Crystal Cotton Revisited

[RulerofRails]

low_grade, the reason I disclosed what engines I was playing with was due to the likelihood that it could change the difficulty level. On the one hand this pack gives a much better progression of locos, on the other some of the engines are more expensive especially the "cheap" American 4-4-0. It is now 70k to purchase versus 45k. In real terms the 2-6-0 Mogul in the pack becomes my freight engine of choice after 1865, I keep using it even when the Consolidation comes in which is later in this pack. Price again 70k versus 120k. I have played awhile with the pack but haven't played anything past the 1920s so am holding off giving my thoughts over on that forum. Once I get used to it, so far I am liking it.

I think you are doing well. I always try to connect at least Chicago to the East before dividends kicked in. If you get this connection you should make it. It's an old map, but the concept is really good and challenging. That's what I like in a map. The dividend keeps your money supply limited right throughout the game. Thanks again to Orange46!

[low_grade]

Well, I just made gold on medium... starting back on year three of the previous attempt.

Started with replaceable Dorchesters in Memp-Jacks-Dey triangle, didn't build my first maintenance shed until about 4-5 years in, and kept replacing Dorchesters on a couple routes for 7-8 years. Built to Nashville, then started Chicago-Milwaukee-Madison. Extended to Bowling Green for better freight hauling out of Memphis for another couple years, then Loiusville, then back to Chicago area, out to Dubuque, then across the river to the special areas, start getting gears out for more livestock.

Then to Cincinnati and Lexington, then Columbus-Akron-Northeast Depot. Then the dividend kicked in. So, slowly, from chicago to Columbus. Fortunately, timed it just right so that this was when weapon production was picking up.

Then a spur from Moline to the special zones behind StL, then to StL and connect Moline to Chi. Short jump across the Mississippi to get to StL's warehouses and Ammo flow and now all three were making their way (albeit Ammo the long way) to Cle. With lumber and iron making its own way where it was needed, gears were abundant, and crops multiplied. Produce and Corn were no issue. Focused on meat and Weapons since I figured they were the bottleneck. Built and upgraded a Meat Processor in Dubuque. Even built a spur up to Saginaw to harness another 4 meat per year... Late in the game I got extreme and finally stopped all freight from getting carried out of Chicago or the station to the south that I used to catch weapons and drop off meat, so that all meat would stay in chicago. Kept stacking on one port and not the other, try to correct that a little. Despite max production of 50, I didn't see more than 12 or 15 weapons per year even with stacks of meat on one port...

Also connected finally StL south to Mem, and east to Loiusville... passenger traffic as noted is great. Kept a couple Dorchesters running passengers only until the end.

It was close, upgrading trains to Eight Wheelers very late to hasten every last weapon to the Depot... and at the end of 1895, I had the silver... disappoint! So I checked the record, and I had 246 weapons delivered! And more than that many loads idle at stations waiting with trains that weren't full yet. Well, that was easily fixed. Reload from December 1894 (I saved at the end of every year when I had the most cash before building,) upgrade to Eight Wheelers those trains that had Weapons, and release them in early 1895... to finish now with 252 Weapons and Gold!!!! So satisfying!!!! Even on Medium...

This one makes you think hard, and play carefully.

[RulerofRails]

Good work.

I agree, meat is the bottleneck. The meat-weapons conversion is a loss for the port so it only produces at 25% capacity. Orange46 knew this when he made the ports (the earlier versions had only one port that would make a max of 6.3 actual loads per year.) I also made all trains going from Chicago express-only about half way through the game (except for a couple of machinery-only trains).

[low_grade]

Thanks! and phew! This is really a great, tough map. I'll probably try it again in Hard then Expert, when I'm really looking for some serious concentrated brain work. Just on Medium it took me 20 hours of focused play time, over 80 saves by the end (though I only ended up backtracking to 8 or 10 of those saves...)

One thing nagging me, that might come into play on harder difficulties, is all the trains making over 100K per year, many over 200K. Couldn't I have increased my profit still more by adding more trains? I was at about 145 trains total at the end... Except, goals weren't profit related, haulage... tough to balance priorities here. And again, holy cow the passenger traffic. Chicago hotel was over 100K per year average in its 37 year life, 206K its last year, many others over 50k, restaurants over 25K. REALLY focusing on passenger traffic/connections to more towns might also help make that little extra difference in Hard and Expert.

Also, still not familiar with that Loco pack (Lirio's?) Dorchesters, then a few Baldwins, then Americans (at $45K, very nice for most of the game), a few Consolidateds, then Dukes (awesome, upgraded most of my more profitable trains to Dukes, and most new trains were Dukes, too), then finally a few Ten Wheelers then Eight Wheelers.

[RulerofRails]

Record Hotel Profits.jpg (20.49 KiB) Viewed 6360 times

This is what I got in Chicago with the help of the AI. That was taken in 1884 so over 200% return per year! The area of Chicago-Milwaukee-Rockford-Madison-Sheboygan-Green Bay seems especially rich in passengers. I am guessing that this is built into the map, did you find the same thing?

Yes, early focus on those passenger runs seems the best. Also one Chicago-based system instead of several parts should work better for the sake of passengers.

You ended up with more trains than me. I had 133 then 96 on my runs. It is really possible that more trains would make more money. When I had fewer trains I bottle-necked my line with a graded corner in Milwaukee, oops. I like your idea about selling industry to keep your profits down. Last play I made two weapons plants near Charleston, built one, upgraded it, then sold it to build the next one. Slight problem is getting lumber there. But, once you earn more than 6M per year it is no use to keep any more profits "on the books" as the special dividend is set up to give you a max of 1M increase in book value when profits are above 6M. Saving up for industry is a challenge, but possible with careful management and patience. I stopped trains near the end of some years just before they reached the East warehouse to give me more profits the next year so I could build the weapons factory in the first place. There are always gonna be ways to scam a system. Those greedy stockholders don't deserve to get that much money anyway. On the Revisited version I gave them 163M and my company book value was only around 35M. On the other hand I hate double-shipping. Apparently it is possible to use it on this map too. My view is, cargo delivery is a useful function and what a railroad should be doing. In RT3 for better of for worse the industry model is made so it cannot be ignored. The game is slanted toward efficiency in cargo usage to make the maximum profits out of the basic recourses on the map. In essence you are building an entire economy. Rail transportation is making it more efficient to make even more profits. Just my thoughts, don't really apply to this map.

[AdmiralHalsey]

I just love hotels on Passenger heavy maps. I've had them in every city i've connected to before and once I even won a gold medal on a map with a 250 million industrial profit requirement with just Hotels and some farms.

[low_grade]

The area of Chicago-Milwaukee-Rockford-Madison-Sheboygan-Green Bay seems especially rich in passengers. I am guessing that this is built into the map, did you find the same thing?

I didn't build north of Mil-Mad, except a little spur to catch produce along the river north of Mad. I actually did a fair bit of freight hauling...

Yes, early focus on those passenger runs seems the best. Also one Chicago-based system instead of several parts should work better for the sake of passengers.

You ended up with more trains than me. I had 133 then 96 on my runs. It is really possible that more trains would make more money. When I had fewer trains I bottle-necked my line with a graded corner in Milwaukee, oops. I like your idea about selling industry to keep your profits down. Last play I made two weapons plants near Charleston, built one, upgraded it, then sold it to build the next one. Slight problem is getting lumber there. But, once you earn more than 6M per year it is no use to keep any more profits "on the books" as the special dividend is set up to give you a max of 1M increase in book value when profits are above 6M. Saving up for industry is a challenge, but possible with careful management and patience. I stopped trains near the end of some years just before they reached the East warehouse to give me more profits the next year so I could build the weapons factory in the first place. There are always gonna be ways to scam a system. Those greedy stockholders don't deserve to get that much money anyway. On the Revisited version I gave them 163M and my company book value was only around 35M. On the other hand I hate double-shipping. Apparently it is possible to use it on this map too. My view is, cargo delivery is a useful function and what a railroad should be doing. In RT3 for better of for worse the industry model is made so it cannot be ignored. The game is slanted toward efficiency in cargo usage to make the maximum profits out of the basic recourses on the map. In essence you are building an entire economy. Rail transportation is making it more efficient to make even more profits. Just my thoughts, don't really apply to this map.

Yeah, this and Red River Valley are both very anti-industry scenarios, in the sense that they force you to focus mainly on the rails, and that's a big part of what I like so much about them. And IMHO, hotels aren't industry in the same way as a lumber mill, hotels just multiply passenger traffic income, they don't consume or produce resources (though they do add a passenger per year supply and demand to the station they're serving.)

And yeah, once I discovered it, I thought industry selling was an interesting strategy unique to this map. You can basically sell any industry you build for its entire purchase price. I hadn't read the Events, so I didn't realize how the special dividend worked. Limiting CBV growth is why you can sell industries for essentially full price. So, if you just want to populate the map with your choice of industry, meat packers, furnaces, whatever, you can basically do it for free.

Charleston? Didn't build there. Didn't build south of the line from Memphis to Akron, really, Lexington being the most SE connection... there was really a lot of the map that I didn't use. So many more strategies to try on my Hard and Expert attempts!

[low_grade]

Thanks for the reminder, RoR! Took this for a spin, though I spent half the day starting and restarting. Eventually began by hauling livestock from Moline to Rockford, then focusing on building a pax network. Many differences from my previous play. All connected network, almost no industry except a lumber mill I later sold once special dividends kicked in. Spent every December finding little ways to more perfectly deliver meat to the ports in Chicago and grain to the warehouses in StL. Memphis required almost no attention. Corn to the cattle by Mason city, cattle to every meat packers and dedicated trains to the ports. Iron to Moline and lumber to Chicago, and machinery where needed, everything fairly well supplied. A liberating notion in the playthough was that I didn't have to worry about the profitability of anything, as it would make no difference come dividend time. So many years I spend the extra cash in December bulldozing bakeries and construction firms and a textile mill, and any extra cash update a loco for free, pay less maintenance and don't have to stop. Corn then produce, then later ammo and a couple years later weapons and finally crystals, gold on Expert in Feb 1893! No save and reload this time (well a couple backups to Autosave) once I decided to go forward with that start, but 6 hours probably trying different starts, then about 8 hours to play, not too bad. Very satisfying! I can see RoR's desire to try for 500 loads, though I'd put it more reasonably at 375 for a super-challenge.

Make the Special Dividend a monthly deduction decided annually so it's not such a stretch before you can do anything, and set the goals to 375, and this scenario is about perfect.

[RulerofRails]

The reason I talked about 500 loads is because that was mentioned in this post:
http://hawkdawg.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=6997#p6997

Belbincolne kindly sent me some early versions. But these have the goal at 250 loads. There is a significant difference though: Chicago only has one port. I can't be exactly sure of the timeline, for example whether adding the second port went along with the 500 load requirement. I completed the 250 loads with one port, but IIRC was unable to get Weapons production high enough to have a mathematical chance at 500 loads (6.3 loads per year * 50 years = 315 total loads). Sure I learned a thing or two in the years since so I guess never say "impossible." The key would be to try to make the conversion more profitable, swamping Meat and trying to get Weapons price to jump up with station demand transfer.

Thought I would post up the version Belbincolne sent me a couple years ago titled "Crystal Cotton v2". This is just for players who aren't challenged enough by the official version. No guarantees that it's free of bugs.

[low_grade]

Oof, swamping meat would probably require meat packers away from rivers and other towns, and no trains leaving them with meat anywhere but to small stations exactly on the square of the port, and no meat leaving Chicago or the nearest several cities that might get drift. And corn to all the ranches. Given that profitability means nothing after a certain point here, it might work. But I'm not sure it's possible to get the price of weapons to go up in Chicago. I never saw the bump that I'd expected for Ammo, Crystals, or Weapons at the home stations. Normally profit on those big long hauls falls off rapidly, but I kept bringing in $400k-$600k per haul up to the end.

It's a bit inexplicable precisely for me how four years ago I struggled so greatly with this scenario yet now, down to the wire, but a fairly easy, enjoyable run to Gold on Expert. I suspect it may all be due to the insane pax on this map. This time, after the first connection to haul livestock, I focused on just more connections, and soon added hotels everywhere. The very early pax profits possible here are most unusual, I feel. Not sure what's going on. But it enables a rapid build to Special Dividends stage, focus on the hauling connections and fine tune annually, I don't see how this strategy on this map could go wrong, and I smile at myself from four years ago who couldn't figure it out.

This game is deep, and I'll probably keep playing it here and there as long as I live.

Great job again, everybody who contributed to this!

[RulerofRails]

Pax generation and prices depend on game year, you will see a lot more in 1830 vs. 2000. Because Germantown (campaign map) also has insane pax numbers, it may be normal. It was awhile since I played Germantown, but the numbers seem about right to me. I think the reason is because freight prices drop a little way into the game, making express a big share of revenue. Actually Pax and mail prices also drop significantly. However, production for these doesn't not been dropped. Price is based on demand, so if there's a lot of production there could be enough demand to still get fairly high prices. Definitely a staple for revenue.

A map that's similar to this one in some ways is Western Fruit Express, by the same author. A 1.05 map, but also uses dividends. Seems my memory was off in calling it a tax.

One thing I forgot is that you can build the Weapons Factory. This means that there isn't a mathematical limit on Weapons production after all. Previously, Which I soon remembered when experimenting to see if I could get the price of Weapons in Chicago to budge. So I thought it important to use a stock standard install. I had also forgotten the price reductions. Once I saw those and this*, I abandoned any serious attempt at budging price.

Now, I will say that I had looked in the editor about the dividends scheme recently, so I had some insider knowledge, but talking about possibility is a bit dangerous with me. The focus was on hauling. Goal was 500 loads for all cargoes within the time limit (medals disabled). I was using the default 1.06, so no price islands (all my other recent 1.06 games have been with them reinstated). This is how that attempt turned out:

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I used a curve-ball strategy because, hey, that keeps things interesting. Really slow start. $50k first year profits. Staying small (Chicago-Rockford{original connection with large stations}- -Madison-Stevens Point with a branch down to Moline/Davenport, until 1856 when I could build a Steel Mill (Cincinnati).

Previously I had built a Weapons Factory late in the game. This time the plan was to build an Upgraded Weapons Factory (Lima) running fairly early in the game (still 10+ years in). While waiting for 1856 I built and sold some other industries to keep CBV in check below the thresholds for dividends and price reductions. These included an Upgraded Lumber Mill near Stevens Point, Furnace/Concrete Plant combo down in Memphis, Paper Mill east of Cleveland, Munitions Factory in Cincinnati. Main focus was to try to keep key Logging camps profitable so they wouldn't disappear. On this map resources have a habit of disappearing. For example, I only had two Iron Mines on the map for the last 8 or so years. The tactic seemed to work, always had a good supply of Lumber.


*This leads me to the topic of the Ports. I didn't check carefully for differences before posting that beta. The update is that the beta has one PLACED Chicago port and the final version has two. However, both versions are set to SEED the Chicago port with 15% chance. When playing the beta, I had a second port show up only to vanish after a couple years. Obviously these ports push massive losses with the Meat-Weapons conversion so it makes sense. Late in the game, another port showed up. Same story, got some production from it, but it too soon disappeared. A note here is that when I built small stations for delivery to the port cells, this may have blocked others from appearing. See this.

An actual difference between the two versions is the St. Louis warehouse which is not seeded. This time, the beta really has one placed, while the final version has two. But, it's possible to produce Ammunition from Iron/Steel, so cannot be seen as an absolute restriction either. This leaves Crystals as theoretically the most restricted. Two warehouses (one placed, one seeded) seem to appear in Memphis reliably. Leaving supply of Cotton as the factor?
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Extra stations, plan for reliable production
In the past I mentioned that I like to only build one station per city, and none in the countryside. On this map, I am breaking the personal rule. Really for any map that requires careful resource management. When I played One Korea, the strategy was coming together to use small stations as drop off points. Obviously, if resource management matters you don't want to have the AI clowning about (don't use the "Large stations for AI" mod I posted for these maps). Train routes are setup to never haul anything from these stations: deliver only.

When I need to catch a critical output I use another type of station. A large station placed wherever, but strategically placed to capture the drift of cargo. This is a pick-up zone. No cargo was ever hauled here: pick-up only.

There's an example in the screenshot. There are 3 stations at St. Louis. The one at the top is the main station where auto consist is allowed. The small one is to deliver Grain and Corn to the Ammunition Warehouse. And the third is placed to pick-up Ammunition as it drifts down river and Corn as that comes up. One thing that's nice to have is the space so that the main station doesn't cover the critical industry/warehouse/port. I managed this here and in Chicago. (It doesn't matter with the pick-up station because you are only pulling specific cargoes there.) The neat thing about this is that you can then legitimately gather specific cargo from the main station, was collecting Grain, without pulling it from the stack at the warehouse. In Chicago, I was gathering Meat from the packers at the Main station.

The Chicago setup, notice the delivery point for the port that disappeared as well as the location for the Weapons pick-up station. Also notice the port production total. The beta version allows crashes, so I lost some cargo to those, but the 250 loads is probably just doable with the one port.
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The main reason I like this system is the reliable control of cargo. The key thing here is that IMO it isn't that too tedious while still giving very reliable production (no stealing of stacks). The game's rail profit system is all about cargo being able to go everywhere (distribution). You can't stifle that too much and still have a good rail ROI. Essentially, I am saying that this or that small area is off limits for the normal distribution via Auto Consist. I extend this principle more subtlety at some main stations, but I thought maybe this example is simple enough to be understandable?
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Here's a view of Memphis. Straight up bulldozing the Textile Mills was an option I preferred to avoid. Drop-off stations at both warehouses and good collection meant that there was never a significant stack there. I spent some precious CBV on the collection stations, but IMO it was worth it for reliable supply. In most cases I tried to go for value, but also did a little more double tracking than absolutely necessary (not much focus on outright profits). For example, other than a handful of Dukes on special runs (typically express), the bulk of my locos were Americans right up till the end, thanks to the cheap purchase price, less than half of the other contenders. Maybe the two things go together, extra double track and cheap, slower locos. Not claiming this was the right choice, just describing what I did. Many things can work if done with the right balance. I agree, it's a great map for strategy.

[low_grade]

Yes, the first years were slow, an exercise in penny pinching. But once I had 4-5 cities connected I could count on pax movement to keep my locos full pulling 7+diner.

1845 Wait a year for cargo to build up
1846 medium station catch livestock near Moline to small station in Rockford with meat packer
1847 spur to a small station catching livestock from the Illinois River north of Peoria
1950 large station in Madison, my first expansion
1951 large station in Moline, and somewhere in here large station for Rockford
1852 Peoria
1853 Chicago, Milwaukee, I'm now in expansion mode
1954 Green Bay
1855 St Louis
1856 Mason City and dividends kick in
1869 Cleveland
1871 Memphis

And I see your strategy, I wondered about trying to stave off dividends by limiting CBV to under $12M for as long as possible, but decided it probably wasn't necessary to get the 250 hauls. But using industries that will be helpful towards meeting goals as write-offs to hide your profitability while you focus all CBV into building the network required to meet the goals could probably see connections made as early as 1860 I'm guessing. I just let the profits roll in, and $3M-$4M per year by 1954-55 or so brought the dividends by 1856 with my network far from complete. I'd even consider only adding only enough profitable locos to just keep me expanding at maybe $1M per year in CBV, rather than fully servicing my entire network as I build it, so that I'm not adding that $1M in CBV that another 20 Americans would amount to, forfeiting the $2M-$3M in annual profits so I can focus better on making the required connections. And limiting station size for similar reasons could shave another $1M+ off CBV while expanding, then once dividends kick in it's essentially free to upgrade to large stations if it's better for catching strategic resources (you get back the cash you spent on the original stations since profits and so dividends are reduced by its cost.)

And the proof is in the pudding, because you did it. 500+ loads of everything, wow! I think I can see how it's possible now. Okay maybe in another four years I'll come back and try for it!

And here's my Chicago, similar, though I needed a large station to catch from both ports and a bit of downstream flow, Chicago station not covering the ports.

[RulerofRails]

Warning! spoilers ahead if you haven't played the map. I said I had looked in the editor which spoiled the surprise. The price drops (freight) start to trigger above $8M CBV. So I was actually keeping below 8 before 1856. Obviously, to build the industries I was in saving mode. So I actually had roughly $5M of assets at that point. After building the Steel Mill in 1856, I then saved for the rest of the year.

In 1857, I went for it, I had enough profit to reach Lima. Then I hauled all Weapons there which funded the last push to the Cleveland warehouse. Note I was careful that enough Weapons arrived at once to Lima that I could do the build and load them up again, none were lost to drift.

The arrivals of Weapons to the warehouse gave enough cash for extensions to Cincinnati (a bit side-track, but I needed to make use of the Steel Mill) and Danville without exceeding the $12M when dividends kick in. A note on that, you want to get as close to the low side of $12M as possible. I built and sold a Munitions Factory in Cincannati (same cell as the existing Tool and Die) for this purpose. Otherwise, my profits for the year would have been about $5.7M, and the way the dividend is calculated I would have had $4.8M cash subtracted from my account. Anyway, I made sure to load as many trains as possible because I knew that price were going to nose-dive at year end.

The plan was that I would then see great profits in 1858 and be able to link to St. Louis and Memphis within the year. The cost would be that I would end up with a serious negative cash situation at the end of 1858 (-$4.65M) which took at least 3 years to unwind, but at least the goods were flowing. I was a bit short on being able to build maintenance sheds (would have left off a Cotton pickup station in hindsight), so had some Oil-less locos for a few years.
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FYI, upgrading a station isn't ideal for CBV and even station maintenance cost because the value in CBV is combined original cost + upgrade. So starting with a small and going to large would be 50+100+200=350k. In normal games it's a minor factor, but here it maybe worth something. I was debating Mediums at the start too, but figure I would bite the bullet for the Large ones right away.

Another note, buying and building industry then selling it from what I can see doesn't actually hide any assets from CBV count. It just reduces your profits. So CBV does go down, but the money you lost is gone and cannot be used for something else useful. Building strategic things like Weapons Factory is useful, other things are just "wasting money."

Only thing I can think of in the game that "hides" CBV value are territory access costs, which predictably don't feature in this scenario. However, after purchasing rights, cash is still locked up, you can't use it for something else, making these only as useful as your access. The major feature of these though is in stock market plays. Generally everything we do to grow a company makes CBV and therefore share price go up. But buying access rights can weaken share price, sometimes an opportunity to margin buy cheap, when the outlook for the company is very good.

Also, you are not guaranteed to grow at $1M CBV per year after dividends kick in. This is only if your yearly profits are $6M+. Below that there's a range of $500k-$900k depending on your profits for the year. To get $6M profit on $12M assets would require revenues to be even higher, an insane ROI! With the price drops in place, it's got to be tough to get consistently, definitely at the expense of a serious attempt at the haulage. The direct, long-distance haulage lines will not support that type of ROI. If you notice in my latest play I didn't even pay $100M in dividends over the 50 years.