new map for v1.06 Rhowenian Railways (beta)

[arop]

This is my latest map, a fantasy map, called Rhowenian Railways, beta version. Any comments are welcome (file removed, see below)

[RayofSunshine]

Well Arop,
You have given me an idea, of which was used previously in another scenario, to that of using "loops or "switch backs". Although it was presented, such as your thumbnail, but basically it has never occured to me for its use. Guess I just "bulldoze" over the hill and hopefully have an engine which is adapable to steep inclines.
Your creations are always of interest and challenging, and am looking forward to attempt play. Have a couple others which I am trying to "navigate", as did not do that well with 2 of the 4. Just fun to have fun. LOL

[RayofSunshine]

I ran in a problem which might be that of a triggering function.
Managed to lay track to Wyana, but did not receive an indication that it was accepted as required. I ran a couple test "depots" in different locations, all within the highlighted area of "being connected", but just replaced it in the original location under the "star". Without an indicator in the yearly ledger book, I don't know if it is credited for the Gold.

[arop]

You will be credited for being qualified for the medals or not in a later event "borders connected" or in "borders unconnected". The event "Wyana connected" is just a "reciept" for the connection. By an errror Wyana and Gathoma are set to be triggered by "when a company is started", it should be triggered instead by "when track or station is placed" in the editor (strike shift E in your game, it's fairly easy to correct). It has now been corrected in the attached file below. for your comments . (file removed, see below)

[Moggie]

When I place the first station, I immediately get a message congratulating me on connecting all border towns an being now ready to go for medals .

[arop]

It seems that I have posted the wrong file twice. I'm sorry for the trouble I may have caused . The attached file IS the right one .

---

Edit by Hawk: File removed. This map is available in the archives in the Other Lands section.

[RayofSunshine]

Thiere isn't a problem, so to speak Arop, that is the reason for the testing.
Anyway, I saw that comment made by Moggie, and thought it odd once I connected to the 1st city. However, on my note of Huyle of not getting a "newspaper" notice of a connection, it didn't come to mind until this morning, that I had already made a connection to Gathoma, which is also in the terr of Montania, so that it would not trigger agan.
Have not yet found the "mountain range" in which I can use that "switchback" or "loop" into a tunnel. Have basically been able to just narigate around the ones which I have encountered.

[arop]

The loop is between Raima and Nhewa. I never build railways with gradients above 4% and I prefer max. 2% for trunk lines. But maybe I should build the difference between the lowland and the high plateau somewhat larger to avoid players to build a straight tunnel, think it looks good with a loop or two sometimes, when climbing up into the mountains

[Moggie]

I'm not making loops but I do try to go up a hill diagonally, instead of straight up.

[arop]

terrain changes are something cosmetic to come in the final version. Let's concentrate about how this map function. In the latest version there is a new feature: From starting the game and every 10 year period 1860-1910, you will have to choose between offers from 4 different contractors, which will have +-20% influence on the track building costs. I have plans, in the final version, to make track building costs rise by 1% every year throughout the game.

[RayofSunshine]

For the 1st option I selected "A", which resulted in either a -20% or a +20% of track cost. All the rest are +20%
If the options are discontinued, then a +1% increase sounds reasonable. Just like the cost of living expense. LOL
I found the area between the 2 cities for the loop into a tunnel. Howver, the terrain of the map which I downloaded is basically flat.

[arop]

for your comments. Working on an improved version I have implanted the new event, triggered from 1870 and onwards, the station and track building prices will rise by 1% per year. Terrain at the high plateau around the loop has been lifted from 600 to 800 (pixels?) making the terrain somewhat more difficault. Another change is, that I have decided to use mostly North American locomotives and give the N&W 2-6-6-4 mallets a chance to prove what there are up to. Alternatively, I could make events with choice between comtemporary engine types from 2-4 different manufactures American as well as European and British. But first of all: This beta version you should work satisfactory, I hope so .

[RayofSunshine]

Arop,
I know that you are making a revision to the programming, but thought I would add a comment to the later revision. On the options of "A thru D" for track expense, I believed that the initial "A" was a -20% on cost. All the rest were a +20%. Hence when I had completed 40years, I selected "A" again, to try an recoup, or at least lessen the cost of laying track. WELL, unless there is a random, "A" was a +20%, which would not make any difference with any of the options.

Now I don't know which is the lessor of 2 evils, as I don't know at what percentage you plan to start increasing track laying at 1% per year, as by the end of the scenario, and a 50 year duration, the percentage will well exceed the +20% of which I have encountered.

Hence, in a calculation of time, if started in 1865, a player will reach that +20% year in 1885. That cost will double to 40% by 1905, and 60% by 1925, etc. Should be very interesting when the labor unions want to strike for higher salaries. LOL

[arop]

You certainly gave me a reason to think twice about implanting a 1% rise per year, think it will be more fun just keeping the contractor A-D system and prolong it until the end of the game in 1950 (gold before 1950). For your information the values goes from -20, -10 to +10 and +20 placed differently on A-B-C-D for the 10 year periods .

[RayofSunshine]

Finished for the Gold in 1932. However, with that comment, I don't believe that it is an easy scenario. I did a lot of micromanageing, and stayed on top of both the purchased industries, as well as that of the supply. A player had to pay attention to the "supply depots" which suddenly did not exist. Otherwise an engine could set for years, "waiting for cargo". Also, when the supply was top heavy, I would add another industry to compensate. If that was not done, the supply could be hauled to another destination.
It was not unreasonable to have up to 12 engines "waiting for cargo" as the source of supply. This was due to having an engine waiting, while an engine was on its way to a destination. This kept the supply accumulating, but could possibly obtain the specified custom consist before a different engine returned. At the end of the playing, I had 175 engines, and purchasing engines which were adaptable to the terrain over which it was to travel. That way there were not "hang-ups" on the steeper grades, of those engines with speed, but very little incline capability.
During the duration of the played game, I may have only had 1 option to track cost of (-) or (+) 20%. all the rest were a +20%.
I tried that "loop around and into a tunnel" method without any success. So the majority of track was laid to angle up grades, or take a longer route to get around the hill. I say hill, as I don't believe any of the terrain would be termed as "moutainous".
Really enjoyed the challenge.

[Blackhawk]

I thought about taking a look at this map but I can't download it. It seems many files attached to the forum no longer display or download. A few days ago I saw the forum was down for maintenance and when it came back many of the files didn't work anymore.

[Hawk]

I thought about taking a look at this map but I can't download it. It seems many files attached to the forum no longer display or download. A few days ago I saw the forum was down for maintenance and when it came back many of the files didn't work anymore.

I'm sure glad you mentioned this. I was not aware of it.

It's fixed now.

There was a server problem Saturday night and they had to rebuild some of the hardware and each rebuilt piece required a re-boot of the server. All this activity caused a lot of file/directory permissions to get changed.
I just wasn't aware of how deep those permission changes went until now.

[arop]

For those who are building loops/tunnels I have a small advise: build the upper part of the loop before tunneling, it gives the best results. In fact it is possible to climb the mountains between the lowland and the high plateau with a loop and 2 tunnels on a long gradient of maximum 2%. In the latest version, I have increased the hight difference between low/highland, so you have to accept a min. 5% grade and bypass a mountain city (Alta) if you go straight tunneling. Another new feature in the latest version is, that you now and then have to choose between 2-3 bidders: Who will get the contract on delivering a new class of locomotives?

[Moggie]

Welp, got bronze. First time the game started lagging. Prolly it was the fact that I had 100+ trains rolling . It's kinda hard to build book value after a certain point. I got somewhat good results by building industries all over.

[Blackhawk]

While I like the terrain of the map, I thought the actual scenario of the map was a little easy and got a little boring after 30 years in. I managed to get gold fairly easily around 1905. I don't really remember the exact date as after about 1885, I just set the game on its fastest speed and walked away until I got enough company book value to win. At the time I was making roughly 15 million a year and didn't really see the desire to connect more small cities and then have to worry about if my raw materials would be stolen away by trains between those cities rather than supplying the industries I owned. I was heavily invested in industry and compared to Moggie and Ray's 100-175+ trains I only had about 60.

Contrary to Ray I had very few trains just "waiting for cargo" The only places where I really made trains sit and wait for cargo was at the quarries. I also didn't do that much micromanaging, maybe a moderate amount of it at the most. While I did do some, it was no where near the scale of some TM maps so maybe that's why to me it didn't seem like I was doing much and the micromanaging I did do was more of a "set it and forget it" type managing, as I'd tell the train maybe to bring rock to the furnace, and then ceramics from there to a concrete plant. I may have actually done more micromanaging than I needed to as I wanted to get my industries up and running as quickly as possible so I'd micromanage a train to bring in it's supplies immediately rather than wait for the demand of the newly created industry to get it's supplies starting to ship there. I guess there were times I did micromanage to make sure a supply wasn't taken out of a key town where I wanted it. But that was more of setting the train to 7 cars + a caboose at every city, then at the one other city setting it to maybe only 4 cars so I knew even if it did take some of a key supply, it wouldn't take enough to hinder my industry.

I started around Harwan-Tua-limestone quarry and expanded from there. Initially heading east to Quanac, then North from there to Rhowana and Morcz.
I also I created a track system by the stone quarry near Rhana and connected that with Ariza and Moa. And a little after that I built another section of track connecting Dhaix, Rhawa, and Luacha. Of course these all ended up eventually connecting to my main line and were a gradual process.

I focused primarily on industry building early on and barely made the 1000 pieces of track within 10 years requirement. Although I never had any trouble with the other track requirements as once I started connecting cities I used up 3000-4000 pieces of track quickly and was well ahead of the requirements to have another 1000 pieces of track every 10 years. (it might be nice to have a reminder about the amount of track you have to have in the ledger)

If I knew a industry would be supplied even if I had no presence at the time on that part of the map, I would still build it. So by warehouses/ports producing sugar, I'd build a distillery. Over by the logging camps I built a lumber mill. In towns with lots of cotton or wool I'd build textile mills. Using the furnace and concrete plants near the quarries was also profitable. So very early on in the game I was playing the entire map, not just where I had built track or expected to connect to soon. Eventually I seemed to reach a point where I didn't want to add more industries as I'd risk ruining the supply at another industry so I had to just wait til 1880 so then I could add furniture, toy factories, and dairies. And again wait until 1890 to add electric plants or oil refineries.

Then once I was making enough money, and didn't see much need to build more industries I decided to just put it on fast and let it run til the victory.

As this is just a beta a few things I noticed still need to be fixed. You can still win the game without connect the required border cities as the victory conditions just test for company book value. Also the borders unconnected event has the same text as the borders connected event.

As for the contractor system. I'm not sure I really noticed a difference. In the first 10 years, I picked the contract with at 10% discount. But after that the next 10 years I picked the contractor at 20% more expensive. But by then I was making enough money I year I didn't really notice any difference. So to me once my railroad was making money, it didn't matter to me whether I was paying 80% or 120% the cost of the track. I kind of wished there was more of a reason behind picking different contractors rather than randomly guessing A, B, C, or D which is going to give me the best deal? Like maybe contractor A is offering me cheap track the first couple years, but then the last few years it will be much more expensive. Contractor B is offering expensive track early, but promising it will be much cheaper towards the end of the 10 years. (Whether they make it cheaper or not who knows? Maybe 10 year stretch they do, maybe another 10 year stretch they don't) Contractor C is offering a flat price. (Maybe maintenance costs go up as they use inferior supplies when the cost of steel goes up) Contract D offers a price that may rise or fall depending on the cost of supplies, but promise maintenance would be cheaper.
The contractor system you have is fine, I just like having some "control" over things or a reason behind it rather than randomly guessing and hoping this contractor will be the cheapest.

I'm not entirely sure of what to think of a possible 1% increase in track cost each year. If that were to start in 1900 it would have a minimal effect on me as I didn't really build much track after 1900. If you started it from the start of the scenario though it might create more incentive to try and build the track early while it's cheap rather than invest heavily in industry.

I do have a question about the cost of track and it's maintenance costs though. If the track is now 20% of what it normally costs, does the normal cost of the track or the 120% cost of the track get added to my company book value? And for maintenance costs, is that also dependent on what the initial cost of the track was or is it a base rate per piece of track laid?

If the cost of the track is added to the company book value whether it's the normal cost or 120% cost and it has no effect on the maintenance costs, then really there's no real long term downside to expensive track. It may take slightly longer to expand, but if the extra track cost gets added to the value of my track for company book value purposes then there's really not much of a downside to it in this map which only cares about the CBV.