Beta test my new scenario Chile please!

[low_grade]

Haven't painted it or added trees yet, but I think I'm getting the hang of events finally and this should work just fine. Also going to add appropriate newspaper events to give more cultural context.

I do still have an extra status message that's unnecessary, don't mind that.

Start in 1891, play for 30 years. I just played to 1902 and found myself overextended when the economy collapsed and all my stocks got sold off. Worked very nicely to that point. Great mix of strategic planning, laying track, building industries, trying to take over AI companies (that's where I got overextended...) Goals are connections, some pretty tough and late game I expect, PNW, and CBV. Careful management should be necessary to meet PNW and CBV goals. Track laying should continue for 20-25 out of 30 years. AI's aggressively build track but are moderate on stock issuing and buying. Resources are pretty abundant so the focus is more on selection of cities to build industries in.

After playing though a few times I'll probably adjust PNW and CBV goals, and beta testing should help with with that, too. So please let me know how you fare! I'm going for a map where you should be happy to get Silver on expert, and gold is a challenge on normal.

Oops, just realized I forgot to add the hotel back in. Darnit sometimes the industries list gets reset when I'm tinkering around... Just Shift+E while paused, click on industries, scroll down and click on hotel box. Exit, Shift+E again and you're ready to go.

(Spoiler alert!) Also thinking about extending the delay before strike penalties kick in. Watch out for 1902.

Edit by Admin: This map is now available in the Archives.

[Hawk]

Any particular version this should be played in?

[low_grade]

1.06. At one point you may need to haul at a loss. And I'm not sure if this is 1.06 specific, but I like the Quarry and Ore mine and they both factor into this scenario in a big way. Finally found a use for Crystals!

[Hawk]

Yes, haul at a loss was added to the 1.06 patch and does not work in 1.05.

[Sugus]

I just got the map. Because I'm ****** to play under Vista , I very likely will not reach a happy end. Nevertheless, I'll try it ("downgraded" to Patch 1.04 beta) - but don't expect reasonable input from my side ...

[low_grade]

Thanks Sugus. I'm playing through the second time now on regular dificulty, in 1907, just past the strike, which lasted 3 years and 2 months (that's how long it takes a train to move 3/4 the way up the 1024 height of the map!) and way very happy to see my test to check for the hauling goals to end the strike worked as intended! I'm at like $20M PNW and $70M CBV with 14 years left. Another couple bumps along the way, but nothing too bad, still, I might not be able to reach the Gold goals of $100M PNW and $250M CBV in just 14 years. Still have all crossings of the Andes ahead of me. And I didn't mention it above, but for Gold you need to be the only company alive, and I'm finding that the AI's always have cash to start new companies shortly after I merge with their old company, so this should make the Gold particularly challenging.

Again the resources are pretty heavy, but I'm finding that this creates another challenge: in order to maximize revenue and take advantage of all those loads that want to be hauled, I'm running lots of trains which are getting bottlenecked at this stage in the game. I think it will be interesting to see if I can figure a way to deal with this.

I'm thinking of adding chemical plants and fertilizer factories with events shortly after they're available, too, since I think for any scenario a building type which becomes available in the middle of the scenario just never gets seeded very much on its own.

Well, like I said, I think all the events are working great, but if you could just look them over and let me know what you think, I'd appreciate it.

[JayEff]

I have time pressures due to work right now, but I am playing this scenario a bit. I came up with a strategy for getting started. I bought shares in the existing companies, then held them for a couple of years. I sold them, then in January 1894, started up my own decent sized company (with $3,600k) to make the nitrate haul.

Some things I notice in the event programming:

Prices are gamewide, you cannot apply them to territories. You can impact industry profitability by applying production modifications to territories or companies (not sure whether or how it works for players).

I am not sure whether you can apply track costs to territories. You might want to check that on a small, flat test map. You might need to deal with the Andes with simple increases in costs of graded track, tunnels and bridges.

It would be nice if you put a line about the initial nitrate haul mission on the status page while completion is pending.

Interesting that you are considering putting chemicals and fertilizer into the game, since that is what chilean nitrate is. Maybe forget those to buildings but have a warehouse that converts crystals to fertilizer, so you can use it to support Chilean agriculture. Having chemicals in the game could confuzz the situation.

[low_grade]

Thanks JayEff, good thoughts. I wish I had time pressures due to work! I'll add the status notice about the initial haul mission, and also a later notice about the strike hauling mission.

Had a couple Chemical Plants pop up in 1909-10 or so that fed a pharmaceutical plant that popped up. didn't see any fertilizer, but really there are so many resources on this map that it would be pointless anyway. I'll keep them available to spawn but I don't think I need to add any with events.

I just finished on medium, with a Silver. PNW was $101M and CBV $188M. There were two other companies besides mine that I couldn't merge with since the chairman of each had more that 50% of available stock and just wouldn't vote for the merger (I suspect they never do.) So for gold either buy into them early and heavily, or work to bankrupt them with parallel lines starting at the latest midway though the game. I only started to do this with about 5 years left, and the one original company that was still around finally went into the red only in the last 1-2 years, not enough time to be liquidated. The other company left was a do-nothing company started by one of the AIs after I merged with his original company, so I couldn't merge with or bankrupt him. So next time once I start merging I'll make sure to get majorities in new companies as soon as they are started.

Had a few years coasting in the middle that I could've done more with and perhaps gotten the CBV closer to the gold level of $250M. Perhaps on the second try I'll get closer, not convinced I should reduce that goal just yet.

Kept pretty busy thoughout. Didn't build much track after 15-20 years, though, as in most scenarios. Spent time looking over stations and adding trains, looking over the commodities map and finding place to build new industries, taking the time to run branch lines out to isolated resources so I could get them to my industries. In 1892 I went with the Stirling, then in 1895 I got the S-3. In 1905 I went with the 2-D-2 and electrified all track and replaced all trains, then in 1911 went with the Atlantic and added them as Express trains. Started with stations and track in Temuco/Los Angeles/Concepcion area and built out from there. Made the nitrates hauling deadline with a year to spare. I think I mentioned above but the Strike in 1902 wasn't lifted for over three years, which was the time it took the S-3s I had to get from as far away as Chillan all the way up to Chuquicamata. And I knew it was coming so I had track already most of the way there when it hit. The S-3s really don't like 4-6% grades, which there were a lot of in places in north. Maybe the Consolidations would have been a little quicker. The idea though was to inspire the player to build into Argentina at that point, since historically that's why the north crossing was made, to get quick access to perishable goods for the mining communities, but I realize that it's not very realistic to expect the player to be able to do that, and I didn't rally add much produce to Argentina so you have to haul from southern Chile anyway. Well, the main reason why Chile maintains the railroad into the Atacama desert in the north there from Santiago is because they need to be able to get stuff to and from the miners, so I guess it's not too far off historically to do it that way.

I was thinking, for two of the connection goals, I might want to change the test from the "City connects to city" condition to one that looks for track sections in a region. I'd make a hidden region that the player is sure to cut cross between Puerto Montt and San Carlos de Bariloche as well as between Chuquicamata and Las Juntas. I already have one between Santiago and Mendoza. Otherwise for the gold connections you really only need to cross once, then extend your networks. The southern crossing was quite profitable as expected so the player would do this anyway, but the middle and northern crossings would be tempting to ignore. Of course I'd have to warn the player that they need to build a more or less direct track for the connection to count.

Most importantly I need to figure out how the make the Crystal and Ingot hauling more significant. Historically this was about a quarter of Chile's entire national economy, and I want it to be more of the bread and butter of the game, too. Since the distance isn't very great to the port, a high price differential makes the cargo walk too much on its own. I think the way to do it is to boost production like you suggest. You'll notice as you play through something that was very concerning to me. Weird things were going on with price gradients. Santiago occasionally had the highest demand for crystals on the map, when the only two places which should want them are the ports on the northern coast. Towards the end of the game, the whole southern half of Chile had higher prices for crystals than the northern port towns. Ingots seemed to be acting funny, too, but not as bad. I've noticed this kind of behavior a couple of times in other scenarios, like the Green Diamond I think it was with Coal. Any idea anybody what causes this and how to avoid it in a scenario?

But all in all I'm pretty happy with the first cut I've taken at this scenario. Definitely challenging, and also for me at least engrossing. I had like 170 trains running at the end, and profitability was still around 50% in a recession for the last two years, so they weren't doing nothing!

Time for the second round of tweaks. And do keep chiming in! If nobody gets gold I'll probably reduce the CBV goal to $200M. And like I said, good luck on Expert. I'd be very surprised if anybody gets gold even on Hard.

[JayEff]

You can get serious dislocations in price gradients when you event a large price increase and let it run for a long time. I have seen this happen in many scenarios.

You can create a similar problem if there is much more demand than supply. That will effectively create a price increase also. Example: Cotton in Colonial India. In this scenario, cotton prices can reach $2,000k, and demand in the country is so high, you must haul at a loss to the ports and you can't motivate the port to swap for the cargo you need for the game goal (weapons I think). [EDIT: An interesting solution for this problem would be to try cutting both the price and production rate of clothing at least in half. With the numerous textile mills all about, you would have a 'homespun' cottage industry. There would be cheap clothing all around, but it would be easier to export some of the cotton.]

I suspect there could also be problems with really long scenarios, but I have not checked this in detail. Usually things look stranger later in a scenario.

When making a map, try to match demand and supply, keeping in mind that most secondary industries are capable of doubling and houses are capable of quadrupling, but not all of them will over the course of a scenario. Keep price increases to a minimum, or have them in effect for five years or less.

If you want a large, whole scenario long price increase, you might have better results if you substitute with a cargo that is already expensive. Ammunition blows up real good, so does Chilean nitrate. Ammo is pretty expensive. If you want to make a warehouse swap of ammo for fertilizer you will have to make it 2 for 1 or 3 for 1, or decrease the price of ammo.

[low_grade]

Well, a couple of things I did: I decreased the price of ore across the map, as furnaces weren't processing it since ore and ingots were at about the same price. I think you were right that you can't change prices just in one territory... so I tried reducing the increase in price of crystals from 100% to 50% to see if that helps with the erratic gradient behavior I was seeing.

I implemented a few other modifications, including creating hidden territories between some of the connection goal cities and adding the requirement that track be laid actually between the cities you're supposed to be connecting in order to meet the connection goal. Also painted and added rivers and trees.

So I think it's time to release version 2 now. Here you go.

Edit by Admin: This map is now available in the Archives.

[low_grade]

Improved update. I think this one may be the winner, though I still have to play it through all the way and perhaps tweak the CBV medal goal still.

Edit by Admin: This map is now available in the Archives.

[low_grade]

Thanks for downloading, guys!

One more adjustment I'm going to make to keep AIs from starting new companies. Otherwise once you buy out one company they start another, but with tons of cash so that they automatically have a majority of shares. Maybe setting AIs to the lowest level of stock buying and buying back would help, but maybe not. The one thing I can think of that would definitely prevent this is to go back into the Editor, select the human player, start a company, and then select in the scenario options to disallow starting new companies. That way, once you merge with a company, the AI chairman can't just start another one.

So if you start playing this scenario, after starting your company, shift-E and change scenario options to disallow starting new companies. Otherwise you will have no chance at Gold.

[Gwizz]

I have not tried all of the following in RT3 only in RT2.

If I want to keep an AI out of a city I need, I build a small station in the city, then I bulldoze it.
The AI will not build a station in a city where a station was built before.
I don't have to pay expenses on a station that was bull dozed.

I have put 3 or more cities in a grouping so that more than one AI could build into the city cluster.
A tight cluster of stations may not work as well in RT3 as more than one city can be connected at the same time.

[belbincolne]

I've given this map (original version) one serious try after two quickly abandoned attempts. Just given up as I'd over extended buying AIs and they got sold off. Seemed to play o/k but I'll give v3 a try now although haven't much time whilst the sun is shining in the UK!

[low_grade]

Arrg. Trying to play through a second time with v3 but I got overextended again. Thought to use the bailout cheat but forgot that big increase in revenue would mean increased overhead for a while.

Going to change the strike checking so that is uses simple LTD of goods hauled. I had thought at first that I wanted to look at only goods hauled from the beginning of the strike, and was happy with the solution I came up with to do that, but it limits the ability of the status message to give you an accurate account of where you're at until after the beginning of the next month. And besides, I give the warning a few years earlier to be prepared to haul goods to the miners near Antofagasta, so if you can start doing that early, you should get credit.

One other major new event I'm going to add is maybe around 1898 you'll have the opportunity to fund a program for railroad technicians at the Universidad Catolica in Santiago, so that you can take maximum advantage of the limited engine options you have. Initial cost of $500K, then two level increase in engine maintenance(or like 50%, I forget if maintenance uses levels), in return for 10% increase in top speed, one level increase in acceleration, and one level increase in reliability.

[JayEff]

low_grade, you will need to repaint the texture. If you look in the texture views, they have all gone stripey. This happens after several saves. It is a lot like the colour drift problem: it needs to be fixed up at the end.

[Hawk]

This is now available in the Archives.

[Wolverine@MSU]

Are there supposed to be Warehouses out in the Pacific Ocean? I see three of them offshore from Antofagasta.

[low_grade]

Yes, they help to keep demand high at the Antofagasta port by drawing the cargo out into the middle of nowhere, rather than have it pile up and eventually run down the coast to Coquimbo. Otherwise the run down from the nitrates region stops being profitable by halfway through the game.

There are also a couple of oil wells in the small bay south of Puerto Montt.

[Wolverine@MSU]

I just finished with this one (I think it was the penultimate version that had a big error in the early nitrates hauling, but found it and tweaked it in the Editor). I got Gold on Expert in 1920, but "cheated" a little. I tunneled through from Santiago and therefore didn't have track in the "High Mountains" territory. I wasn't getting credit for the connection and only figured out why by looking at the event and seeing that at least some track had to be layed in the High Mountains, so I plopped down a couple sections there and got the connection credited. Without knowing where to lay track, a player could wind his/her way over the Andes on a route that doesn't go through High Mountains and would not be given credit for the connection. Perhaps you could name the pass with a label and stipulate that the connection to Mendoza must go through the pass. I didn't have problems with the northern or southern connection. I built over the mountains for the southern, but used a tunnel for the northern, and since it went through the Northern Connection territory, I got credit for the connection. If you want to discourage a player from tunnelling through the Andes, you could set the tunnel-building cost to an absurdly high level.

Around the middle of the game timewise, Nitrates were showing HUGE price gradients and I had several trains shipping them hither and yon as the demand ebbed and flowed throughout the map. Made a ton of money off this "exploit". I'm not sure what causes this, but I've seen it in other maps too, where for some reason, a particular commodity will have "hotspots" of demand that develop, and the astute tycooner can reap enormous profits by shuttling the cargo from here to there as the "hotspots" migrate around the map.

All in all, a pretty fun scenario, but it took a couple of tries to develop a winning strategy. Never thought I would make it as far as buying out all the companies, but with a well-developed rail network, company profits allowed me to go heavily into debt buying into AIs and then taking them over at an inflated price. Didn't get the last one until very late in the game, and thanks to an economy on the upswing I madi it just in time.