Crystal Cotton Revisited

[Orange46]

GR:

Gee, it sounds like at least one of you isn't British, or lived here for a while. I've been near Chicago since 1994.

[Grandma Ruth]

<<<<<< the flags aren't a political statement, but a personal one as my better half is a native of Chicago. We go back almost every year, health and wealth permitting!

[belbincolne]

No I'm on XP with all patches correctly installed and now (cos the latest Caucasus is playing o/k) this is the only scenario that crashes.

[Grandma Ruth]

I wish I knew why you're crashing but it's a bit too technical for me - we need some advice from the experts! Hawk, can you put out an APB for assistance if you see this??

[Hawk]

I'm at a loss here. I don't know why it's crashing on you belbin.
Did you download the latest version of Crystal Cotton?

[KevinL]

I got frustrated with running out of track in Southern Pacific, so I went back to this game for a minute. I understand A LOT more about how to play this time. What a unique map. I wish we could buy industry though. :) I started in Memphis with the two warehouses, as I was lucky to get a brewery in Jackson, just east, which had cotton the Memphis warehouses wanted, to turn into crystal. Then I turned north to Nashville to start heading east to the warehouse to drop off the crystal. Money is slow to come by, but that could be because every dollar is spent on new track to head east. :) I think by the end of this scenerio I'll have a billion miles of track all over the place and a thousand trains running the cargo.

[Grandma Ruth]

Just an update - now I've reached 25 years. Not doing particularly well but at least I have all cargoes moving and I think all my track is complete. I've connected to two of the warehouses - going through the mountains to the extreme South one was too expensive. I've a feeling I should have gone for the most Northerly first, but as I seem to be having a problem producing in Chicago, it's not critical.

Kevin, I like your tag-line or whatever it's called - I think that's really interesting to know what people are playing - or doing, anyway, they could be making maps or skins or whatever. I am obviously never going to be able to do anything else but play Crystal Cotton! :D

Maybe you've started a fashion!

[Orange46]

I originally put in 3 warehouses because I was planning on making it a goal to connect to them - 1 for bronze, 2 silver, 3 gold. But later that seemed unnecessary as there was already enough to do. I left all 3 in, however, because I was worried that the warehouses might decide to disappear, so having 2 extra zones insured their survival. (I also thought that I might eventually figure out how to get them owned by 3 real eastern RR's, so that they would display the RR's logos.) So, I'm glad to see you are using more than one.

[KevinL]

I have another problem. I have ten years left and all my cargoes are less than 100. All the cities demand machinery at higher prices than the cargo they're supposed to want, so my trains are stealing the machinery from the western warehouses instead of letting them convert to grain and corn. I guess I'm supposed to do custom consists for everything, but I'm not that type of micro-manager. I have a dedicated train running the lumber to Chicago, and another running meat to Chicago, but they're converting only 1 or 2 loads a year to machinery and weapons. The iron is flowing on its own to Moline to make machinery, and those warehouses are working fine.
How do I stop the high demand for machinery to cities that arent supposed to demand it? And how do I get Chicago to convert meat to weapons faster, and St Louis to convert grain to ammunition faster? Memphis is working fine with the cotton to crystals. There is a brewery in St Louis that might be stealing the grain, but its only using 1 load a year according to its profit window.
Lastly, the special dividends are evil. They seem to take more than half of my profit every year, and I spend the next 9 months just getting back into the black so I can continue building.

[Wolverine@MSU]

I feel your grief Kevin. I started this one the other day (on Expert) and after a few years, the warehouse in Chicago (Lumber-> Machinery) disappeared. No sweat I thought, tho one in Moline was just starting to get some Iron, but then that one went bye-bye too. That left me with NO source of Machinery. I went back to a saved game before the Chicago one disappeared and built a spur to supply it with Lumber and made a few other changes to the "state" before continuing. As a result, both warehouses have remained.
The "Dividends" are really biting into my profits too. I barely have enough to expand toward the east, often having to wait a couple of years to have enough cash to complete long-distance connections (South Bend - Toledo, or Indianapolis - Columbus for instance).
I think the solution to the Meat problem is to save up enough money to build your own Meat Processor in such a way as to intercept the cargo before it gets to the game-built ones. Problem is, it takes cash that's being sucked away by those dastardly dividends.
I wish there was a bit more information given about what loads to haul where. For instance, the Briefing says haul Meat, Cotton and Grain to the eastern terminals, but they demand Ammo, Weapons and Crystals. Will these cargoes count toward the haulage requirements, or are they just there to generate huge profits so one can afford to "ship-at-a-loss" the required cargoes? Also it would be helpful to place labels on the eastern terminals. I had to hunt around for a long time to figure out where I was supposed to ship this stuff. At first I thought it was just to the major cities in the East, but only after mousing around and noticing the territory names at the bottom of the screen did I discover that we were supposed to be shipping to the warehouses.

[KevinL]

The briefing is written a little confusing. After reading this thread I figured it out. The "meat weapons" means convert the meat to weapons in Chicago and ship the weapons to the East. And the same with the "grain ammo" from St Louis and "cotton crystals" in Memphis. Also the wording could be written as "Eastern Warehouses" to be less confusing. I started in Memphis as I mentioned because there was cotton nearby, and the crystals started producing right away. Perhaps that was the problem I had in Chicago and St Louis, their cargo was not nearby so it took longer to convert once I was able to supply them. The other problem I started having was a ran a train from Chicago to Cleveland and back to make revenue, but the train kept stealing my weapons and delivering them to Cleveland because the price was so high. The Tycoonatrons were also stealing and shipping the weapons and ammo on their own thru the rivers.

It is a good map and fun to play once you figure it out and get going. But those dividends stink. What is the percentage for them? I was only able to get 26 million at the end of the scenerio.

Please take this as constructive criticism and not as bashing your map. I'm probably not the type of player this map was geared towards. I like to build to all the cities and make money more than ship a certain amount of cargo. I did enjoy this one once I got everything connected and shipping.

[Orange46]

I must have been trained at microsoft, since I'm using my first customers as play testors. I thought it would be obvious that the warehouses on the Mississippi would convert the real goods into the export goods that the eastern warehouses wanted, especially since the victory ledger will only give credit for crystal,weapons and ammo. But, I was wrong. So, Grandma Ruth, I think that we need to add some verbiage to better explain this.

We should probably add to the bottom of the opening dialogue:

"The warehouses in the east demand Weapons, Ammo and Crystal. These 3 cargoes should be thought of as Meat, Grain and Cotton that have been repackaged for shipment to the eastern warehouses. The repackaging is done in the port and warehouses in Chicago, St. Louis and Memphis respectively."

However, comments are welcome and Ruth's decision is final.

I never wanted this to be a micromanage cargo map, except for the first 10 years when cash is very hard to come by. But, that said, the dividends are meant to force the player to focus on the cargo and trains, and not on just building track everywhere. Also, I want to keep the player thinking about what is the best use of their money thru out the scenario. By keeping cash scarce, you always have to think before spending. Do I need better engines, more city connections, more farm stations or a meat packing plant.

[KevinL]

Other than the clarification of the wording like you did, I'm not sure what else this map needs.

As I said, the Memphis warehouse was turning out crystal very easily due to the 5 or 6 cotton fields nearby, in spite of the three textile mills nearby. By the time I connected to the middle of the three eastern warehouses, Memphis had over 60 loads of crystal available.

But St Louis and Chicago I could never get them to produce more than 2 or 3 loads a year. Perhaps because meat is such a wanted cargo to all the other cities it was being eaten instead of converted? Same with the grain and St Louis. I'm also not sure why the other cities wanted machinery so much. Maybe I was doing something wrong.

Wait till I get my Disneyland map ready to distribute. You havent seen beta-testing yet!

[Orange46]

In my tests, meat was always a problem, but with the dedicated meat to harbor train I noted earlier and connecting to all the ranches I could find, I was able to get the cargoes out. Of course, I also had engines waiting at the docks to carry the weaponized meat east. Meat was the cargoe I was most unsure about having 500 loads as the goal. (Originally, meat was turned into ceramics and that was supposed to be the name of the scenario, Ceramic Meat. Ceramics even resembled processed meat, but with 1.06, ceramics had a demand elsewhere that I couldn't control.) Grain was usually not a problem once I connected to several farms, although I did set up the grain area to the west just in case.

[Wolverine@MSU]

Well, I finally got to the point of making a connection to one of the eastern terminals (by Cleveland), but with only a few years to go, I doubt that I will even come close to the haulage requirements. The dividends put me so far in the hole that there's no cash left to build with. I'm not talking about making a grand railroad empire, just the tracks I need to connect the terminals with time to make the shipments.

Weapons in Chicago aren't being produced very fast, even though I have a station right next to the port and deliver all meat there. I even run a train from my big Chicago station (which covers the port) full of meat to the small station next to the port. In almost 40 years there have been scarcely 200 loads of weapons made, let alone the 500 that are needed.

Same goes for Ammo in St. Louis. I even buldozed a Bakery that was hijacking wheat on its way to the warehouse. Here too, there haven't been nearly enough loads of Ammo created to make the quota. Perhaps another of each of these warehouses in other cities might help.

Might just be that I'm playing on Expert, but when you go $2 Million in the red because of the dividend, it makes for a dull game waiting around until November to do anything. It also makes it impossible to replace crashed trains during that time.

What level(s) are/were you playing at Orange46 and Grandma Ruth?

[Orange46]

I played on expert. However, about 1/3 of the early maps were unwinnable based on lack of resources in proper places at start. I tried to fix that, but some maps may still be much harder than others. You need to be able to ship 2 full trainloads of weapons for 32 years and you might still be short a few loads due to trains leaving with a partial 8th load.

[Grandma Ruth]

Well, I'm just stuck with the same problems. It's grain-ammo that I'm particularly having difficulty with. I've done everything - bulldozing competing industries like breweries, having dedicated stations delivering right to the warehouse - it's driving me nuts

I'm playing on Hard - wouldn't even contemplate Expert yet!

I agree about the wording, it is a little confusing if not downright misleading. It's quite difficult to grasp some of the concepts in the game, I found.

The other thing that struck me was perhaps we should have the same "cheating" thing about corn and produce as you have about the main cargoes - you know what I mean, I was so impressed with it - but you can still cheat to get your corn/produce quotas.

But just at the moment I'm determined to beat this thing if it's the last thing I do.

BTW, did you see the thread about version 1.03 which apparently works with Vista? What's 1.03? I'll post a link here if I can manage it.
viewtopic.php?p=7534#7534

[Grandma Ruth]

Ruth's decision is final.

Steady on, I'm just the hired help! You tell me what to do, I do it!

[Wolverine@MSU]

The other thing that struck me was perhaps we should have the same "cheating" thing about corn and produce as you have about the main cargoes - you know what I mean, I was so impressed with it - but you can still cheat to get your corn/produce quotas.

Actually you can "cheat" even on the required cargoes. I linked two of the eastern terminals with a track, placed small stations inside and large stations just outside the territory boundries (their footprint covered the whole territory) and was able to deliver stuff to the small station at one terminal, go outside to the large station and pick it up to haul to the other territory's small station, whereupon I picked it up at that one's large station and took it back to its point of origin. Still wasn't enough to get me off the hook though. Finished with not even 200 loads of each delivered.

I like a tough scenario, but this one seems impossible.

[Grandma Ruth]

Very clever! Thank God you're on our side Do you think we should reduce the targets, then? Is 250 reasonable?