The idea of the map came from Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy and it is one of the great science fiction books of our times. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_trilogy
Since NASA is planning for new Mars exploration it is still a very timely subject.
There are a lot of new industries. Solar energy, bio-fuels. No oil or coal or polluting industries. We have Mini-Black holes, bottled Sunshine to name a few.
Transportation is all electric.
The ground tolerance was adjusted, so there is no use for for the tunnels (they are expensive), there are no wood or trussed metal bridges.
There is more help available at http://www.hookedgamers.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=4126
Industry cheat sheet
Routing for the scenario victory conditions.
Excellent map. Very interesting and unique.
This one will challenge the way you usually do things in SMR.
In my case, I had to abandon my personal rule to never cross tracks (one track crossing over another). There’s just too much going on and the requirements are piling on. Mid game you will probably be working on fulfilling at least 10 requirements at the same time. Hectic.
Another thing that I never do is tear down one industry to make room for another. This map will force you to do it several times during the game. LOL. Second time-line goals had me stretched all over the map to get gold related industries working. Once I started achieving those goals i had to tear most of it down and re-route my extensive network to concentrate on algae related requirements. This also had to be scaled down later in order to achieve 1000 gold (Yes – One thousand). The fact is that the settlers are coming from one spot only and can support only maybe three industry chains at a time efficiently.
Not sure why those useless industries (marked with the “?”) are left in the game though. At the beginning, when money was still an issue, it was disheartening to spend a couple of million to reach the resource just to find out that the annex costs another 10 mill. Another blow comes when you realize that you’re not gonna make any money there. Cruel and unusual.
There’s also a small issue with one of the tasks. Namely – 100 settlers to Prometheus. All the other settler tasks make sense because those towns need them. Either to to send workers to dig gold ore or nitrates. Prometheus had no use for workers and I had to create another settler line to the town on the right (not sure about the name).
As I said before. Very original and interesting map. Lots of fun. I would say moderate difficulty for experienced players and hard for beginners. I was sweating most of the time but still managed to finish everything couple of years before last time period even started.
The useless industries are left in the game to make it more difficult. The map has 3 industry slots available after you start the game. If they are occupied you can’t build an industry there or if it starts as a village (1 industry slot) you have to make it grow to town (2) or city (3).
Thanks for the compliment.
After you work yourself through the 80+ maps, you will be able to make one of your own and join the MapBuilding contest.
Thanks for the feedback. Very interesting map.
Just realized that I could have used Prometeus to pump workers to nitrate annex regardless. Ah well. 🙂
Hey guys there’s an easier way to play any map that u have downloaded just extract the files to C:\Program Files\Sid Meier’s Railroads\Assets\SharedMaps or Usermaps.
I agree a very interesting map. I found it was sufficiently challenging without any AI players. However, at the end, I am not sure if I like these long chains of resources/ industries, too complicated to keep track of. It’s the same on the Sodor map.
You could follow the link provided in the first post to get the “cheat sheet”, which summarizes all the steps in the long production chains. Very helpful, I found.
I’m having an unusual problem with this map. Every time that I try to put an annex in the bottom two “No Goods” areas my game crashes. Doesn’t matter where I am in the game. I have 3gb installed and all up to date. Anyone have any ideas. Nice map by the way…
MasteRyder, I remember playing this game and getting the same crashes you are talking about. There is an error in the RRT_Depots_Green_Mars.xml file where the name of the depot was misnamed NoGoods Fields02 Annex, when it should have been NoGoods02 Fields Annex. As a result, when you try to place a depot at a NoGoods02 Field the game can not find the needed depot and crashes. Jancsika put a comment in the industry xml file that nogoods industries serve no purpose in the game accept to fill what would otherwise be empty lots so the player could not place new industries in convenient locations. NoGoods and NoGoods02 production rates are very low and only pay $1000 per carload for delivery, so they are useless anyway. They are also not a part of the victory objectives for the game. So, don’t fool with the NoGoods02 as it only causes a crash. I guess no one caught the error because very few people tried to ship NoGoods02. Like you, however, I did and the game crashes everytime when you try to place a depot at NoGoods02 Fields. You can place a depot at the NoGoods Fields, without a crash, but there is nothing to gain. Jancsika is dead now or am I sure he would send you an apology. It is still a cool map. Have fun. – TMiller
I cannot load this map i get within 20 seconds of loading and then it crashes out. I have 3GB initialised.
Has anyone got any ideas please.
Goozzie
Goozzie, are you trying to play against AI characters?
AI players can cause random crashes on loading. I can play this map with 2 AI players, but not 3. Sometimes the map crashes with 2, but loads fine at least 80% of the time.