Age Of Steam V-Pheonix Rising For Your Review

[Shamough]

WELL ... I took a GOOD look at the TERRITORIES setup ... REWROTE ALL

• Random 1 to 100 > 20
  Random 1 to 100 <= 40
  
  Is BAD it recomputes the random number each time and can give you nada for a TERRITORIES set
  
  Better:
  • EVENT: Territories 0
    CONDITIONS:
    ... Game Year and Month >= 200802
    ... Force Test Against Companies is TRUE
    EFFECTS:
    Set Game Variable 1 to [Random 1 to 100]
    Set Game Variable 4 = 10
    
    EVENT: TERRITORIES 1
    CONDITIONS:
    ...
    ... Game Var 1 is <= 20 AND
    ... Game Variable 4 = 10 AND
    ...
    EFFECTS:
    Set Game Var 4 = 1
    
    EVENT: TERRITORIES 2
    CONDITIONS:
    ...
    ... Game Var 1 is > 20 AND
    ... Game Var 1 is <= 40 AND
    ... Game Variable 4 = 10 AND
    ...
    EFFECTS:
    Set Game Var 4 = 2
    
    Etc.

Which meant that I had to rewrite all of the GOLD, Silver and Bronze tests. I reordered them by Territory names.

• Game Var 4 = Territory set
  Some Territories are in two Territory sets. Soo ...
  
  • Winning CONDITIONS test example:
    ... (Game Var 4 = 1 OR
    ... Game Var 4 = 3) AND ... these two lines must be at the top of the conditions. Note this would allow for far more territory sets to be added.
    ...
    The rest of the Conditions were modified to reflect GOLD, Silver or Bronze wins
    Note: A new Setup was added to set PV 1-3 to 0 and Game Var 4 to 10
    EFFECTS:
    GOLD: Player Var 3 + 1
    Silver: Player Var 2 + 1
    Bronze: Player var 1 + 1

The whole idea was to leave the game playable as it was intended. I just tried to iron out a few kinks.

I'm currently testing this.

I will upload if someone wants to look at my alterations.

Hans

[Shamough]

GRRRRrrrrrr

It's the little gotchas that really spoil a day. Like using one or more variables that are already in use ... really messes with the game.

I think I have them all ironed out now ... back to testing


Hans

[Shamough]

The EVENT "AI Engines 3" sets the wrong engine to FALSE.

Change GR35 to FP45 FALSE to agree with AI Set 3

Was mucking around to see if I could allow a Mogul whose company had been taken over to setup a new company. As it is now there are no ID setup slots available. (As the game is now the Moguls can buy over 50% of their stock upon starting their companies ... but still can be enticed to sell at 200% Market Value.

I'm trying Comp ID >= 7 ...

[RayofSunshine]

With all these changes being made with this scenario, will an update be posted in the Archives?

[RulerofRails]

This post:

The AI's are pretty hard to take over. At first it was impossible, but in testing I found that it made the gold almost impossible if you play with AI's, so I weakened them a little so if there is a stock market crash or an AI player gets to greedy and loses all of his stock then you might have chance. So go for it.

Hans, I didn't see and respond to your comment about the AIs getting more than 50% of their stock in the start of the game as I assume you were trying to eliminate the AI like I did. I thought that this wasn't designed to be possible, but the above post seems to say that it was designed to be difficult but doable. i didn't try to prevent the AI men from getting 50% of their stock initial as shaking the market (to squeeze them all into a margin call) left them with little. However, I did buy into their companies as soon as they started them. (Personal cash is needed and I had emptied my company cash into my bank account by stock buybacks). The AI men don't start with that high percentage in their first month (I forget is it around 20%?). I bought in to the newest one as much as I could (up to just above the share price=book value per share level) as I knew that the AI would buy that stock the next month and I could then sell it for a slight profit when they bought the next month or a little later in that first year. This helps the AI men to be more vulnerable to the margin call I am planning for them all. I also found out that it is better to sell (likely short sell) shares 1,000 at a time until the first AI man is on the point of having insufficient margin. Then a 5,000 share lump will do the trick plummeting share price to obscene levels and ensure that they are forced to sell as many of their shares as possible. If you do things just right, the AI man may have negative cash and no shares remaining, otherwise continued short selling can take their stake even lower at some cost to you. Once you make sure they are all put in their place, spread out your buying efforts between the companies. It wont be possible at once, but depending on execution you should get a good stake right away. Every new month buy again and continue to do so until you have control 51% stake of them all. You can buy more, whether you should or not is a decision that doesn't affect the eventual goal of taking over the AI unless you plan on using the trick of selling shares at the time of merger to get a better price.

There are many factors that you can watch and adapt to like which AI man starts the first company and how strong an AI company will be initially, and others to try to control like timing of the market squeeze. You will need a full head of steam to make this grade and as always there is room for improvement to this strategy as well, good luck!

[Gumboots]

I might have to try these stock market shenanigans next time I have an RT3 binge. I think I've exhausted the standard industry/rail approach to the game.

[RulerofRails]

I might have to try these stock market shenanigans next time I have an RT3 binge. I think I've exhausted the standard industry/rail approach to the game.

Even though I don't enjoy many stock market tricks, bankrupting the AI chairmen because of their own greed is fun! I'm sure you will like it too. I love building up the economy according to my plan. There are so many excellent maps to play, and I try to avoid the tedious stuff like searching the map for new industries every single year or micro-managing. This way it remains fun for me.

[steamer64]

http://www.iowadot.gov/iowarail/railroa ... asemap.pdf

railroad map of Iowa for updating

[obertran]

Hi all.

I have just finish this map, finally with gold medal, and it's higly recomendable. I have played with no oponents, what I think it is easier. In any case a hard map with many funny hours. Well, it took me one year to win gold but I have to say that I can't play as oft as I would like.

Thanks

[low_grade]

A nice capstone to the AoS series, played this one today, all rail all the way. Started up in Illinois because no rivers and free autos and machinery. Another generous map, but puzzling out the optimum path to success is surely a bit tricky, and captivating. Some years I just looked at how to best supply ports and warehouses to generate cargo, in the middle years I looked at setting up rural stations for logs, rock, and iron, and in later years I looked at double-tracking and duplicating the most profitably routes. Wasted a bit of cash, like $63M, upgrading all locos to A1 2-4-2's, only to spend another now $69M a year later to replace all with Mallards. I wouldn't want to play this with AI's, it's nice as a solo adventure. Great newspapers throughout! Great feeling of story. I didn't take advantage of price outbreaks intentionally, but yeah, my freight revenue went from 60M to 120M in a year without any major changes, so I can tell that the price islands had a major impact in pushing company profits over $225M, and possibly haulage goals over $12M. I had Algona, Peoria, Pickering, and TargMart. Gold on expert in 2036.

[Gumboots]

Haven't played this one for ages, but from memory I found the newspapers annoying. I was even thinking at one point of revamping the scenario to change them.