Red River Valley - Beta Version

[OilCan]

This is a 1.06V beta version of the 1800 iron industry in eastern Kentucky, specifically in the Red River valley. It is a connect and haul type of game.

This game is not for the novice. It entails lots of micro-management of trains and resources. It requires hauling four raw resources (iron ore, coal, timber &/or rock) to a blast furnace to make cast iron - then the cast iron has to be hauled to a far off warehouse. Train traffic and congestion has to be managed.

There is a historic story line which leads the game. Prices are depressed to 1840s era and industry increases in cost by 1% per year.

When I make gold it is usually within the last 1-2 years of the game.

I would greatly appreciate any comments or criticisms which would improve the game.

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Note: Beta file removed on Nov 25

[AdmiralHalsey]

I'll give it a shot when I have the time.

[Hawk]

Whelp, my first attempt at this wasn't so good. At 22 years I quit and decided to try again, with some new found knowledge.
There was no way I could get Gold in this try.
The good thing is: This map is enjoyable and interesting enough to make playing it again something to look forward to.

So far I really like this one. Haven't found any irregularities so far. other than the fact that the briefing doesn't tell you that you have 30 years to complete it, but the status page does.
Not too sure the yearly report is really necessary.

[OilCan]

At 22 years I quit and decided to try again, with some new found knowledge.

I hope you the best on your next try. This is not an easy game. One has to keep checking up with their trains pretty much the entire game.

[Hawk]

One has to keep checking up with their trains pretty much the entire game.

I didn't really find that necessary. I set them up to haul a certain number of loads and they pretty much kept that haulage setting throughout. I didn't see any mines or logging camps disappear.

The only problems I had on that fist go was getting the ingots hauled and the city connection. Mainly because i wasn't aggressive enough on expanding the track to all the needed cities.
I probably could have made the city connection requirement but there was no way I was going to make the haulage requirement in the remaining 8 years.
At the 22 year mark I had less the 200 loads.

[Hawk]

I'm not sure why, but in Jan. 1847 the scenario told me I lost the game because I hadn't connected Stanton and Clay City, which I obviously had.
I checked the event and it was only supposed to test one time, but it seems it missed that command and checked again, but turned up checking false against something that was true.

What's so bad is this was my 5th attempt at this map and it was my best try so far.

I'm going to go back and keep plating it and see if it did in fact end the game.

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Edit 1: Yep! Sure 'nuff. It quit counting loads of Ingots.

I think it was just a fluke because that didn't happen in my other attempts, but it couldn't have happened at a worse time.

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Edit 2: OK! I guess it was just some kind of weird fluke. I went back to a save from Jan 1843 and ran it fast through March of 1847 and it didn't happen this time.
At least I can go back to 1843 of the good attempt and start from there.

What's weird is looking at the event debugging: In the lost version it tested 3,258 times in Feb 1847 but in the good one that I ran through fast it only tested 885 times in March 1847.

Here's a screenshot of the lost version in Feb 1847.

Feb 1847.jpg (9.61 KiB) Viewed 11582 times

Here's a shot of the good, fast version in March 1847.

March 1847-Good.jpg (9.45 KiB) Viewed 11582 times

Here's a shot of the autosave from Jan 1847 (or Dec 1846, whenever the autosave fires).

autosave Jan 1847.jpg (9.62 KiB) Viewed 11581 times

Strange!!!!!!

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Edit 3: Well, I've made it to 1860 so it appears that fluke is gone.
Looks like I'll only make Silver on this one though, and that's on medium game play.

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Edit 4: Well, here's where I stand in March 1864.



Looks like I'll just have to burn track to a bunch of cities.

[RayofSunshine]

This, OilCan, is a very interesting and enjoyable scenario.

First, I did not use any tunnels or the Editor, and just used common sense in the laying of track. I may have had to lay extra track to avoid too many steep inclines.
Second, I did not get booted, but failed to make that first load of ingots to Irvine. I failed to use a 'priority', and hence delivery was short for the requirement. Hence I had to "stop" the 2nd haul, to make sure of consecutive requirments.
Thirdly, I liked all the bonuses of goals met, and the only option which I did not use, was the 2nd offer to spend $1.5M for some logging development. I was too short on cash at the time, and did not want that debt.
Fourth, although it was not a requirement, I did cnn all the cities, believed to be 78-79.
So far, but then came the
Fifth, I had engines 'standing by' at Stanford, but was not getting any ingots manufactured. Thought it odd as I had
9.1 coal, 21.3 iron, 33.2 logs, and 5.8 rocks. Did not have that problem throughout the game, but this happened in the 29th and 30th year.
And last but not least, the Sixth. Although I believe I had an abundant amount of goals required, I didn't get any medals. Only playing in Medium, and continued to play thru the 31st year.

OH, I did have $1M in debt, but there wasn't any indication of being debt free.

[Hawk]

but there wasn't any indication of being debt free.

Yes there is. Right there in the briefing.

Red River.jpg (69.39 KiB) Viewed 11562 times

[Hawk]

Whelp! I made it this time.

Red River Gold 1.jpg (72.94 KiB) Viewed 11558 times

Red River Gold Ledger.jpg (48.23 KiB) Viewed 11558 times

I could have connected all cities with no problem. As a matter of fact, I spent the last 5 years just waiting around for the ingots to get hauled.

In my opinion the rock hauling wasn't really worth it. Even though 1 rock produced 3 ingots, there was so little rock on the map the time and money put into hauling it just didn't seem to pay off.

I did help ol' Wildcat with his still. He did real good 3 or 4 years in a row. We even went on a couple of binges together.

I never did build any post offices, but I did make a pretty good bit of many off of that event anyway.
I never pursued logs either. Just didn't seem to be worth it. Not enough on the map to fool with, IMHO, although I did help Press out on the first offer. Just never did anything with it.

At the beginning money was pretty hard to come by, but about half way through the game it was a pretty full til. Towards the end of the game I wouldn't have been able to spend it all.

I never did but any industry.

I did like the wagers on the train pulls. Nice twist.

All in all this was another great scenario. I was on the edge of my seat near the end. Worth playing again.

[OilCan]

Ray & Hawk,
I'm glad you enjoyed the red river valley game. It was meant to be something of a challenge.
The rock production is a weak spot: I have had a struggle regulating it. Some games it cranks out and some games it does not. Maybe another quarry would help.
>> Did either of you build the train yard? And, if so, was it worth it?
>> Did either of you build the second furnace?

Hawk: I have no explanation about the stanton-clay city connection triggering twice. It never happened in all the test games I ran. How odd.

I'm working on a Navajo Land game right now...doing something worthwhile on the federal furlough.

[Hawk]

The rock production is a weak spot: I have had a struggle regulating it. Some games it cranks out and some games it does not. Maybe another quarry would help.

I only had two quarries the whole 30 years. I think you had more than that planned.
Maybe add a warehouse with a rock recipe or something along those lines.

>> Did either of you build the train yard? And, if so, was it worth it?
>> Did either of you build the second furnace?

Yes on both. I doubt I would have made Gold without that second furnace, and the train yard did bring in some extra needed money. At least needed in the early years.
I had 6 dedicated Ingots trains running from Stanton and 8 dedicated Ingots trains running from Vortex. More than that and I would have had trains sitting waiting too much.
By the way, I did build a second station in Stanton and Irvine. I did route my trains according to your map configuration, which took me a couple of test map loads to figure out.

Irvine.jpg (49.25 KiB) Viewed 10825 times

Hawk: I have no explanation about the stanton-clay city connection triggering twice. It never happened in all the test games I ran. How odd.

Neither do I. It's weird. I doubt it had anything to do with the map or events themselves. It had to have been some sort of strange glitch on my rig.
The only thing I can thing of that may have possibly caused it was that I was double-tracking into Stanton from Irvine when the end of the year messages started hitting.
This track didn't go directly to Clay City but cut off the Clay City track just out of Stanton.

Dbl-Trk.jpg (53.23 KiB) Viewed 10826 times

BTW! I won more times than lost on the wagers, but when I lost is when I needed it the most.
Mama always said: "Don't bet with scared money."

[OilCan]

Nice track and station configurations. I used double stations at Stanton (once used triple) but never did at Irvine. I'll have to try your idea the next time I play the game.
I'll add more rock to the map. Thanks for pointing this out.
I'm one of those players who uses the 'view' function on almost every game. I set a view on major stations &/or major mine sites so that I can easily see what's happening at them with the press of key. I watch the trains loading and when that last car reaches 100% of whatever it is I'm supposed to haul, I send it on. For this reason, I tend to have at least 2 trains waiting at a key station all the times.

[Hawk]

I try to keep at least one train waiting at a station, in situations like this.

What is this 'view' function? I know it's probably been discussed before but I don't recall.

Something I thought about was maybe adding another warehouse and have it accept one big rock and then cut it up into 3 smaller rocks, or something like that.
You know, making little ones out of big ones. Maybe that's something one of the Tolivers or Hardins could do after getting caught by the Sheriff.

[RayofSunshine]

Okay, I went back to one of the final "saves", and paid off the debt, considering that I had $25.4M revenue. And the reason that I probably received the Silver and missed the Gold, is that I also missed the requirement for 500 ingots, of which I only had 432.

I did use every option as mentioned, except that of the last offer to invest in some more logging camps. Now the mention of another "furnace", I don't recall that as being an option. However, being that Hawk constructed another depot at Santon, did that constitute a 2nd furnace? Missed that deduction of interpretation.

Although I didn't get the Gold in Expert, this is certainly an interesting and worth the while time to get involved with the challenges directed.

[Hawk]

Now the mention of another "furnace", I don't recall that as being an option. However, being that Hawk constructed another depot at Santon, did that constitute a 2nd furnace? Missed that deduction of interpretation.

No! In Feb. 1861, you get a message that says:

A wealthy doctor in Richmond approaches your company with an offer to jointly invest into a new iron blast furnace. The furnace would be built near the town of Vortex, in Wolfe County. It will cost your company $1,500,000 but could double the amount of cast iron ingots which could be shipped to Irvine.

A decision to invest (or not) will be needed from you at the end of this month.

[RayofSunshine]

Okay Hawk,
I don't recall that option, but then I do miss "things". Maybe at the time I just believed that I had an adequate amount of igots being processed and didn't take the advantage. Thanks for the info.

I double tracked the Santon or Stanton depot, and the traffic seemed to move along to my satisfaction. However, usually when I have a depot which is a "main" source of traffic, I do construct a second depot. 1 to handle the East or the left side of the map, and 1 to handle the West or the right side. Didn't do that this time.

Will have to pay more attention to "things" in the next attempt. LOL

[OilCan]

What is this 'view' function? I know it's probably been discussed before but I don't recall.

Position your screen to a scene you quickly want to return to, like a station at a key city or a cluster of mine sites.

Hold down SHIFT key and press a number such as 1. A screen message pops up that says something like: 'camera view assigned, press 1 to jump back to this view'.
From then on during the game, pressing '1' will immediately return to the scene you selected. It is a very handy tool. I use it during almost every game. I usually set a camera view for all key stations.
I often set a camera view on a newly built industry so I can quickly check on what's going on with that new industry.
You can also set a camera view for a single train. This is very handy as well. For example, if you set up a new haul route and want to know where the first loaded train is on that route, you set a view on that train so you can quickly see where it is at along the route. As a habit, I reserve the numbers 8 & 9 for trains.

[Hawk]

Ah yes. I remember now.

[RayofSunshine]

Thanks Hawk,
Will have to be more attentive in my next attempt.

[Wolverine@MSU]

I'm just a few years into this one but will have some comments as I progress. So far I'm findig it to be a very engaging scenario.