New Test Map - California High Speed Rail (CA10)

[RTFanStation]

Well, I finally got around to starting a Trainmaster map.

This "Test Map" (not an official release) focuses on the recent past, present, and future in the state of California.

BACKGROUND
With California’s highways/freeways jammed and its airports overloaded, it was natural for the
state government to look for a way to alleviate the problem. In 1996, the California High Speed
Rail Authority (CHSRA) was founded as a basis to tackle the problem. Drawing off of systems in
Europe and Asia, the Authority has drawn up an extremely detailed plan to build the New
World’s first true high speed rail system. Reaching planned speeds of up to 220 mph, the
California High Speed Rail system is planning on being one of the fastest high speed systems in
the world.

DESCRIPTION
You’ve been hired by the CHSRA’s Board of Directors to be its Chief Executive Officer. You are in
charge of preparing, constructing, and operating the entire high speed rail system within the
timeframe and restrictions provided by the CHSRA’s Board of Directors and the California State
Government. You must prove that the system lives up to its pre-construction hype and that it, when
finished, is efficient, profitable, and will be on track to pay off its entire construction and planning
costs within a few decades. This will prove to be no easy task for any Railroad Tycoon.

This map is (somewhat) historically accurate. The California High Speed Rail Authority is a real entity - http://cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/

The map is available at my site's Map Archive: http://www.techtourguide.com/kurtdvich/MapArchive.htm

I hope to get back to finishing the map soon. Thanks in advance for an reviews or comments!

[nedfumpkin]

I just read through the information on this scenario and I am going to poke around in it for a bit, but it is really looking cool so far and perhaps you would consider making it a campaign map. Slot 10 would fit, so the final file would be CA10.gmp

[nedfumpkin]

Check your start up events, one message seemed to trigger a few times.

Make a comment somewhere that players should be familiar with the other RRs since I had no idea which was which when I started getting offers.

Events can't affect prices except globally. It sucks, but it is true. So the event at Oxnord, will not work.

Nice map btw. Far too many locmotive choices though. I would limit to a few diesels and a few electrics.

[RTFanStation]

The last one, with the "Special Conditions" seems to be troublesome. I'll check that.

Make a comment somewhere that players should be familiar with the other RRs since I had no idea which was which when I started getting offers.

I think I'll add that to the informational PDF for the next release. I'm sure that would help clear up some questions about the already established companies.

Events can't affect prices except globally. It sucks, but it is true. So the event at Oxnord, will not work.

I'll have to find another way for those deals (at Oxnard and Riverside) to work, then.

Nice map btw. Far too many locmotive choices though. I would limit to a few diesels and a few electrics.

Good idea. Also, each AI company is allowed its own 'special' locomotive. (Amtrak California, for instance, is the only company to have the AMD-103)

I just read through the information on this scenario and I am going to poke around in it for a bit, but it is really looking cool so far and perhaps you would consider making it a campaign map. Slot 10 would fit, so the final file would be CA10.gmp

That would be great! I'll get back to work on it and finish at least the Stationmaster requirements before posting and update for this one.


I also have one final question - has anyone found the Yardmaster requirements too difficult for the small amount of time that you're given to complete them?

[nedfumpkin]

Hint on this map...buid a meat packing plant to make hides that you exchange at a port for coal.

[RTFanStation]

Hint on this map...buid a meat packing plant to make hides that you exchange at a port for coal.

Ahh yes. That would help. The industrial supply/demand is really complicated in the modern time period, so I forgot that's possible.

Anyhow, I'll add one in Southern CA.

[Blackhawk]

Ned's already mentioned some things that he noticed. I took a quick look at the map last night at 1-2am and noticed a few things. It was too late at night for me to actually give it a try after I stared at the map for awhile and decided it was too much for me to figure out where to start at that hour of the day.

- The After Pringle event - The "Special Conditions" needs to be changed to test against on screen player only
- Deal 1 - BSNF should be BNSF
- The metrolink event - you have acceleration up 25 levels but call it percent.
- THe BNSF event - you have engine reliability up 15 levels but call it percent. Some things in the game go by levels rather than percentages, like acceleration and reliability. Which has levels of poor, below average, average, above average, good, and outstanding. (I may be missing some) so an increase of 15 doesn't increase the reliability 15% it increases it 15 levels up to the top level, so they'll have outstanding/perfect reliability.

-As Ned said the specific area price changes of Investor 1 and Investor 2 won't work like you intend. For one you could use an add event - warehouse (the #1 warehouse can be added by event, the others can't be) and use the warehouse placement to increase demand in the area. Demand coal and iron and output coal and iron. Although in crowded areas it can be difficult to get an "add event" placed building to work.

-Also check your industries page. You have warehouses and ports being able to be built by the player. I'm not sure if that's intentional or not, usually most people don't let a player build their own warehouse.

[Blackhawk]

Alright i finished a play test up to Jan 2006 as by then all the goals were completed. And noticed a few more things.

- You use LTD Electricity but then say the electricity should be produced between 2005-2011. If you want to make it so the player actually has to make the electricity in those set years, and not before then (like I did), you should switch to using variables. Something like I did in my juice train map for food to Cincinnati I believe. ex. CV3 = average YTD electric produced by company. CV4 + CV3. Then CV4 > 250 gigawatts. Just be sure to check it at the end of the year.

- There should probably be a maintenance shed between Anaheim and San Diego.

- Besides adding to the ledger the electricity requirement you may want to give a pop up message reminding the player that they have to produce power.

- The Round 1 LA/SD/Electric newspaper events all need some fixing. In the Newspaper you use [company name] and [player name] but I only saw the player name in the electric success newspaper, and the company name I don't remember seeing at all. (It may have but I don't remember seeing it) You probably need to add force test against player and force test against company or company id for those to work properly.

- The debt events also never triggered for me. I think i had 4-5 million in debt. Again try adding force test against company. You'll probably also want to test this weekly rather than monthly. Although even then someone may still be able to take out more than 4-5 million in loans before the event triggers.

- Also related to the debt events Debt 5 mill - It tests against 5 million in debt, but says $4 million in the newspaper headline.

- As Ned said some of the locomotives can probably go away. Particularly early on where using electric is unlikely.

My route to "winning" part 1, which may not be exactly how the scenario was intended to be played out was as follows:
First I built a bio-diesel plant in Merced, and a meat packing plant between Palmdale and Victorville. Shortly after seeing the massive amounts of hemp Merced had and with an explosives plant next to it, I figured I'd then build a textile plant, paper mill, and publishing house. Most of these were eventually upgraded and then I had an old cheap G7 just wait at the station until it was full of fuel/goods/explosives and send that down to LA. I was having a difficult time with keeping my cargoes in a city without the AI players stealing them away, so I built a warehouse in Riverside (Again not sure if being able to build warehouses was supposed to be allowed or not). The AI only occasionally came into Riverside, so I was able to get my hides and fuel to transform at that warehouse, and then I built a glass plant there and after a couple good years I sold it off as it wouldn't make much of a profit once I took all the machinery from Riverside. Then with a large amount of coal in Riverside, I built an electric plant and in 2-3 years got enough electricity.

At certain points on the map I did build track to connect BNSF's and Amtrak's lines. 1. so when I was trying to set up my own train's routes I wouldn't get the message the stations aren't on the same train routes. and 2. I got more than enough money for the AI running on my small strips of connecting lines to pay for the build cost and maintenance cost of the line as well.

I only built 1 station, and that was outside of Merced to try and avoid the horrible backlog of locomotives at the X crossing just south of the city. I'm not sure why but for a year it looked like the Amtrak trains were stuck there and other Amtrak trains were just piling up behind them. You may want to use an overpass to alleviate some of the backlog, unless that was intentional. I was just confused seeing Amtrak trains just sitting there, when the BNSF part of the X crossing wasn't even being used. Probably just another one of those RT3 glitches.
A link to a picture of this: http://img843.imageshack.us/img843/8143/merced.jpg I won't link it so the picture shows in the forum as Hawk says some imageshack links have cookies.

I will say most of the haulage goals were probably completed by the AI players. I accomplished some like part of the machinery and goods and all of the glass. Glass and machinery were probably the hardest. The rest the AI probably could have taken care of on its own. So while the AI was helpful in meeting the haulage goals, it was also frustrating to see it stealing my cargoes before the industry could use them and for the most part, Part 1 of this map seems largely based on finding somewhere profitable to place an industry and letting the AI supply my industries.

Nice concept for a map. I was attempting to do something similar with the Chicago-area's Metra, Amtrak, UP, and BNSF but after putting many hours into laying cities and track, I came to the conclusion my map wasn't big enough and I'd have to start over. So for the time being I put that project on hold.

One last thing, if this is a state company should you be allowed to buy stock in it? or issue stock? or change the dividend?

Well good luck with the updates and I'm curious to see what Part 2 and 3 hold.

[RTFanStation]

I'm sorry I didn't see your post until now!

so much for this very detailed review. I hope to get back this afternoon and completely respond to all of your questions/concerns about the map, as I don't have the time at the moment.

Again, thanks!

[Blackhawk]

Well as long as you eventually saw the post and any my comments are helpful to you then it doesn't matter if you didn't see it right away.

After reviewing your tentative requirements for the next parts of the map I guess I'll make a few more comments.
- You require a lot of track to be built in a short span of years, and much of this track will not be easy to do requiring several points of steep elevation grades and curves as well as possibly requiring that buildings be bulldozed. Obviously this will cost a lot of money. So you may need to have an event that lowers bulldozing or track building costs, or as a requirement to meeting the Yard Switcher goal, add in an industrial profits requirement of some sort so that way the player has some idea of what they have to attain. Even a mention that phase II will be a very large and expensive phase of the project will give the player some heads up, although it doesn't give as much guidance. Otherwise if I just sit back and let a few trains ship goods and suddenly I find out I need to do rapid expansion requiring millions of dollars that I don't have, I wouldn't be very happy.

- From 2015 to 2020 you can haul no more than 20 passengers for testing. This seems like it might be a slow part of the map where you'll end up having to sit and wait and watch your trains age and deal with rising track maintenance costs. If the electric track connects to the AI track though, maybe you'll make some income from using your lines to help cover the costs.

- Some of the haulage goals may be difficult to attain with only a year or two to achieve them. Ex. 5 electronics to Anaheim in 1 year, since electronics are a difficult cargo to make and unless some are already being produced this may be hard to do. Although I suppose with a dedicated rail line it'll be easier to move them so this may require testing to see if the cargo goals you give with only a year or two to achieve them are feasible.

- I'm not sure what is meant by the supply lines will no longer be able to be used. As most areas where you built track early on will likely have become incorporated into the expansive electric rail network that was created by the prior requirements. Even if they weren't I'm not sure how you will force the player to bulldoze them.

- No longer being able to buy diesels is possible, but there's no way to disable the diesels that have already been bought. Obviously the speed goal will force an upgrade anyway. You could also increase the breakdown chance of diesels and increase their fuel and maintenance costs which will effectively make the player want to upgrade. Again a warning may be nice to have here so the the player doesn't buy expensive diesels only to learn they're useless now.

- 'you're not allowed to run trains on the Merced or city of industry lines' - I'm not sure how you would accomplish this and making sure they don't run trains on it. I'd imagine they'd already have been used these lines to help ship cargoes to industries to pay for the maintenance costs, or meet the hauling goals.

- The average speed goal will obviously take some testing to see what is actually possible. And is it just average speed of express or average speed of all cargo? And YTD average speed or LTD average speed? I'd guess that 185mph will be too high as the track will likely have several difficult elevation grades going up hills and mountains, as well as some curves, and possibly frequent stops. You may want to also have an minimum number of passengers hauled requirement, otherwise if it's just testing average express speed, I could just have 1 train go from Sacremento to Fresno on the relatively flat valley and not make any other stops so the train reaches it's max speed and then have no other trains and then meet the speed goal and just rely on industry profits.

- Making 10 million in profits may be difficult to do as well. It's hard to say whether this is possible without actually having all the rail network created and being run. The best way to do it would probably be to build more industries and hope the industries can carry the profits since more trains just mean added expenses.

- The Optional goals, allowing you to use the competitors lines to ship cargoes. Since you've now required the player to get rid of all of his diesel locomotives, he will not be able to use most of the AI's rail lines as they are not electric track. So either all the AI lines have to be electric, or you still have to allow a diesel, or these haulage goals have to be done all on the player's own track.

[RTFanStation]

- The After Pringle event - The "Special Conditions" needs to be changed to test against on screen player only
- Deal 1 - BSNF should be BNSF

Taken care of.

- The metrolink event - you have acceleration up 25 levels but call it percent.
- THe BNSF event - you have engine reliability up 15 levels but call it percent. Some things in the game go by levels rather than percentages, like acceleration and reliability. Which has levels of poor, below average, average, above average, good, and outstanding. (I may be missing some) so an increase of 15 doesn't increase the reliability 15% it increases it 15 levels up to the top level, so they'll have outstanding/perfect reliability.

So you're saying I should put it as plus one or two levels instead of plus 25% or 15% to make it more realistic? That sounds better than 25 levels

-Also check your industries page. You have warehouses and ports being able to be built by the player. I'm not sure if that's intentional or not, usually most people don't let a player build their own warehouse.

I just forgot to turn that off before I released it. Oops

- You use LTD Electricity but then say the electricity should be produced between 2005-2011. If you want to make it so the player actually has to make the electricity in those set years, and not before then (like I did), you should switch to using variables. Something like I did in my juice train map for food to Cincinnati I believe. ex. CV3 = average YTD electric produced by company. CV4 + CV3. Then CV4 > 250 gigawatts. Just be sure to check it at the end of the year.

Shh...you're ruining a planned "Easter egg" for the players!
Just kidding...I'll change that for the correct time period.

- There should probably be a maintenance shed between Anaheim and San Diego.

Good idea.

- Besides adding to the ledger the electricity requirement you may want to give a pop up message reminding the player that they have to produce power.

Another good idea.

- The Round 1 LA/SD/Electric newspaper events all need some fixing. In the Newspaper you use [company name] and [player name] but I only saw the player name in the electric success newspaper, and the company name I don't remember seeing at all. (It may have but I don't remember seeing it) You probably need to add force test against player and force test against company or company id for those to work properly.

I noticed that after releasing it. Force test it with the company and player ID's? If I did that, then the loads the AI hauled wouldn't be counted, and the annual report statistics would be wrong. I think I'll just remove the [company name] and [player name] and put in the CHSRA name and no player name.

- The debt events also never triggered for me. I think i had 4-5 million in debt. Again try adding force test against company. You'll probably also want to test this weekly rather than monthly. Although even then someone may still be able to take out more than 4-5 million in loans before the event triggers.

The force test would work better for this one. Also, for the second test release, I bumped up all of the debt amounts. You'll need either $3.5 mil, $5.5 mil, or $8 mil in debt to trigger a newspaper event (which is more realistic, when you consider California's budget mess ) I'll change it to weekly now.

- Also related to the debt events Debt 5 mill - It tests against 5 million in debt, but says $4 million in the newspaper headline.

Fixed. (The event is now $5.5 million)

- As Ned said some of the locomotives can probably go away. Particularly early on where using electric is unlikely.

Yeah, I think I'll bring in the electrics around 2012-2014 instead of at the beginning.

First I built a bio-diesel plant in Merced, and a meat packing plant between Palmdale and Victorville. Shortly after seeing the massive amounts of hemp Merced had and with an explosives plant next to it, I figured I'd then build a textile plant, paper mill, and publishing house. Most of these were eventually upgraded and then I had an old cheap G7 just wait at the station until it was full of fuel/goods/explosives and send that down to LA. I was having a difficult time with keeping my cargoes in a city without the AI players stealing them away, so I built a warehouse in Riverside (Again not sure if being able to build warehouses was supposed to be allowed or not). The AI only occasionally came into Riverside, so I was able to get my hides and fuel to transform at that warehouse, and then I built a glass plant there and after a couple good years I sold it off as it wouldn't make much of a profit once I took all the machinery from Riverside. Then with a large amount of coal in Riverside, I built an electric plant and in 2-3 years got enough electricity.

I have found there are many ways to win the first part, but all of those ways that I have tried have focused around what you did in your test run.

I only built 1 station, and that was outside of Merced to try and avoid the horrible backlog of locomotives at the X crossing just south of the city. I'm not sure why but for a year it looked like the Amtrak trains were stuck there and other Amtrak trains were just piling up behind them. You may want to use an overpass to alleviate some of the backlog, unless that was intentional. I was just confused seeing Amtrak trains just sitting there, when the BNSF part of the X crossing wasn't even being used. Probably just another one of those RT3 glitches.

I saw that too...the trains stack up behind one stopped train at the "X" crossings. I think it's an RT3 glitch...it eventually alleviates itself after a year or two.
It did the same thing when I used overpasses. When I saw that happening with the overpasses, I switched it to the "X" crossings, to find the same result.

I will say most of the haulage goals were probably completed by the AI players. I accomplished some like part of the machinery and goods and all of the glass. Glass and machinery were probably the hardest. The rest the AI probably could have taken care of on its own. So while the AI was helpful in meeting the haulage goals, it was also frustrating to see it stealing my cargoes before the industry could use them and for the most part, Part 1 of this map seems largely based on finding somewhere profitable to place an industry and letting the AI supply my industries.

This is the unpredictable "wild card" aspect of the scenario. In some of my test runs, the AI supplied LA minimally (3-4 loads of one cargo only), and didn't supply SD at all.
During other tries, the AI fully supplied 2 or 3 of the needed cargoes for LA, and fully covered one of the three cargoes in SD.
I tried to make this map AI-intensive. I felt that the AI was lacking in depth or simply nonexistent in many RT3 and TM maps, so I allowed for the beefing-up on it in this scenario.
Since all of the AI companies are already well entrenched when you show up on the scene, it does lead to some frustration due to competition for cargo.
And yes, Industry placement is a big deal in part one.

One last thing, if this is a state company should you be allowed to buy stock in it? or issue stock? or change the dividend?

Probably not. However, the state agency may have to establish a public company when construction begins in 2012 (the planned date).
I wanted to leave that option open in case after the high speed line was built, and Amtrak, BNSF, Metrolink, or BART became unprofitable, then the CHSRA could buy them up without disabling the stock market aspect of the game. If my understanding is correct, it's all or nothing when it comes to buying or selling stock in companies.


My next post will respond to your advice about the part 2 & 3 requirements.

[Blackhawk]

- The metrolink event - you have acceleration up 25 levels but call it percent.
- THe BNSF event - you have engine reliability up 15 levels but call it percent. Some things in the game go by levels rather than percentages, like acceleration and reliability. Which has levels of poor, below average, average, above average, good, and outstanding. (I may be missing some) so an increase of 15 doesn't increase the reliability 15% it increases it 15 levels up to the top level, so they'll have outstanding/perfect reliability.

So you're saying I should put it as plus one or two levels instead of plus 25% or 15% to make it more realistic? That sounds better than 25 levels

Yup, just a bit. I'd imagine at some point after outstanding reliability you just can't be more reliable

- The Round 1 LA/SD/Electric newspaper events all need some fixing. In the Newspaper you use [company name] and [player name] but I only saw the player name in the electric success newspaper, and the company name I don't remember seeing at all. (It may have but I don't remember seeing it) You probably need to add force test against player and force test against company or company id for those to work properly.

I noticed that after releasing it. Force test it with the company and player ID's? If I did that, then the loads the AI hauled wouldn't be counted, and the annual report statistics would be wrong. I think I'll just remove the [company name] and [player name] and put in the CHSRA name and no player name.

I actually forgot that you were testing against the loads shipped for the event to appear, but I think it still may work if you add a force test or company id. The test for the loads is LTD load to Territory (LA), not LTD Company Loads to Territory. So I don't think the force test against company to provide the [Name] in the newspaper would affect the load count, but I may be wrong.

I only built 1 station, and that was outside of Merced to try and avoid the horrible backlog of locomotives at the X crossing just south of the city. I'm not sure why but for a year it looked like the Amtrak trains were stuck there and other Amtrak trains were just piling up behind them. You may want to use an overpass to alleviate some of the backlog, unless that was intentional. I was just confused seeing Amtrak trains just sitting there, when the BNSF part of the X crossing wasn't even being used. Probably just another one of those RT3 glitches.

I saw that too...the trains stack up behind one stopped train at the "X" crossings. I think it's an RT3 glitch...it eventually alleviates itself after a year or two.
It did the same thing when I used overpasses. When I saw that happening with the overpasses, I switched it to the "X" crossings, to find the same result.

Interesting. Another RT3 glitch of sorts I suppose. Thanks for that information as it may come in useful if I give my Chicago area scenario another try.

This is the unpredictable "wild card" aspect of the scenario. In some of my test runs, the AI supplied LA minimally (3-4 loads of one cargo only), and didn't supply SD at all.
During other tries, the AI fully supplied 2 or 3 of the needed cargoes for LA, and fully covered one of the three cargoes in SD.
I tried to make this map AI-intensive. I felt that the AI was lacking in depth or simply nonexistent in many RT3 and TM maps, so I allowed for the beefing-up on it in this scenario.
Since all of the AI companies are already well entrenched when you show up on the scene, it does lead to some frustration due to competition for cargo.
And yes, Industry placement is a big deal in part one.

I was actually surprised to see the size of the AI and the number of trains they had. It definitely brought a new feel to having an AI player.

One last thing, if this is a state company should you be allowed to buy stock in it? or issue stock? or change the dividend?

Probably not. However, the state agency may have to establish a public company when construction begins in 2012 (the planned date).
I wanted to leave that option open in case after the high speed line was built, and Amtrak, BNSF, Metrolink, or BART became unprofitable, then the CHSRA could buy them up without disabling the stock market aspect of the game. If my understanding is correct, it's all or nothing when it comes to buying or selling stock in companies.

That's pretty much true in it being all or nothing with stock. If you need to you can probably take advantage of the merger premiums and stock prices effects to make it more difficult to invest and try to take over a company until later in the map.

[RTFanStation]

Thanks again for your responses.

I'll be releasing version T2 (Test 2) of the scenario later today or tomorrow, which will include the second part (Stationmaster) of the map.

I'm thinking this next part will need a lot more refining than the first.

[RTFanStation]

Hey all -

The "Test Map 2" Edition of California High Speed Rail is now available here: http://www.techtourguide.com/kurtdvich/MapArchive.htm

Now the stationmaster events are now scripted in addition to the yardmaster.

Have fun and let me know how it works so far.

Also, for those who just want to test only the stationmaster portion of the scenario, attached below is an edited version that will allow you to do so.

Thanks!

[Blackhawk]

Well I finally got around to giving this another go.

My list of things I noticed:

- Warehouses can still be built

- Corn and Hemp bio-mass farms can be built as well. Although there's no reason to build them with all the farms that already exist but I figured I'd let you know that you can build them, in case you didn't know. Unlike other farms, the bio-mass farms can be built by the player. The only way to prevent this is to place the bio mass farms you want by event and then turn off the industry, in the industry overall tab.

- The debt at 8million didn't trigger because I went to 8.5 or 9million. You might want to consider changing the newspaper debt events to ranges rather than specific amounts. ex. >=4million in debt, then >=8million. This would require they be made 1 time events, but from what I've seen with part 2 of the map, there's no reason or need to have to take out more bonds again, and after I paid off my bonds in the first part of the map I was making about 10million a year so there would be no reason for me to take out more bonds again.

- It may have just been my play of the scenario, but by Beverly HIlls the track took a steep dip which slowed trains down quite a bit, that might be worth leveling out some if that's on the scenario and not just my play through.

- There was an event which something came up about the CHSRA's board. (2003 Info Notice), but in the message profitable is misspelled

- I took the deal with BNSF, and the 400k a year payments did not end in 2002 like they were supposed to. (from a quick look at the editor, the same may be true for the Metrolink deal)

- You also refer to a 15% reliability increase in the BNSF deal. I see you've changed it to an increase of 1 level in reliability, so I'm not sure if you wanted to still refer to it as a 15% increase or not. Figured I'd just mention it.

- I got the debt down to 4million, but I was still not able to take out bonds even though the newspaper said I should be able to. (You'll need to increase the credit rating for the company in that event)

- Just an "fyi" for you, Bay Area Transit filed bankruptcy in 2003. Although by 2013 they were still surviving and the company wasn't liquidated. But if the company files bankruptcy often or is always in debt it might be worth giving them some small amount of money each year to make sure they aren't liquidated.

- The Hauling violation events probably should be fixed as well. I know I hauled a couple passengers and mail and I don't recall receiving any notice for hauling any and the fine. Also as Hauling Violation 1 is not marked as a "one time event only" it will be checked every year and would penalize the player every year even if he only hauled PAX/Mail once. And with the way Violation 2 is set up, you could have several Violation 1's before receiving Violation 2. (As I could transport 2 PAX a year, and it would take 5 years before that would trigger Violation 2) It would be better to use something like:
Violation 1.
YTD Company PAX/Mail hauled > 0. ------ If true Company variable 4 = 1, and personal cash - 500k. I'd also make this a "one time event only."
Then for Violation 2:
YTD Company PAX/Mail hauled > 0
+ CV4 = 1. If true trigger Lose game.

-Most of the round 2 events need to be fixed. While 1 of the events uses company stations connects to city, the rest of the round 2 events just check to see if City X is connected to City Y. So after making the first connection, most of the other connections are already taken care of and you don't really need to build anything. Even connecting everything properly I was done and waiting for part 3 of the scenario in 2013.

-I would also consider adding some sort of other goals during these years to keep the player interested rather than just waiting for time to pass. Maybe create territories around certain cities and then require something be hauled from someplace to somewhere else. Ex. Passengers from LA to Merced. Then you'll put the new track that's been laid to use and give the player something to do rather than just build a track and wait for time to pass.

-I assume it's intentional you have to build electric track, but don't have any electric locomotives to use on the new track?