Panama Canal

[RulerofRails]

I was noticing that Machinery demand was orange-red over the entire map the years I was supplying the canal. I guess I was watching it a little more closely as I have been thinking about the 1.06 cargoes over in the fixes thread. I am on the lookout for if those particular cargoes behave strangely, that's why I asked.

The idea you had for the Platinum medal is really ingenious. I love it. I am trying to get ideas for making a map and am tempted to incorporate this one. It is much better than having a Super Gold medal. Is that ok?

I found this scenario a lot simpler and more enjoyable by setting up my routes as 6-car wait-to-fill right from the start and not going back through the train list and re-doing consists. I think there was one or two trains that I had to run with less to meet the first year's requirement, but after that it was all 6-car consists. Half the reason for stopping any extra just before they arrive at the canal is that some allowance needs to be made for breakdowns and variations in economy. This means that later in the year one needs to watch the trains arriving to that area and stop those required, but it is far better than the bunching that will occur if a second wait-to-fill train arrives at the cargo source before the first is finished. The second train will often jump the queue and fill in preference to the second. Often the first train will have 3-4 cars full and will fill relatively quickly once the second train is full and departs. This causes a gap when there are no trains waiting which will likely cause some cargo to escape that stations capture area.

Simple, efficient routing and planning can make lots of things enjoyable. I did this also in my most recent play of Alternate USA. In this case I built enough demand for whatever product I was hauling at one city, for example 4 Upgraded Breweries on one cell just far enough away from the source that it wasn't attracted on its own. Corn was the only thing I couldn't do this for. Together with wait-to-fill, I left most of the routes throughout the game on auto-pilot instead of the desperate efforts I had used in my first attempt. I even had a list on paper for deliveries and was so pedantic that I was stopping and checking every train. I never did finish that play. I guess watching exactly what happens with price and demand is necessary to understand the game mechanics, but, after the learning phase, use them as your best helpers.

[Wolverine@MSU]

The idea you had for the Platinum medal is really ingenious. I love it. I am trying to get ideas for making a map and am tempted to incorporate this one. It is much better than having a Super Gold medal. Is that ok?

Sure.

[Gumboots]

Just had a crack at this. Would be great if you love micromanaging. Not my cup of tea.

[RulerofRails]

Just had a crack at this. Would be great if you love micromanaging. Not my cup of tea.

I agree that it does take some careful train timing and enough industry production for timely collection, but if you are interested take a look at my save when I found the "bug" (make sure to use Blackhawk's Quarry {link a few posts down} on a standard 1.06 if you do). I was careful with the setup and timing of my trains, and I was monitoring/stopping the arrivals for maximum points and to help with congestion around my on-track service facilities. But, as I think I proved, there is enough room to get at least silver (you can miss some years) without doing this. Of course, I needed to hammer out of the gate with a good start to have almost all my routes (at auto-pickup 10 of each per year) setup in time. At least for me, the amount of train management I was doing was fun. This is similar to Alternative USA which I also setup really good route/timing delivery schedules with large enough demands that I also built that I didn't touch except for the Corn (goes without saying, I was doing legitimate hauls instead of any of this sneaky stuff including no deliberate hauling within the territories). I think I developed some of this strategy from playing Trainmaster. While playing TM, low micro-management is one of my primary strategy goals. Don't think I am trying to change your mind, only play it if you wish.

[Gumboots]

I know what'd happen. After a couple of years of micromanagement of everything required, I'd say "#%@! it" and just bait and switch the lot from Panama and back.

[RulerofRails]

Fair enough. Bait and switch is like most cheats: it gets old really fast.

[Gumboots]

Finally got around to having another go at this. Just for the heck of it, since it's J.P.Morgan and with up to 6 AI's, I went with all six AI's and decided to play cutthroat. Naturally this included a robber baron start, and several extra companies during the game (basically, building profitable industry out of my own cash, then merging into the main company later). Played like this, it has that typical RT3 problem: the AI's are useless. You can knock them off whenever you want to, and really they're just pointless clutter. I'd suggest not bothering with the AI's, unless you just really like watching idiots stumbling all over the place and getting in your way.

I can't help thinking it's a pity that Cuba, Jamaica and Haiti don't do anything. Yes, I know some of Cuba's territory variables are used for bookkeeping, but apart from that those three islands might as well not be there (and you could do the bookkeeping another way anyhow). It's a 1024x1024 map, with the consequent overview problems and general clumsy handling, so to make up for that it would be nice if all of the map was interesting in some way.

Come to think of it, I'm half inclined to think the changes made to the zoom function in 1.06 were a mistake. Zoom in 1.05 is much quicker and cleaner, and monster maps are a/ fairly rare and b/ arguably not such a great idea anyway. 1.05 handles maps up to 768 very well, so if I was ever contemplating edits to the 1.06 .exe I think I'd be wondering where that zoom function was and what was done to it.

The AI's that I haven't taken over yet are just pointless financial black holes, and are going to be a nuisance, so I'll probably ditch this play and try another with no AI's.