] connects Riga to Mezeiki and Tartu!
-------------------------------------------------------------
The Estonian government wants you to connect the island of Saaremaa to your railway. They expect a dramtic increase in tourist traffic to the scenic island and its famous spas, which should make money for everyone. Your task is to connect Riga to Kuresaare and Oresaare within 4 years. If you succeed, you will be paid $600,000!
-------------------------------------------------------------
Saaremaa spas are connected!

[Company Name] connects Riga to Kuresaare and Oresaare!
Trade expected to boom. Livonians very happy.
In each of those cases, the first of the pair is the dialogue which gives you the requirement, and the second is the newspaper that says you have got it. The only time you would get one by surprise is if you connect everything so quickly that you have it done before the first event is scheduled to fire. In that case you will just get the newspaper, but it will still tell you what happened.
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Re: Latvia (beta) Unread post

I guess I met many goals early, before the dialogues triggered, but that's because I started so flush, of course. I'd still prefer to disable starting multiple companies on this map.
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Re: Latvia (beta) Unread post

That makes sense. I forgot your only play was with a robber baron start. But there's no need to disable multiple companies. If you don't want to use them, nobody is forcing you to. I don't usually take advantage of them, but sometimes it's fun for a change.
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