Age Of Steam IV-Blue Streak For Your Comment and Review

[RayofSunshine]

Well Shamough,
Will give it an attempt. However, if it is anything like the V2, I won't try to complete it. Those territories with an access of $1,000,000K doesn't seem to be within my relm of playing or expertise. UNLESS there are some concessions later in the game. Such an amount is almost in trying to "phantom" our Nation Debt of $18.0Trilion.
LOL

As an edit addition, the V2_1 has the same territory access amounts, so I will go back into the regular threads and see what some of the "suggestions and comments". Maybe I am jumping the gun too early, to see what the challenges of the scenario will offer with regards to ----------------- bonuses.

[RayofSunshine]

Well I can see that most everyone is having a great time with this scenario. But I am having a problem with the territories requiring $1,000.000K access fee. Maybe I am not playing long enough for some type of "cut in the amount of the access fees", such as some other requirement of which has not yet appeared as a notice. I checked to see if the V2_1 had different access requirement, but without any difference. I rechecked these V2 threads, and have not found any comment made to that affect. Did not run into any such problems with the previous Age of Steam scenarios.

[Shamough]

I didn't modify the game flow at all in the V2_1 version. All I did was modify the reporting data to correctly show the YTD data in the Status Ledger..


Hans

[Shamough]

You EARN Access with FREIGHT & SPEED hauls. You should have seen the requirements in the intro messages.

I never had to buy access into any of the key cities.

Hans

[RulerofRails]

Ray, if like me you have never played this scenario the access fees look steep. However, you will get access rights to all territories for FREE if you past the freight average speed tests. In year 5 you get the first "test", if you manage (it's easy with the Age of Steam super-steamers) to keep average freight speed above 25mph while hauling 50 loads that year you will get to chose as a reward access to one of the four city-territories. Then in 3 years time you will get a second slightly more difficult test. If you pass you get access to a second city-territory, and so on till you get access to them all. I am using service spurs and getting around 40mph average using 8-car Atlantics in my current no-industry game (probably will have to build a Steel Mill and an Aluminum Mill at least {Bauxite supply may be a limitation here} to make the haul goals out of Kansas City), but good routing and track layout means that 25mph average should be possible if you are careful and use double track and shorter trains without the service spurs. Once you get the access, the rest of the scenario is mainly about hauling goods (except instant gold) to those four city-territories.

I tried playing this after playing Age of Steam V - Phoenix Rising and unfortunately it didn't grab my attention. I probably was approaching it wrong with a start in the southeast corner where the existing industry is pretty similar while being isolated to a degree by the large rivers which behave like oceans (don't transfer demand without ports). Also the average speed requirement seemed a bit like a potential headache, as I hadn't learned about service spurs from the folks around here yet. The gameplay weakness of the game's haulage counting events didn't help either. This time using service spurs the speed requirement is no sweat, and I am having fun trying to stir up some rail revenues.

Hans, I am waiting till I have played the original through before trying your modified version. I don't have much of an idea for the possible intention behind the Instant Gold yet (i.e. is it an extra goal to aim for like a Platinum or a somewhat distracting goal that is hard but meant to be done quickly, "instant"?). How did you get the spike in profits in your screenshot, price spirals, or new warehouses? I am impressed that you managed to get 5,000+ loads hauled in a year without connecting to all of the map. Maybe seeding isn't an issue on this one?

[RayofSunshine]

Okay Rulerof Rails,
I had seen that mention of "benefits" if a certain criteria was met, and guess I should have completed the 5th year or proximation for better access fees, or whatever those "benefits".
This is not a new scenario, and probably played it years ago, as with all of the Age of Steam scenrios, and enjoyed them. I did luck out during that time to become acquainted with the "spurs" so as to attain and maintain speeds. It was probably thru the "strategy" post, which was very common, or at least more widely used.
Thanks for the info. Appreciated.

[RulerofRails]

Well, my play of the original isn't going too well. Just now I discovered to my chagrin that the Kansas City loads were all TO except for grain which is FROM. I missed reading that little word TO. Might scrap that attempt, and do a re-start as I simply don't have enough playing time and spare sanity to re-arrange everything. Anyway, the main reason I wanted to post is because it is obvious to me even from your screenshots of your games, that this modified version has suffered some degradation of the textures along the waters edge. I am sure you will see what I mean when you check it, I noticed it first thing when loading it up to see how you had done the status page. This degradation is one the reasons that people make a minimum of editor saves/re-loads of a map. I suspect wsherrick did a few saves but not enough to get degradation, but a few more is all it's taking to reveal it. See: viewtopic.php?f=65&t=530&hilit=saving+painting; viewtopic.php?p=21383#p21383. It would be best to make all final changes in one go to the one in the archives to minimize risk of this problem.

Also, I am not sure that the Commodity events will work right the way you modded them. I don't know this stuff well, nor have I play tested the map, but seems to me the "chance" numbers could overlap. From what I see only events 4 and 2 have a chance of firing. If the random number is 24 or less event 4 will fire, if the random number is in the range 25-33, event 2 will fire. Did you test these events yet? Why did you change them? The original works perfectly, with the frequency every two years which I suspect is something to do with the re-set event, but the end result seems perfect to me. This reminds me of something that Arizona Rail Rat has on his site (he hasn't been very active for a while). He posted a workaround to check the event debugging page. Save an ongoing game (not in the editor) as a test and simply delete some of the first events newspapers, medals, etc. When you remove the top ones, the lower ones appear. This can be helpful when checking events.

Might see something else when I get to play it. I would suggest a list of everything that has been changed, that way I can be on the look-out for potential issues while saving time by ignoring the stuff that stays the same.

[Shamough]

The places where I use Random 1 to 100 are the same places that William used them EXCEPT he was using:

Random 1 to 100 > X AND
Random 1 to 100 <= Y

The problem with his logic is the ramdom number is generated for each expression and has a very low chance of being TRUE

I took his two numbers and used the difference between them in a single random roll.

Derailments has a 12% chance of firing
Commodities 1 has a 19% chance of firing
Commodities 2 has a 33% chance of firing
Commodities 3 has a 15% chance of firing
Commodities 4 has a 24% chance of firing
Commodities 5 has a 9% chance of firing
Commodities 6 has a 5% chance of firing

IF you have free VARIABLES to play with then you can roll a single time

Some Var Z = Random 1 to 100
And then test against that Var in all of the COMMODITIES which is what I think he was trying to do.

As for the MAP degradation ... I really wasn't looking at it. I'm not a map person.

The only way to fix the problem is to take a virgin map and recreate all of the events in a single go and then save it. OR find a way to replace the existing map with a virgin map.


Hans

[Hawk]

What you have to do is, when editing events and such after painting the terrain, make sure you save the map with a new name so it doesn't overwrite the existing map. That's where the degradation comes in; overwriting the map with the same name.
I believe that's discussed in one of the threads RoR gave.

[Gumboots]

It doesn't make any difference, or at least it never did when I tried that trick on my box. The problem is that you lose graphics information in the .gmp every time it is saved. It's like continually re-saving the same image as a .jpg. The algorithm is lossy, so every save degrades the image more. This applies even if you keep changing the name. You are still starting from the last saved image, and the next save will lose more information, so it doesn't matter what name you give the thing.

[Hawk]

It's been working for everyone else for quite some time now.
Sure, you get a little degradation even saving with a new name, but not as much if you save with the same name.

[RulerofRails]

I took his two numbers and used the difference between them in a single random roll.
. . .
IF you have free VARIABLES to play with then you can roll a single time

Some Var Z = Random 1 to 100

Ok, I think I understand what you were trying to do, but why does each event have a Random 1 to 100 and not a test against a variable in your version then? This is what I see on your map V2_1:

Commodities event.jpg (15.46 KiB) Viewed 203116 times

I agree that the way that wsherrick has done it is a bit confusing for simpletons like me. To me the ranges seem to indicate he is trying to get an event that will fire every year as you said. He talks about it in this post (and before and after in that thread. But if that's what you were intending to do, why did you simplify them and not keep the ranges that would be necessary to test a single roll (now a variable 1-100) while always getting a result?

Funny thing is, as far as I got with the original map, out of the 5 years I played when the event was active I had two different Commodity events fire. Maybe I was just lucky! Forcing it to test every year will make the map easier if you get the big bonus earlier. Also, I am not sure that the Derailments event should be included in the likelihood with the Commodity ones, how is it related? Also Commodities 2 has only a 23% chance in the original.

About the map degradation, I was letting you know about this in case you didn't know, hoping it can save some headaches in the future. If you already knew about it, sorry. This is my goal: test thoroughly with a copy of the original while recording ALL corrections, then applying them all at once with one save to make a beta map for upload. If it goes through one or two corrections before the archives this is acceptable. The whole idea is to limit the number of saves, and I don't think for purposes of small corrections it is worth re-doing all events on a virgin map. As it is uncorrected in the archives, this map is close to the limit of looking degraded. If the corrected version could avoid the badly noticeable effects that would be nice.

Why don't you make one of the islands in the river the new territory (Area 52, could be called the name of one of the islands unless you want that name)? This way the ugly borders wont show up when you first load the map. I am unsure what happens to hidden territories, I am assuming their variables still work too, could be a possible option. Don't want to be picky, but when correcting maps, I think leaving loose ends is a failure. Well done on your effort on this one. Thanks!

Gumboots, did you look at the second link I put in my last post? (This post is by you, Hawk.)

2) This explains the color degradation. Every save reduces the file size, hence degrading the color just a little each time, even saving with a different name.

[Shamough]

IF you have free VARIABLES to play with then you can roll a single time

Some Var Z = Random 1 to 100

Ok, I think I understand what you were trying to do, but why does each event have a Random 1 to 100 and not a test against a variable in your version then? /quote]

There simply aren't any free COMMON Variables to play with.

Hans

[RulerofRails]

My bad. Sorry, I shouldn't have gotten into the probabilities thing. Even when I tried to understand it I still got it wrong. I didn't realize there weren't any free variables left either though I guess I should have expected it in a event-full scenario like this. I also wish there were more variables that are easy to use.

[Shamough]

There are TONS of variables BUT they are not common to the whole game like the 'Game Var 1-4". It is really easy to create new variables by adding one or more new TERRITORIES BUT again they are NOT easy to use game wide. You can't test one TERR VAR against a TERR VAR from a different territory.

Example are my AREA 52 VARRIABLES. The only way I got away with using them was to test agains each other like I did in Isle of Norso to determine which player hauled the most loads in the previous year.

I also used AREA 52 to lock YTD values in Blue Streak V2_1 ... And the FORGOT to use TERRITORY VAR 1 to display the correct year in the EVENT: YTD Status. (My only excuse is that one of my meds is really messing my brain ... like brain in blender.) I make the logic work in a game I'm playing and HOPE I remember to FIX all of the same EVENTS in the same way on my original version of the game when I update it.

IF the game allowed you to select the TERRITORY in each EVENT line rather than for the whole EVENT things would be a LOT EASIER.

Hans

[RulerofRails]

Ok, I decided that since doing this without building many industries takes far too long, on this restart I delved straight into the warehouses. The 3rd try of the first year I issued stock on the way to a 2.5M profit with 50% ownership at year end, and decided to run with it. I realized that the Cotton Farms on the map can support at least 3 upgraded warehouses each, while the corn and rice farms can support at least 2 upgraded warehouses, and the Grain Farms one. This is all sustainable as long as you don't flood the market. Also funnily enough, at normal prices, the 1 Corn->2Milk seems to be more profitable than the 1 Grain->3 Meat. Maybe I misjudged it, otherwise something interesting is happening there.

All I did was build warehouses until the beginning of 1904, when I started up my rail network to get access to the first city-territory. Well, by around October I had 50 loads hauled at 52mph, but I didn't get the access. I tried to take a screenshot of what I saw at year end, but I copied some text before I saved it . First I got a message saying I had 52mph average speed qualifying me for instant gold, but instant is misspelled "INSANT". Then I got another message that I had won the speed trial, followed by a message saying that I had lost it and I had to choose 10M or finance it for a total cost of 11M over 21 years. (Financing is by far the best option, its like bonds at 1% interest! Think of it as investing that money and at a nominal 10% ROI, you will come out far ahead.) So I chose to finance it. This was followed by the city-territory access selection dialog where I chose Memphis, cause I now think it may the most difficult one to do seeing the warehouses can make all the others much easier, except the Steel and Corn hauls, but these are pretty abundant. Something goofy is happening with this one, will keep playing and let you work out what that is. I figure since you know the events on this one so well, you can probably fix it easily.

[Shamough]

I'll look at it now.

[Hawk]

I tried to take a screenshot of what I saw at year end, but I copied some text before I saved it .

If you use the 'PrtScr'n key to take screenshots, it will be automatically saved in the 'Screenshots' folder in your RT3 install directory. You don't have to worry about it being on the Clipboard.

[RulerofRails]

Hawk, thanks for the tip. However, this feature of the game doesn't work for me. I get tga files in the screenshot folder but they are all blank when I try to look at them. All those taken at one resolution are the same size so I don't think there is a way to resurrect them.

While I am posting, I will show the difference on the Northern Cities Warehouse profits. Notice the big difference in overhead:

Northern Warehouse Grain to Meat.jpg (31.99 KiB) Viewed 202978 times

Northern Warehouse Corn to Milk.jpg (10.82 KiB) Viewed 202978 times

This isn't a clean "test", just a shot of the conditions that appear to develop when the Warehouse is using different conversions. Also Corn is around $12 less than Grain, while Meat is worth around $100 more than Milk. The differences in consumption are due to the Corn to Milk one absorbing the Livestock from the neighboring farm, that shouldn't affect profits. (ETA: I discovered that this is NOT TRUE, a warehouse that is using a demand only function in this way (simply consuming cargo from the map, in this example Livestock) will lower overhead. I suspect that this may be to do with using a multiplying conversion in the warehouses. Maybe this is something PopTop put into the game to make the warehouses less profitable when used in this way. I still think there may be differences in overhead level according to the cargo produced, but not as much difference as can be seen here.) Maybe this points towards different overhead depending on the tier of cargo being produced (Meat would be top level, with Milk one level below)? Any ideas?

This is probably old news to many, but I realized that an unowned Warehouse or Port that is supply only will NOT be upgraded by the computer no matter how much profit it makes. It seems that a certain level of profit is required for an upgrade to take place, but it also requires the Warehouse or Port to be running at capacity with cargo coming in and going out. This also includes those cases where there is no conversion recipe, simply a supply of one or more types of cargo and a demand of one or more types of cargo. In this case, the Warehouse or Port needs to be supplied with its demanded cargo for a couple of years before it will upgrade. I haven't had time to do extreme testing to find the boundaries of how much of its demanded cargo must be supplied (is it 100%+, oversupply?), but this principle seems to always work from what I have seen.

Also, I am having fun placing 4 warehouses on a single square! Can't have anything around it, though, as there is serious overlap with the surrounding cells.

[Hawk]

Hawk, thanks for the tip. However, this feature of the game doesn't work for me. I get tga files in the screenshot folder but they are all blank when I try to look at them. All those taken at one resolution are the same size so I don't think there is a way to resurrect them.

If you're looking at the tga files in Irfanview, you need to configure Irfanview to not show tga alpha/transparencies.
To do that, open Irfanview, click the 'Options' tab at the top. Go to 'Viewing' and remove the check mark from 'Show PNG/TIF/TGA/DDS alpha/transparent color'.

You should now be able to view the tga files RT3 saves in the Screenshots folder.