Australia 1850 - WA

[Gwizz]

If you use the territory to territory, territory to city or city to city be sure you test the event, at least one trigger doesn't work correctly.

[jeffryfisher]

I don't think there even is a city-to-city function. The territory connection functions might neglect a subterritory where the right-click is mapped to its parent territory.

[CrownVic95]

Wow, Drewski, this map is a lot tougher than my first walk-through led me to believe.

My first version of the map had a nearby bakery and 2 nearby sugar farms, and a steel mill in Augusta with lots of easily accessible coal and iron. It was a walk in the park - even at 177% difficulty. So I progressed eastward and eventually got to Chiang Kai-Shek's Sydney and Wollonborg, and stole passengers from him for a few years to punish him for his aggressive buying up of my Crown Australia RR stock. I was forced to near-miss margin calls repeatedly in order to keep him at bay. But fortunately they all came at the end of a year and my industry profits bailed me out of every one of them.

Anyway, I got to a point where everything seemed to be accomplished, so decided to restart. Long story short - I've restarted 50+ times looking for the same sort of advantagious juxtaposition of resources and industry and not one has come close. So now I've finally settled for one that for once has a decent grain supply and some wool farms to take it to....we'll see how it goes.

Don't get me wrong - it's still a great map. Just a much tougher animal than was my first impression. Funny....I haven't had beginner's luck since I first went to The Woodlands greyhound track in the fall of '89. :)

[CrownVic95]

So glad this map is still here. I just re-installed my OS and thought I had it saved elsewhere, but no.

 

I've enjoyed this map probably more than any other over the years. Thanks again, Drewski.

[Bossatchal]

Does the forum erase the older files? Can't unzip this map or the save file zip.

[CrownVic95]

11 hours ago, Bossatchal said:

Does the forum erase the older files? Can't unzip this map or the save file zip.

Hmmmm.......seems to be gone. Perhaps Drewski removed it for some reason? You could try messaging him, but he hasn't posted in over 4 years.

[Cm_blast]

12 hours ago, Bossatchal said:

Does the forum erase the older files? Can't unzip this map or the save file zip.

When the forum changed some years ago all the files attached were gone; the files are "there" but all mark 0 Kb and won't unzip.

I am not a railroad tycoon player, but the most active person around here (that I know) it's jeffryfisher, he may have the file you are asking.

Edited October 21, 2020 by Cm_blast

[CrownVic95]

1 hour ago, Cm_blast said:

When the forum changed some years ago all the files attached were gone; the files are "there" but all mark 0 Kb and won't unzip.

I am not a railroad tycoon player, but the most active person around here (that I know) it's jeffryfisher, he may have the file you are asking.

There is a separate maps section here and downloads still work from there, but this map is not there. I have the file, but am not sure about the ethics of redistribution since we don't know why the map is not listed in the maps section.

[jeffryfisher]

I might have it, but I'll have to look on another machine (legacy game platform) next time I turn it on.

I don't think there's any issue with repairing a broken download. The link is still there in the OP; it's only the web site that misplaced the file.

[Bossatchal]

Thanks for the quick replies!

I have been reading about ways to grow villages from Jeffry, crownvic, and Drewski. I saw you guys would supply villages demand if they had an industry. Also, you guys would send some food and pax/mail if there wasn't an industry there with a demand. Based on that cargo data file, I bet the demand in the villages would be zero for everything. I checked the demand for pax in those villages and its less than the 0 demand at a town station. I tried growing a village with my unused produce/uranium, and it worked. I think it would be better to make money on easy demanded cargos like food and pax/mail rather than investing them on the villages.

Did you guys find anything else out about the connection between revenue and city growth? Wondering if its like a revenue threshold for city that guarantees growth, its like a percent growth chance if city had any revenue that year, or its a percent growth chance that increases with higher revenue.

Also random question if I bulldoze an industry in a city marked for 3 industries by the map editor, I'll eventually get 3 again right?

[CrownVic95]

2 hours ago, jeffryfisher said:

I might have it, but I'll have to look on another machine (legacy game platform) next time I turn it on.

I don't think there's any issue with repairing a broken download. The link is still there in the OP; it's only the web site that misplaced the file.

I have it....in uncompressed form, at 2742kb. If I just attach it to a subsequent post, will others be able to download it? Sorry, I've never done any uploading here so not sure of the best way to go about this.

[Silverback]

Perhaps use messages to PM gobalopper or use the contact us form on the terminal main page to see if the original can be found, but I think any registered user can attach files to a post, Best to zip the file first though.

[CrownVic95]

54 minutes ago, Silverback said:

Perhaps use messages to PM gobalopper or use the contact us form on the terminal main page to see if the original can be found, but I think any registered user can attach files to a post, Best to zip the file first though.

Thanks. I, too, can't imagine there's any problem with replacing a lost file, so here it is.

Australia - 1850 WA.zip

[Bossatchal]

Excellent thanks!

[CrownVic95]

18 minutes ago, Bossatchal said:

Excellent thanks!

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!

 

 

 

 

[Bossatchal]

21 hours ago, CrownVic95 said:

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!

 

 

 

 

So you turned vegan/vegetarian?

My only game rules are no manager rerolls and no stock manipulations other than selling stock every year. I usually just murder the ai in ludicrous mode (custom -25 human, +25 ai, max ai number), but I couldn't beat gold on antartica. I came back to look for any info on the forum that might help me. Tunneling might be the key, and I think its fair based on its expense.

I might have to mod the ports on antartica tho... my current playthrough looks 10 mil short of gold and the 4 ai companies didn't even settle the 2 flattest parts.

[CrownVic95]

1 hour ago, Bossatchal said:

So you turned vegan/vegetarian?

My only game rules are no manager rerolls and no stock manipulations other than selling stock every year. I usually just murder the ai in ludicrous mode (custom -25 human, +25 ai, max ai number), but I couldn't beat gold on antartica. I came back to look for any info on the forum that might help me. Tunneling might be the key, and I think its fair based on its expense.

I might have to mod the ports on antartica tho... my current playthrough looks 10 mil short of gold and the 4 ai companies didn't even settle the 2 flattest parts.

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.

 

[Bossatchal]

Hahaha well nice to meet ya and thanks again. I got a score to settle with damn antarctica.

[Bossatchal]

This map's pretty fun. I placed a second station on perth just to have 2 straight train routes but I found out it actually has its own demands. Now I basically have 2 cities I can send goods, food, etc. which is straight broken. I guess a new game rule is I can't use junctions for city congestion/route efficiency anymore because doubling a city's demands is game changing. Wish the junction stations would just sync demand with the city station damn.

[CrownVic95]

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! 😀

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[jeffryfisher]

The stunting of towns or econ areas is a bug in v1.56, encountered very early on another Australia map BTW. It's random, so it doesn't always happen. I suspect that if the game is randomly generating buildings and runs into one that's already there (your placement), then the collision is not handled gracefully. Sometimes that leaves a city partly formed, as if the game were working its way from north to south. Other times it leaves a city with nothing but the building placed by the editor. And of course, it sometimes works around it.

There might be as-yet undiscovered "rules" regarding this behavior... certain map cells (e.g. town centers) might be "bad" for us to choose in the editor. Certain buildings might be worse than others. My worst experience was placing a port in St Louis (I widened the confluence of MO and MS rivers just enough to place it). My US History map would never generate any houses or industry at St Louis while that port was there.

But I also saw the phenomenon in an unmodified map, the 20th C Australia one with a pre-placed car factory near Melbourne. I ended up deleting that auto factory because I got tired of Melbourne failing to populate.

[CrownVic95]

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?

[jeffryfisher]

Okay... But there can be bugs in pseudo-random processes, hence random effect. This bug manifests in the pseudo-random placement of houses and industry. Unless we find out how to seed the game's "random" number generator, the outcomes are not repeatable (which is why each restart produces a different result). Random effects can also arise from race conditions (which can depend on OS version etc), so YMMV. If your system never encounters this bug, then you are fortunate (and suggests something like a race condition is at work).

And I can state the fact that v1.56 has this bug because I observed it over ten years ago, long before v1.57ddh ever existed (and long before I started modding it myself to support my US History map). Others have observed the behavior too. Reports on this site go back more than ten years.

 

[CrownVic95]

22 hours ago, jeffryfisher said:

Okay... But there can be bugs in pseudo-random processes, hence random effect. This bug manifests in the pseudo-random placement of houses and industry. Unless we find out how to seed the game's "random" number generator, the outcomes are not repeatable (which is why each restart produces a different result). Random effects can also arise from race conditions (which can depend on OS version etc), so YMMV. If your system never encounters this bug, then you are fortunate (and suggests something like a race condition is at work).

And I can state the fact that v1.56 has this bug because I observed it over ten years ago, long before v1.57ddh ever existed (and long before I started modding it myself to support my US History map). Others have observed the behavior too. Reports on this site go back more than ten years.

 

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. 

 

[jeffryfisher]

Well I see one more detail worth mentioning: You're writing about growth rate, but I'm recalling a bug in the initial generation of a map. Also: I wasn't the only user in these forums to encounter this.