New Map Chicago's Railroads

[Gwizz]

I am Preparing to format my hard drive on this machine.

I am cleaning off all maps and other data to a backup drive.

This is a map I made some time ago and forgot about. 

It is a remake map.  I made many of these from the Heartland map. 

The difference for this map is that you build AI railroads, maybe 20 or 30 of them.

So, it is a builders map.  The goal is to use the AIs to dropship cargo to your railroad stations,

Your Railroad can only have minimum growth,  unless you expand by merging with the AIs.

The map has limited track and this delays the AI from building a railroad.

You buy its' stock, take control and put the AI company where ever you want it.

If you wait too long the AI will build where it wants to build.

Every AI that starts up give all other AIs more track to use.

But you don't get these track cells with a merge.  They disappear when the AI is merged.

You have the best managers to choose from  You can steal one from an AI when needed.

In the real world they call this scalping. 

The hardest part is keeping your AIs profitable. 

You can't do much with an AI if it has negative cash.

The only map goals are for your railroad to gain Company Book value and be highest in class.

Your company starts with a bit over $15 million CBV. 

So it is doubtful that an AI will catch up with you in dollar value, but anything is possible.

I usually do a few restarts, saving as I go and then pick the start with the best industry placement. 

PS: I had a difficult time moving this map from the new computer where I have been playing it.

      I think it came through the wires in one piece.  Let me know if you have a problem.

      It has a few new tweaks. Mostly, I balanced it and did some painting.

[Gwizz]

Spent some time with this Chicago Map today. Tried making My railroad and the AI RRs larger through merging.

      (This would make a good RT3 map.)

Playing RT2, each AI I start up needs both a supply cargo and a demand industry.

In RRT3 the AI could build the demand or the supply industries within its' track cell limits.

Doing this in RT2 it is more of a challenge finding supply and demand that are close together.

Trying to make the AIs RR larger has been difficult and keeping the AIs profitable difficult as well.

Each time I merge an AI the chairman gets richer. 

If I try to hold his profit down I have to go deeper into margin.

I have merged about 10 AIs and I have 9 running. 

After a merge the chairman normally start another RR.

Of the 9 that are running, the Canadian short line was able to merge another Canadian RR and grow

in size.  But it has since been running in the red and has tied up a manager that I want to use.

It also has over 200 cells of track that can't be used with its' negative balance.

The St. Louis RR has been unable to merge a 2nd St. Louis short line and it has almost 150 cells of track unusable and the short line about 50 cells.

Two other small RRs near St. Paul in the North West are having the same problems.  125 & 90 cells of track and not making a profit.  At least I can still control their trains

I have run my locos and some AI locos from some of the other AIs RRs on their track to help them make a profit.  All I was able to do was show down their dive toward bankruptcy. 

Two other AIs RR started up away from where I wanted them to build.  I didn't catch them in time. 

All 16 Chairmen have better than a 50% chance to start a RR.  A few a 100% chance.

There are now 4 that can no longer afford to do so.  I now control about 90% of the stock market.

I guess keeping my RR smaller and the AIs smaller was a better strategy.  Although using this get big strategy has built my CVB value a bit faster.  I'm 4 years into this game and have over a 30 million in Company book value.  I need 80 million for Gold.  It should be a cake walk to a Gold win over 25 years. 

I just wanted to make the AIs control a larger area and be more profitable. Only one chairman has come close to taking over control of his company. I caught him just in time and now control his company by one share of stock.

This is a 25 year map.  If I did it over I would make it a 10 year map.  It would be more of a challenge.

A RRT3 map is a possibility with drop shipping in the new version. 

[Hawk]

Hopefully the 1.06 patch for RT3 will be finished in a couple of weeks.

[Gwizz]

No hurry.  I'm still having fun with RT2.

After playing my map and seeing how busy it can become if I expand too much, and from the comments from another player, who found the same problem. I reworked a 2nd version of it.

I changed the port cargos.

Reduced the track cells that the Chicago RR would be allowed to use.  It can still merge the AIs.

Increased the economy with the random generator. 

Changed some locos.  Took away the 4-4-4-4. added a small electric.

Changed the CBV values for Bronze and Silver since new track added has value.

Increased the startup number of new industries by 20%.

Expanded the Chicago RRs track to use more of the map and built 3 extra stations, so that when the AI shortlines are built, they wouldn't have to travel as far to dropship cargo to Chicago's stations.  This also gave more demand industries to use, to help the AI RRs and Chicago rail.

I also moved some cities farther apart so that they were too far apart for an AI with only 20 track cells to connect to.

A comment on controlling an AI company when you are not its' chairman.

An AI will switch cars on you.  It always loads the most valuable cars on the train first.

I start one AI loco from one of his supply stations. Not from a city.  I try to find two or more supply industries for each small station.  I have the loco wait for a full load, then It takes the cargos to a demand industry where the cargos are sold.  No drop shipping needed here.  If one or both of the cargos, have no demand industry to take the cargo to, then the cargo is dropped on a red flag to wait for pickup by one of my trains.  These AI locos alway return to the supply industries station without any cars.  Don't add a caboose or the AI will change it and haul back one of the cargo's you just dropped off.  I will some times have a loco make two stops.  The 1st stop on a yellow flag where cars stay on the train from the last station, The new cars are added to the train.  The train continues on to its final stop.

If an AI dropships too many cars, I add trackage between two city stations and let one loco haul back and forth between these city stations on it normal double flags, set for a half load, to boast the AIs profit.  If I run on any of the AIs track, I pay and that is added to his profits as well.

Controlling AI trains and keeping them profitable can be a challenge but it is doable.