California, 1848-1890

[Lama]

This map covers the history of California from its annexation by the United States to the end of the 1880s.

There are four eras.

The game will run on 'slow time': a month of game-time will take three times as long as normal in real time.

Use the map switcher to play this map, which is designed as a stand-alone scenario.

Have fun!

[snoopy55]

Lama, nice looking map! (haven't played it yet, very busy with other aspects of the game)

One item and a question.

FPKs - These are best opened and put into a folder. While the game does use them, they have proved to be a problem for some people and are no longer used in maps. The Tenders FPK has files in it that are not used also. The attached folder has had these files removed.

The question - Why did you leave engines from 1900 on in the map if the map is not going to use them? This game tends to load everything in the XMLs when starting whether it is used or not. The game is a memory hog and leaving out anything unneeded is strongly recomended. This is the main reason SAMs were developed, to cut memory usage. And there are still ways to cut back on used memory in your map.

Keep producing maps, it's good to see one after such a long dry spell.

[Lama]

Thanks for the tips and for the attachment.

Does the map switcher handle 7z files? If so, I'll use that format for my uploads.

The reason the post-1900 engines are in is so that players can continue to play on this map beyond the last era. I tend to enjoy doing that, for sandbox purposes.

[karsten]

Thanks for a fun map, Lama! The scenery is very well made, with the many small frontier settlements adding to the feeling of desolation and distance. I played through twice without a single crash. The second time as Robber Baron starting from Sacramento.

To generate sufficient money quickly, I built a highly profitable Sacramento-Stockton-SanFranciso passenger route, adding tons of gold deliveries to San Francisco, concentrating on using all earning potential without spending much on rails. Once the money machine was spinning, I could finance expansion in long, level stretches to Los Angeles and San Diego, to get the speed record and start the path to Metropolises early. I then added a mail-gold train between Salt Lake City and San Francisco just in time to finish the requirements of Era Two, Three and Four jointly.

Did I notice any issues? Tiny ones: The grow city condition triggers success already after only one city has actually grown to Metropolis. A simple alternative could be (if you add Stockton):

<Condition>
<szType>GrowCity</szType>
<bRequired>1</bRequired>
<GrowCityList>
<GrowCityListItem>
<szInitialSize>Village</szInitialSize>
<szTargetSize>Metropolis</szTargetSize>
<szCityTagName>ANY_CITY</szCityTagName>
<iGrowQuantity>4</iGrowQuantity>
</GrowCityListItem>
</GrowCityList>

And the random event file has two joint events (the tags got shifted in the example below), but this did not trigger any crashes for me.

Well done!

[Warll]

The map shifter uses 7-zip as the uncompression tool so it will handle many file formats. I would suggest using zip though, since it is less confusing to users who want to install maps manually which according to my statistics is the majority of map players.

If you can create a version with the unpacked fpks and those two xml fixes then I'd love to post this on the frontpage.

[Lama]

I have uploaded a fresh version of the map, just now. The errors have been fixed, and assets have been added to give distinct icons to the new industries.

If you play it, please let me know what you think.

[karsten]

I like the new icons, very stylish in keeping with the existing ones. I ran the California map once again yesterday. Now the Metropolis condition triggers perfectly, albeit at City-Level.
That is presumably as far as one can go. SMR standard maps have 4 settlement levels, so the success-condition "Metropolis" is translated as "reach the 4th level". Since California has 5 levels, it is quite logical that the condition triggers on reaching the 4th, the "City" level.

[Lama]

That is what I have figured. Seems like it is hard-coded someplace that 'top level' = 'level 4'. I've seen it work like that in another test map I run.

Now, since city growth depends on loads delivered, we could also make the condition about that, instead. I remember seeing somewhere a breakdown of how many loads have to be delivered, before a city jumps a level. Will have to try and find that again.

[RoyalRAFMAN]

Enjoyed playing California, thank you. I think it would have played well even if it had been a bit more difficult to achieve - I do enjoy a challenge!

[thegrindre]

I loved this map! Took me 4 times to beat it on easy easy. Am looking forward to beating it on higher levels, now.