Drums of War

[Gumboots]

I did allow myself other trains though but using only steam is so much more fun especially on a map like this.

Africa did use a lot of steam in the 1950's, so it's historically accurate. Not so much towards the end of the scenario timeframe though, or at least it would depend on the country. South Africa would have modernised, but some other countries (Zimbabwe, for example) were still using old steamers due to lack of money to buy newer units. But yeah, steam is just more fun.

And it should be possible to farm premium trains but they are very rare, but there is probably a XXX percentage it needs to be faster and over a specific distance perhaps - I´m sure you could get some stuff, especially if you buy different kinds of trains and only take those with just a bit faster.

I have wondered about that, but have never seriously tested it. It's obvious that there is some trickery involved, because if it was a simple trip time then your early locomotives should be knocking off records very quickly. I'm still don't know how the game works it out.

I realized renaming stations and renaming trains could help out so I could just go back an add more later instead of too early...but I couldn't figure out how to rename the trains...I thought there was a way but I seem to have forgot a lot

It's either Ctrl+click, or right click, on the train name. TBH I've forgotten myself as I sometimes go months between binging on this game. Anyway it's one of those.

Taverns I feel never really do well, its so rare..so I usually don´t bother with those.

Same. I find they're only worthwhile in hubs that have huge piles of passengers. Although for one of my maps (1954 Royal Tour) I did boost tavern revenue so they would work just about everywhere, because in Australia every town has at least one pub.

I try to follow what I learned from Oilcan´s Handbook

It's generally a very good guide, but I have some differences of opinion on some of the financial stuff.

If you want to knock off scenarios in the shortest possible time, follow RoR's advice. He's better at that than I am because he plays in a very extreme fashion (lots of time on pause figuring out various options). I tend to play both for winning and for train rides, so am not as good at high pressure intense detail. I also like laying the neatest and tidiest track I can lay, whereas he'll just throw down anything that gets him the goals.

[RulerofRails]

Hi antso,

Good to see you stop by again. Sounds like you had a great time with this map!

With this game so much is dynamic. The distribution model for consumer cargoes relies on a cycling of price that brings in rail revenue and also slowly moves these cargoes further and further from source.

There are also many options. This is not a game that allows one to write/record a precise guideline for a scenario. The outcome from each run would be different. Also passenger generation is to a certain extent random, further than depending on where houses are placed by the RNG.

I am often playing with personal restrictions, one of my favorite ones is no industry and also no stations in the countryside. This extends game length in most cases and in a certain way maybe I'm making the game less complicated.

For the express stuff, there is a thread by Oilcan which lays out most of the principles involved. viewtopic.php?f=5&t=3842 It will vary somewhat with the circumstances for example the era and engines available. When playing I don't have a "plan" for express traffic. I tend to use observation and instinct to tell when to add new trains. The major point is to build Hotels everywhere. If you do that passengers will pretty happily wait any reasonable amount of time to take whatever train will take them closer to their destination.

I enjoy to take the game further, there were numerous times that I felt my understanding had a breakthrough, but as I said this is not a game which rewards a rigid effort such as micro-management. You need to facilitate the game processes and this is where I believe the true potential lies. There is the borderline micro tactics of stacking and expansion to virgin demand sites. I have written in length about those many times on the forum. These are the sort of things that I believe are better explained via text to get the principles. In the game it's never quite as simple as the theory, with multiple cargoes a balancing effort is needed.

Facilitating the game processes includes network design. Not so much where you run your rails, but rather where and how you connect the cities together with rail routes. If done right a lot of differential stagnation can be avoided. This has a lot to do with "reading" the topograhic information on the price heat maps. That includes especially rivers, lakes/sea without ports, and mountains/hills. In the game I talk about background demand. This is the pull on price from the surrounding influences. Any geographic feature can block the pull of background demand in one or more directions. This isolation is going to make that city better as a supplier than consumer of finished products. Rivers and ports do the opposite: they help background demand spread further. Price differentials near them will therefore be less than normal.

I can go on and on about this sort of stuff with pages full of details.... If you start a thread in the general section and ask specific questions maybe this is the best way I can give you relevant information. Likewise if you want map recommendations. I'm sure that you wont quite be sure about some of the terms I'm using either, so even ask a question, like what is stacking, or what is background demand. I made most of these terms up. Nobody else seemed to be talking about them. It's possible also that other people would "visualize" these principles differently, and call them something else.


PS. Go West! is a fun little map. The task is very simple. If you max out bonds under 2 years is possible. Without bonds would give a better challenge. Also, seeding has some impact. The shorter the timeframe, the more impact seeding can have.

Go West, under 2 years.jpg

[Hawk]

@Hawk: I should do the merger myself I think. Good practice.

You got it.

[BigBoyTycoon]

I guess a merger would be fine, if you like to do it, if not thats also perfectly fine If do thank you so much! And yes that´s my old mail - all those good old hotmails - but these days its gmail. And if someone can get practice out of it! Go Ahead! Thank you Hawk & Gumboots!


Yeah I saw the map about specifically making revnue through taverns, restaurants and hotels, very interesting! Sounds very fun to play. Right with you Gumboots, always fun to see the trains just doing their thing. I used to make small silly maps put a cornfield down and a long track and just enjoy the train riding the track seeing the beautiful view even if graphics were not the best. The sounds and the atmopshere is still amazing.
The pause button is so powerful though, definitely needed if one wants to really push what can be done, I´m a big fan of pause + very fast, that´s the only thing really I use unless you´re looking at stuff that can be done at normal speed and has no impact really.

Thanks for the link RulerofRails! And I´m very pleased to see so many still active, I was hoping you still were!
I did read the post as I was looking at information the other day, some very interesting stuff about attraction of passengers, hotels, how passengers generate and move - and also if the destinatiosn are unavilable and all of this - would be nice to be able to find a way to know where they want to go before you put rails, stations, and train routes down though - like pay 50k to send some people to ask them haha.

I totally get what you´re saying, the seeding has a huge impact for instance - like sometimes in drums of war there is no steel mill or the lumber, or other goods are horribly placed and you have to manipulate stuff a bit because the seeding is so bad, at other times it can be amazing like when I made 16m in 5 years with industry, there was alot of good stuff, and alot of 30% roi farms but the main industires were still too good to pass. I used to place indsutires in towns and wait a cuple years, or buy up the natural ressources that would supply my indsutry but these days I find that is just not worth it before later when you´re rolling in cash - its faster to just focus on making money and going for maximum effect. I really like you try to do things like speedruns, the most effcient and pseediest way possible, optimizing and making things more effective. No wonder you gotta make extra challenges for yourself because you´re just that damm good.
No industry, and focus on trains and steam sounds like fun conditions - perhaps also no bonds, and no issue of stock and no abuse of ai companies.
Very interesting note about hotels everywhere so they stay longer..does this count after each year aswell or will they disappear there or less of them?
I do like putting hotels, resaurants eveyrwhere to attract passengers - and what you say here really makes alot of sense, definitely will be doing this.

Ohhh, I think I´m sort of getting it, you´re talking about the whole balance of the map, the prices and demands and how much is consumed, how to balance that with a smart setup of a rail system, and especially consideirng the rivers which moves it faster and of course the industires and farms naturally affecting prices. Thats really smart, I didn´t think of that too much especially not the rivers or the typography like mountains or small hills perhaps also increasing costs, all I know is I like to not have to pay for them having to move it - and I like to not have to get my trains to move it for me as I feel the profit the trains make is probably only the same as what I have to pay for the tracks, trains, maintaince etc. So I like to do everything from the timber to furniture at the same place, and then move it. I guess you really gotta consider a smart network for long term - as there is only so much demand at one place...it´d be nice to be able to use a curser and drag a box which would calculate the exact demand of all the houses per year - so you could better plan - but having to miicro all trains there would be draining, so I agree it should be the game doing its thing, but we sure can help it on its way.

Do ports really act like ships, changing the demand near the coast lines as if there were boats? If so that´s pretty neat.

I also like how you mentioned you should cosnider which cities should supply and which to produce, although every city does need something and often cities which has alot of industires grows to 5 stars aswell. I think I only think about this if there are mountains or big lakes, or like if there are other industries.

I should perhaps create a topic in the general section as I´d love to hear more about your terms of stacking etc, - getting your own efinitions to get a better understanding. Every post I see from you I usually try and read with much care, as there is so many gold nuggets. I am aboslutely addicted to this game and I love what you do - Its what I want to do, so its so inspiring and makes me so happy you play this game to its maximum effect and all you do - its just wonderful. Makes me feel better about trying not to get addicted so I can not play it, but still learn and enjoy other people playing it. I often want to just have a fun game and enjoy it...but I just cannot because I want to do it PERFECTLY, so soon after I spend hours analyzing the map and love taking my time each year and after each possible action or new factory made, and checking stations and everything else...Its so much fun but both time consuming and can be draining when you also want to have a relaxing game, but soon you get so focused on doing it perfectly - the other day I spent like a few days getting completely into this map and really getting the hang of it and seeing how I could keep doing better and better. Very fun! Nothing like a cup of coffee or tea, and a whole night and day of railroad tycoon 3 and going for a perfect map/speed run with whatever seed you get.

Also that is so impressive what yiu´ve done..2 years. WOW I knew it could be faster, but with trains - and you seem to be profitable despite a 500k payment each year with bonds? If you are sustatinable which you seem to be that is seriously impressive.

Would it be possible for you when you play, or to do Go West, or any other map, this map or another - and show how you play it? Im very interested in Go West as you said its a short map, so if thats possible for you? Even if there is no commentary but merely you doing your thing it´d be absolutely amazing to watch the master play, and see how you do it. I feel I could learn SO incredibly much from you, you can only learn so much from texts, nothing like experience and action to really illustrate concepts. I don´t have too big hopes this would happen - but if you ever are open to recording your gameplay there is a very easy program called OBS, you can use it takes around 2-5 minutes to set it up - I tried it the other day so I could record everything I do in railroad tycoon 3, Ive started recording all I do just for my own sake, to learn and analyze and also just enjoy. On youtube there is not much of railroad tycoon 3, mostly just from people who seem to have no clue what to do. Seeing how you play would be like a look into the past of the great tycoons. Is that ever something you´d consider doing? Perhaps if its just a small quick map like Go West? It´d be so fun to see how you do it and see your thought process, so much can be learned. And most people don´t want to take their time analyzing a map, all the indsutires, rivers, caroges, all of this - which is vital to get an optimal start. Im also very impressed with how you got it in 2 years as on hard/expert the I think 20%? less profitable trains usually puts me into industry, but I´d love to see it done in under 2 years, that is incredible. Also very curious to see you play some of the more difficiult maps, like this one and others - see how you setup routes, work with passengers, industires and accomplish goals in the shortest time possible. So much of what you speak of could be learned I think. I honestly think its such a shame so few get to even learn from you. I know most people are not into going so in depth, but those who are - I found teaching other people who truly crave knowledge and are open to what you tell them - its such a joy to teach, but only those who truly are interested - all those half arsed they are a waste of time, but just 1 person who wants to truly learn...nothing feels better, and isn´t that how we humans got to where we were? though knowledge, and the sharing of it.

I tried using the search button but I wish there was an advanced search function so i could find more of your posts and more topics I´m interested in learning about - as usually I got to dig through many pages.

If you are willing to consider ever recording you playing, OBS I think is best, if you know about it, if not a quick search on google and you´d beable to record within 5 minutes. I am terrible at technical stuff but it was so easy with railroad tycoon 3.

I´ll definitely keep in mind to start a thread on the general section and ask specific questions - and thank you so so much, it´s incredibly kind of you to be willing to answer my questiosn and share your library of knowledge. Truly that is not a small thing to offer, Im very grateful for that. I´m sure as I play more - if I can´t keep myself away, I´ll get so many more questions. Right now I´m just so interested in seeing you setup routes, analyzing the terrain and how you do things so i can compare how I do it and see small gold nuggets of where I do things another much more ineffective way. After that I´m sure I´d have alot more questions. Most of what I read from your posts and others I just really crave to see put in action - seeing how its done from another perspective can be so helpful. All that knowlegde!
I´m actually far more interested in learning than I am in playing the game, then perhaps putting it into action and seeing the difference and what a joy ti´d be to go trhough every scenario with all that knowledge, I´m sitting here wanting to play right now, but I´m hesitant as with all the new knowledge i can learn I´d rather wait after having seen you play and learned much more, and after having spend more time reading more informtative posts on this forum. It´d cool to see a guide from you, a collection of posts you´ve written on this forum aswell. And all these terms you made, I´m very curious about them, such terms made by a true expert really puts thing into perspective, I´ve no doubt those terms are not silly but you put alot of thought into all of this. So a new topic called the dicitonary of RulerofRails may be an excellent idea

[RulerofRails]

This forum does have Advanced search capabilities. Just below the header on the left-hand side you will see Quick Links. One of these options is "search." This is advanced search. Here you can filter by author etc..

I found your Go West! video. I didn't have the time to watch the whole thing. But I saw enough to say that to get the most from the price maps in the game you should seek a solution to run your game with Hardware D&L un-ticked in the Graphics options. I use dgVoodoo with Win 8.1. If you have Windows 10 the game may run correctly in it's default state. Of course, if you applied a patch to get the game to run you will need dgVoodoo.
A couple screenshots here to illustrate the improved detail: viewtopic.php?p=43925#p43925.
Instructions for setting up dgVoodoo: viewtopic.php?p=42169#p42169


Just to let you know that my method involves 0 industries. In my opinion selling off industries for cash is not in the spirit of the game. I don't judge it, but it's not a tactic I use. Also, your track laying costs can be reduced. The minimum track needed is below $5M. To get max ROI from rails, efficient track laying is a must.

In that run I was lucky, $1.2M first year profit from rails. We have lots of cash to start here. My strat was: connect Boston up to Providence via Lowell, then Worcester-Lowell-Hartford. All large stations. Basically to take the resources from Providence and distribute them. Also, not neglecting passenger and mail traffic. It's plentiful and trains are cheap. And Boston had a Textile Mill that was producing well. New York also had. Meat and Lumber were available but in more restricted supply.

I didn't build any maintenance sheds. I only put 2 or 3 water towers at the beginning of the 2nd year. Really pushing profit that first year. Let the AI start Edison->New York. This way I saved the cost of a station in New York. New York is a large enough city that he builds a Large station.

It was really a lazy attempt, brushing up on the map before talking about it with you. In the beginning of the second year I did nothing to further profits. I maxxed bonds and tried to extend the rails as far as west as I could. Funds ran out before Rochester. I then decided rashly to let the game run and see if the economy would improve meaning I could borrow enough to finish the connection. I didn't build stations along the route or buy more trains. As luck would have it, the economy improved allowing me to borrow another $1M. This was plenty to complete the connection. My rail network was easily earning enough to cover the interest. I didn't issue any stock. What should be possible under a wide range of conditions is to get it at the start of the 3rd year, after 2 good rail expansion years. But I think that's enough off-topic here.

[BigBoyTycoon]

Ah yes! Found the advanced search button yesterday just after I wrote post!


Thank you for that! I see that is a huge difference! I remember it being disabled I think back when railroad tycoon3 didn´t work on steam and you needed the vista fix from Hawk, to fix it - but now steam has fixed it, I forgot that I should disable that! Never knew there was such a huge difference! WOW!

I just checked right now and it is actually un-ticked. But I don´t have the water reflections or the cargo price differentials looking like that, will try look into fixing that with the links you provided. I´m using windows 10, and it is unticked. So I think it should work now, but I don´t got those reflections of the water, so it probably isn´t quite right. I downloaded the dgvoodoo, and I can see the watermark in game now, and it is also unticked the hardware option - the italy map looks the same for me though with the no water reflections - Wish stuff like this would just work haha, hopefully it can be fixed, but that´s for another topic in the right forum section. Thanks for the links, hopefully I can get it work somehow.

Yeah you´re right, I noticed how much of a difference track laying means, I first when I played Drums of War noticed that the redder the colour the more expensive per mile of track, I just figured it would be bad for a train - I try to use realistic train routes, but that is something I really need to pay much more attention to. I can see what you mean with taking your time. Do you usually ignore, on a map like drums of war, a nice looking track with almost perfect grades, as opposed to a track with a short bump of alot of high grades? If its only a very short stretch usually it doesn´t mean anything I noticed.

Also one thing I´m super curious about - do you organize your track laying so it´s realistic? What I mean by that is you know when you have a town - and the track goes in one line - and then another track that curves away, and the train makes a 180 and it looks completely unrealistic? I started only laying track so the train actually could move like that in real life - like when taking curves on the track, it just doesn´t make sense that the train can do those 180´s its just not possible. I never did but recently I started paying attention to this.

I want to try do no bonds, no issue of stock and no unconnected track for all maps now. Stock/Bonds are just too powerful. Tried doing quick scenario on the france scenario with those rules + no industry (except nukes/electric) no bonds and tried no stocks, was so close, but didn´t quite get it so let myself issue a couple stocks and that fixed it, it was super hard but much more fun and only barely made it. But no bonds and no stock really makes you have to play much differently, no stocks in a scenario like drums of war is perhaps a 30m-50m profit loss.

It´s seriously impressive you with just a lazy attempt completely crushed my attempt haha, the difference is real! Smart moves with the water towers...Do you usually place water towers and sheds a bit away from each other to avoid the crawl? Or do you nearly always put them on the stations or how do you like to use them? I find sooner or later you´re forced to put them on the rails like in drums of war - when you have to connect hubs or deliver x amount of hauls of a specific cargo.

Do you find on older scenarioes you´re more passengers focused, with specific express trains? And is so do you often make specific mail trains aswell? I think I´ll try your way of using a "feel" - just now i tried checking the stations each year, to see what cargo was there and kept a close focus on all the cargoes on the map where what was needed and how much meat a town would consme per year etc. like 0,40 loads per year---i wish there was the curser option of dragging a square and being told how much is consumed of different cargoes each year.

If you ever do drums of war again with the cheaper trains and track laying option - like you mentioned 5 years ago - It´d be fantastic to see you play it, even if it´s a 6 hour recording.

Also I agree selling industry - I don´t do do that, in this Go west it was only because i wanted to see what would be possible if i did everything i could - and yet i got crushed haha, so i re-edited my video now, as I got humbled

Selling of industry should be in the unwritten - not allowed rules. And no issue of stock too I think. Issue of bonds can be super helpful but it´s much more fun without it. I´m curious since this is so easy for you, what you could accomplish on drums of war if you let yourself use trains of elecitricy, and really pushed how much you could get..I´m not sure but I think 3000-5000 loads of weapons, ammo, and troops should be possible. Even without the moving of cargo after every station exploit. I think I´ll perhaps try out the other african scenarios too, as I really enjoy the exotic maps.

Still hoping for you to record yourself playing, especially the more difficult maps, as things seem to be so easy for you - I´m most curious about where you place sheds, water towers, and just your overall way of analyzing and playing - every player has their own way I feel, I haven´t seen two players played the same way - especially not the more difficult ones like this one and others.

Anyway I´ll let this topic be about drums of war and make a new topic in the other section for further questions. Thanks alot again!

[RulerofRails]

With track-laying normally a longer flat route is cheaper. It's not only grade. You pay for "fill". The more uneven the terrain, the higher this cost will be. You can also save on bridges (where land isn't flat beside the river) with clever technique to reduce fill in the ramps.

I don't worry about trains turning 180 degrees at the stations. In fact my layout might actually sometimes encourage that. I'm a fan of the T-style junction. I dug out two screenshots that might give an idea.

T-style junctions.jpg

T-style junctions II.jpg

At one time I looked carefully into service facility placement: http://hawkdawg.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=41905#p41905. From this I concluded that spur service is in fact not superior in terms of volume the train can haul.

This game is pretty open with a lot of playstyles supported. Some stuff will be personal preference with no clear strategic reason. Also, preference can over-ride pure strategy as well. Even sometimes for me.

---

More often that not I use bonds. A small rail-only company in the first few years may suffer growth flatspots where all cities in the current network have achieved price equilibrium. With bonds it's easier to keep the ball rolling with fresh connections which yield fresh markets with high demand and new cargo sources also.

In the early years engines are cheap. Express traffic builds up throughout the year. In the critical first year I may buy an engine that will deliver pax/mail only slightly more valuable than it's purchase price. The train needs to deliver before the end of the year. If the train is not needed locally long-term, it will be given the red symbol to wait until a new expansion takes place. It doesn't matter too much where because for every expansion some current trains will be diverted to take cargoes to these fresh high demand areas. If he is in the right place (good pile of cargo) he will get used, otherwise he will assume the duties of another local train that was in the right place when expansion occured.

It's quite unlikely I would play this for a 3x or 5x on the targets. Bulk haulage targets are among my least favorite. I go out of my way not to "cheat" them. But in the end no matter how careful you are, re-hauling is part of the game. You can optimize production (will be somewhat seed dependent), but it's tricky to find many efficiency gains without heading down the facilitated re-hauling path. I feel at cross-purposes with myself. I tend to use an approach of setting up an empire, needs to get the job done, but is more of an oversight management style than hands-on performance-driven effort.


PS. I can't record anything at the moment even if I wanted to (no hard drive space). Unfortunately it's not something that I feel would add to the fun of me playing. I wont say never, but it's pretty unlikely, sorry.