Rail Baron East

[Hawk]

Weren't you trying to do this?

<=
or
>=

[RulerofRails]

Hawk, I suppose those are legitimate ways to represent this relationship. I never used them before though. I didn't think to use them because in the Editor the symbol looks more like this "≥" (which I copied in from OpenOffice).

[AdmiralHalsey]

Well scratch what I originally planned to do with the South during the civil war. Didn't realize that every region spot had already been filled up.

[Hawk]

Hawk, I suppose those are legitimate ways to represent this relationship. I never used them before though. I didn't think to use them because in the Editor the symbol looks more like this "≥" (which I copied in from OpenOffice).

Hmmmm? Not sure how you got that. Here's what I see,

greater than 1.jpg (8.38 KiB) Viewed 12625 times

greater than 2.jpg (9.98 KiB) Viewed 12625 times

[RulerofRails]

Yep. You are right. I have no excuse.

[AdmiralHalsey]

Ok next version should be up before the end of the year. I've been bust lately so I haven't had time to work on it. I finished the news and events of the Mexican-American war today and need to work on the Civil War and Spanish-American War before moving on to the panics and depressions of the 1800's.

[AT41B]

I have been playing “Rail Baron East v2 1” for several nights (the same game) and I have completed all the different companies (in order as shown in the table of companies) through “Illinois Central”. While nearly half way through this company’s goal, I started realizing how slow every action was taking to perform. Even when I started to lay track to a city, the existing buildings were way up on a flat hill. These hills or plateaus were not there before, when running a different companies track. Also, when I looked back at the chart of owned shares I owned of other companies, I noticed that the company had issued new shares to the extent of more shares than I owned. Also, the number of trains the other companies have added to the existing track has accumulated to over 3000 . I am not concerned about number of shares, it is the add locos and the topographical features. All this has added to the amount of functions needed to continue with the rest of the game. I thought that when you completed the task of each company and move on, no more action would happen to the companies in your past. Do you know a way to turn off the AI's ability to buy more and more locos and not issue more and more stock?
My computer has a Tera-byte of storage and 8 gig-byte of accessible memory, running Windows 7 on a XP frame.

[Shamough]

Sell your stock in the company. Trash the engines. Force the AI into bankruptacy with -$$$ and a horrible cresit score.

Time to move on to your next take over.

Of course that's not what the game creator wanted you to do .... Oh well ...

[RulerofRails]

Also, the number of trains the other companies have added to the existing track has accumulated to over 3000.

3000 trains! WOW! and to think that in a connected network my game gets unplayable after slightly more than 300.

In this game the AI have been paralyzed by a monthly event that sets their company cash to 100K. They must be drawing a magic card if you see them issuing stock as issuing stock is disabled in the editor. See this post from a few pages back: viewtopic.php?p=24310#p24310

I think there is a loophole in RT3 where it is impossible to deny access to all engines. An engine from a different period tends to show up when this is attempted. It's possible to do a destroy all engines event for the AI so they can start fresh. This would keep train numbers down if it repeats every 40 years or so, but would probably encourage debt and more issuing stock on their part. I doubt they will easily go completely bankrupt as they wont ever get a large negative cash balance which tends to be what anchors a company in the red. Also, the cash reset limit would have to be raised in the 20th century or they couldn't buy any replacements.

I tend to do everything in my power to keep the AI from being too foolish, here I tried to design good routes (minimum connections, only those required) for them with as much double-track as possible before I left each company. Also I made sure to leave each company as a separate network (it didn't connect to any other companies' track). This prevents some of the foolishness of the AI routing, but over a long time period I despair of keeping them sane.

In your current game you could sell some shares in other companies to buy control to one at a time while on pause. But, getting rid of most of those engines one at a time would be tedious. Sorry, I don't have a better solution for you.

The terrain issue you mentioned is new to me. The most common terrain problem I see is from buildings spawning. You could post a screenshot if you want.

[RulerofRails]

I had another idea. Since stock price is fairly meaningless here, I wonder what would happen if an event to reduce stock price was used to keep stock prices really low (big reduction maybe 200%)? There's a share price threshold below which it isn't possible to issue stock. I am not exactly sure what the limit is but below $10 I don't think it's possible. The question to be answered by testing would be, how is this going to affect the AIs behavior? Will they still be able to issue stock and what are the side-effects.

Initially I would try it mid-game in a game such as yours where the AI have been issuing stock and watch to see if they still do. All you need to do is make a new event in the editor (Shift+E). Put some text in the dialog message so you can tell when it has triggered. Set frequency to weekly for immediate effect. Set the trigger to always true. In the effects select "to all companies" then find the stock prices effect from the list and make sure you reduce (-) trying 200%. Go back out of the editor (Shift+E) and run the game until you see the dialog you set up. Then back into the editor to remove the always true trigger from this event which can be used later by replacing it when needed. Play the game to see if there are any unwanted side-effects.

I would try it, but I haven't played a game on this map long enough for the AI to get hungry enough for cash to issue any stock.

[Shamough]

The problem with making the change to the WHOLE GAME is that it will effect the stock prices of the NEXT AI company you need to buy into.

Better use the AI Co ID # and limit the changes just to that company.

EVENT: Ruin AI Credit and stock prices
CONDITIONS:
X One time only event
* AI companies only
company ID <Ex: 5> is TRUE AND
Company ID exists is TRUE AND
Force test against companies
EFFECTS:
* To the Company/Player ... for which the condition is true
Set Company Cash to -$500,000
Set Stock prices to - 5000%
Set Credit Rating to 0


Shamough/Hans

[RulerofRails]

After studying this one a bit more, I realize that Orange46 did a good job on this one. He made a fail-safe so that if it is impossible (due to the AI issuing stock) for you to takeover the randomly selected company you need to fix (debt free) for a Gold Medal, you can lay some track in Iowa which will give you the cash to finance the buy-in without prohibiting the medal. The catch is that he mistakenly applied this event to Canada (where only Chesapeake and Ohio has access) instead of Iowa. Correcting this in the editor and using this fail-safe makes a medal always possible. In light of this I don't think its worth messing with the stock prices after all. There may be large flaws in this idea and the game may need to be rebalanced to be enjoyable (something I don't have time to do). Incorporating Hans's suggestions to make the AI bankrupt would likely affect the player's possibility to get the Gold Medal.

We have to remember that version 2_1 changed the growth rate. As you are discovering this puts more cargo on the map and upsets the balance, so the AI are now buying too many engines. From this thread I see that others were playing the original version with connected track between the AIs. Even Orange46 recommends it in one of his posts. (I still wouldn't do it though as I doubt the passenger count increase is enough to justify the potential for the AI routing algorithm to duplicate many more routes than necessary.) Anyway, they didn't report having near as many engines in the original even with connected AI networks. Lowering the growth rate back to the original would fix most of this issue, unless you are building unnecessary rails wherever you want instead of following the plan.

No matter what changes are made, the AI wont suddenly become smart. But the original scenario is successfully designed around them.

[AdmiralHalsey]

Stock shouldn't be a problems as you should start with 100% of the stock in each company. As for the trains I noticed a ton that were slowing down my computer in the stock version of the scenario. Problem seems to be that even though Orange46 made it so every month the money is reset to 0 the AI can still take out bonds during the interval and buy all the trains they want.

[AT41B]

I was a little hasty about the 3000 locos, I was guessing that all the visited companies would be the same as B & O, SR, PRR, and L&N, being that they all had over 350 locos each. And yes, the terrain problem was happening due to spawning, both in the country side and within the city foot prints. I went back and actually counted each visited companies loco list and came up to a grand total of 1904 locos.
Since I had visited the Editor to level the hills in spots to lay track, I may have unintentionally hit something to cause the problems, I really don't know.
Anyway, I just deleted that game and started over. I shall be more careful of what I do. BTW, I don't connect to any other companies tracks or stations. I will let y'all know the out come.
All said, I really like this game, along with the game "Isle of Narso".

[RayofSunshine]

The V2 version is a little different. However, I find it a little nerving to keep 'clicking" to have the same "newspaper" notices of Elections, Deaths, and Re-elections popping up each year.

There wasn't any problem with the B&O requirement, although I missed cnn to PHL, until I rechecked the notice of requirement. However, a confusion for that with the RF&P. Cnn went well with the RIC, Fredrick, DC. Then I get notice for the cnn to NYC. On the way, I connected to BAL, but in the expansion to NYC, I find that the NJ is not available. Is there some requiremtn of hauls of 'something', which has to be completed, such as I found with that of the B&O requirement?

[RulerofRails]

The V2 version is a little different. However, I find it a little nerving to keep 'clicking" to have the same "newspaper" notices of Elections, Deaths, and Re-elections popping up each year.

Quick fix for this: go into the editor and find the newspapers down near the bottom of the events list, then go through them and tick the "One time only" box on each of them.

Is there some requiremtn of hauls of 'something', which has to be completed, such as I found with that of the B&O requirement?

Yes, there is a different haulage requirement for each of the companies. Once you have completed all the necessary connections for a company, your progress with this goal will appear on the status page of the ledger. If you don't jump companies except as instructed in the dialogs this should always work.

Let us know how you fare.

[RayofSunshine]

Well Rulerof Rails, or anyone.
I don't have any info on the Status Page for the RF&P, although I did for the B&O.
Will check the Editor for the single notice for those newspaper reports.

[RulerofRails]

Sorry, Ray. After reading your post more carefully, I realize that you aren't seeing the haulage status because you haven't completed the connections. The RF&P should connect Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Washington D.C.. To review this go into the briefing at the bottom right corner of the status page. The requirement is for COMPANY stations, so you need to build a RF&P station in Washington D.C. to complete these three simple connections. Connecting to the B&O station in Washington D.C. is an easy way to make money initially, but should be followed quickly by a RF&P one. (When I played, I dozed the connecting links and re-routed/retired the affected trains just before leaving a company to try to prevent some traffic jams.) Good luck.

[RayofSunshine]

Thanks for your comments RulerofRails,
Although you "believe" you have a handle on the problem, I don't believe that is the case.
The initial requirement I believe was for cnn RIC to Fredrick???, the to DC. and then maybe to BAL. I have made cnn to every city in VA with my own COMPANY station, as I don't use a competitors. All show "Connected" which I click on them. I also believe that the cities in question were "connected" as I received a notice that some "extra funds found, and to cnn NYC.

The Editor for eliminating those political newspaper reports are not working either. Clicking on EVENTS, and 1 other in that left column, and it displayed a full screen of "errors and the such" . clicking back to the EVENTS I was able to get "Newspaper and Single time" and 'x' them. Still getting those reports of "old" plus new happenings.

I checked with the Haulage in the yearly report, which shows 2,008 for the total. And without the Game Status page, I have no idea of the the requirement.

A very interesting scenario, but I don't have too much luck with working with the Editor in the past. LOL

Shutting down for the night to relax with some TV videos.

again for your efforts.

[RulerofRails]

How many railroad points do you have? Could it be that you missed the message that you had completed the railroad?

This is the switch I was talking about. After fixing them to look like this, any that have been repeating will appear one more time (December of next game year), and then the repetitions will cease.

One time only.jpg (15.35 KiB) Viewed 12436 times