New Map: US at the Cross Roads

[djf01]

Just to add something other than all that ultra right wing neo-con huff, here is something I hope you will appreciate: a new map.

I've made this map as hard as I could.  I haven't won it yet.  I'd like to think Gold is impossible :-), but I *am* sure it is possible to medal.  And I haven't tested it all that comprehensively.  Bug reports and suggestions are invited.  As are synopsis of anyone who even attempts the game.

The setting: Late 1970s USA.  The big Class Is are in place.  You start with $100k of capital and with Bangor and Aristook.

Amtrak has taken over, so NO PASSENGERS!!!!

The RRs were cutting track left right and centre during this era.  Laying new track is *very* expensive.  You can only lay 6 cells of track a month.

EDIT: This version (US at the cross roads V0.90) of the map has been depreciated.  It is known to cause RRT2 to crash to desktop at around 2004 or 2005.  A working version (v0.92) is now attacjed.

EDIT: Some (relatively) minor bugs fixed.  V0.92 is depreciated and replaced with V0.93

US_at_the_cross_roads_V0.93.zip

[djf01]

I should point out this map is *not* for newbies.

It's intended as a challenge for experienced players.  The usual stuff ain't going to work (I hope)!

[maddog]

Wow! This one's hard! Played it twice and I had to cheat just to keep the company running! :)

--Ray.

[djf01]

I had a go at this game tonight.  I was set to win bronze - it was 2005 and I had enough resource and trains running to meet all the goals - but the stupid thing abended :-(.

[maddog]

Me too. I wasn't any where near any of the medals though. Something bad happens in January 2005 and RT2 either crashes or just locks up. I've attached my game in case you think it may help you.

--Ray.

Bangor_and_Aristook.zip

[djf01]

Damn.  That's about when mine fell over too.  When I tested all the events by powerballing through it, I finished well before 2005.  Leave it with me and I'll see what I can nut out . 

Thanks for the report.

[djf01]

A replacement US at the Crossroads map is attached.  I'm reasonably sure I've fixed the problem causing it to crash around 2005.  Enjoy.

Edit: V0.92 depreciated, attachment removed

[djf01]

OK, won the silver in Oct 1997.  I made a terrible blunder early in the game that probably cost me 2 years, so I now think gold is possible, and perhaps the game is a bit too easy.  I found a couple of medal goal scoring issues, but nothing of substance.  I'll defer releasing a fix for that until I get any further feedback, if any!

[loco_motive]

By doing the -99% production event every month, I guess it eventually flipped over from max negative to max positive, flooding all the stations with max pass and mail  beginning 7/2004 ( 331st time?), causing continuing engine purchases by the AI's to attempt to compensate and a game crash just before 7/2005. In fact I suspect it is actually number of engines exceeding some limit that causes the crash. If I am right here, this should be repeatable under controlled conditions.

Funny way to fix it though, since it still triggers every month, instead of handling it the same way as p&m revenue, which only triggers once, albeit the company left out is not the advertised company. Even there, I would have preferred the one-time event box and a "true" trigger. Anyhow, one way's as good as another I guess. Ed: Otherwise this event looks good and cannot be one-time, since it must cycle through all companies

I can't imagine how the math is done on the multiple reductions. We've had some situations with maximum sized positive and negative integers in this game before though, related to track counts I believe, where I seem to recall this situation of flipping from one end of the spectrum to the other. Has to do with the way the numbers are represented at the bit level.

Looking at the Maddog's saved game, it appears that it was played on Hard. Wish you guys would get in the habit of stating difficulty level.

I might give it a try. Seems like Hard would be a decent level. Djf01, what level are you playing it on?

[djf01]

Djf01, what level are you playing it on?

Hard.

[loco_motive]

Well, I did get 5 years into the scenario, playing on Hard also, not far enough to really decide on a strategy but far enough to want to check out the delivery events to make sure they would fire properly, in particular since I was thinking about a haul strategy. The logic looks good but your criterion for hauls between Chicago and San Francisco is going to be automatically completed by the Chicago/NY hauls. You need to change Terr 6 to Terr 7 in that event.

I guess anyone actually getting to that point can just go by the status report, which does have terr 7.

If I actually restart this I will make that change to mine, and probably also make the status report events always show, not out of necessity, just as a personal preference.

[djf01]

Thanks for that Loco.

I've fixed those medal goal events to throw up the dialog box when they fire, and fixed event 3 to actually count as you suggested.

Same with the clumsy stuff for the PAX throttle, but I am wary of it not working as well as it should.  I tried a one time event when first starting this map, and it didn't seem to work properly.  I think it must be something like a 99% reduction in production/revenue might be partially offset by a +40% during a boom.

ie.  Production = (1 - 99% + 40%) * Base Production = 0.39 * Base

rather than

    Production = (1 - 99%)(1 + 40%) = 0.014 * Base

It might ahve just been a coding blunder too. 

I think the best way might be a monthly firing event with a temporary effect period of 2 months.  So it effectively fires twice a month, and that should catch everything.  But then again that's probably overkill.

I was hoping the AI would work a bit more like RT3, and take as a preference loads which earn more money in the given climate, and use that to make Amtrak (which had comany ID 2 in the first incarnation of this map) the only passenger carrier.  This would make getting control of Amtrak a possible way of winning the game.  But if there were PAX around, the AIs wanted to carry them, no matter how little they paid.

If I were doing it again I'd put in the Pennsy & New York Central as seperate lines and not bother with Amtrak.

Thanks again for the feedback Loco.

[djf01]

OK, I've run, tested and won (by Sep 1991) US at the Cross Roads.  Apart from the start - which seems impossible if there is no lumber yard at Portland - I now think I've made this a bit too easy.  Loco should have no trouble.

Attached is V0.93, which has the fixes suggested by loco_motive.  I *think* medal goal 3 is OK, but it still fired as soon as goal 2 fired, I *think* because I'd met goal 3's conditions by the time I'd met those of goal 2.

Edit: Attachment removed, now available from the lead post for this thread

[loco_motive]

I edited one of my previous posts re the revenue decreasing event. As it was written, it cannot be 1-time since it must cycle through all companies rather than stopping after the first company. The way it is now though, I guess you will catch all companies and also catch new companies, which were left out before, albeit there's no P&M anyhow by that time. (I don't do this often enough any more to get things right first time-lol)

PS: Since you replaced the map in your lead post, I guess you'll soon be deleting the 2 redundant uploads?

[thomasjordan]

I tried v0.92 this afternoon.

I no sooner started a train between Maine and Boston than the train got deconstructed.  Since my credit rating was F, I couldn't even take out a loan to buy another engine.

Frustrating.

[maddog]

Wow! Still can't do anything with this map. I must be a noobie! :) I can barely keep the B&A from going bankrupt. When I try the stock market I end up loosing it all.

djf01, Pointers?

--Ray.

[djf01]

OK, some spoilers, for my solution at least.

Firstly, I should have said this earlier, but Boston station has a roundhouse and a sanding tower.  If you are building these for the B&A, you are wasting money.

There is at least one company that does OK on the stock market to start with, and it's not the B&A !!!  Some of the other RRs do OK in patches.  What I usually do is sell all my stock in the B&A to start with, and (once it's stock has split and I can afford to it) I buy into the one company that does OK from the start - at least for a little while.  You shouldn't have too much trouble figuring out which company that is, just by looking at who is set up to service and own profitable industries.

I then have to run the B&A as effectively as I can.

If Diesel as a manager is available at the start I hire him to buy the first engine: the cheapest available (Alco?)

I've found I can't keep the B&A afloat without the lumber yard at Portland, so I should have made that a permanent feature of the map.

The reason to run the B&A as well as possible is not to make a huge amount of money -  though personal profits can be made by trading arrivals at Boston - it's to boost your reputation in the equity markets.

After 4 or 5 years, you should have:

- enough personal wealth to start a decent sized new company

- enough of a reputation to start a reasonable sized new company

- (probably) have acquired more than 50% of the B&A's stock quite cheaply

You will find that once you start a new company, you won't be able to lay track immediately.  This is sort of a bug.  You have to wait till the end of the month when you will be allocated 6 track cells.  Each month the limit is rest to 6.

It is assumed the player knows lay dashed track (you gert two cells for the price of one) to extend the distance to up to 12 cells a month.

I hope that's a start for you ...

[Gwizz]

This map should give a challenge to the best players.

[jeffryfisher]

Hmmm... Thanks for bumping this thread. I gained a LOT of event-writing experience in coding the 400+ events for US History, and now that it's finished, I can look over any scenario problems that anyone cares to escalate. The one-time-per-company problem is one that I had to solve; there's more than one way, depending on the situation. Most involve using the on-company-start frequency, and we might need a second event to catch the companies on board at scenario start.

I have just downloaded the map and will report back after examining it in the editor.

[jeffryfisher]

Initial observations:

* I'd add the west coast's line from San Diego to Vancouver (or at least Seattle). Most of that was SP in the US, CanPac (I think) in Canada.

* I absolutely love the Rocky Mountain loop in the CanPac track, ROTFL!

* As reasonable (and tempting) as starting industries are, the map generator tends to fail to build cities or regions that have anything in them at game-start. Therefore, it is probably necessary to use industry percentages instead. It's better to live with bad luck than an empty-city start. (though without pax in the game, maybe it won't matter as much).

* Historical note: When Amtrak took over a RR's pax routes, it also took over a whole lot of union pensions. A LOT of pensions, not just for employees moving to Amtrak, but for buckets of retired RR engineers, porters, conductors etc. The taxpayers ate the delayed cost of FDR's pro-union policies.

* Amtrak was not exempted from the pax suppression as advertised

* There are recurring events that have temporary effect. That's not necessary. Do one game-start event for prefab companies and another event that fires on company-start. Use a company variable to mark each application. Amtrak can be exempted by starting its CV as marked before any other events have a chance to touch it.

* The rail-build cost hike is applied equally to all companies, so it doesn't even need to be company-specific. It can be a one-time event with permanent game-wide effect.

* The US gov't switched to airmail in 1966, so even Amtrak should have no mail.

* I am puzzled by the "player" set up. The one mandatory human is chair of Bangor, which makes sense. However, the others start on the sidelines while a bunch of companies start with no chairmen. I guess as long as nobody tries to play multiplayer, then the asymmetric setup doesn't matter.

I'm going to rewrite the events (to do what they advertise) and replace static industries with percents. I won't bother adding track or messing with static industries.

[jeffryfisher]

Here's my version. Tell me if I messed it up.

Crossroads v1.01.zip

[MaglevForever]

Finally got "Gold" on the version 0.93. The wrong medal, Bronze, is awarded for the gold medal event. This was the only stubborn map left on my "fail" list. (Any suggestions?) I gave up a couple of times. As always, I'm playing at -25% human, +25% computer revenue. I played with the minimum AI, and neither of those chairmen started a company. I believe minimum AI is harder because any companies that the AI start will eventually be piles of cash available for around 50% off. It's possible to repeat this in a cycle since multiple new companies are allowed.

 

I got the medal in a different way than the author suggested. I never started a new company. Instead, I played the stock market. Used the bulk-buy before good revenue followed by bulk-sell method to build up my net worth enough to effectively control the map. Once I was in control of the Penn Central, I set it up for the hauls and making the mergers. I would do all these actions on pause, then return to my original Bangor & Aristook whenever the game was running.

 

This seed had 2 Logging Camps in Bangor and a Lumber Mill at Portland. I was playing around a lot with the start. Not sure how much difference a great seed makes. The holy grail may be an Iron Mine and Tool and Die. At least the way I play, personal net worth is far more important early on. Boom times came early in the game, I believe this was a help, not because it prevented me from doing some short-sells I had planned, but because it prevented the AI from gathering quite so much debt before I could get into position to help them.

 

The stand-out feature of this map is that passengers and mail are almost non-existent, -99% production. A side-effect of the method used makes the AI strength random even though they have set routes. In every game, a somewhat random number of AI trains get assigned to wait for passengers (if they aren't setup in the editor for wait-till-completely full, this doesn't happen). These trains will not move unless you takeover the company and change their consist. This feature has quite a big impact on the way my games turn out. There's standard randoms of seeding and economic changes. This adds another dimension! After actually completing the map I would suggest that this feature is a positive overall.

 

Saved game if anyone wants to see it.   US Crossroads v0.93 Gold.zip    Not pretty, but the job is done.

 

Jeffry, I also looked at your version. Removing the restriction on passenger production makes sense for Amtrak, but also causes all the other AI to behave differently. I feared the AI would be more likely to go bankrupt hauling a mix of freight and low-value express, so I used the older version. Imagine fixing the port demands on this map in the hex, would completely ruin the challenge!

 

Edited September 20, 2016 by MaglevForever