CrownVic95

I'd be unaware of that limit if it were 15, especially for goods and steel. They are always hauled immediately upon production.

Frustrating that there are so few of us who remain interested in this great game. I still consider it the very best ever designed, understanding that it is geared for analytical minds. And perhaps analytical minds are all but extinct in the world of 2022. I continue to be at a loss to understand why there seems to be nothing I can tweak in the map editor to get logging camps to appear in Western Australia. It just makes no sense. Logging camps always appear in easternmost South Australia, covered by a different map point setup. Logging camps there are set at 60%, but setting them at 60% in WA nets you nothing, despite there being more trees (visually) on the map there than where logging camps do appear. There has to be another factor here that does not appear in the editor, at least not anywhere one would expect to find it. But it has to be something simple that is software controlled, like everything else in the game. At this point, it is purely an intellectual challenge. Drives me crazy that it will not allow me logging camps for reasons it will not divulge. 🙂 I need Phil Steinmeyer to chime in here. And having mentioned Phil, what better time to thank him once again for arguably the greatest game of all time.

Jeffry, thanks but I'm a fairly well educated 72 year old - not a second grader. I suggest you look at the map in question and re-think your suggestion. We're not talking about the real world here. On this map, there are more trees, more densely packed in the area just south and east of Perth than in any map area where logging camps abound. In both cases, the squares are labeled as lush grass. If the squares around logging camps were designated "forest" or some such thing, then you might be onto something. I've looked at all that and thought about all that. First thing I did. And yes, I'm well aware of other ways to bring logs into play. I've been doing that for years with port supply modification. But I shouldn't have to do that - I want some logging camps. And, in my mind, this strange and elusive phenomenon has become an intellectual challenge for which I intend to find the answer. I don't think there's a RRTII map God looking down and preventing logging camps in WA just because he feels they shouldn't be there. Thanks anyway. 🙂

Ok, it's time for me to share a frustration that has bugged me for years with no progress toward finding a solution or understanding the (so far) inexplicable observations that generate it. It may pertain to this map OR it may be something about using the editor generally that I don't understand. It may also be yet another glitch about which there's nothing we can do. Just wanted to throw it out there for comment. I love this Australia 1850 WA map, but I didn't play it very long before feeling the need to tweak it in the editor for the purpose of increasing start-up cargo resources. One strange thing I observed right away is that you never see a logging camp generated in the WA territory near Perth where you start. NEVER. EVER. Lots of logging camps pop up over in South Australia, but none EVER in WA. Having done lots and lots of other tweaking to this map and still unsatisfied, this morning I finally decided to investigate and do something about the logging camp problem. I looked at the percentages set in both the regional marker and each individual towns, finding no explanation there. The numbers were similar to that for iron ore mines and I've always seen lots of iron ore mines. Nonetheless, I tweaked them higher so that they were higher than every other industry except Bauxite, which doesn't appear until 1910. My map starts in 1855. What did that tweak accomplish? Absolutely nothing. But that only confirmed what I already intuitively knew. There's no way on earth random chance generation based on percentages in the same ballpark could explain NEVER EVER seeing a logging camp in hundreds, if not thousands, of restarts over the years. So I went for broke, still feeling though that the solution lied elsewhere. I reduced the percentage of all other industries to zero and raised logging camps to 100. Nothing. Didn't make a damn bit of difference except to eliminate ALL other industry generation outside the towns. I have a feeling that, if we can make sense of this and understand what's causing it, it will be a big future help generally to those of us carrying the perfectionist bug and refuse to settle for life without logs. 🙂

OK, my previous comment can be ignored as I have delved deeper and educated myself. I had seen those red Xs criss-crossing towns in the editor, but never knew they were called reserved cells or that they could be placed like buildings in the editor. I gathered they were there to keep space open for track through towns, but paid them little attention beyond that.

I'm afraid I must plead complete ignorance on the subject of "reserved tiles". Don't know what they are or how they're used.

I re-read your posts and it occurred to me that maybe you're talking only about initial map generation....and not long term growth. If that is the case, then there's no difference to reconcile. Because, yes, placing buildings does kill initial generation of others.

As you said, this has come up before, but I haven't done any testing on it for several years. But my recollection was that I did see growth whereas you said that you did not. But when I noticed this newer thread, I wanted to take a fresh look and see if my memories were valid, or going off the tracks in my old age. 🙂 So this morning I started a new game. RRTII version 1.57ddh, Australia 1850 - WA map. In the editor I had placed a Lumber Mill at Bunbury and a Paper Mill at Augusta. Started the game. As expected, no houses (or any other buildings than the ones I placed) at either Bunbury or Augusta - we've both seen that before. Each of the other similar sized small towns started with one house, as they always do. Played 8 years and saw no growth anywhere - no additional buildings in my towns, anyway. Then, at the start of the ninth year, both Bunbury and Augusta had a new house! And, interestingly, they were the only towns that added housing to that point. I expect to see more housing in the other towns in the next 4-5 years, the way it typically goes. I wonder what accounts for this observed difference. I assume you're waiting enough years? I've seen it take closer to 15 (at least with this small map). The 8 I experienced this morning was fast for this map. Anyway, just passing it along for what it's worth.

Glad to hear you got it. So what do you think of the map? It is about all I played for years. Was never a fan of the "medals" or of any scenarios where you're racing against time. This map dispenses with those. Though RRTII is, by far, the best of the popular RR games, the original Railroad Tycoon had a better rating concept at the end with the career progression.

I re-posted this map at the request of another member - see my post dated 10/22/2020 on the previous page. The map is still there.

Jeffry, I tried to convey as politely as I could that I'm not interested in a pointless and baseless (on both sides) argument with you. Ten years? I have played this game nearly every day, well, nearly every week anyway, since it first hit the shelves in 1998. My experience does not support your contention. In fact, directly refutes it. I regret mentioning your past comments on this issue, but I did so in good faith trying to give you some benefit of the doubt. What I was saying is that, yes, there does seem to be something capable of playing around with growth rates in the game. I had hoped it might provide you with some food for thought, but instead you are insisting that that which I directly observed as solving my growth problem IS, in fact, the problem. Makes zero sense, and I'm not buyin' it. Now let's drop it....you'll see no more responses from me.

Respectfully, Jeffry, there are no "random" bugs - just bugs we don't understand the triggers for. My experience with 1.56 (compared against 1.57ddh) is the opposite of yours, so I don't see how you can state "the stunting of towns or econ areas is a bug in v1.56" as though fact. I'm not going to get into the weeds with you on this, because neither of us can thoroughly explain in detail why we've seen what we've seen. Bossatchal, what's your experience with growth on this map? And what .exe version are you using?

With this map, my early priority has always been to grow another town or two or three to the 4-house size that will demand passengers, mail, goods, and food. Then the game really takes off. I've been playing it a lot lately and have encountered a situation that has been brought up on another thread or two in the past. It has to do with modifying maps to place more buildings on maps. Early on when I first began to play this map - gosh, that was 9 years ago! - I found myself restarting it over and over in search of a desirable supply and demand layout scenario. Most generated randomly were dismal. So it wasn't long before I went into the editor and added several ports and industries and that made a huge positive difference while all but eliminating the need for restarts. The game really got going earlier and I was able to add towns with full demand sooner. Growth rate seemed at least as good, if not better than I was accustomed to. But the "better" part may have been simply the effect of more resources. Then, some time later, I ran across this thread. In it, Jeffry conjectured that "There's a game bug where placing any building will derail the automatic buildings in the whole city / economic area". That was not my experience with my mods to this map and I posted that in that thread. However, Jeffry being one of the most thoroughly knowledgeable here, I remembered that point and felt he must have had good reason for making it. Well, now several years later, I have experienced something very close to what Jeffry described....but here's what did it. Now, this is not a scientific study - just an observation I'm passing along. Remember when the1.57ddh patch was posted? I guess it was a couple of years back, but I didn't see it or start using it until early this year. A couple of months ago, Bossatchal drew my attention back to this map for the 1st time in a few years. All of my prior play had been on version 1.56. So..........a funny thing happened when I resumed play about two months ago with version 1.57 ddh. I saw next to no growth on the map. Played for more than 20 years and didn't get even one town to 4-house passenger demand level. All but dead - with no change in sight. By that time, back with 1.56, I typically saw 3 or 4 towns grown to vibrancy. I scratched my head for a good while, trying to understand what could have caused the difference. Then it hit me - nothing had changed except for moving to version 1.57ddh. So then I thought....if that version change really did it, then changing back to 1.56 should restore my growth. So I did - and it did! 😁 Back to 1.56 and back to 4 fast growing, bustling towns in 15 years or a little less. First try! And this with my modified map with additional ports, a textile mill, lumber mill, etc. Jeffry, I remember reading that you did your own game .exe mods some time back. I'm wondering if perhaps your no-growth observation could have been caused by that? Like mine was by going to 1.57ddh? If so, then the question would be why? How exactly was growth stunted by these mods, if it was? In my case, I can't imagine anything else that could explain it. Again, not a scientific study - just my observation, for what it's worth. Merry Christmas, everyone! 😀

No, not completely. So, in that sense, I'm admittedly not ethically pure. I've never been a big meat eater, but I do enjoy pepperoni pizza, spaghetti w/meat sauce, and fast-food burgers and have all my life. That part hasn't changed, though I've given it some reflective thought. Those foods have been such an important part of my life that I guess I've sort of passively decided to forgive myself for continuing to enjoy them as long as I'm not part of the actual process that ends the animal's life. May sound silly, I know, but I just feel better without meat packing in my games. I don't have any problem with sheep getting regular haircuts, so I still make full use of the sheep farms when available and those are key resources on the Australia map.

No problem....and I want to thank you for redirecting my attention to this map. I hadn't played it for several years while I was working on breaking my records on the Heartland map. But I got back into it yesterday and am enjoying it just like I used to. I love its laid-back play style with no time-urgent goals. I play a version that I modified with two main objectives in mind. About 10 years ago an empathy for the plight of gentle and innocent animals that we slaughter for food evolved in me. I began to view them as there, but for the grace of God, go I. So I disabled cattle yards and meat packing plants....and I do that for all maps that I play. There's no animal killing in my games. Second, I found that resources were extremely sparse in the majority of maps generated randomly. I got so tired of restarting games just to find one that was realistically playable that I decided to put in some resources that I could count on. So I placed a couple of permanent ports and modified their supply to furnish goods that would rarely, if ever, show up on random maps. Also paced a couple of industries too rarely seen. I like it much better this way, but some may prefer the cargo drought usually seen on the original map. Anyway, hope you enjoy it!