Panama Canal

[Optimizer]

I started this scenario, but gave up early. Indeed it seems to be a bit too heavy at micro-management to be enjoyable.

[RulerofRails]

This is a great scenario to my liking with a good level of difficulty. It requires careful traffic management and route planning to deliver to the Canal zone the 150 loads of supplies needed each year for maximum points. The events and scenario layout are excellent also.

Strategy I was using can be seen in the save below, but basically it was a 6-car setup to ensure 2 trains could make the yearly delivery. I earned full bonus points in 4 of the years I was playing, but had a little problem with Machinery production. Steel was also a little tight, and Oil had a mind of its own to re-ship back to Venezuela. Next time I will build a dedicated Machinery production area away from the ports as they seem to drag Oil away from the Machine Shop demand. I had spaced service facilities on my main lines. In Boom times the sanding tower on the southern route was processing 42 trains per year for a couple of years. After the trains had serviced, I would stop those trains which had cargo whose bonus quota had been met for the year.

Basically, I was trying to hone my skills and put in a decent effort to get a high points haul in a short time. I earned enough points for a Platinum medal at the beginning of 1912. I then had to wait for a medal till the Canal had been constructed. At the beginning of December 1913 I got this message:

Panama Net Worth of zero.jpg

I think this might be a bug? I looked in the editor, but couldn't see a reason why this should happen. Maybe it is a problem with my install? Here's a saved game from just before it happens, if anyone wants to try to figure out what is happening. The only extra I have is Blackhawk's new Quarry skin. Otherwise this is a plain 1.06.

Panama Possible Bug.7z

[Hawk]

Merged with the existing thread.

[RulerofRails]

Merged with the existing thread.

Obviously I didn't look hard enough. Sorry.

I think you need Blackhawk's Quarry to open it. Here it is.

[Hawk]

Obviously I didn't look hard enough. Sorry.

No Problem.

[Blackhawk]

From what I can see it is an interesting way to code the event using a territory variable. I see an event at the top of the list setting Cuba's territory 1 variable to 5,000,000. But for some reason your Cuba's TV1 was something like 305,000,000. The only other event I saw that changed Cuba's TV1 was the event that increases it by 5 million every time you meet that goal and get another point. I may have missed an event where Cuba's TV1 gets changed, but what it seems like it is supposed to do is appear and give you a point when you your PNW is above 5mil. Then a following event raises that to 10mil, 15mil etc etc and you get a point each additional 5mil in PNW.

You may want to restart the scenario and check the editor and see if there is any value given for Cuba's TV1 after 1 year in. Or check some of your older saves and see if the value changes at some point. It should remain 5mil until your PNW is above that. After that I should be raising gradually. I don't think there was any other requirements on the event other than your PNW increasing.

I only took a brief look at it but it could be possible one of the other events writes something into Cuba's TV1 and that made this event act oddly.

[RulerofRails]

Ok, the reason Cuba's T1 is 305,000,000 is that in the previous Boom times my maximum PNW was a little more than 305M. The event works correctly up to this exact point where as you will notice it is reset to zero. Hereafter, it starts at zero this time (originally it started at 5,000,000) and then gave me a second set of PNW points. By the time Platinum was awarded in October of 1914, that was an extra 40 points or so. Current PNW was a bit lower but if I play on I can potentially receive 62 erroneous points when the economy improves again. I seem to be hitting a max profit of around 30M on this map, while not realizing the full potential in some places because I had special industry for the hauling goals and wouldn't run trains on some routes to try to keep the map demands clean and pointed in the right directions. I achieved the 305M when I increased dividends to pay off my debts. I started to hatch a plan for next game that after expansion is mainly over more legitimate points could be obtained after a peak of around 300M PNW by then sacrificing that PNW and issuing stock. This should give an extra 15 to 20M (3 or 4 points per year). Then this happened.

Ok, enough of being a strategist. The save is from just before the exact point when Cuba's T1 is reset. You can check before and after. I also scanned the effects of all the events and didn't see any re-set for T1. I am guessing this is a side effect. Would you say an event would need to be triggered for this to occur, or could processing also cause it?

[Blackhawk]

I'm guessing it might just be a glitch in the game that is causing this cause as I don't see any event that would reset it to 0. It was said that sometimes the game gets confused when large numbers come into play. Combine that with an event that checks weekly and has to use larger and larger numbers, it wouldn't surprise me if this was just a bug in the game.

[RulerofRails]

Ok, I did the process of elimination on the events and I realize what is happening. When the Columbia access choice came up, I chose the 1.1M fee for ten years. The effect of this is that the T1 for Columbia is set to 1 for 10 years. For some reason when it is unwinding through the temporary offset event it is taking out the T1 for Cuba as well. I am assuming that all the T1s are being reset. Has anyone had a problem like this before?

To point out the obvious a fix would be to make a new event that simply sets Columbia's T1 to 0 in December 1913 if it is equal to 1 or maybe it doesn't even need another second condition just the date? (This is learn-as-I-go stuff for me.)

On my earlier plays, I had chosen the 10M lump sump. That's why I didn't get this problem. On the subject of the map, I was a little tempted to try to start a second company when the panic hit. It is out of character for me to mess with second companies, so I let it go. The stock market foolery isn't for me, I simply don't enjoy strategies that depend solely on mouse clicks in the various menus. This kills the game as it gets old really quickly, I don't see many of these types of players hang around for that long.

An industry start is a no-brainer when playing on Expert with a Meat Packing Plant being my go-to start. Timing the transition into some rails is a question of where and how much. Getting the timing right for maximum ROI is an excellent challenge of anyone's tycoon skills. Wolverine, I notice that you made the demand for Machinery 3,200 per year in the Canal zone warehouses as opposed to 200 per year for the other cargo types. Can you remember the experience you had that caused you to do this?

[Wolverine@MSU]

Wolverine, I notice that you made the demand for Machinery 3,200 per year in the Canal zone warehouses as opposed to 200 per year for the other cargo types. Can you remember the experience you had that caused you to do this?

Not specifically, but it may have been to get a liitle more turnover or demand for machinery in the Zone. Once you get demand starting at other places on a map, it takes exponentially more demand to attract a particular cargo to a particular place.