Great Southern II

[arop]

Attached below you'll find a new version of my map Great Southern RR from 2009. There were some problems with Great Southern RR version I, I remember. Would someone mind to crash test version II (under construction). Both version I and the new version II works properly on my XP computer (I haven't tryed my Vista), but someone had problems with crashes in the first version. What's new? a) All state borders added (not only "North" and "South") b) No admittance for AI's in Illinois, Missoury and Missisippi the first 30 years of the game. c) up to 15 opponents allowed. d) multiple companies allowed. e) some more small towns will be added later. f) some haulage bonuses will be added later :salute


N O T I C E: Please use later version from March 02! (Great Southern Railroad (Beta 1)

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Edit by Hawk: Map available in the archives in the North America section.

[RayofSunshine]

That was probably me Arop,
Although the problem must have been correted, as I was able to get the GOLD in Dec 2010.
Now it is hard for me to remember anything that happened a couple hours ago, let alone 1 1/2 years ago. LOL
Any way, I believe that, searching thru the threads for the Great Southern Rwy, I could not find any mention of the scenario "crashing". However, I have had the occassion of such, when the scenario was short of a specific "engine". As for the crashes, I may have corresponded to you thru the "PMs".
Will give your Great Southern II a whirl, as I enjoyed the initial creation. Once the problem was corrected.

[RayofSunshine]

Got a big surprise on trying to make the 1st cnn of 2 cities. There is only 50 track available. Is there more in the programming, which isn't mentioned, as to the amount of track which will be available each year? In 25 years, I don't know if it is possible to make the cnn between CHI-STL, and MEM-MSY.

[arop]

Sorry! It seems I have made a zip file of the wrong version with a defunct trigger in the setup track event. I appologize I'll put things right very soon. I'm considering to change setup human track to +500 sections of track, while during the test play (the right version) I was about to run out of track after merging with about 20 companies and wanting to interconnect, having max. 500 sections per year. At the moment I am busy working on another (new) project. But I think that a final beta version of this map can be ready at the end of next week

[arop]

Attached to this answer you will find my map Great Southern Railroad II (beta version).
Whats new:
a) track setup trigger fixed: +500/max. 150 sections of track per year Human/A.I. players.
b) No oilfield west from St. Louis (oil in the New Orleans area only).
c) Player bonus 5 mill. for hauling 2000 lumber,steel, cotton and livestock lifetime, without time limit.
d) connecting Chicago to New Orleans player is forced to connect intermediate stations.
e) Company bonus 10 mill. for having 5000/10.000 miles of track.
f) Multiple and up to 15 A.I. companies allowed.
g) All state borders added. Illinois, Missoury, Tennessee and Missisippi closed for A.I.'s the first 30 years of the game.
h) Building density lowered to 90% at game start, -growth is set to 0.2% per year over the whole period.
i) 5 new towns added (now a total of 175 cities).
Any comments, advice or suggestions are (as usual) welcome

PS. map material about US railroads by state can be found at the site P-FMSIG 1948 U.S. Railroad atlas. Have plessure!

[RayofSunshine]

Thanks for your efforts of updating Arop. Looks to be an interesting scenario with its new challenges. Will attempt it at a later date, as have a couple other ones in the process of testing or playing.

[RayofSunshine]

Okay Arop,
There are definitely some differences from the original scenario. One of which is the increase of the hauls to 2000. After 30 years, I am managing to peg out at the 500 per commodity. Don't know if 2000 is within the goal.

Now I am running 72 engines, with 125 farms and industries, and only 4 AIs left of the original 15. Might be possible to acquire 3 of them, but there is 1 which has been aggressively starting services in a few different areas, and likewise buying up a """considerable""" number of farms. No industries, but capatalizing on my operations for its profits.

At this point I cannot give an answer to the $5M for each of the 2000 hauls per commodity, and to be awarded to the company. However, I found that I was awarded the $10M for the 5000 track connections, and it was awarded to my company, and not to me as the player, as so stated in the initial notice bulletin.

Otherwise, no other problems, or difficulties with the scenario, and this time I am playing in the Expert. Which might be the reason for the requirements of CBV, LIP, and PNW, of which I am only nearing the BZ level.

[RayofSunshine]

Well Arop,
I made a number of notes on my playing, but they don't seem to tabulate with your "programming". I did manage to get the 5000/10,000 sections of track, but believe that the bonuses went to the "company". And I am not sure if it was $10M.
Also managed to get all but the 2000 steel hauled. Only 1/2 of the amount, and although the supply seemed to be adequate, the mills were not putting out steel fast enough. I had 2 and even supplied an AI's to help the manufacture.
The bonuses for the hauls also went to the company.
But lets go to the result.

Besides the steel, I did not pay enough attention tot he CBV requirement. Believed that it was the same as LIP, so only attained $744M. And being that I had all the other requirements, only got the Silver in the Expert.

Too the challenge of the 15 AIs, and was able to merge with all of them, including 6 more which started up other railroads after I that boughten their 1st railroads.

I also noticed that in 1930 there was a notification of a Depression. I had not been able to acquire the "agressive" AI in mergers, although I had 50+% of the stock, but then its $213M decreased to $173M, so I was able to make the merge. However, the year end status page still showed "Properity".

In the end, which was too close to the end of the time frame, and to get the necessary $900 CBV, I had dozens of trains running to compete with the remaining AI, who just would not accept a merger throughout the game, and because the manager had the controlling stock. Almost 200 engines running total fleet. Had to double track a lot, but mostly against this last AI.

Found the scenario to be a good challenge, even though I had some doubts of attaining the requirement 1/2 though the game. Hope all will enjoy it as much as me.

[arop]

for your comments. The final version has now been submitted to Hawk. The confusion about bonuses is fixed by now

[RayofSunshine]

Guess I will have to retrack some of the comments of my previous thread. I forgot to update the previous version and thereby was using some of the wrong requirements. At this point, I just seem to remember that the bonus awards were sometime given to the the CBV rather than the PNW. BUT, it is an interesting and challenging senario. I enjoyed its concept very much, and recommend it.

[jcarlyle]

I'm experiencing a game crash when saving games with this scenario. The crash happens regardless of whether it is a manual save or an autosave. Always seems to happen when the save status indicator is at 86%.

I tried loading the scenario in the scenario editor, and it too crashed when saving.

Any ideas what might be going on?

Fortunately, I was able to disable autosave and play the scenario to completion.

[Sugus]

I remember that I had the same problem with the previous version Great Southern RR (from Octobre,20 2009). After I installed any konwn additional locomotives, the crash problem was "solved". So, I think that arop still should enumerate all loocomotives additionally required by this scenario.

[jcarlyle]

I remember that I had the same problem with the previous version Great Southern RR (from Octobre,20 2009). After I installed any konwn additional locomotives, the crash problem was "solved". So, I think that arop still should enumerate all loocomotives additionally required by this scenario.

Thanks for the tip. I'll try adding some locos to see what happens.

[RayofSunshine]

I don't know if this is of any help, but it was a missing engine which seemed to be causing the problem. It was suggested at that time, that it was maybe the Hudson J11a, but not positive at this time, but do remember that I made the addition of a number of missing engines. However, I went through the complete list of "user created" engines, and added the ones that appeared to be missing. Then went back back and played the scenario without any problem. With that result, I gave the list to Arop, of the engines which were in his engines "availability", to make the comparison. Good Luck, as it is an interesting scenario to play.