Poll on play style

[Gwizz]

Poll    What is your play style 

  With over 50 downloads for my 1st beta map of "Heartlands Civil War"

  a work, that at the time was still in progress.

                and

      With 5 downloads to date for the finished map,

        now called    "Civil War in the heartland",

        it would suggest that those that downloaded the bata version

          Play more for fun and less for the sake of Winning.

  It could also mean the map was not to your liking.

   

Either way,  What is your play style?

[Hawk]

I chose 'Very Competitive'.

Isn't that what's it's all about?  ;)

[Gwizz]

winning on a map has never been that important for me.

But tycooning is something I enjoy.  Cutting off the progress of an AI company or merging it.  I play to satisfy short term goals and often lose site of the long term win goals.  I seldom play just to win the map goals

But, you are correct both methods are being competitive.

I think of going for gold as a fun challenge apart from just playing for fun.

My Civil War in the Heartland map was designed to give a choice for different types of play styles.

Therefore players can choose how they want to win or just build and run a railroad.

[Rikki]

I guess you can add me to the Very Competitive list, though I am easily satisified with just bronze if the scenario doesn't inspire me in some way.

I am finally trying out the player-created maps which are great.  I tried the Prince of Steel scenario which was awesome!  Better than any of the ones that came with the game!  I finally got the gold, and I'm not even sure how.  (Something about the Personal Net Worth condition confuses me, I somehow lucked into some good stock buys I guess.)  I then tried Great Northern, which was also great.  Only got bronze (Expert), but I may give it some more tries to see if I can improve.

Rikki

[Gwizz]

Yes Steve's Prince of Steel Scenario is one of the greats.

Player created maps usually are better than Pop Top Maps.

I believe we still have the largest collection of RT2 maps here at the Terminal.

[sleeper]

I do play to win, but sometimes just enjoying myself is good enough.

I am also playing Prince of Steel and am enjoying it very much. It's early days yet so I can't tell what medal (if any) I'll end up with.

I do have a few (minor) questions about this senario, which I'll ask here if that's OK:

1.) Since it's a PNW senario, is it possible to win without starting your own railroad, or have the winning goals been set too high so as to prevent this method of winning?

2.) Has anyone tried to win without hauling a single load of steel - there seems no reason why you can't, it'll just make it that little bit harder.

3.) I've never fully understood how Goodwill is influenced - I presume it depends on how many loads you haul and how much demand you satisfy.

4.) I do like the semi-random events and connection offers. I got New York - Chicago which is random offer No.1 (out of 7).

Please tell me that this random thing does work and that some of you received one of the other offers.

Stuff like this increase the replay value of such a map.

Thank you

 

[Gwizz]

Most Random events can be set by the map maker.  The random that is programed into the game could be anything,  1 in 10000 chance each month, for a given period of time.  I normally set it at 10% 1 in 10 chances each month. 

I don't remember the goals for P.of S. I remember it is an excellent map.

I believe Steve from the H&P site was one of the first to use the delay of building a RR strategy in a game.  So, you give it a try.

I'm sure others may have a better memory than mine for P.of S. 

[JSS]

Sleeper, POS is my most favorite RT2 map, if I want a relaxing and rewarding game. Without exaggeration this map is my most played RT2 map and must have had way over 200 games of it. If there were no other maps this map alone would be worthwhile to buy the game for IMNSHO.

I can say that I have seen a great variety of connections being offered but I am not certain if I have seen all of them. There are actually two main random events to the game. The first one is the main city you are starting out in or have access rights to. The other one is what connection offer you will be getting to connect two main cities to.

I have noticed a tendency on restarts to use the same main starting city. I take little notice of the offer for connecting the two cities. It is a nice bonus but for some cities you need to purchase the territory they are in (early in the game) and that can make the total cost of that connection quite expensive.

Not certain if you can win that scenario without operating your own railroad. You miss out on the delivering bonuses and at a $100k a year that can boost your PNW bottom line. Have yet to see the Goodwill bonus. But that is most likely due to the way I play the game.

Have played quite a few games without any steel deliveries. Does not make the game that much harder. It is all the time a trade off. If I can bring coal and ore into the area without too much interference with other traffic I will go for it. To own those steel mills can contribute handsomely to the bottom line.

[Superchief]

I usually try to build a profitable company and obtain the gold if I can but I am not a win at all costs guy.

[sleeper]

Well, I finally got a gold in Prince of Steel, though I had to play the full thirty years to get it (I had reached PNW of $100 at the end of Feb '07).

I wasn't too put out at having to play a extra couple of years as I felt that this had been deliberately intended so as to prevent an induced hiking of PNW by manipulating the stock market to create an artificial win by temporarily hitting the goal.   

I bought stock (in A.I.'s) early, bought heavily (surviving a couple of margin calls early on) and built an empire on personal debt (over $17 million by the time I had cleaned up on all available shares).

I then concentrated on clearing my debts and in the closing years managed to set up 3 new companies to generate extra paper profits (PNW reached $130 by the close).

I was fortunate that after going into a boom at the end of Feb '07, the economy remained there (no cheating, honest!). I'm not sure if I would have received the gold if the ecomony had slid into a depression but I would have used some dirty tricks in an attempt to keep PNW above the required level.

One question:  Where was the auto industry?  I was waiting for it but it never showed up.

Only one tire factory appeared and it promptly vanished just as it was about to receive its first load of rubber. It reappeared a year later but outside of the station's radius so I never bothered with it.

I assume that auto industries are enabled (it is Prince of STEEL) so maybe the map was already too cluttered to allow them to appear or else the computer dice never fell the right way. 

I'm now torn between starting again from scratch or else staying with the completed senario and jumping into chairing one of the smaller companies and seeing how that pans out. Hmmm...perhaps I'll do both. :)

[JSS]

sleeper, congrats to your win. To play all of the thirty years must haven taken some time. For me, even a game of 10 to 15 years takes easily over eight hours of playing time since I like to micro manage a lot.

Perhaps in your next game you want to try to go after the undocumented 50 mill Personal Cash win (just check the events

[JayEff]

Well I like to win gold, but no biggie. When I create scenarios, I set up bronze or silver to be close to the historical results. To get gold you have to beat history. Yes, POS is a great scenario. I will have to revisit it sometime.

[RxR]

With all the competitive players here maybe I shouldn't admit to being one of the very few who play just to build the network and run the trains.  I enjoy trying to service the various communities and industries, developing a rail network that helps the communities get what they need and grow over time.  I enjoy seeing a profit of course, since that means I'll have more money to build more lines and buy more trains.  Otherwise, I just try to keep the company and my own finances afloat while focusing primarily on running an efficient train system.  I basically ignore the scenario goals and set my own.  It's the same way I play other simulation games, like Sim City and Civilization.  I like to set my own goals and get wrapped up in my own player-created scenarios.  I like open-ended, creative games, rather than goal-driven, win-or-lose games, but I do set goals for myself as I play.  It's good that games allow for different play styles so everyone can find/create a way to enjoy them.

RxR

[TheDS]

You're certainly welcome to brag about the boring way you play  ;)

Every now and then I play that way, but most of the time, my goals include killing off the AI players. I want an efficient railroad, so I may throw down some track and trains and then sit there waiting to make sure I'm pulling every available carload of cargo (not worth the effort for passengers and mail) and that I don't wind up with two trains waiting at the same station for the same load (ticks me off when the load gets split between them and they both sit, then both run and let new cargo rot). Helps to keep things somewhat organized, since I can't sort my trains by route.

It's this second habit (ensuring things are running smoothly) that prevents me from doing well in the Heartland scenario. I can get Silver without much difficulty, but I've never gotten close to Gold, not to mention the Double Secret Gold, which I have severe doubts is possible to attain. But some day, I'm going to just throw down track and trains and not wait to see if things work out; money sitting idle isn't working, and you've probably got to have it ALL working for you to attain the goal. (And not worry about the Stock Market, the other habit.)

Tried PoS once, seemed like a decent scenario. Now I'm gonna hafta take another look at it, as it's been a while.

[steve39]

I hesitate to enter this one but my heart's with TheDS - whatever the scenario challenge is, I always add a personal goal of "absorb all competitors".  Perhaps I find too many scenarios too easy?  Gwizz has good ideas about making the AI railways work for you but I prefer to put them out of business.     

By the same token, I like to write scenarios which are as complex as I can make them - the more challenges the better!  I know it's not everybody's cup of tea but in my book the really "great" scenarios are not the "green field do as you please" ones but those which have creatively original challenges against which the clock is ticking and the bank manager tut-tutting! 

[Gwizz]

Steve39,

I have a map you just might enjoy.

I have called it:  The Take-over Tycoon.

I've never seen a map that uses the goals used on this map.

The object is to merge or have another AI RR merge many AI railroads;

But, it has a twist.

To win you have to take over the 20th AI,(for Bronze)

the 25th AI for Silver, and the 30th AI for a Gold Win.

Of course you don't want to take away the AI chairmens wealth;

You just want to remove him from his railroad so he can start another and another and another until the total railroads started on the map reaches 30.

When that happens you take over the 30th RR to start on the map for a GOLD WIN.

It is a difficult 10 year map.

I'll check it first and then post it.

[steve39]

Gwizz,

I recall that one of the PopTop scenarios was a kind of "last man standing" but The Take-Over Tycoon you describe sounds totally manic and the result of a wholly devious mind - I like it!  :O ??? ::) :D