Current project: London - ideas and suggestions please?

[Taleisinchat]

Fired up by the amount of enthusiasm experienced Tycoonies feel for the really complex scenarios like Arizona, Michigan and so on, I have set to work on a fairly detailed map of London.

I have had fun with the maps I have done so far, but I can imagine that they will not have been especially stimulating to the experienced player.

The London situation obviously has the potential for huge amounts of money, since we are talking here about a city that was 1 million people in 1800 and 6 million in 1900. The growth is just phenomenal. I can do some of the history bits, and I have the layout of the map under my belt already. I have one or two ideas for relating the economy to the rest of Britain and the outside world; these will become clear when I upload.

In the meantime the risk is obviously that the thing will just have far too much money sloshing around in it to be any real challenge. I'm choking it up with pre-built housing so that demolition costs the earth. I need to get the profit margins down so that the balance is delicate. Any other concrete suggestions? AI in place or not?

The current map is 1830 and therefore without any previous railways, but there is a possibility that I might move on to a later version in which the 1939 railway network is damaged as it was in the blitz and has to be kept running then modernised in a generation of static growth.

Your suggestions and comments would be most welcome. Also, if you have played my previous maps, which were worth trying and which were rubbish and why ...

Taleisin

[PJay]

Make sure there is some non-express cargo in your map too, and make it part of the victory conditions. A map saturated with people & mail usually makes for a monotone gameplay.

[Taleisinchat]

Yes, I thought that too. Looks like coal from the direction of South Wales or Newcastle will be an important part of the scenery.

More thoughts anyone?

[Gwizz]

I wonder how a game would play if it was just of the london area?
Many districts throughout the city could be programed like cities with a lot of overlap of these city districts.
Express cargo production could be greatly reduced in the editor or even not allowed on the map. Too bad RRT3 doesn't have trolleys.
12 Warehouses could be placed around the edge of the city where cargo could be picked up as if they were the yards of major railroads with cargo for delivery within the city.

With a good history of London, a person should be able to know from which direction the coal came into town, etc.

The seasons could be programed for coal deliver or farm land supplies, etc. Might make for an interesting map.

[Taleisinchat]

Thanks Gwizz, that's pretty much how I'm working it. The London area is represented at 640 x 512 with its districts and villages as in 1830 represented as small overlapping cities set to grow fast. A 32 square border round the edge contains a highly diagrammatic representation of provinces and other cities, with various territory premiums for access to the raw materials.

I want to try a sequence of historical events as pioneered in Arizona and Michigan, so the arrival of the Act of Parliament on cheap workmens' fares will force the companies to carry passengers but at very little profit, keeping the timetable bulked up and requiring duplicate lines. I need to represent the Railway Mania of 1845, and also the banking crash of 1866 that caused the District Railway such trouble.

As of today I have a problem with the prototype and I'm not sure what I have done to cause it. My AI players won't build track, they just sit on their cash in a rather idle way and occasionally buy a few shares. Boring. Is it because I have clogged up the central area with housing leaving them no room to build lines to carry the few early cargos? Of course the AIs cant see passengers. If this is the case then I need a major rethink. Probably need to demolish all my pre-built housing and instead carve out a central London territory at a premium for access that will put everyone off until 1860, about the date that the Metropolitan began to get going. I want the map to force players towards the historical reality, termini round the edge and one company for each direction, with some later attempts at links ....

Mmm now how do I represent the Islington canal tunnel?????? Probably doesn't matter as it never carried that much serious traffic ...

[AZ Rail Rat]

If you want to help limit the economy (though not really), follow that TRUELY British tradition - - - TAX THE HECK OUT OF 'EM :!: :!: :!:

Set up events to take money away from all companies in the form of taxes each year, growing progressively obscene. Don't know if you could work calculations based on profit, but WHO CARES :?: :?: :?: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: The government doesn't :!:

Be sure and set up a region over the entire map that has everything set to ZERO. That way unless your cities are so packed they are wall to wall, you control each city/district with city settings not with blank regions adding to it.

This concept sounds interesting. If it works, other megalopases like LA, Phoenix (yeah - we are surpasing 3M), Chicago, Atlanta, Paris, ohhhhh - IMAGINE Tokyo, Hong Kong, Rome or San Francisco with all those hills and mountains :!: :!: :!: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:

[Gwizz]

Chairmen that are most adapt at building a railroad are:
At 200 %: Brunel, Crocker, Hill and Rhodes
at 190 %: Huntington
at 180 %: Fremont
at 170 %: Fisk & Harriman
at 165 %: Holliday
at 160 %: Train
at 140 %: Platner and Drew
at 125 %: Forest
And so on.

They also need cities that are fairly easy to reach.
Of course you can program each chairman to start in a given area.
Be sure to X in the reserve cells so no buildings block the right of way.
Possibly they don't like the area you gave them or they don't have enough $ to build with. You could turn off the stock market so they had to direct their money toward building a RR. But then, I like working in the stock market :?

[pigboy306]

Sounds great i am lookin forward to the map...

Howabout in RRT 4 the ability to build undergrounds!!!!!

Time to start harassing POPTOP!

[pigboy306]

How is the map going???

Taelisin, take a look at Boston Metro by Gwizz and The Northeast Corridor by Lama, both available at http://theterminal.dune2k.com/?p=rrt3-files-maps&maps=22. NEC has a few tricks to take the monotony out of urban transit.

At the same website, check out Around Cache Valley by RSH(TorontoRSH), to see how he dealt with a large number of hamlets.

There is Chunnel by Mobius at his website. It could give you some ideas for subway building.

I also have a Paris beta, Ile de France, that might interest you. Email me if you want to have a look at it.

[Taleisinchat]

The map is built and looking promising, but it needs one whole load of work on balances and events before its a playable game .....

Keep up the encouragements!