Liverpool and Manchester V3

karsten · Post by **karsten** » Sat Feb 10, 2007 1:15 am

Liverpool and Manchester: new version 3!

Recreate the first commercial train route in Britain! Based on a satellite height map of middle England. Fully self-contained scenario, plug and play, no other content needed to install! Simply unzip the attached file, drop it into the SMR UserMaps folder and off you go! 10 unique new art screens for achievements. Special thanks to Snoopy for supplying a new armory building.

gforce · Post by **gforce** » Sat Feb 10, 2007 1:39 am

Karsten, i'm going 2 play right now,
I just started it, hit the pause and send you this message 2 let you know:
IT LOADED JUST FINE (that's good news, no?)

so, here goes... i'll let you know afterwards how it went...

Post by **Warll** » Sat Feb 10, 2007 2:00 am

I suggest you add this to the wiki's map list. If you look at the code in the dit tab you'll see how to do it.

gforce · Post by **gforce** » Sat Feb 10, 2007 5:40 pm

THIS MAP IS GREAT!!!

CONGRATULATIONS KARSTEN.

This is really a good scenario, map, and feeling to play!

I had some minor problems or remarks (there you call it a beta version) i will send those to you, soon, but i've got to do something else
after one whole afternoon of joy!

Karsten, you've got me there, i was stressed to manage everything good, and i did and was proud that everything was working so well and responding on my way of play and management... never felt before.
If you master this map and scenrio you feel pride of all the achievements.
THANX
KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!!!

karsten · Post by **karsten** » Sat Feb 10, 2007 6:23 pm

WOW!

Thanks, gforce, just what I needed to hear now! Glad you enjoy the scenario. Looking forward to your comments.

Post by **Warll** » Sat Feb 10, 2007 6:53 pm

I may not have beat it but it was still a lot of fun!

gforce · Post by **gforce** » Sat Feb 10, 2007 7:50 pm

Great, you felt (feel) the compliments! Cheers!

I can still give many compliments,
1 of the really good things was, the stress i had by asking myself if i was managing it all good
- fe: will i be able to build the rails to bradfort, blackpool, liverpool and other towns (there were many towns as a goal, and they could be far away from others)
- In most cases we have many goods,villages an industries but because there where not so much places to go for and they were far away, it was a whole investment to lay the rails to the town mentionned in the scenario. That's great! in that way you've got also more control on the people playing this scenario.
- Normally i don't create new industries in cities, also to enforce me to lay a track to cities who do have them. But here it was great there was no fishing ground for example in the town mentionned in the scenario, that will cost you some pounds.
- I must say i played alot in pause-mode, but i like this, so i have really every pound spent well, so i didn't have alot of money, neither any shares. I had never so little money to spend not only because the pause-button but also because of the map or scenario. That's great! (i hate it to have to much money, it just make no sense building whatever you want without paying attention on your money.
- This will mean that for 1 time, setting the level(trains and rails cost) higher, you will have more problems to get the goals in time.
- I really love it to have high prices for bridges and tunnels, in real life this is a big thing for train companies. (they just build a bridge in belgium to reduce half an hour on 1 hour travel time in belgium, why do you think they waited so long to build that bridge? Too costly!)
(still there's a problem with your settings see below 4 more info)
(so i reduced at maximum the use of bridges, not at the end, but that was the only time i had more money to spent; it doesn't make either sense to build a bridge when your train is too soon at a industrie and don't have enough goods to get etc...)
- The hills on the map make sense, i loved it to search the best line to a city, making use of hills instead of bridges, (you see this also in real life, they use a bridge just where there are 2 hills aside the track below)
- in fact: money does matter alot in this map...
- i'll stop here with comments, maybe later more...

the fact i noticed al those details is because the map and the scenario and the management of all this, is really good in balance!

next: i send you some screenshots of:
1 - my score, in that way you've got also an idea of the score, for others like me (i'm not using some kind of tricks to do it faster but just fair play)
(like i said, i've pushed alot the pause button, to tune my management of all the trains, searching for the best line etc (but it is fun to do so, instead of just laying down tracks (because money))
I've been playing alone, no stupid AI (AI = only a reason to spent money) but here my money was needed
(1st medal at 1882 (5 years before)) (just iin time)
(2nd 1910 (3 years before)) (just in time)
(3th way in time, but ok)

2 - problem with the price in bridges (look at exmple) (one bridge was half the price of the other, is this normal?

3 - Problem with tunnels, is the price set well or not at all?
(this make me think i must check if it is not my fault with some other usermaps installed)

4 - Graphic problems
A - Flying sheep, still i like it, some surrealistic feeling)
B - My tracks dissapear, it happened already once before on a small track somwhere, but some where at the end of the scenario they almost dissapeared everywhere, new ones included. (i don't have the best configuration but still i never had this problem so big)

- The pound Â£ is printed wrong, see screenshot.

- Maybe its better to use a mapsize a little bit bigger, the camera view in the game is always less then in the map editor, don't change the map itself but just copy it on a bigger tga, put it in the middle , and let a border unused, because this border you will not see in the game anyway (i will try this also)

PS: those remarks are here to help you, not to say what is wrong...

ps2: maybe i will have a look at the xmls to solve some problems
but i'm also working on a map and testing alot myself by changing alot of settings, (unlucky i'm not so well organised), too much ideas...

ps3:

i hope other modding people will learn about the remarks and the way you did it without changing alot of settings...

CeeBee51 · Post by **CeeBee51** » Sat Feb 10, 2007 8:23 pm

A real nice map and loads of fun.

Thanks for all the work on the scenerio. Very interesting goals and a real fun challenge.

snoopy55 · Post by **snoopy55** » Sat Feb 10, 2007 10:00 pm

gforce - couple of questions - what kind of graphics card do you have? Is that pic of the sheep after you laid track thru that area in Pause? Try something, go to any other map and place a bridge, but before you finalize it, change the length. Does this also make a drastic change in price?

karsten - (sorry, you should have come first, but needed to keep my train of thought) - GREAT map! I didn't play to acheive the goals, but I loved it

I had to seek out the towns. I ended up printing out a map and marking the towns

. I'm guessing that the symbles in the money are for more than pounds in English money? I played it in fast moad, as I have been doing in most maps lately as I'm working on other thing in the game, but I still beat the pants off those AIs.

Keep up the Great Work....try that Australia Map.

karsten · Post by **karsten** » Sun Feb 11, 2007 1:11 am

Hi gforce, thanks for all that feedback! Lots,

but very helpful, food for thought, helps me understand the issues from the player side.

Just a few quick answers on the points I can react to immediately:
* The spread in bridge price is intentional, because in that prototype area, you see LOTS of these arch viaducts from the old times. So the idea is to have these mostly, and to avoid the very costly steel bridges. But what you mention is the flexible rail overpass bridges, yes I left them at a very low price (to help the AI, if a player wants it in). But you are right, it would be better to price them realistically too in the next version.
* The tunnel prices still seem very low, yes, I was wondering a bit about that too, but did not check it carefully, will look into that again. Perhaps the game keeps the price down, otherwise the AI would be lost!
* Tracks disappear from sight mostly when you build while on Pause. But they reappear if you connect another rail to them. And the Pause button is absolutely essential if you want to plan ahead and not waste funds on bad decisions.
* My XML editor does not like the pound Â£ sign, it thinks its a evil error code ... sigh. But I can fix that with Notepad!

* map location - yes, you are right, the map window turned out to lie slightly too far up in the north, could be shifted south a tad ...

Ceebee51, thanks for the kind words, and snoopy55 too! I learned a lot about those towns while doing the research for the scenario!

Cheers, karsten

gforce · Post by **gforce** » Sun Feb 11, 2007 1:54 am

don't mention my graphics card or system,
i could cry if i see the other screenshots... but yes...
alot of problems can be just my problem,
i would never blame karsten, still,
don't get jealous of my flying sheeps

snoopy55 · Post by **snoopy55** » Sun Feb 11, 2007 1:57 am

Hey gforce, you never know, maybe thats where all those flying movie heros got there colthes from

Slappy Da Clown · Post by **Slappy Da Clown** » Sun Feb 11, 2007 1:32 pm

Gr8 map but most of all gr8 scenario. I love playing scenarios & when they are as well thought out as this it the best fun. Please make some more.

Excuse me I was looking for the bar car
Slappy Da Clown

universum · Post by **universum** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 12:11 pm

Hello karsten,

great map, thanks a lot for it. In my book, your maps and scenarios are the best.

Took me quite a few starts to get the first era goals completed in time but I managed it yesterday on Investor/Hard difficulty. Most of the time, I was few passengers or clothes short. Once I forgot to buy cannery in Crewe and was hauling the fish in vain. Second era was also rather tough at first, mostly because some cities had to be "grown". Really nice challenge.

Today, I have tried if I could beat it on Financier/Hard and I did it with entire era to spare (see attachment). I have figured out money machine and my cash problems eased from around 1850 further. After that, it was relatively easy although I had close call with passengers and clothes from Manchester to Liverpool again.

I was looking at the screenshots you added to the first post and was wondering, if you have some tricks not available to player because your screenshots look like you are looking in horizontal direction. I have captured few detailed shots from the map and I must say, I would LOVE to be able to "travel" through the countryside and see everything from the engineer's point of view. If you look at the level of details put into the game, it looks like it was intended but did not quite happen. Not sure if people noticed, but engine has "real" valves and engineer does quite a lot of animation. He waves when loading starts, he keeps an eye on the track when the train is in motion.

Looking forward to your next creation. I really like Southwest scenery and building railroad to bring passengers to Grand Canyon would be fun...

Elukka · Post by **Elukka** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 8:43 pm

I love this map. It's the "right" size, not too small, but not excessively big either. (not that i have anything against excessively big maps- my computer does, though

)

I'm currently just enjoying it, with no competitors. I like it even more now that i have changed the speed to a quarter of the original speed, so that months and years don't go by that fast. I'm not sure i could even meet all of the objectives at this speed, either.

Smr Simple!

Liverpool and Manchester V3

Liverpool and Manchester V3

AWESOME