New York to Chicago

[historyman101]

You have 41 cities. That is about twice as much as a map of this size can handle comfortably.
Here you have to make a mental decision, what your scenario goals are and limit the number of cities to that goal.

In that case I have to cut it down by half. I already have an idea of which cities to cut. After that, I'll start setting the industries for the cities.

This is going to take a while, especially considering how I've got some college work as well. I'll keep most of the cities in the Northeast and Midwest part of the map and remove the ones from near the edge of the map. The cities too small to note (villages) will be also be removed.

I'll post the updated version when possible.

EDIT: I've cut the number of cities down to 20-odd, and made New York City the start position. I've enclosed a zip folder of the edited map. I should be getting to work on some of the industries fairly soon.

[Jancsika]

The game wants to have 4 staring locations. If you have less than 4 it might pick one arbitrary.
So it’s better if you decide.

I wonder if you know that a village will grow as the game progresses to town, city and metropolis.

In order to do that the village (town,city) has to be connected to the network and receive a certain amount of traffic.
Keep me posted.
Jancsika

[historyman101]

The game wants to have 4 staring locations. If you have less than 4 it might pick one arbitrary.
So it’s better if you decide.

I wonder if you know that a village will grow as the game progresses to town, city and metropolis.

In order to do that the village (town,city) has to be connected to the network and receive a certain amount of traffic.
Keep me posted.
Jancsika

I've made 7 possible starting points:
New York City
Chicago
Philadelphia
Washington
Toronto
Cleveland
Detroit

About the villages, I experienced from the game that villages can grow, but what I meant was that small towns in real life were removed from the map. Places like South Bend or Terre Haute or Fort Wayne were not included because I wanted the larger cities to be put in. I can still put back in some villages but I think that 26 or so cities is more than enough.

About to start on the industries. I already know to make Chicago the beef capital and Pittsburgh and Charleston the major steel producing sites but I'm wondering what should New York City or some of the other NY cities should be.

[Jancsika]

About to start on the industries. I already know to make Chicago the beef capital and Pittsburgh and Charleston the major steel producing sites but I'm wondering what should New York City or some of the other NY cities should be.

NYC should be the financial center.
In order to do it you can ship Automobiles to the cities.
Then you can turn the Automobiles into gold, and ship it to NYC.
I the scenario conditions you can specify as a Victory Condition, for example in order to win the game, NYC should receive XX number of gold Traincars.
When you have the proper industries working, we will do the scenario conditions.

Here is an example of production line:
Coal Mine
Steel Plant
Automobile Factory
Ship the automobiles to the cities and convert it to gold
Ship the gold to NYC. (In the Scenario Conditions we can specify that while other cities can receive gold, only the one that was shipped to NYC counts to victory.)

About the villages, I experienced from the game that villages can grow, but what I meant was that small towns in real life were removed from the map. Places like South Bend or Terre Haute or Fort Wayne were not included because I wanted the larger cities to be put in. I can still put back in some villages but I think that 26 or so cities is more than enough.

Don’t put back any villages. What I ment was that you can start Chicago as a small village, and by bringing industry to it, make it grow to a Metropolis.
It will be an other challenge in the game. It will add a little more difficulty.
Jancsika

[Jancsika]

I have added a page to the Map Making Tutorial, listing all the goods and industries that are available in the game.
Jancsika

[historyman101]

Added some key industries for some cities:

New York: Furniture Factory
Chicago: Stockyard
Detroit: Auto Plant
Pittsburgh: Steel Mill
Charleston: Steel Mill

Also made the following changes to city sizes

Syracuse: Village
Newark: Village
Chicago: Town
London: Town
Cleveland: City
Detroit: City
Indianapolis: City
Cincinnati: City

I've enclosed the updated map. I need to go but if someone could take a look and suggest any changes that'd be great.

[Jancsika]

Here is a marked up set of your map.
Using an XML editor I’ve made some adjustment
1. I’ve used the “Pretty print” command to make the xml files more understandible. It gives each command line a “Line break”.
2. Edited the “RRT_Cities_NYC_Chicago.XML file:
Towns will accept Food.
City will accept Food and Manufactured Goods.
Metropolis will accept Food, Manufactured Goods, Automobiles.
3. Edited the “RRT_Trains_NYC_Chicago.XML file. Kept only the American locomotives active. The rest are placed in “Comments” (If you want to use them you can “uncomment” them.
4. RRT_Scenario_Users_NYC_Chicago.XML: I’ve added some “Victory Conditions”, so you can see what can be done. These are only some examples. You can come up with more, change the dates, etc.
5. Also added a map specific RRT_Events_NYC_Chicago.XML file. This will prevent unexplainable random crashes. It can happen when the Event file calls for an event that has no goods and/or industries in the map.
6. Also added Map title to the Scenario file.
Jancsika
Me thinks that you still have too many Cities, also the "City" is larger than the "Town"

[historyman101]

Well the goals are good enough. I need to get an XML editor though to correct some mistakes. Once the week is over I'll do that. I just have a lot on my plate right now college wise.

Narrowed down the list of starting locations to four: New York, Chicago, Toronto and Cleveland.

Made these industries associated with cities as according to the national industrial situation of the late 19th-early 20th century:

New York: Manufactured goods (Furniture Factory, will add refinery soon)
Chicago: Stockyard
Pittsburgh and Charleston: Steel Mill
London: Paper Mill
Detroit: Auto Plant

Need to find a way to get the Sears Tower, the Statue of Liberty and the Washington Monument into Chicago NY and Washington respectively.

Need to find time to add trees. That's going to take a while to do. What cities would you recommend shrinking? I am looking at a lot of possibilities but having trouble deciding which ones to shrink to towns or villages.

[Jancsika]

Here is a (2) set of Victory condition that I use for samples. You can look them over for ideas.

As for the city sizes: If the game stars in 1850, I would just look it up in an encyclopedia the contemporary sizes, and would adjust the size to match.

I’ll let you work on things a little. That’s the way to learn. If you get stuck, let me know.
Jancsika

[historyman101]

I have bad news to break to all: I cannot continue this project.

College life along with many other things not worth mentioning have gotten in the way and I've lost track of my work. I can pass on what I have to anyone who wants to continue this project on in my stead, but unfortunately I no longer have the time or the energy to work on this.

Many apologies to anyone who was holding out for some good news on this. Surely someone can pick up the torch and continue though.