ChicagoToTheRockies map; full Scenario Objectives and more!

[DOOM]

Hello, choobacca

I Here are My System specs,,

P4 3.73 Ghz 2 MB Cache with FSB running at 1071 Mhz
4 GB PC6400 DDR3, Running at 800Mhz
2 - 250 GB SATAII Harddrives Running RAID 0 - with 16 MB Cache in each.
The bandwidth is around 3Gb
PCI Express 256 MB Geforce 7600 GT

And I am still having crashs randomly on map, about 10% of the time while playing game (normally over prolonged time frames) came will crash, and it is always when I am "doing" something. Like this last time I was placing a additional Oil field depot, as I clicked to place it, the game crashed with a windows error.

It almost seems like the game can only have "so much" of something going on at one time before it goes nuts.
I know this is not a ram issue or whatnot. Could be we will need to wait for another patch from creators, after all game is still young, and I am sure a bug or two remain.

[snoopy55]

A few things, but you probally have your reasons:

Only 1 site for the taconite ore. Any reason for only one?

Only 4 starts and they're only on the east side

Coal and Oil are available in Illinois to the east of St. Louis. Wasn't sure if you knew that, none of my family did till my parents moved down here.

Don't get me wrong, it's a great map, those are just some thoughts of my bro and I.

[choobacca]

A few things, but you probally have your reasons:

Only 1 site for the taconite ore. Any reason for only one?

Only 4 starts and they're only on the east side

Coal and Oil are available in Illinois to the east of St. Louis. Wasn't sure if you knew that, none of my family did till my parents moved down here.

Don't get me wrong, it's a great map, those are just some thoughts of my bro and I.

Thanks for your comments snoopy55.
The largest Taconite mine we found was in the Mesabi Range in Minnesota. After a little quick searching, I was unable to find another mine, so we only ended up with one.
I wanted starting locations that were closer to Chicago than Denver to follow the Scenario objectives.
I didn't know about the coal and oil in IL. I may have to add these.
Thanks for playing, and I hope you're enjoying it.

[snoopy55]

Oh ya, I do enjoy it. I'd like to shoot a few AI's for their rotten track laying, but otherwise it's great!

As to Oil and Coal.... The Oil wells here around Centralia have been smelling up the air until last year when they finally figured that instead of just buring off the gases at each well, why not pipe it all to one place and put it to good use! The coal was so plentiful in the early 1900s that the Centraliayard with 53 miles of track in 22 classifacation tracks averaged 1000 cars of coal a day. In 1920, 1750 cars went thru in one day. the bad part was that it was high in sulfur, which until recently, was bad for the air. They are now finding ways to clean it.

Sorry about the history lesson, but railroads and I have been close since my teens and I always search the history of my suroundings.

Oh ya, iron was and may still be mined in upper Wisconsin and the Michigan peninsula (spent time there too, hence the CNW logo, which ran 1 train a day 150 feet from my back door))

[smokin]

thanks for sharing the map, can't wait to try it out.

[choobacca]

I have discovered a problem with having both the SuperBowlExpress map and the ChicagoToTheRockies maps in your _SCENARIOS_ directory. If you have both, you might not be able to load ChicagoToTheRockies without crashing. If this is the case for you, download these SuperBowlExpress and ChicagoToTheRockies updates.

Nothing has changed in the game except for the RRT_Goods.xml file that now contains all goods added from both maps. Evidently, the game doesn't load the local RRT_Goods, but finds the one from SuperBowlExpress and loads that one for ChicagoToTheRockies. Just something for people to keep in mind if they are inventing goods types, the RRT_Goods contains the superset of all goods from all maps to avoid this problem. I would imagine Trains and TrainCars work the same way, so just something to watch for.

Sorry about the confusion. We keep learning more about this modding interface.

choobacca

2/4/07 - This also fixes problems loading Santa and Scrooge maps.

[snoopy55]

choobaca - one thing I see in your Maps and in others is the making of an XML file then copying it with the name changed to match the Map. Then both files are Zipped as part of the Map.

This goes out to all Map makers - Only include the files Needed for your Map, and use your Maps name to name the files. This game evidently starts searching at the Map and works its way out from there, 'First Found, First Used', alot like the Trains

I noticed in this Map a Goods file that has been changed for the Map, and left in. Not good.

[choobacca]

This goes out to all Map makers - Only include the files Needed for your Map, and use your Maps name to name the files.

If you add goods, traincars or trains that did not come with the game, I think they need to be in your RRT_Goods_mymap.xml AND the RRT_Goods.xml files. I tried only including it in my RRT_Goods_mymap.xml and the game CTD. This goes for TrainCars and Trains.xml too. So I use a superset of goods, traincars, and trains that I have created and collected from others, and I keep my RRT_Goods.xml, RRT_TrainCars.xml, and RRT_Trains.xml in my "CustomAssets\XML" directory. Then I remove these general files from my individual scenarios.

So far I have included these general files in my released maps, but as you state, they should really be moved to a general area and modified for your own use as a superset of all your Goods, Trains, and TrainCars, etc. for the scenarios you have "installed".

This game evidently starts searching at the Map and works its way out from there, 'First Found, First Used', alot like the Trains

I though this too, until I tried starting ChicagoToTheRockies and CTD until I removed the RRT_Goods.xml that was in my SuperBowlExpress directory. For some reason it chose that one. This is when I moved my general files to my CustomAssets\XML directory and will modify these as I get more maps.

Has anyone else seen this?

[naugagamer]

Choobacca and all the others - thanks for the maps and lessons on XML.

Today I finally got Holiday, Super Bowl and Rockies all working. Tonight will be installing the other maps others have made. And, I can even understand what the code is doing!

Now that I can see the map and work with it, just one thing.... Omaha goes West of the Missouri River. The current location would be Council Bluffs, Iowa.

Thanks again for everyone making the maps.

[Big Papa]

naugagamer.

You are right. I though it fit better on the east side of the Mo. Thanks for playing.

Big Papa

[drank]

This is another good map - it's absolutely huge: 24 cities, by my count, and more raw materials than you'll be able to hook up. I found it really good practice for organizing and running a large railroad. Because of the density of raw materials in some parts of the map, there's a real track-laying challenge around some cities. I think I had 6 or 7 cities using all 8 inputs by the end of the game.

I found the scenario objectives pretty easy, however. I won on Robber Baron, Hard routing, 3 AI, Milwaukee start in around 1920. Note that's a full 50 years before the scenario is due to end!

The first era was the difficult one. After selling my stock, I was able to start out with Chicago-Milwaukee passengers, Milk->Milwaukee, Food->Chicago. As I made some money, I added Livestock->Chicago (allowing the Chicago/Milwaukee route to carry food both ways), Grain->Milwaukee, Fish->Green Bay, Green Bay-Milwaukee passengers, Green Bay-Milwaukee food/beer.

That was enough of an economy to allow me to save up 2M for the Chicago to Denver run. As soon as possible, I doubled the track, so that I had 2 passenger trains running the route. I added the Gold->Denver route last.

That let me beat the First Era objectives with about 6 months to spare.

From there, it was all downhill. Buy out the AIs. Run track to all the available cities and industries. Run the necessary routes to complete objectives. Wait for the cash to roll in.

My suggestion to the mapmakers, if you should do a v2, is to keep the objectives you've got, but change the scenario end date to like 1925. I think that would force much more interesting choices for the player, e.g. "should I buy out the AI first, or do I need to set up the Taconite run now?"

[choobacca]

This is another good map - it's absolutely huge: 24 cities, by my count, and more raw materials than you'll be able to hook up.
...
I found the scenario objectives pretty easy, however. I won on Robber Baron, Hard routing, 3 AI, Milwaukee start in around 1920. Note that's a full 50 years before the scenario is due to end!

My suggestion to the mapmakers, if you should do a v2, is to keep the objectives you've got, but change the scenario end date to like 1925. I think that would force much more interesting choices for the player, e.g. "should I buy out the AI first, or do I need to set up the Taconite run now?"

drank,
Thanks for your comments.
The map was designed to give an open feel, but as you found out, the scenario objectives weren't designed for a real challenge, just a fun one to play for beginners I guess.
We are in the process of releasing a new map that will introduce more good stuff and make the objectives more challenging since the veterans of this game are finding that to be more entertaining.

[drank]

drank,
Thanks for your comments.
The map was designed to give an open feel, but as you found out, the scenario objectives weren't designed for a real challenge, just a fun one to play for beginners I guess.
We are in the process of releasing a new map that will introduce more good stuff and make the objectives more challenging since the veterans of this game are finding that to be more entertaining.

I'm eagerly looking forward to the next one. I liked both this map and the Super Bowl map from you guys!

[choobacca]

I'm eagerly looking forward to the next one. I liked both this map and the Super Bowl map from you guys!

Great! Then I'm sure you will like the next one.

[Slappy Da Clown]

Hey guys

Put this one on with the new installer. Plays well for a bit then ctd. CTD from the save also. Thats 2 maps that wont play since I put on the santa map with the new installer. When I put santa on I emptied the custom assest folder 1st. Am I missing something guys ?

Slappy