Italian Toymakers - Beta

[OilCan]

I just have not gotten to the knack of making much of an impression in its operation.

This game is meant to have a very steep uphill start - maybe taking 2-3 tries. You are meant to have a rough time the first few years until the Adriatic Sea Coast deal comes along -but that only gets you one foot out of the hole.

Think about using these strategies:
You will have to use ISR rail line at first, except for the spurs to the lumber mills. Think very carefully about whether you want to use the Milan station or create a new station(s) and where to place that station(s). Track is expensive, so keep it to a minimum at first, but look for ways to shorten the supply runs using your own rail. The more you can run your trains on your own line, the more profitable the trains will be. Steel will not really become available until later in the game.

Buy the cheapest engines for the supply runs, and only just enough engines to ensure you deliver 12 loads per year. Look for other lumber sources on the map. Buy fast engines to run to Venice. Buy fairly fast engines to run to Rome. Don't spend more on engines than needed. Name your trains which carry toys so you can find them easily. Consider stopping trains once the yearly quota is reached.

Watch the trains leaving Milan. Are they carrying off lumber and robbing the toy makers? If so, then take measures to reduce that from happening. Are you using your supply trains to service cities on their return to the mill? Is this loosing money? Is it slowing down your trains such that you have to buy more supply trains? If so, then change it.

If you start with care, you should not get any penalties until, maybe, the second half of the game.

And. don't forget your railroad in Sicily.

That's all the hints for now. If you follow these hints, you'll make Grandma Giulia proud.

[RayofSunshine]

Okay OilCan,

I see that other players have used the ISR in their initial start, as your suggestion. I just believed that with the $4.4K that to lay my own track from logs to the toys in Venice to be more profitable.

Didn't give a thought to enhance the routeing of the Rwy in Sicily. Just let it run itself. Will have to give that a try.

Really enjoyed the concept of this scenario, even though I did get very far after a 2 year duration of operating with goot results. THEN everything went dead. Engines all over the place, just waiting for cargoes.

Thanks for the info of suggestions. Will give them a try.

[OilCan]

I think this game is about ready to be released as a final version.

I will make some of the map changes which Settebello mentioned. Unless someone else has any edit comments, I'll try to get this to Hawk by the end of the week.

[RayofSunshine]

Only playing on the Medium level OilCan with this scenario, and really having a challenge. I am making mistakes in the requirements, but wonder about the goals in the Hard and Expert levels.

Any way, I can understand the problem of the "lumber" supply having to compete with a "furniture" as well as the "toy factory", in order to get faster results to fill the 4 toy quota each year. Although the furniture industry is closer to the track, I would believe that the 4 toy factories would outweigh the competition.

But the problem I had was that of trying to get ""any"" result from the "plastic" which is delieverd in Milan in consists of 4, and have waited 12-16 months for any toy. I lost the game, as without the toys, the game came to an end. Or at least I "GOT FIRED".

Hence I had 3 engines setting "waiting for cargo", as I had the consist set on "custom". And it did not appear that any of the regular trains were hauling any toys either.

Has there been any other comments on this problem? Well, situation?

[RayofSunshine]

Dam, this is such a great concept for a scenaio, but I am still having some type of problem, which is popping up. It was happening with trying to get the manufacture of "toys" from lumber at Milan, and just thought that seeing that I was operating on an AI system, that they might be taking the lumber away to make furniture at ( a North town). Then the problem mentioned in previous thread of similar nature, but in the process to transpose "plastic to toys".

Now I tried again, but this time the plastic factories kept disappearing at Bari. However, that wasn't the main problem. Although a couple of trains hauling 4 loads each to Bari, they did not get processed for over well over a year. And in the attempt to see what might be the problem, I watched the supply items, and the plastic icon just sat they 0.0, even though the factories show a supply of 8 per year.

Don't know if any other players might be having the same problem, or if some one may know if a trigger isn't performing correctly. Then again, it might just be my system which is "tired" or "lazy".

[OilCan]

Now I tried again, but this time the plastic factories kept disappearing at Bari. However, that wasn't the main problem. Although a couple of trains hauling 4 loads each to Bari, they did not get processed for over well over a year. And in the attempt to see what might be the problem, I watched the supply items, and the plastic icon just sat they 0.0, even though the factories show a supply of 8 per year..

Ray: Thanks for you comments but I'm not sure what you mean by "the plastic factories kept disappearing". Were they not visible at times or what? I'd appreciate getting some more info on this.

You will probably find that your plastic production works much better if you build a special station just for the plastic factories. When you deliver oil to the Bari station, much of that oil may not make it to the factories because an outbound train will load it up and haul it off. It is the same for the plastic stored at the Bari station: other trains will haul it off. A special station for ONLY bringing in oil and hauling off plastic should greatly help.

[Wolverine@MSU]

I tried playing this one and got nowhere. I was having trouble making any profit and after about 8 years gave up. A quick look at the Cargo Overlay showed why: virtually all of the cargoes have no price gradients. I went back to my saved initial seeding and looked and the overlay looked like the first picture below; normal in all respects. Then I started the clock rolling, and as soon as February rolled around, it changed to the nearly uniform orange seen in the second picture. I went back to the start and deleted the events having to do with ISR, but got the same result as soon as the clock rolls over to February. The same thing happens in the beta version of the scenario.

Is it supposed to do that? I don't see how one can run a profitable railroad, let alone take on the tasks that the scenario requires, if there is no money to be made. I wound up often running lumber to Milan and toys to Venice at a loss, when there should have been lots of profit involved in both of these.

[OilCan]

Wolverine: Just tested the download map it did the same thing to me too, but my back up copies from making the game worked fine. Some last minute tweaking must have mess up the cargo prices. I'll chase this down and fix it. Thanks for letting me know!

[Hawk]

For this situation it might be best if I temporarily disable the map download until you get it fixed.

[Wolverine@MSU]

Oilcan: It appears to be in your "AI setup" and "AI setup2" events, where you have an "All Cargo Prices -40%" effect. When I removed these, the problem went away.

Edit: Removing the -40% from either event results in return to "normalcy". As I recall, "Cargo Prices" are a gamewide property and can not be set individually for a particular company or territory.

[OilCan]

You're exactly right. At the last moment I divided up the AI setup event into two events to make one AI to buy the Class 500 engine at a high price. That was my undoing. The two events multiplied the cargo prices to about nothing.

And, you are right about cargo prices - you cannot make them company specific. I should have known this. If I had stepped back and thought about it, I should have realized that the game code cannot create a separate map-wide price gradient for each player. There is only one supply and demand matrix for the map. But, I had some fun working on a small test map today chasing down the problem. There's always something to learn about this game!

I have a corrected version, but want to play it a couple of times this week-end just to make sure things are OK. I don't want to post it yet.

To fix your copy, do these five steps in the RT3 editor.
1. Delete 'AI Setup2' event. Keep the 'AI Setup' event.
2. Change the Condition of 'AI Setup' to Always True, test against AI companies only (don't test against players or territories), one-time event to trigger at scenairo start-up
3. Change the Effect to apply to "AI companies only"
4. Delete the effect: All cargo prices = -40% (that can go!)
5. Add an effect: Set Class 500 engine cost = +800% (eight hundred!)
Save it. And I think that will do the trick.

Sorry about the frustration. You actually did real good to go as far as eight years with dismal cargo profits. I know you will find the corrected version easier going (but not too easy, the game is designed for a steep uphill start at first).

I learned another important thing out of all this: don't tweak a game at the last moment - unless you can fully test it!

[OilCan]

For this situation it might be best if I temporarily disable the map download until you get it fixed.

Thanks Hawk. I'll get you a revised copy later this week-end or on Monday.

[RayofSunshine]

It have been a time since I played the Italian Toymakers, but during a search I found it again in the "NEW" section of the Archives. Hence I started to wonder the reason.

I don't remember if the attempt was in the Beta, or that posted, but I know that I had an amount of diffictulty with the profit revenue, and did a lot of bonds. At this point I don't know if I completed it to get a medal. However, I do know that it was a great scenario with its concept and challenge. Will like to make another attempt after the new revision is posted.

Thanks to your efforts for the creation, and for that of Wolverine with his talented knowledge to take the time to determine the problems which "we players" do not have that capability.

[Wolverine@MSU]

A couple of other things:

1. Do you intend to (re)set ISR & ZT company cash to specific values every month, or should this be a "one time only" event?

2. Do you want the player to have to go all the way to 1971 before earning Gold? If not, the trigger should be "Date less than or equal to 1971 (or 1972)".

3. The offer to buy track is really annoying when it shows up every week and you don't want to buy track. I would suggest putting in a special territory where the player can lay some track to request the offer. There are a couple of scenarios out there that do this (or have special territories for special "events"). It would be much nicer to not be bothered by Mr. Rossi every week.

I'm up to 1950 on my current replay. I left both AI setups intact and just removed the cargo prices effect. So far, everything is working OK.

[OilCan]

Wolverine:
1. Every month, it keeps the AI from building company cash. Its a way to keep the AI knocked down. The ISR is already a large company at the start of the game. Without a monthly reset of company cash, the ISR stock would split too many times over the years and become too large to take over.

2. I had a self-debate over this when I built the game - whether or not to make the player go all the way to 1972 or not. Then I decided a contract is a contract and the player signed up for 25 years when they took the ISR contract. It takes several years to build up powerful enough to take over ISR. Played skillfully, the player will probably need most of those 25 years. (I originally had it a 30 year contract.)

3. Ahhhh.. Mr. Rossi. Why not just buy some track and he won't call you? I've played a game which used the territory brick (EPH or JayEff game?) and could copy that. Let me think about it. I could drop the threshold from 50 track to say 10 track before Rossi calls.....that would slow his calls down. I will test that (you can too).

I played the game last night and today. It is too easy. I need to put back the -40% cargo prices (game wide). This game is supposed to require skill in knowing how to build custom consists to include and exclude cargo, how to buy the right trains for the right tasks, how to keep up with trains and their cargo, how to keep surcharges to a minimum and how to tycoon. It is suppose to be a tough battle - but achievable one.

Thanks for the feedback.

[Wolverine@MSU]

:1. Every month, it keeps the AI from building company cash. Its a way to keep the AI knocked down. The ISR is already a large company at the start of the game. Without a monthly reset of company cash, the ISR stock would split too many times over the years and become too large to take over.

I see now. I made it a one-time-only event, and sure enough, the companies grew pretty well until at some point (I think it was the Adriatic PAX contract), they went into the tank. They went several $million into the red, almost like someone (or something) took away a bunch of their cash. I had a quick look at the events, but didn't find anyting. Will look closer the next time I get back to the scenario.

:2. I had a self-debate over this when I built the game - whether or not to make the player go all the way to 1972 or not. Then I decided a contract is a contract and the player signed up for 25 years when they took the ISR contract. It takes several years to build up powerful enough to take over ISR. Played skillfully, the player will probably need most of those 25 years. (I originally had it a 30 year contract.)

After I got farther into the game, I see why you set the award at a certain date, especially when the Corsicans come along.

:3. Ahhhh.. Mr. Rossi. Why not just buy some track and he won't call you? I've played a game which used the territory brick (EPH or JayEff game?) and could copy that. Let me think about it. I could drop the threshold from 50 track to say 10 track before Rossi calls.....that would slow his calls down. I will test that (you can too).

Either way would be good. Most often, the reason I don't buy track is cause I don't have $1,000,000 laying around, and being the frugal player, I want to get the best deal for my money.

:I played the game last night and today. It is too easy. I need to put back the -40% cargo prices (game wide). This game is supposed to require skill in knowing how to build custom consists to include and exclude cargo, how to buy the right trains for the right tasks, how to keep up with trains and their cargo, how to keep surcharges to a minimum and how to tycoon. It is suppose to be a tough battle - but achievable one.

Well, I don't think -40% reduction will work.....I tried it (on Expert of course), and there's just no way to make a good go of it. 20% reduction might be a happy compromise; I have found it fairly easy with no cargo price reduction.

[OilCan]

Wolverine: Thanks for the helpful comments. I set the cargo prices at -30% in a 8-year trial run yesterday, and it was tough but I was stayed afloat. That was at normal game difficulty. I'll test it again this evening at expert game difficulty.

[Wolverine@MSU]

There's also a problem with the repayment of the overpayment for the oil-hauling contract. If the player choses to return the overpayment, you have "All companies" paying back the ~$6 million overpayment. This is why the AIs tank after that; they go way into the red and interest on the negative cash drives them further under. I'll try the 30% reduction tonight and see where I get on Expert (will also fix the repayment to be "Human Players only", or will set a condition to "Force test agains companies-On screen players company" for the repayment). That should keep them from being taken over by creditors, which is what happened to me. I never did take over ISR, so the event to finally win gold (connection to Florence, setting PV4=5) never happened. I gues with the previous fix, ISR won't go under, so a takeover will be necessary, leading to the connection being made.

[Wolverine@MSU]

It seems to work OK with -30% cargo prices although -40% would also work. The problem in the original version was that the -40% was applied twice (once for each AI setup) and ended up being -80%. I set this in AISetup and removed the -40% in AISetup2. I also fixed the repayment event so that AIs didn't get socked. I was able to meet all goals, although through the normal expansion of my railroad, I happened to connect to Florence (hadn't taken over ISR) and got the message that I had taken over ISR (I didn't do that until the very end of the game, and only did it just to show that it could be done).

The only bug I ran into was in the repayment of the Corsican loan. I opted out of that one in this play through, but the event to repay triggered anyway. You need to add a condition that the player has opted in on that one (GV2=5).

[OilCan]

Wolverine: I tested it at the -40% price and the 'challenge' returned. I'm in the middle of renovating a bedroom in my house and the wife wants me to spend evenings on that rather than RT3 !?! You know, any man who says that he's the boss of his house will lie about other things as well.....so the boss has had me working on the bedroom and I've not have much time to test the Italian Toymaker except to play the first few years with each test.

Your comments have been very helpful. I'll make the changes you pointed out late some evening this week. And, I stumbled on the 'Event Validation' page in the RT3 editor which points out problems with different events. A very informative page which made me wonder why I've never paid attention to it before!

Here's the deal with using Florence to detect when ISR was taken over. I had to have some way to know when ISR was taken over - or not. I could not get the "Player controls specific company" or "Player controlled ID" to work. I spent days and days on it. Finally, I thought about using a city along the ISR route which the human player would have no reason to connect to -- and Florence was the city.