Beta test my new scenario Chile please!

[low_grade]

Thanks for playing! Great to hear it was a challenge until the end, and required a couple attempts to get the strategy right!

In the updated version I've posted to the maps section I have altered the connection requirements so that rather than needing to connect Santiago and Mendoza you need to connect Santa Rosa de los Andes and Mendoza, and this should ensure that any more or less direct connection will satisfy the requirement. I know I could make tunneling more expensive, too, but it really is necessary in the northern region.

For handling the bizarre nitrates prices behavior, I tried stepping down the price inflation that was present throughout the game, so now instead of being +80% forever, it's +75% to begin with, then after 10 years drops to +50%, then to +25% after 15, and finally back to normal after 25 years. I've heard that any commodity which has a long term price increase will eventually see this kind of behavior, but I did want crystals and then ingots to be a significant portion of your profits, as they were historically, and I guess I think that living with the exploit not that big a deal if its the only way I can get crystals to bring home the bacon. Perhaps another solution would have been to simply go into the crystals file and alter it to double its base price, then impose reductions in price over the course of the scenario, but at the time I wasn't comfortable with altering files, and besides I'm not sure if players appreciate having their cargo files tampered with.

[Jeremy Mac Donald]

Made a number of tries at this scenario. Last run I got killed when the miners did their strike and their simply was no dairy farms in the northern part of the map. Impossible to end their strike and Chile pretty much collapsed.

[AdmiralHalsey]

Impossible to end their strike and Chile pretty much collapsed.

Good. That restaurant sucked anyways.

[low_grade]

Hey, somebody played my scenario!

It's been years since I've looked at it, but I remember both winning it, and not being completely satisfied with it... hard to get the economy to work right, sometimes there were drastic fluctuations/local spikes in prices that presented an unrealistic opportunity to make a lot of cash, or sometimes they ruined my haulage network/needs.

I do remember it being very tough with various events, and knowing what's coming and preparing for it helps a lot.

Though not completely satisfied, I still liked it, and am proud to have made it. It was fun doing all the history reseach, too! I hope you'll give it another try...

Also my Ecuador map is more finished, though not so challenging, still a nice map, I think, the first I made for RT3. Tough to find the best routes in/over those mountains!

[Gumboots]

I'll check them out.

[Jeremy Mac Donald]

Once more and I Gave up. This time after six years in the strike I thought I had met the requirements only to realize that actually I should have been hauling an extra load of each of the desired goods as I must have hauled some 75% cargos and was not quite there. As it would be at least four more years to get cheese up to northern Chile this was going to be bad. I'd have kept going but the drop in stocks across the board had started causing some of the AI companies to use their excess profits to buy back stock and in one of them the chairmen had passed 51% making gold forever out of reach.

[low_grade]

Ah, sorry to hear it didn't go so well the last time... may I ask what difficulty you were playing on? Not sure if I tested it on Expert... And yeah, you really have to meet every goal along the way (ending the strike) to have a chance at gold, I think.

May I ask, did you notice if the map had the updates I mentioned above? Just re-read the thread and see that I attempted to correct the nitrates/crystals price fluctuation, and made the connection requirement to Santa Rosa de los Andes, and it sounds like I posted that to the maps... just curious to confirm. Well, guess I can download it myself and check the Editor...

[Jeremy Mac Donald]

Not sure if its updated or not actually.

Tried again...so much closer this time but fate intervened. I have one last train of cheese, this time two trains of five where sent along with the rest of the goods. Its cheese that is the killer however because you have to run on another companies track to get it so they slow things up. In any case last train of cheese gets to the foot of the mountains and starts to climb when it crashes! Took me to November of 1909 before I finally got another train full of cheese delivered and by then it was just too late for a win. This scenario I play on normal as its compelling but friggen hard.

Also learned on this go around not to have to many trains delivering the crystals because you can really start messing with the prices if yo deliver them to quickly. Three trains hauling 8 cargo down the mountain seems about right.

[low_grade]

Well, just finished playing through on Medium... and got silver in the end, though came close to gold. Forgot that after I buy the first company I get access to Argentina, so I neglected to develop there til 1905 or so, probably would have made the difference. I saved up $148 million to buy out the last company in December 1920, but I didn't get the votes I needed (I only had about 35% of the stock, the other AI less than that, it was the remaining 40% of other stockholders...) Had just over $250M CBV and PNW would have been over $100M after the merger if it had succeeded...

Was really happy with how well developed I was early in the game, too... though I was a a little sloppy.

[low_grade]

Currently playing this through on Hard. Come on, Rulerofrails and Gumboots, try this one! I enjoy the rail-laying aspect, feels right, great map, IMO. And fun/challenging scenario. I'm 11 years in, moving on Slow, started with a Lumber Mill in Castro and buying the 3 Logging Camps that spawned on start, then rail Castro to Puerto Montt, then Tumuco to LA, etc. Pausing every time a train reaches a station, and deciding where to send it next, no regular routes. Now with 110 trains. I think I may be able to get gold, but stocks on margin are dangerous, I know I got bad times coming up, we'll see if I can get through them, buy the 2nd company HQ'd in Santiago (for $25M now...), move into Argentina, and finish the game. So many huge profits for nitrates/crystals currently, shifting from Antofogasta/Coquimbo, to Rancagua, then LA, now Constitucion.

Seriously, not tootin my horn, but I think you guys would have fun going for gold on Expert with this one.

Oh, have to admit, I've used the Editor a few times. Only when wierd stuff happened to make some silly 9 grade after a bridge or placing a station, to adjust the height to level things out to smooth 5's or 4's or whatever. Like when after you go to place a water tower and all the grades change, you know? I'd say slight fixes to keep things smooth are okay on this map...

[Gumboots]

Man I've been into looking at coding and debugging stuff. Haven't had time to actually play the game.

[Gumboots]

Ok, I grabbed a copy. It's an interesting looking map, so I'll try to have a crack at it soon.

[low_grade]

I do like this map... demanding terrain, but also very photogenic. And I feel, though I may be wrong, that this is a different kind of scenario. Maybe if you play it and agree you can say why, I have some ideas.

On this same playthough, on hard, in 1904, there's one other company left ($21M+ to offer merger), my income has been in recent strike/recession years $15M, but it's going to be over $20M this year, things looking good, but I'm still micromanaging trains (wish there was an option to pause and look at a train right before it was going to start loading, that's the best time to make micromanaging decisions...)

Here's a screenshot to show how tangled my network has become attempting to avoid congestion... looking at it like this I realize there's some track I could safely bulldoze at this point...

[Hawk]

(wish there was an option to pause and look at a train right before it was going to start loading, that's the best time to make micromanaging decisions...)

You can pause and look at the train while it's unloading. I seriously doubt there would be any changes in the available cargo at a station between the time you pause while the train is unloading and the time the train loads.

[RulerofRails]

low_grade, I am half-way through your map and hope to have time to finish it today. My install went all buggy after I messed around in the Debug menu so I had to do a fresh install and I can play again (time permitting).

That's a ton of track you have. How many trains do you have?

[low_grade]

Up to 160+ engines now, and they way the rail is developed is very north-south and bottlenecky in places, this was an attempt to relieve the congestion (painful to watch a stack of 8 trains slowly pull itself apart.)

And Hawk, yup, I regularly have 2-4 trains at a station unloading at the same time, at multiple stations, and it's hard to remember what all of them are going to be grabbing when another train arrives and begins unloading (I know 10-20 of the loads at the station will be getting loaded on to trains that have already arrived, but which loads again? and I have to go back and look for all the trains that are currently unloading at the station before I can decide where my next train is going...) But, this is only a problem when you're micro-managing your trains, which I rarely do. It's usually enough to win on a map just setting up regular routes and then forgetting about your trains.

[RulerofRails]

I just finished this one on Expert. Nice scenario, enjoyed it a lot. Quality effort! Didn't find any mistakes. Thanks!

I had to restart as somehow my old saves got messed up probably due to a missing cargo. So I had an idea of what to do right from the get go. Buying the placed industries at the start feels a bit like cheating, but I did it anyway. In the second year I took out some bonds to make the Nitrate connection without tunnels or fancy grades. This is a really profitable route and I like how you made it impossible to get a good connection with the available starting capital. At the start of the third year I made a book value offer (around $4M) for the Great Republic and won without owning any shares in the company. This map is perfect for a fast start and I had $10M book value with $10M bonds at the end of the third year. I then expanded towards the north while at the same time building up my industry to stabilize those early profits. Once I had connected to Constitucion I focused on industry investments until the economy went downhill and I bought out the Great Northern. Then I got the notice of the impending strike. I started a 4-car Cheese train and a 4-car Clothing train from the south while building the rails for them to travel north as I had money to do so. I didn't put a sanding tower at the base of the Nitrate grade where they cut in so when the strike struck I found them halfway up the climb. I then discovered that I needed 8 cars of each so I had to endure 3 years of strikes before I could deliver enough. Then I kept building up the economy and rails on both sides of the range until I got the gold near the end of 1910. I left the Santa Rosa to Mendoza connection till the end of 1909 and fittingly at the beginning of 1910 the notice came up saying that's what happened in real life.

BTW, I disregarded some of my own advice and went up to $20M in personal debt as a result of interest and buying out the two other companies. The fast start cost me over $10M to get the original 100% control of my company.

[low_grade]

Glad you liked it! And congrats! Must admit, I never tried buying the placed industries... I started this time with a Lumber Mill in Castro, which had 3 logging camps nearby, then connected to the AI in Puerto Montt, and went from there. Yes, fast start map, with a lot demanded of you. Definitely no shortage of opportunities to make a buck. A lot of freight hauling strategy is helping to boost my profits, letting things stack and custom consist shipping to prioritize keeping industries supplied. I've also got about a dozen "catch" stations (no town), placed along the coast below Puerto Montt and Talcahuano, and between Antofogasta and Taltal, one outside Taltal next to a pair of dairy farms I bought cheap while demand was saturated, built a dairy processor, and haul cheese and produce away (and sometimes passengers!), a few more wandering down from Castro and across the water and up into the hills for oil to deliver to my refinery in Osorno, another above Copiapo, one between the two rivers between Temuco and Osorno...

1905 already and I'm earning $21M/yr and growing, though I'm starting to save to buy out the last AI, which at last check wanted $26M for his company. I should be able to finish with gold on Hard sometime in the teens I'm guessing (I thought CBV goal was pretty high, but you make it look easy finishing with 11 years to spare!)

[RulerofRails]

Buying the placed industries gave me almost 800k profits in the first year. Timing the buyout of the AI makes a big difference on when you can get the goals.

I am too lazy to manually route 100+ trains. I go for industries as more of a set and forget strategy and leave trains on auto consist. Most players would be surprised how many industries a map can support. Most of the 1.06 industries run at 30% of build costs compared to 20% on the originals. The way you have set up the ports helps to get Machine Shops running. I ran a train on Great River tracks solely to supply the Machine Shop at Santiago long before I bought the company out. Great map, thanks again.

EDIT: this is difficult but POSSIBLE with the right seed. I was looking at the wrong save when I wrote this post: viewtopic.php?f=25&t=1959&p=36775#p36775, read further down the thread to see me discover my blunders and show how it is done.

[Gumboots]

Buying the placed industries gave me almost 800k profits in the first year.

You must have been exceptionally lucky with your seeding. None of the placed industries were coming anywhere near that level when I tried the map. The majority were around 10% ROI, with an occasional one that could hit 20. Haven't played it right through because I'm focused on other things at the moment.

The presentation could do with a bit of work IMO. There's a jumbled list of what connections you have to make in the initial briefing, then later on you get a dialogue that tells you that you have to make separate connections across the Andes. Why? Just put that in the briefing. It doesn't need a dialogue, which is just an interruption to gameplay and requires more coding to run it.

The problem with dialogues is that if someone is trying various strategies, dialogues popping up rapidly gets to be a PITA and a waste of time. My 2c is that they should be minimised, or have an option provided to switch some of them off.