Hawk & Badger Railroad Forum

This is my latest map, called "East Anglia". From its terminal at Liverpool Street Station, Great Eastern Railway send its tentacles all over East Anglia, connecting London to cities as Cambridge, Kings Lynn, Norwich, Great Yarmouth, Ipswich/Harwich and Colchester, having almost monopoly in serving this part of England. Game start in 1840, and game ends at the beginning of 1923, when G.E.R. became a part of the famous London North Eastern Railway (L.N.E.R.). Getting started can be a little difficault in the beginning, while you cannot buy up farms, and this part of England has almost no manufacturing industry in 1840. You have to build your own factories. Testing the game (always playing expert), I had 15 (min. 10) A.I.opponents. I won the gold in 1915. Starting with a short line between London and West Ham/Hackney Downs, I just had money left to build a lumbermill in Thetford, then later on a furnance (brickworks) in March. later again a paper mill in Thetford. In 1857 I managed to swallow up all 15 compeating companies and started to build up my network. By 1864 all the demanded cities were connected and I had the 25 mill bonus in 1894 by connecting all cities on the map, using that money boosting up my Lifetime Industrial Profit.

I am going to try it right now,

Thanks for the upload.

I managed to take over all of the other companies, build industries and make 13 mil.

But I wasn't successful in connecting all the cities before 1880 and I failed the game!

Im gonna try it again.

WISH ME LUCK!

Aright, I tried it again,

I STILL LOST!

I had only 13 more cities to connect by 1879 but I ran out of track...

Challenging, indeed.

Gave it a try (on normal) and went nowhere! Ok, I fulfilled the precondition to connect the cities required for a medal (but one year short only, 1879) and had taken over all companies by 1885, but there was no chance to get the "all cities connected" bonus and - also - it seemed that I forgot to invest in industries.

All in one: a completely new experience concerning an arop map!

Of course, I'll try it again - after having "consumed" some reflections about better strategies.

Seems that I did it better on the second try.

This time I set the focus on "connect as much as you can" and - by the way - built some industires (mostly textile mills) and from time to time had a look on the AIs. The letter ones were not really a problem - if they didn't vanish by themself I simply bought them. This way I fulfilled the precondition for a medal (some special cities connected) by 1855 and finally got the Gold medal by 1885. Unfortunately I didn't got the $25 million bonus for all cities connect, because I reached the $300 million of LIP slighlty before! BTW: What should I do with these $25 million after all has been done?

If you like to see details concerning my progress, have a look at Final remarks:
- arop, you made a map far away from your earlier ones. That's really great! (Not the always repeated story of x PNW, 3x LIP and 5xCBV.) Congratulations!
- The AIs are not really a challenge. Maybe you should them make a little bit more powerful.
- Boni for hauling this or that from here to there would be appreciated!
- and finally: where is my beloved Consolidation?

Well done, arop!

It seems that I may have missed some cities. I could have all the requirements, cnn cities by 1880, and all cities connected, and LIP of $300M by 1900, but have only been able to find 179 cities. Retraced all the routes, to make such that each city served by rail, had a depot. Crissed crossed the map a few times, to try and locate cities which did not have rail service. I even tried to build a depot at the names of probably counties, but being that there wasn't a "star", that didn't help.

I did invest a large amount of revenue in industries, and track to the supply farms, and only merged with the AIs when they were in alignment with my direction of routing. As mentioned, Textile was the boon, but set up routings to encompass the suppy of logs for lumber mills. Grain being plentiful in areas, I also bought up Breweries, and watched for advantages to align with Produce for Distilleries.

Really a log of challenges, but as I mentioned, I invested heavily in industries right from the start. There is a lot of time for the connecions of those cities for 1880, although as I see, some failed. And seeing that I did not have to invest in any "bonds", I guess I had a good working system. Well, except to """see""" where all the 182 cities are located. LOL

for your feedback!
A) Think I'll take a look at the AI's making them a little more profitable. Without the option to buy up farms they are not doing well in this scenario.

B) There could be a small bonus for hauling wool, livestock or grain, but without no CBV or PNW in the win condition, I did not find it necessary at first.

C) The Consolidation is a typical wood fired North American loco with spark arrester chimney. The 2-8-0 wheel arrangement arrived relatively late in the UK. Trying to fill the gap, Bombardier created the 0-6-0 DX goods, but regretably it looks awful, and I have omitted it from this scenario. The 0-8-0's and 2-8-0's are represented by the more modern looking USRA 0-8-0's in 1907 and the class M2 4-8-0's in 1918.

D) To Ray I can say, that the number of cities is 182. You can check it in the editor (city count) and you'll find I'm right.

I will give this beta version a week or so for possible further comments and I think I'll be ready with the 1.0 version at the end of this month and submit it to Hawk together with the route map of Great Eastern Railway 1922.

Okay, and the 3rd attempt to locate unconnected cities, and did find 2, which had track service, but no depot, to bring the total to 179,(as previous thread indicated). and after "riding the rails of the system") Then I did some scanning of all the terrain, to find 2 more which was not connected by rail. that brings the total to 181. In an effort and attempt to find that 182nd city, I started to "delete both the depot and some of its track", to make sure that I did not miss cities which were on the "rails" but without a depot. It did not result in finding the 182th.

Although the Editor says 182, I would like to see if anyone has made the connection of the 182 cities. I have good revenue and don't need the $25M, and can get the Gold without it, but just curious, as it is possible that mathematically, the system, or at least not mine, is calculating the process of a correct total.

Still an interesting scenario with its challenges, but without actually getting 182 cities connected, it does lose some of its concept.

As mentioned above: In my test game I DID have all 182 cities connected in 1894 and had the 25 mill bonus, but having this bonus it's not necessesary to win the game, but helpful to have, investing in new industries

Well Arop,
I did manage the Gold in 1874, but just am bewildered that I am not able to find that last city. Have tried a number of attempts of searching the terrain visually, and even deleting all of the connected cities, to see if I had missed building a depot along a route. It is possible that my computer did a malfunction to credit 1 city.

I did enjoy the concept of challenges of this scenario, and know that others will find it as enjoyable as me.

The 1.0 version of this map can now be found in the archives.

is anyone else having a crash to desktop after at end of year 1840 autosave i have the latest version of the map

You might not have the 0-6-0 samson installed, a user made European variant of the 0-6-0 Baldwin. This engine file can be found on this site

i have just tryed a normal save which crash at 86% will try with the train you have sugested now

Sorry! The user made loco is called 0-6-0 Hercules, avaiable 1842-1870

I have just tried to download now. Unfortunately when try to it says my ip is blocked just waiting here back from admin to sort it out.

The problem appears to be a save issue with the map, as all other maps save as normal.

Is the 0-6-0 Hercules in a pack or separate as i can not find it.

I found it on this site seperately, but I cannot remember where. Attached I have tried to make a rar file, hope it works

graem007 wrote:i have just tryed a normal save which crash at 86% will try with the train you have sugested now

I still can't save the game with the train you suggested i am however able to play the map without saving the game

I have tried saving the map in the editor which crashes to desktop at 86% as well. Also the game creates a tga file with the map name.

You could try this special version. It is stripped from all special locos and buildings, such as grain elevators, hopper yards, railway offices, stockyards etc. Hope it works, in case not I have no answers

arop wrote:You could try this special version. It is stripped from all special locos and buildings, such as grain elevators, hopper yards, railway offices, stockyards etc. Hope it works, in case not I have no answers

the map now saves with the update