Hawk & Badger Railroad Forum

Attached to this topic you'll find a beta version of my latest map, Nova Scotia (and other parts of th Atlantic Canada) ready for testing
Map attachment deleted. Now available in the Archives.

Since Friday, I have made an improved version of this map, Nova Scotia beta#2, you'll find it below. I have just finished the test game, and won the Gold in 1949. Among 4 companies I was the sole surviver in 1923, when I merged with "Canada Eastern Railway". As usual: any advice, comments and suggestions are most wellcome

Map attachment deleted. Now available in the Archives.

Anyoone playing this map My next project is brushing up my map: Lowerer Michigan, an older map, downloaded by so many. I think, that my map making tecnicque has been improved so very much since the first issue.

Yes, Arop,
I did manage to get the Silver, as I was unable to merge wilth the remaining AI. It was my error, as after I merged with the 1st AI, another popped up, to which I purchased the controlling stock. However, I should have continued to purchase more stock in the initial AIs, as 1 became aggressive, as the game ended with him still having the controlling stock.
It did not matter of what the economy, and I even ran double track in parrel to all of his track, and multiple trains, but he maintained a very healthy "fleet" of trains. Also, he did not make much profit, but as so said, he would not permit a merger.
Very interesting scenario. And although the AIs were not very aggressive in buying up the farms, a player was required to purchase as many farms, and the "feed" the supplies to the purchased industry. Keeps a player shuffling around to attain as many of such, for both the CBV and LIP requirements.

I ran into no problems with the programming.

I sort of "went into the back door". In the running of parralell tracks with the remaining and last AI, their revenue and profits went "down the tube", but they still managed to stay "afloat", with their over 51% stock.
Now my intention was to "issue stock" in my company, to attain 51% stock, and then "resign" and attempt to get the chairmanship of that AI. Well, in the meantime, although I continued to try and merge, the economy went into a "booming" level. Due to my competition in hauling, and the economy, their stock was low, but with the increase in the economy, their stock came to a level, at which I offerred the max, and finally did merge in 1943, 12 years ahead of the deadline, and thereby the GOLD.
Don't know, although will attempt the idea to resign, and try for the AI Chairmanship, but being that the "1" member has the 51% of stock, it may not be acceptable to him. The money from a merge would be the better chose for him.
Anyway, I did not run into any problems, technically, so believe that the scenario is complete. Although there could be some "fine tuning" which some more knowledgeable member may suggest.

for your testing and comments. Now I have submitted the final version and a railway map of Nova Scotia to Hawk, expecting him to put it in the RRT3 map archives soon

arop wrote: for your testing and comments. Now I have submitted the final version and a railway map of Nova Scotia to Hawk, expecting him to put it in the RRT3 map archives soon

It will be in the archives in the morning.

OK! It's now in the archives.

Playing through Arop's new map on Expert just now...

Mapple sirup warehouses make early industry profits too easy. Despite mostly tiny towns, strong industry start and beginning to lay track 4-5 years in has lead to a massive start, hard at this point 15 years in to spend the money as fast as it's coming in. Own majority stakes in 2 of the other 3, but didn't get into the 3rd fast enough and at this point, despite the epic length of this scenario, hard to say how I'm going to get gold... no more stock to buy. Also, reluctant to merge with either of the two I could get since the way they come is rather impractical, with water and maintenance stops right on top of stations. Pretty to look at, but bad for train speeds.

Mostly flat track makes engine choices easy and a little boring. All Dukes for the time being. Am starting to run into resource over-supply since the towns are so small there's hardly any demand for most finished goods.

Anybody else playing this? Arop, have you been able to get all the other 3 companies? Just curious.

Edit: also, industry costs are not 1000% more than normal to start with, as intended according to the briefing, but are normal. If this were actually the case, that would effectively deal with my complaint that it's too easy to make big money early with the industrial strategy.

Also, in the briefing, there are goals listed for CBV, LIP, and then CBV again, which I think is supposed to be PNW. Could use an edit for clarity.

Edit 2: Now that I've merged with the 2 companies I had majorities in, the AI's have just started new companies with all the cash I just gave them for their stock and now the ledger says there's 4 companies again... maybe disable starting more than one company.

I figured your post would be more suitable in the Reviews forum, so I merged it with the existing topic.

Reply to Low Grade: a): Maybe I shouldn't make these 3 types of warehouses buyable, it was my intention only to have them a few places. b): So far I remember, I have compensated low train speeds around stations, because of I place service facilities, by reducing load/unload time by 50%. c): Your complaints about mostly flat track: Nova Scotia is not very mountanious, in fact, when starting up mapbuilding, I doubled all elevations, just to make it possible to cross rivers without these ugly steep inclines around bridges, making things look a little toyish. I also use to prebuild all trackage and straighten out grades a little, in attempt not to make them too "bumpy", in a way that they look like in the real world. d): To avoid the prebuilt A.I's having a too big advantage in the beginning, the industry costs (for A.I's only) is raised 1000% for the first 25 years. In my test game, the opponents were very reluctant to invest in industries at all. The reason I use prebuilt A.I's is, that I cannot stand to se these "Artificial Idiots" building track in their helter-skelter way. e): Though the special conditions does not alow multiple companies, I still wonder why another new company popped up during my test game. This and a couple of text failures must be corrected in a version 1.1 coming soon. for your comments!

That and I'd say start the AI's with 0 cash not $100K. Though they make their companies dish out like $20 per share dividends, so in no time they'll have enough cash to buy up the rest of the shares available anyway. Even with dividends set so high, when I merged with PEI and Intercolonial at a cost of maybe $6M or $8M each, they both came with an additional $10M-$15M so I ended up making a huge profit for my business... which I then used about $2M of to bulldoze and re-place all the water and maintenance facilities I'd just bought...

And the problem with your warehouses is that they demand like 1 unit of something cheap to make like 4 or 5 units of something usually not as cheap, so the profits in them are going to be huge. If production for them was set to be 1 to 1 or at most 1 to 2 this would make them more balanced.

Attached below you find version 1.1. What's new: Special industry (buyable warehouses) production has been trimmed. To put another kind of restraints on A.I.'s, their cargo prices are reduced by 50% for the first 25 years. (at that time many Canadian railway companies (with British capital) were struggling for their lives in a nation with a total population of only 4.3 mill. in 1881). After a trial run of 5 years, the A.I.'s stock had dropped significantly, only a few stocks had been bought by A.I.'s, and no industries had been bought up. For the time being I have no time for further testing . I just hope everything is working by now.

I started playing this one (on Expert) and had an extremely hard time trying to make any money. Normally lucritive industries, like Lumber, Paper, and Textile Mills were barely making a profit, and a look at the Cargo Overlay screen showed severly reduced prices for almost all cargoes (mostly yellow to orange and red, with almost no light green). After playing several years, and getting nowhere, I had a look at the events, and see that the AI adjustment reduces cargo prices by 50% for 25 years for the AI players. Although there are radio buttons for choosing companies, and or territories (if forced against in Conditions), cargo prices are a gamewide factor, and can not be imposed on particular players, companies, or territories, regardless of whether these are chosen in the Conditions or Effects screens. Think about it for a minute.....you can't have different cargo overlays for different companies (well, you could, but it would be difficult to program), and even though it would be reasonable to think you could set cargo prices by territory, it turns out that even this doesn't work. I tried reducing cargo prices in N.B. and PEI with 2 separate events at startup, forcing against territories, but when I actually started the game, it had done a double-whammy on the prices across the board, including N.S.

So I got rid of the cargo price reductions, and instead burdoned the AIs with 1000% increse in Station/track building costs and Overhead, and a 10,000% increase in Industry buy/build cost (for the first 25 years). That worked OK in keeping their growth down and stock prices reasonable.

Aside from a number of spelling mistakes, the game is running smoothly with no major problems.

a lot for your comments! Attached to this answer you'll find version 1.2. Whats New? a) special conditions "no multiple companies" is replaced by "starting any companies disabled". b) build/buy industries +10.000% for the first 25 years, A.I.'s only. c) Company overhead, station and track maintenance +100% the first 25 years, A'I.'s only. d) tried to find wrong spellings and tried to correct them the best I can (I'm Danish and English isn't my native tongue). I hope by now this map is ok. Have plesure

I'll give the new version a go and keep you updated on my progress. I would be glad to edit some of the spellings/grammar and send you an edited version for final posting.

As for disabling starting any companies, that'll prevent the AIs from reappearing after you buy out their companies (always a pain in the butt when sole-survivor is a medal requirement). After much frustration dealing with these "upstarts" I came upon a solution that keeps them in their place, as long as they have enough publically available shares, you have enough prchasing power to buy a controlling share in their company, and you have at least 50% share in your own company. What you need to do is drive them into the ground, PNW-wise, so they don't have enough purchasing power to start yet another company. The way you do this is to buy a controlling share in their company (usually best to do this as soon as they appear), assume leadership, issue a bond (or as many as you can), and use their cash to buy back stock. Typically, you'll run out of shares to buy back before running out of cash, so if you have any left over company cash, throw it down the tubes by buying industries and promptly selling them at a 50% loss, or lay useless track/stations and buldoze them. When you run out of money, retake control of your original company, sell off all the rest of your shares (sell short a few thousand if you can) and go merrily along. The new AI company will quickly go down the crapper, the AI himself will be left holding the bag, and unless he had a lot of cash to begin with, will probably not have enough to ever start another company.

Evil tycoon!

The 78 city connection goal needs to be fixed. When you take over the AIs, their cities count toward the displayed (Status) total, raising the total to above 78 (after all NS cities are connected). The condition calls for exactly 78 cities connected, so it will not fire correctly.

I'll try to get it fixed within a few days

Arop:
A very enjoyable game. I liked the smoothed terrain and the spacing between cities is about right. The routes were predictable, but that's typical of an ‘Arop game’. There was a good mix of resources from which to build a profitable company. The AI’s were aggressive enough to be troublesome in the stock market. Finished the game with gold in 31 years, with 54 years left on the game clock.

Some comments and suggestions:
1) The =78 year condition for gold needs to be set to >=78 years. Do the same for Bronze and Silver medals as well.
2) The gold trigger needs to be set to End of Month and not at Beginning of Year.
3) Please insert a line break between each item in the status. This makes it easier for the player to read the status.
4) I liked the use of special warehouses. Very creative.
- Three un-named warehouses appear in the build list. It would be better if they were named. The third un-named ‘warehouse’ on the list does not supply or demand anything: it may need to be dropped out of the list.
- The ‘warehouse, Amhearst’ and ‘Junction or Ferryport’ supplies and demands passengers and mail. I was not clear on why it is set this way. It would seem to cancel itself out. The Amhearst warehouse also supplies automobiles, but the player does not see this since auto plant industry is turned off.
- The crystal warehouse does not supply or demand anything until 1905 when chemical plants become available. This is 35 years into the game. It will cost a player $700,000 to find this out. Maybe a warning in the general message area that this warehouse does not become active until 1905 would help.

English is a frustrating language for those who speak it as a native tongue. I have the highest admiration for those who speak it as a second or third language. There are some small spelling mistakes in the game's text. If you wish, I will point them out in a private message.

Well done Arop!