Mighty Meiji

[belbincolne]

Just downloaded and started playing. Everything seems to play fine although the Almanac says I've transported 41 loads of troops but in the break-up only credits me with 24 - I assume this is because troops carried from Tokyo don't count.

The scenario plays very easily on Normal - I'm only 20 years in and have met all the targets except troop carriage. If you haven't got the last demo patch though things might be different.

[Grandma Ruth]

Wow! I'm really flattered anybody is even playing it!

I never really know where to pitch the difficulty level - usually I test on Hard on the basis that if I can do it on hard, then better players than me will be able to do it on Expert. This doesn't always work, I have to say - I was in bother for Dash for Cash being too hard!!

I'll be interested to know how you get on.

[belbincolne]

Playing this to the bitter end I missed Chelsea putting six past Man City. Blast :( . I live two miles from the West Yorks border - where are you?

Anyway I got nothing despite being worth $339m CBV of $210m (incl cash of $130m) and IP of $476m. (The CBV seems ridiculously low - if I've made $476m out of Industry it should be at least double this). I had huge difficulties carying troops - 41 to Hokkaido and 47 to Shikoku although (possibly) I'd enough in transit to make it in another year.

Two improvements i'd suggest are to increase the IP and PNW requirements and (more important) to show the areas on the map where each "island" is located. The boundaries of the three in the south are unclear. I managed to connect all three before the big bridges were available but couldn't get to the one in the north until then. Although there appears to be solid land everywhere in the south clearly these are water in the computers eyes so it's quite a tortuous process getting to the towns down there.

Anyway I'll give it another try on Expert and see how I get on.

[Grandma Ruth]

You didn't really want to see that match, did you? Sounds like you escaped a painful experience!

I live in Bradford and work in Hebden Bridge so not very far from you at all - I could just stay on the train and venture into Lancashire one day!

I'll make the islands territories with boundaries showing. You're right about the difficulties with land/water - it is actually better than it was at first. I made the map from scratch and didn't want to tamper with the real landscape too much but I did have a problem painting the sea in that area. I'll have another go - the artwork is my least favourite part of map-making.

Have fun on Expert!

[Wolverine@MSU]

I agree with belbincolne that the Industry Profits and PNW are way too low. I'm playing on Expert and have left those marks way behind. Moving troops seems to be the biggest hurdle. Even with the Military Ports "demanding" troops, they won't board trains to go there even with a custom consist. Just got to the point where I have built a bridge to Hokkaido, so we'll see how many troops I can deliver before time runs out.

One thing I found very helpful was the ability to build ports. The Oil Port was most lucritive, returning the investment price in a little over a year. Once the cash started rolling in, I build a whole slew of them along the coasts and upgraded them. They were returning ~$800 K/yr each. I put so many on, it began to look like heavy guns pointed out to sea protecting the homeland. It was also really easy to build the ports needed to generate coal and iron, so I could put down a Steel Mill right next to them and make boatloads of profit that way too. The only downside to the Oil Port was that it demanded logs, so the few logging camps there were (next to which I had built Lumber Mills) started sending their logs to the ports instead of my Mills. Had to sell a couple because they were running in the red, but it was more than made up for by the income from the Ports themselves.

For all mapmakers out there using the 1.06 patch: be very cautious about making Ports/Warehouses buildable and what they supply. It's really easy to exploit them for tremendous profit and to supply materials for industries (I used the same trick in wsherrick's last "Age of Steam" scenario). My advice would be to make them be "demand only", or "exchange", and to make them cost a lot more to build.

[Grandma Ruth]

Thanks, that really is useful - I'll certainly be more careful about what's buildable. Will you both let me know what you make, finally, on the money targets, please?

Off to play with the new patch!!!

[belbincolne]

Will do - on Expert I'm 10 years in and have IP of $27m and a PNW of $20m - but I've scarcely carried any troop loads!

[wsherrick]

For all mapmakers out there using the 1.06 patch: be very cautious about making Ports/Warehouses buildable and what they supply. It's really easy to exploit them for tremendous profit and to supply materials for industries (I used the same trick in wsherrick's last "Age of Steam" scenario). My advice would be to make them be "demand only", or "exchange", and to make them cost a lot more to build.

That's good advice. Now I have a question, how can one change the price of an indvidual industry? I agree that Ports and Warehouses should be much more expensive in lieu of their huge profitability. The ability to build ports, etc. adds a huge new variable in game play and scenario creation and I guess it will take a little experimentation to find the balance for a good scenario economy.

[belbincolne]

Got Gold on Expert 8 yrs early (Oct 04) - changed a few train destinations to carry troops where needed but even without this think I would have got there within another two years.

I had an IP of $518m and PNW of $290m although the CBV was only $170m. Late on as an experiment I built 4 oil terminals at remote spots without any transport and they all returned over 100% within 2 years. This makes the scenario (& others presumably) rather farcical - if I hadn't started fairly normally but built these with the start-up cash I could presumably have won even earlier although the limiting factor would be having to wait for suspension bridges coming in to get to Hokkaido.

[Grandma Ruth]

Thanks, this is very useful. I think I'll have to re-write without the industry, somehow! Where I made my mistake when I was testing it, was to concentrate on the troops and not pay so much attention to the industry element.

There is no facility to change the price of a single industry, Mr Sherrick!

I think I can see a way round it but I'm at work at the moment and can't test it out. You would have to write an event that increases the price of industry in a tiny, tiny territory which is where your port or whatever is - of course you'd have to disable them being built anywhere else either by the player or generated by the game - hmmm, I'll think it over. :?

[belbincolne]

I'll leave you to work that one out.

I just had 3 (more) goes at Dash For Cash bearing in mind your comments. I don't see how it can ever be possible to win anything as the AI's receive what seems to be a 10% subsidy on buildings (and more on Industry?), 50% on trains and ? on rails whereas you have to pay plus 100% (?) on trains and 33% on everything else. I even tried on Easy but it made no difference. See the very first entry in the Strategies section complains but there was no reply and no suggestions as to how to win. If it's impossible why not remove the loading and, possibly, reduce the AI subsidy? Any reply could go into that entry?

[Wolverine@MSU]

I got Gold on Expert in 1902 or 1903. CBV and PNW went through the roof by exploiting the building of Ports; several hundreds of millions of dollars on each count. Troops were not a problem once the suspension bridge could be built to link Hokkaido. To maximize troops sent there, I clicked on the Sapporo station and hovered the mouse over the Troops icon. It showed stations that had troops to send there, and as the level got to 1.8 or 2 from a certain station, I loaded up a custom consist with 2 Troops and six Any Cargo and sent it on its way. Money was no object (see above) so it was fairly easy to track troops wanting to go there and send them off.

[Grandma Ruth]

Thanks a lot, guys! I'm thinking I'll change the win conditions as well as sorting out the ports (and warehouses). I need to make you spend some of this surplus cash you're generating

[Grandma Ruth]

The new map should be up soon - I've changed a few things, the win conditions, the industry - tried to make the line between land and sea a bit clearer - but this is Japan. after all, there's a lot of water there!

Will you have a look at it and see if it plays better now?

Thanks. :)

P.S. Went to Settle last weekend - passed a roundabout that actually had a turn-off to Colne !!!!!

[Hawk]

It will be available as soon as I hear back from Ruth as to what she wants to do with it.

[belbincolne]

Will do - thought you'ld been to Seattle - quite a relief when I re-read it properly :) Just after that roundabout there's the Maypole pub where I've spent many a night after walking in the Lakes or Dales.

[Grandma Ruth]

I'll remember that next time. we stayed at the Old Station near Giggleswick - food's not much, but the view is great!

[Grandma Ruth]

Almost finished re-writing and testing, I hope. I think I'm trying to do the impossible. Orange46 introduced me to a neat trick which I'm trying to use to record "nett" loads hauled from territory to territory. But I think I'm doomed to fail as the figures are always bound to cancel each other out. Aren't they? I can't work out the logic.

[Grandma Ruth]

Hi guys! I'm back and so is Mighty Meiji, vastly revised and hopefully a lot better. I e-mailed it to Hawk earlier, no doubt it'll be in the archive before long. It needs a great deal of micro-management, it has some challenging topography and it's as historically accurate as I can get. Hope you enjoy!

[Hawk]

It's now available.

I guess I should lock the other Mighty Meiji thread since you started this one. That way comments and such about the new version can go in here.