Latvian Republic 1920

[Gumboots]

Update: I've split the posts about my 768x512 Latvia map, now named Latvian Republic 1920,
from Juriko's original thread for his Latvia map (Latvia v1).

This new topic will be the support and pontification thread for the new scenario.
It is available in the RT3 map archives on this link: Latvian Republic 1920

I got the final version done for the 100th anniversary of the declaration of the Latvian Republic.

This scenario will play just fine with default 1.05 cargo cars and locomotives, if you prefer to use those.

Personally I prefer to play this scenario with my custom cargo cars, and with some custom locomotives. As extra locomotives I use the 1.06 G10 and 264T Suburban Tank, as well as my SR Schools Class 4-4-0. This gives a good range, that is fairly representative of Latvian rail in the 1920's and 1930's.

My revamped version of the G10 is attached to this post.
The revamped 264T Suburban Tank is in the archives on the the New Engines page.
The current SR Schools Class (beta version) is attached to this post.

I also use custom .lco and .car files for the locomotives, to give better balance between them. Those are attached to this post.

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Anyone wanting to talk about Juriko's original scenario should go to the other topic, which you can find here.

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Start of original post, before thread split:

I just had a brainwave. It may have occurred to someone else before, but it hadn't occurred to me.

There was this idea that at some point we'd make a new version with the correct proportions for the area. Being in one of my random bursts of enthusiasm for RT3 stuff, I had a look at that. First thing is: what size to make it?

Hopefully the existing scripting can be transferred to the new map with very few changes being required, and hopefully it will have the same playing feel to it. Given the proportions have to be substantially different, I figured that making the new map to have the same diagonal length as the old map would be the best bet. If corner to corner distances are the same, a lot of the train trips and hopefully a lot of the economy should work the same.

Edit: Just ran a few numbers through a spreadsheet. Results for distance from Riga, in map pixels, are shown below.
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RIga_to_City_comparison.jpg

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Started with a basic heightmap from MicroDEM, covering the area from 20.4 E to 29.5 E, and 55.4 N to 58.7 N. Resized this to 769x513 to generate a basic 768x512 .gmp. Diagonal on the old map is (896^2 + 320^2)^0.5 = 951.4. Diagonal on a 768x512 is (768^2 + 512^2)^0.5 = 923.0. This is as near as you can get with the multiples of 64 required for .gmp's. Despite this, the new map has more land area. Maximum area for any given diagonal length on a quadrilateral is when it's square, so correcting the east-west stretching of the old map has increased the land area because it's closer to square than the old long and narrow one. OTOH, distances cargo needs to travel is close to the same in a lot of cases, so it's worth trying.

I added the existing cities, and their basic building densities (taking from the existing map). The positions are taken from GeoHack and are accurate to real life, even though they don't always match the relative positions on the old map. I haven't done all the city recipes and territories yet, but that's on the list. Also threw in an extra 6 Lithuanian cities: Klaipeda (a major port), Panevezys, Roskiskis, Siauliai, Telsiai, and Utena. Juriko requested some more Lithuanian cities, and these seemed to fit well with the now-correctly proportioned map. The six new ones have building density at 100% for the moment. There is scope for a few more cities in Russia if we think they're worthwhile. Ditto Estonia/Saaremaa. Looking at the overview of the map, my gut is saying perhaps one more city in Lithuania, maybe one or two more tucked down in Poland, and perhaps another three spread through Russia. I think Estonia is generally about right, although I am tempted to add one more town to Saaremaa.
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768x512_basics.jpg

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Next thing to consider is detailing the map. A satellite image overlay using BMP2GMP is the obvious choice here, but for now I wanted something quick and easy. I also wanted something that would show me where the rivers run in real life. This is where the brainwave happened: use the DEM itself.

This is good because a/ you will already have it and b/ it will already match the .gmp precisely, with no screwing around to correct the projection. The usual heightmap colour scale is horrible, but a bit of hue/contrast/etc adjustment in Photoshop works wonders. It very easily gives something that's a useful approximation to terrain painting, and is easy enough on the eyes to work with for now. It also clearly shows a lot of the river courses.
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Brainwave.jpg

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This idea could be extended a bit. Say you wanted a clearer indication of some terrain-related feature. You could just use a colour selection on the original .bmp from Microdem and crop out a layer to suit, then flatten the image into a suitable .bmp and import it into the game map. It's also an obvious way of painting territories without guesswork since you can overlay borders temporarily and replace the .bmp later.

Anyway that's where it's up to. Frankly the slowest part of it was getting all the latitude and longitude coordinates together, but I found something helpful there too. Wikipedia is the usual source for me, and Wiki pages for any city will usually give the coordinates. The problem is that they are most likely going to be in degrees, minutes and seconds, but on the other hand sometimes they will be in decimal. I can work with either of those, but mixed formats are a nuisance for this. However, the coordinates on the Wiki page are linked, and the link goes to the GeoHack page for that city, and the GeoHack page has coordinates in decimal format. This is awesome because decimal format is fast and easy to work with.

So I made a basic little spreadsheet to calculate the positions of the cities for me, and had them applied to the map in no time.

[RulerofRails]

Good work. The difference in look is amazing. I'm also quite curious if it will play the same, since with everything scrunched north-south on the old one I always felt that price differentials were a bit weaker than normal. The rivers also contributed. There will also be a longer journey over water from Riga to Liepaja, so that will be good to decrease the fishing aspect too.

[Gumboots]

Dunno about that journey by water. As the cow flies, or crow if you like, the straight line distance from Riga to Liepaja is 28% less. Haven't tried to get the distance around the coast yet, but I'm not sure it will be all that different. Not a problem either way.

Anyway, for the moment, I have set the new Lithuanian cities to the same industry weightings as Gulbene. That seems to be a fairly standard middle-sized city recipe for industry, and the cities I picked for Lithuania are pretty major ones. So on that last point I gave them 65% starting density for buildings instead of Gulbene's 48%. The exception was Kleipada, which I set the same as Riga but with building density set back to 100%. These are obviously just starting points so we can see what happens.

I've now got all the territories and regions sorted (borders can be tweaked a bit later), and all the industry weightings for cities, along with the briefing and several other details. The only thing left to do now is transfer the event scripting. Once that is done, we should have a playable map.

[Gumboots]

Righty o then. I got the event scripting transferred to the new map. I've given it quick run through for 8 years, and it all seems to work so far.

Generally it's looking very workable. The cities being positioned as in real life is already making me rethink some standard ways of connecting things for this map. Distances seem as manageable as the old map. A few runs will be more challenging, and a few other runs will be a bit easier.

The change in proportions is quite breathtaking when you are used to the old map. Suddenly Riga and Jurmala look like spots where you could actually build cities. The terrain is more interesting overall. The enlarged land area combined with the heightmap from MicroDEM has really brought a lot of detail to life. Lakes just fit where they ought to (there is a huge one between Pskov and Tartu, that forms part of the Estonian/Russian border). I haven't got rivers done yet. Those are going to be an important detail as they affect cargo flow and rail building costs. At least on this setup it is easy to see where they naturally go, so doing them shouldn't be too difficult. Also needs some trees, but those are a piece of cake.
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First_alpha_test.jpg

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First thoughts are:

1/ It may be necessary to slightly increase seeding densities for some industries.
2/ Lithuania is going to be a big thing on this map. It is potentially a major area of interest.
3/ One thing I expected, and was keen to see happening, was the way a fresh map would get rid of the residual demands that are locked into the old map from early betas. It behaves completely differently for initial cargo flow, which is good.

I'll trundle along with it and get a few more things done, then let an alpha loose for the mob.

[Gumboots]

Ok, rivers are done, or done enough for now. Lot of rivers in Latvia. They must have got a special deal on them. Everybody's back yard seems to come with a river.

So I threw the main ones in for now. I haven't put names all over the place yet, but that's not important for testing. Bear in mind that this map is still a bit rough. It's purely for getting an idea of how the economy will work with the new proportions. Better eye candy can come later.

One thing I have noticed is that the more compact proportions of the new map are easier to handle on screen when playing. The overview has an easier time of it, and the map is easier to spin around. I've just got it sorted to alpha stage, but don't have the energy to do any real testing tonight. It seems to seed well, going from a couple of quick checks, but it needs people to give it a few good runs. I've attached a zip of the .gmp in case anyone wants to have a crack at it. Any and all feedback is welcome.

[Gumboots]

Fixed a few glitches in the event scripting, some of which have been around for ages but nobody ever noticed.

Also cleaned up the lakes and rivers around the Riga area a bit, as some of the lakes were chewing too much real estate and made building too difficult. Plus some minor terrain tweaking in general. I do think the new map is seeding well on the whole. There seems to be a good variety of playable seeds, with substantial differences between them. I think this is due to the extra breathing room giving the random generator a bit more to work with.

Edit: Alpha zip removed.

[Gumboots]

Just had a thought about this. The Pskov haulage goal has always been a bit of an afterthought. Offhand I can't remember how it started, but it's never worked that well or been very interesting. With the accurate proportions of this map bringing Lithuania into play as a viable proposition, it stands to reason that some sort of goal for Lithuania would make sense. It'd expand the scenario and prevent it being just a straight re-run of the earlier map.

So, I was thinking that perhaps the Pskov haulage goal could be either dropped or made optional. Instead of that, have a Diesel haulage and/or production goal. If the Pskov warehouse is coded to not produce Diesel (it can easily do something else) then the only source of Diesel on the map becomes the refinery at Mazeikiai, if that seeds. This automatically provides an incentive to go there, and with the accurate positioning it is no longer right on the Lithuanian border. You have to go into Lithuania to connect it. There are several ways this could be handled:

1/ Leave things as they are, but add a mandatory Mazeikiai connection goal. That doesn't seem to fit with a game has always relied on haulage goals.

2/ To prevent Oil Refineries being built anywhere you like, such as Ostrov, set the price of them to +300% in every territory except one: namely a new Mazeikiai territory. That territory could even have a slight reduction of 20% or whatever. That way if the usual one fails to seed, which happens sometimes, you'd have to go there and build your own unless you wanted to pay $9,800k to build it elsewhere.

3/ The haulage goal could be just from Mazeikiai territory to anywhere at all, or could even be to Ostrov. I usually run oil trains from Ostrov anyway, and Diesel is a natural cargo for the return trip. Alternatively, the target could be another Lithuanian city. The port at Klaipeda is an obvious option.

[Gumboots]

Also we discussed with my son the idea to create a new map called “Rail Baltic”. Of course we will use experience earned with this map (especially an event composition, geography, thank you again Gumboots), but may be there is any good resource for map creators?

I was just looking around on the web, as you do, and stumbled across a great resource for pre-WW2 Baltic scenarios.

http://maps.mapywig.org/m/Baltic_states_maps/

It includes a really great range of maps. One of the best is a 1933 tourist map of Latvia. Not only is it a lot of fun (I'm seriously tempted to overlay it on a game map just for a laughs) but it gives a good indication of which areas of the country specialised in which industries. Liepaja was obviously a major whaling port, while Ainazi specialised in fishing. There was logging north of Limbazi and down near Bauska, the resorts at Jurmala and Saulkrasti are shown, and people at Riga liked shooting at ducks.
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1933_tourist_map.jpg

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There is also a road map for travellers...
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1934_road_map.jpg

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...as well as a range of more serious maps. The quality and resolution are superb. The originals are 8000px wide.

[RulerofRails]

I'm going to try the new version now. Hate to bring bad news, but we can't raise the price of a specific industry (Oil Refinery), only for ALL.

There is an issue where if you disable an industry in the editor, this will also disable it's produced cargo. So pre-placing the Oil Refinery and turning it off, also wont work. A map I saw recently, (Thirst of the Irish, IIRC) got around this somehow. It had been started as a game then taken back to the editor and saved as a map. This is normally a bad idea, but I wonder if it would work if pre-placed buildings were temporarily removed with density set to 0% (or you loaded in 1.06 debug mode without pre-game simulation)?

Other way would be to just restrict production elsewhere.

[Gumboots]

Bother. So much for that cunning plan. I'll have to think of something else then. Restricting production is a good idea in terms of functionality, but it would be an evil thing to do to someone if they didn't know about it. I can just see someone spitting chips because they forked out $2,700k for their own refinery and it doesn't do anything.

I knew about disabling the buildings, so yeah we can't use that trick.

Looks like a simple haulage goal to a Lithuanian city might be the sensible option. That ensures territory access, and if the seeded refinery is there you'd naturally want to buy it. Otherwise, if someone wants to make diesel in Ostrov I suppose they can.