Railroad Tycoon 3 - Page 3

The Pioneer · December 26, 2003, 11:04

Ok, I have not played the scenario through yet. Also, one thing to note is that I have not played RRT3 much in general as I received it together with C3C a few weeks ago and I have split my time between the two and work (my poor wife

). So some of the things happening might be the way new mechanics of the game (as opposed to RRT2).

First, I cannot imagine to win a medal in this scenario as the reqs even for Bronze are very high. I have played up until 1870 and I cannot bring my company out of its infancy. I chose Scranton - Wilkes Barre (both 2 star) as the start and I have expanded to some nearby cities like Sunbury and Berwick, this seemed the best route to establish a base of operations from which to expand. At the moment I am stuck in with a bad Credit Rating and no cash and the routes are now bringing in some money after a period of economic downturn. If I went to the mountainous regions that are full of iron and coal mines it would be very hard to find two good sized cities that you can service in order to establish a base of operations. In my current route(s) I have not been able to haul any significant amount of the required cargo. In order to do so I have to expand and lay track dedicated to coal and iron mines that are scattered around but I cannot raise the capital to finance such projects. Oil sources are very far away and by the time I reach them the game might be over. This is a big map with vast areas with nothing but lonely rural industries and that is the challenge but it is also the one thing that makes this very hard to finish successful. This is not to say that I am not enjoying the game, especially since I know PA pretty well and some of the areas do bring some memories back J. I will restart the game and play again over the weekend and I may fare better next time, I will let you know.

The AI seems to have a problem dealing with the requirements of the scenario as it finds two cities anywhere connects them and then stays there without expanding. They do not seem to go after the cargo requirements. I do not know if the AI is so smart as to play the PNW requirement later on but it seems that it is content with playing small.

Has anybody finished this scenario successfully?

So long….

Az · December 26, 2003, 13:48

JohnT: even LESS micromanagement?!

Wow. I am not sure I like this. I digged TTDX, so you know what I am talking about.

ixnay · December 26, 2003, 20:28

Got this for xmas yesterday.

It's awesome. I'm having a blast playing it.

JohnT · December 27, 2003, 14:05

Quote:

First, I cannot imagine to win a medal in this scenario as the reqs even for Bronze are very high. I have played up until 1870 and I cannot bring my company out of its infancy. I chose Scranton - Wilkes Barre (both 2 star) as the start and I have expanded to some nearby cities like Sunbury and Berwick, this seemed the best route to establish a base of operations from which to expand.

Therein lies your problem. You really should start in the Erie-Oil City-Meadsville area and you'll find that the conditions are more easily met.

Also a number of the hauling issues will be solved as time goes by - a number of events and choices you make will make production shoot through the roof, making hauling much easier.

However, it seems that the victory conditions are still not set up properly. Following are a couple of quotes about this issue that I made at the gathering.com forums:

Quote:

Of all the things that I had trouble with, setting up the gold/silver/bronze conditions so that they would work properly was the toughest. And it sounds like I still screwed it up.

It was supposed to end at the end of 1901, not 1911 - if you noticed a dearth of events past 1901, that's why.

Could somebody look at the victory conditions and tell me what I'm doing wrong?

Quote:

Yeah, like I said: lack of documentation and lack of similarities in regards to how the "official" scenarios do the exact same thing (I looked at three PopTop PNW victory conditions - all of them were different ) led to much confusion on my part how to set up the win conditions. I tried, and tried, and tried some more but still... no go. I thought I had it before I uploaded v. 2.0 as I did play a successful Gold winning game... but somehow, that Gold win was apparently just luck.

I was thinking of doing another scenario, but the problems I've had with even setting up the most basic of victory conditions with this one pretty much puts the kibosh on it.

Which really, really sucks.

http://www.gathering.com/forums/view...er=asc&start=0

The lack of documentation in regards to scenario creating is my biggest beef with this game. As I said, you can't even see how other scenarios set them up because even the same victory conditions have wildly different means of achieving them. Foolish me, I even thought the game would not award the Bronze if you still had a chance to win Silver/Gold... apparently, that's not how it works, and nobody seems to be able to tell me how to do it.

Oh, well... my first attempt at modding shall be my last.

The Pioneer · December 27, 2003, 19:32

Hey do not dismay. I have actually read some posts about your scenarion on the Gathering forum. It is true that it may need some fine tuning but otherwise it is a challenging scenarion in a great epoche with very interesting events. Some of the problems lie with the game itself (i.e grades, AI, etc.).

I will try again and concetrate on the NW corner of the State and see how I will do. Keep up the good work!

So long...

JohnT · February 15, 2004, 19:56

So, Pioneer, didja make it all the way through my scenario?

Urban Ranger · February 16, 2004, 01:55

Quote:

Originally posted by JohnT
RT3's economic engine assumes competition from water transport and other land transport so that the cargo does move (albeit much more slowly) if you don't link up. The biggest complaint of RT3 economic engine is that you cannot haul cargo at a loss, meaning you can't push iron at a loss. Many people argue that this is unreasonable, that many companies won't mind losing $10k on an iron-to-steel mill run if moving the then-processed steel brings in, say, $100k.

I agree with the people who think that's an unreasonable constraint.

Quote:

Originally posted by JohnT
RT2 is played from the viewpoint of a line and car Manager and demands far more micromanaging than RT3. RT3 is played from the viewpoint of a corporate President who is in charge of a railroad company. A lot of people don't like the switch of viewpoints, but I'm quite fine with it

Not really, you see from all points of view in RRT as well.

JohnT · February 16, 2004, 19:17

Quote:

I agree with the people who think that's an unreasonable constraint.

As do I, but then the designers forgot to ask me about this as they were developing the game, so...

Urban Ranger · February 17, 2004, 06:13

It's them GoD again, eh?

JohnT · February 17, 2004, 09:54

Do you have RT3, UR? If so, would you mind giving my scenario a whirl? Except for Pioneer feedback has been... spotty, to put it best.

bipolarbear · February 24, 2004, 17:01

Are th railroad tycoon gaems anygood? I know that the original sim city was a slightly entertaining opiate.

Joseph · February 24, 2004, 22:43

Quote:

Originally posted by bipolarbear
Are th railroad tycoon gaems anygood? I know that the original sim city was a slightly entertaining opiate.

If you like trains, than you may like this game. But if you never had a train and have never played with a model train you may or maynot like this game.

Urban Ranger · February 24, 2004, 23:41

Quote:

Originally posted by JohnT
Do you have RT3, UR? If so, would you mind giving my scenario a whirl? Except for Pioneer feedback has been... spotty, to put it best.

Not yet. Haven't bought a new game in ages (like several months

).

JohnT · February 25, 2004, 15:32

Damn you!

What good are you then?

Urban Ranger · February 26, 2004, 00:01

Heckling.

Grumbold · February 26, 2004, 13:01

They don't call him Duke of Off Topic for nothing

JohnT · February 26, 2004, 18:31

... says another person who also didn't offer to try out my scenario...

Grumbold · February 26, 2004, 20:12

I promise I will when RT3 rolls around as a game i want to play again.

I got as far as the scenario building from the West coast to the centre of America. They wanted 5 units of produce delivered per year and I got really pissed off when it seemed that 5 deliveries of 1 produce cars or 3 loads of 2 produce cars weren't good enough, it had to be one load of 5 cars. I had something more interesting sitting in its shrink wrap that I decided to play instead

bipolarbear · February 27, 2004, 00:51

This game should obviously be banned. It promotes nazism, by encouraging you to get the trains to run on time!

Urban Ranger · February 27, 2004, 03:23

bipolarbear,

Do not spam in every thread.

bipolarbear · February 27, 2004, 06:25

Sorry

, I was just trying to tell a joke

JohnT · February 27, 2004, 18:05

Well, I found the game rather easy and decided to create a scenario that would test the empire builder in all of us. If you do get into it again, Grumbold, PM me and I'll send you the latest version.

Jonny · February 28, 2004, 14:35

It's taken two months, but I've finally gotten around to trying out the scenario. (The day you sent it to me I was leaving town for Christmas, and then I just forgot about it entirely.)

I've played only 8 years so far, but it's already apparent that this isn't your average scenario... it's going to be some challenge.