US History

[kamyFC]

On 5/2/2020 at 9:02 PM, jeffryfisher said:

IIRC, There are two sizes of monthly deductions,  but neither will trigger unless you owe at least the amount of the smaller one. Property taxes are low in the 1800s, and there is no income tax yet, so you're probably skating for free. Just you wait until the progressive era!

yep.

The 1800s were so much fun. I was in the South and was near Texas at the start and did not venture too far towards the east.  Then when Texas opened up, i just owned the state, connecting all corners and then expanded to the hilly west.  By the time, i entered AZ, NM areas, AI teams was insanely aggressive to reach the west coast.

Once Wilson gave us his gift of Income tax for individuals and businesses, i got screwed.
Also there were sudden payments that had to be made in "Miscellaneous Payments" category. Usually throught the 1800s, it was manageable 300-500k, then suddenly there was a bill of 28,000k and that was the end!
I guess that was accumulated tax. It seemed to have accumulated until you owe 28 million and then you have to pay at the beginning of the next year.

The 1930s were brutal and i lost everything as taxes started to mount.  My stock price went down to $1 and even though i had majority shares almost 65%, i lost all shares.
And by 1943, my company was liquidated and i had no control.  Could not start another company - so that is the end right?

So to tide the storm of the progressive policies, we need to have a huge cash reserve by the 1900s, right?
Else we are sure to loose.  I had some 55,000K cash and still i got screwed!  

By the way that period was brutal for atleast 3 AI companies. There were 6 companies, but only 3 were remaining by the time i was done.
Also the AI was very active and expanded from Coast to Coast rapidly after the 1870s or so.

Some AI observations and some noob mistakes were made by me
  - AI does not rebuild track if tracks are cut due to wars or calamities or other issues. I helped an AI team by patching up and they started operations.
  - AI always uses 3 cars per engine - be it passenger or cargo loads - Even for longer distances. I always use 5-6. I guess that needs to use the AI strategy, that way my trains can go faster.
  - AI companies and players used dividends. My dividends were at 0, so my networth was lower even though my stock price was high and got split many times
  - AI company trains do use your track. But do they pay for it?  I don't see that in our report, while we have to pay AI teams whenever we cross their track.
  - Also if any station is not covered by your network in "your region", the AI teams will ensure they cross your tracks and connect to those.

Wow. Congratulations again on making one of the coolest maps ever!  I learned to much!
Will give it another shot.

Edited May 4, 2020 by kamyFC

[jeffryfisher]

17 hours ago, kamyFC said:

By the time, i entered AZ, NM areas, AI teams was insanely aggressive to reach the west coast.

There's a sneaky way for a human to get there first (by buying access via Gadsden Purchase). Even sneakier is in the North where Oregon Territory can get you into California in the 1850s!

17 hours ago, kamyFC said:

The 1930s were brutal

Yup -- But if you know yer history, you can see them comin'.

17 hours ago, kamyFC said:

So to tide the storm of the progressive policies, we need to have a huge cash reserve by the 1900s, right?

No, because the wealth tax would kill you. You need vast cash reserves in a 100% owned RR company that you swing to max dividends just after the tax starts.

17 hours ago, kamyFC said:

AI company trains do use your track. But do they pay for it? 

Yes. The Ouch comes from priorities. An AI's express has a higher priority than your own normal. So, wherever the computer might run its trans on your track, elevate your train priorities to express or normal, not normal/slow.

BTW, You can use this rule to make some headway on AI track, but don't bet on it. I've seen trans stuck for 50+ years waiting to get into busy AI stations  :o

PS: Never ever build through AI track such that you share a tile. Always find a diagonal where you can sneak through like a chess bishop on white slipping between pawns on black.

[MikeC]

I have finished 1898.  I have more than $1.3B in cash.  I stopped the dividends so as not to create an overflow, but my cash is increasing by more than $1M per year.  What am I missing?

Wealth tax?  Was that a mechanism to overcome the lack of corporate income-taxes in the game?  In any case, I own my railroad outright and have effectively neutered my AI opponents.  But what lies ahead?  It was depressing playing through a three-to-four year depression (though I loved the interest payments), so I am hardly looking forward to the Great Depression (my dad telling me about it growing up was depressing enough, back when it was just "the depression").

Also, my war industries never fired up, and the SpAm War never happened, not even in the papers.

[jeffryfisher]

8 hours ago, MikeC said:

I have finished 1898.  I have more than $1.3B in cash.  I stopped the dividends so as not to create an overflow, but my cash is increasing by more than $1M per year.  What am I missing?

Wealth tax?  Was that a mechanism to overcome the lack of corporate income-taxes in the game?  In any case, I own my railroad outright and have effectively neutered my AI opponents.  But what lies ahead?  It was depressing playing through a three-to-four year depression (though I loved the interest payments), so I am hardly looking forward to the Great Depression (my dad telling me about it growing up was depressing enough, back when it was just "the depression").

Also, my war industries never fired up, and the SpAm War never happened, not even in the papers.

Personal cash earns interest.

Both corporations and individuals are taxed.

The Spanish-American War should have generated at least one headline.

[MikeC]

On 1/27/2016 at 4:30 PM, jeffryfisher said:

As I have mentioned elsewhere, it is an entire campaign in a single map.

 

 

My game patch can't replace the Steam exe file. Besides minor fixes to things like industry, the patch brings military (loads, buildings, cars) into the game at an earlier date to support my Civil War contest. The map still plays well even if you don't have the patch.

As for finding a CD: In my opinion, if you paid Steam for the platinum version of the game, then you should have no moral qualms about burning a copy of the out-of-print platinum CD and playing a patched version of it (yes, the CD can be very simply disk-copied and installed; there's no protection on it).

Oops...  Just saw this.  I have been playing the unpatched Platinum CD version.  That could make a difference in what shows below.

As I wrote yesterday, but messed up in posting:

More details on my previous post.  The year 1899 saw a strike (the third and I rode it out), so my salary was cut commensurate with declining revenue and profits (expected).  Dividends set at 0.00 (i.e., none at all).  My personal cash went from 1,355,820K in 1/1899 to 1,383,358K in 1/1900.  That's a 27,538K increase with no dividends.  Interest received in the company was slightly north of 16,000K (which should have no effect on my cash at all).  I'm confused, and am sure I missed something [answered already; thank you].

I love this map (and have spent as much as four or five hours playing a single year), but at this rate, I'll "blow up" the scenario (get more than $2B cash) real soon [end yesterday's text].

[Following written today.]  Thanks for the help, jeffreyfisher.  I played 1890 today.  The SpAm War showed in a sub-headline when McKinley was elected.   I am now, however, lowest on the net-worth totem pole, showing a -$2B+ net worth ($700M+ stock value plus $1.4B+ cash).  I fear I may have to re-start...

[jeffryfisher]

On 5/16/2020 at 12:47 PM, MikeC said:

Dividends set at 0.00 (i.e., none at all).  My personal cash went from 1,355,820K in 1/1899 to 1,383,358K in 1/1900.

Personal cash is subject to interest -- both gains and losses, the rate depending on economic state.

On 5/16/2020 at 12:47 PM, MikeC said:

I love this map

Based on your self-described preferences, I knew you would

On 5/16/2020 at 12:47 PM, MikeC said:

I'll "blow up" the scenario (get more than $2B cash) real soon

Personal cash is problematic, but corp cash is handled well. Therefore, keep the bulk of your cash in your corp.

On 5/16/2020 at 12:47 PM, MikeC said:

I am now, however, lowest on the net-worth totem pole, showing a -$2B+

Ignore the net-worth overflow. That's just a calculation.

When the income tax hits in 1916, your personal cash will start down. When the inheritance tax hits, your personal cash will be mostly wiped out.

[MikeC]

Can't believe it's been four months since my last post.  I thought I knew RRT2 well, and maybe I did compared to most players, but I know it better much now than four months ago.  Thanks to those who helped.  Now the new questions...  🙁

1) When I played this map the first time, I saw townhouses when cities grew (I never saw them in any previous game).  I replaced the .EXE after I last posted on this thread and played this map again--and this time I am not even sure cities are growing, but there are certainly no townhouses.  (I have seen towns go from not wanting anything other than goods or supporting commodities to wanting people, mail, etc., so I guess some growth must be taking place.)  Thoughts?

2) I have read the threads about town growth and about micromanaging.  I fear I have succumbed to the latter; I bring up the former in this bullet to highlight my zeal for taking care of--that is, serving--every market I can see (I'm getting over that).  I guess the main problem is that I now have a couple of serious  bottlenecks, but with 350+ trains, it almost seems faster to ... sigh ... start over than do unravel the existing web.  (It now takes as much as eight hours to complete a single year.)  Thoughts?  Also, does anyone have additional comments about what commodities really make towns grow (one would suspect lumber and food, but... ??)?

3) Serving up excess logs to drive down maintenance costs seems like a no-brainer, so I do it.  But over-serving iron to suppress rail costs seems like a red herring.  Am I missing something?  I wonder the same about oil-diesel and gravel/concrete, but haven't made it that far yet...  ☹️  Thoughts?

Any help would be appreciated.  I'm looking forward to getting to the 20th C.  Also, any tips on traps lying in wait in said 20th C. would be appreciated.

[jeffryfisher]

1) In the map options, I activated townhouses (but forget their start-year), so they should grow again, just give them time. Even villages can grow into cities in time. A village / town / city will grow sooner/faster if its demands are satisfied.

2) Micro-managing is for when you first start and have only a handful (or dozen) trains. Once you get to the stage where all your mainline track is double-tracked and your new builds are double-tracked without worrying about money, it's time to let go. Scan your train list maybe once or twice per year to spot problems, but otherwise set your routes and forget them.

I think that town growth benefits from receiving any of the town-specific loads. I don't know if a station must be placed so that the <name> connected status happens, but that might be the case (I say that based on reading maps in the editor -- each town has its own map cells with its own economy). I expect (but haven't proved) that small amounts of many needs delivered each year or two is more productive than a flood of one thing delivered once. In other words, the ideal supply would be 2 food, 2 lumber, 2 etc once each 2 years.

Unraveling rail webs is a nightmare, especially since one may not blast track where trains are, and a bottleneck can have a lot of trains caught. Gain experience from the nightmare and then start the game again, this time planning from the beginning for the long-haul you know is to come.

3) I actually don't know for sure which discounts pay well enough. I just do enough to earn them all because I enjoy the challenge and the success messages (i.e. game within a game). I included as many game-within-a-game event sets as I could think of in order to keep the map interesting over the course of 2+ centuries.

Speaking of centuries, the 20th C has WWI, the Great Depression, taxes, WWII, airmail, NAFTA... and a series of optional track improvements standing between you and the high-speed rail needed to woo passengers back from the airlines.

[MikeC]

On 9/15/2020 at 12:30 PM, jeffryfisher said:

1) In the map options, I activated townhouses (but forget their start-year), so they should grow again, just give them time. Even villages can grow into cities in time. A village / town / city will grow sooner/faster if its demands are satisfied.

2) Micro-managing is for when you first start and have only a handful (or dozen) trains. Once you get to the stage where all your mainline track is double-tracked and your new builds are double-tracked without worrying about money, it's time to let go. Scan your train list maybe once or twice per year to spot problems, but otherwise set your routes and forget them.

I think that town growth benefits from receiving any of the town-specific loads. I don't know if a station must be placed so that the <name> connected status happens, but that might be the case (I say that based on reading maps in the editor -- each town has its own map cells with its own economy). I expect (but haven't proved) that small amounts of many needs delivered each year or two is more productive than a flood of one thing delivered once. In other words, the ideal supply would be 2 food, 2 lumber, 2 etc once each 2 years.

Unraveling rail webs is a nightmare, especially since one may not blast track where trains are, and a bottleneck can have a lot of trains caught. Gain experience from the nightmare and then start the game again, this time planning from the beginning for the long-haul you know is to come.

3) I actually don't know for sure which discounts pay well enough. I just do enough to earn them all because I enjoy the challenge and the success messages (i.e. game within a game). I included as many game-within-a-game event sets as I could think of in order to keep the map interesting over the course of 2+ centuries.

Speaking of centuries, the 20th C has WWI, the Great Depression, taxes, WWII, airmail, NAFTA... and a series of optional track improvements standing between you and the high-speed rail needed to woo passengers back from the airlines.

Thanks, jeffryfisher.  I smiled at your reply to #3.  I'm the same way, although sometimes the map is difficult enough that getting (for example) five loads of gravel delivered in a single year is tough (maybe if I get myself into the 20th C!).  I should have asked: I've been telling the strikers to pound sand (so to speak) but haven't gone far enough into the scenario yet due to my other failures to find out if that's a bad plan.  I figure giving in is going to simply yield more strikes, but then, I second-guess myself.

One of these days, I'm going to start doing a map, as I intended to do twenty years ago (a bigger CA map, which by definition will include NV, given the odd shape CA forms on a rectangular map).  I've been inspired. 

I cringed, though, at re-starting (and then did it anyway).  I considered demolishing trains, too, and simply rebuilding new ones as a means to unclogging the two dreadful bottlenecks.  Gave that idea up, though (sort of).  The old map is still saved, "just in case"...

I'm also getting over my lust for long-haul trains, I might add.  The city-pair model yields many earnings-per-year advantages (but not the big paychecks, but also not the big risks from robbery).  Of course, western Canada makes certain long-haul demands that other regions can ignore.  OK...  Back to playing instead of simply nattering on.