Hey everyone... I'm new to the forums here! I'm not exactly a huge railroad / train guy but I've thoroughly enjoyed Railroads!
I finally worked up the courage to create my own map/scenario of British Columbia and Alberta. I'd try to post it here but I am having some issues in development so to speak and I was hoping you guys could help me out. I am using the map/terrain editor provided by the game via the last patch. I don't know how to code or do anything like that so hopefully I won't have to learn!
1) My towns all grow properly but they only ever demand passengers and mail... never automobiles, manufactured goods, etc... even at the metropolis stage. How can I change that?
2) My options for the placement of resources are limited to coal, cattle, grain, oil, and lumber. While those are all well and good I'd also like to include Gold (for the Rocky Mountains) and Wine (for the Okanagan Valley). How do I change that?
3) How do I define objectives? Eg. Connect City #1 to City #2 by "A" Date. Eg2. Deliver "X" number of "Y" goods to City #3 by "A" Date. I havn't the slightest clue.
4) Trains from all era's and parts of the world are being unlocked on my map... American, British, French, German, etc.... how do I confine the unlocks to strictly American trains?
Thank you in advance to anyone who can help me! I've worked pretty hard on this map!
Western Canada (Help!)
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Morrison Rail Co.
- Posts: 2
- Joined: Thu Mar 22, 2007 9:47 am
BTW if anyone was interested in what my map includes so far:
WESTERN CANADA MAP V. 0.5
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120X120 Map, 22 Villages, 4 Starting Locations. Fairly accurate placement of rivers.
Complications arised when I had to do the lower half of Alberta where a lot of towns are. I had to space Edmonton and Calgary apart more. I also had to space Lethbridge and Medicine Hat apart more from themselves and Calgary. As well I refrained from making the Rocky Mountains... well... too rocky! If i did that then most of BC would be near impossible! So I chose specific mountain ranges and tried to map those in. Overall I think the map is faily good given my own limitations!
Because I am no buff when it comes to the early history of BC and Alberta it was hard to think of towns that were absolutely key to have and I found I had to place villages that may not have necessarily been prominent but rather fit well into the geography.
BRITISH COLUMBIA include the following villages: Dawson Creek, Hazelton, Fort Nelson, Kamloops, Kelowna (STARTPOINT), Ocean Falls, Prince George, Prince Rupert, Telegraph Creek, Vancouver(STARTPOINT), and Victoria.
ALBERTA includes the following villages: Banff, Calgary (STARTPOINT), Edmonton (STARTPOINT), Fort Chipewyn, Fort McMurray, Grand Prairie, High Level, Jasper, Lethbridge, Lloydminster, and Medicine Hat.
END
MORE INPUT NEEDED
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Like I said I am no buff so if anyone who is could see that I've overlooked an important place to have in the game I'll gladly place it in the game =D
When it comes to what town should do what I've sort've spitballed it myself so there are a lot of towns with paper mills =( If anyone could think of an industry in any of the above towns that is a major part of the local community then also let me know too!
WESTERN CANADA MAP V. 0.5
-------------------------------------
120X120 Map, 22 Villages, 4 Starting Locations. Fairly accurate placement of rivers.
Complications arised when I had to do the lower half of Alberta where a lot of towns are. I had to space Edmonton and Calgary apart more. I also had to space Lethbridge and Medicine Hat apart more from themselves and Calgary. As well I refrained from making the Rocky Mountains... well... too rocky! If i did that then most of BC would be near impossible! So I chose specific mountain ranges and tried to map those in. Overall I think the map is faily good given my own limitations!
Because I am no buff when it comes to the early history of BC and Alberta it was hard to think of towns that were absolutely key to have and I found I had to place villages that may not have necessarily been prominent but rather fit well into the geography.
BRITISH COLUMBIA include the following villages: Dawson Creek, Hazelton, Fort Nelson, Kamloops, Kelowna (STARTPOINT), Ocean Falls, Prince George, Prince Rupert, Telegraph Creek, Vancouver(STARTPOINT), and Victoria.
ALBERTA includes the following villages: Banff, Calgary (STARTPOINT), Edmonton (STARTPOINT), Fort Chipewyn, Fort McMurray, Grand Prairie, High Level, Jasper, Lethbridge, Lloydminster, and Medicine Hat.
END
MORE INPUT NEEDED
-------------------------
Like I said I am no buff so if anyone who is could see that I've overlooked an important place to have in the game I'll gladly place it in the game =D
When it comes to what town should do what I've sort've spitballed it myself so there are a lot of towns with paper mills =( If anyone could think of an industry in any of the above towns that is a major part of the local community then also let me know too!
- Attachments
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- Western Canada Map
- WestCan.JPG (33.57 KiB) Viewed 3756 times
Morrison Rail Co. - Welcome to the forum. I hope we can help you on your way to making this and many more maps.
You selections are limited by the NewMapBase set up by Firaxis. In the Zip below you will find a replacement for it which will give you more selection in Goods and possibly Industries.
There is another file called RRT_Trains_Master.xml which, by the GREEN notes, lists the Engines buy country or region. You can use this to remove any you don't want.
If you really have a problem with coding, upload it here with what you're trying to do, and I will work it out for you with explanations of what and how it was done. If you feel embarised by any of your questions or problems, send me a PM.
You selections are limited by the NewMapBase set up by Firaxis. In the Zip below you will find a replacement for it which will give you more selection in Goods and possibly Industries.
There is another file called RRT_Trains_Master.xml which, by the GREEN notes, lists the Engines buy country or region. You can use this to remove any you don't want.
If you really have a problem with coding, upload it here with what you're trying to do, and I will work it out for you with explanations of what and how it was done. If you feel embarised by any of your questions or problems, send me a PM.
- Attachments
-
- MapEditing.zip
- (4.23 KiB) Downloaded 317 times
I'm correct 97% of the time..... who cares about the other 4%....
One thing we could really use is somebody to make a lumber car and a finished lumber mill for a city (or another lumber mill that accepts lumber/logs from another mill and outputs finished lumber). That would fit very will with any mountainous map.Morrison Rail Co. wrote:When it comes to what town should do what I've sort've spitballed it myself so there are a lot of towns with paper mills =( If anyone could think of an industry in any of the above towns that is a major part of the local community then also let me know too!
Or perhaps a pulp mill that accepts trees and it's output (pulp) vastly increases the output of a paper mill (pulp in -> paper out x4 or something). I'd try it but I can't get my brain around the skins in this game and I'm a graphic artist by trade. =/
As far as what industries would fit on the BC/Alberta map -- there are lots of wine makers and vinyards in BC, lots of orchards as well (now we need somebody to make some custom industries like orchards, berry farms, etc each of which could be used either as wine/cider making or food making -- the end product is however you customize your XML files so there's no real limitation other than ones imagination).
Piles of mines, loads of coal and gold. A strategic gold refinery (and no ability to build more) makes a map with gold mines loads of fun because its final product is a killer revenue item (of course this also means you need a bank or a stock market to handle the gold if you don't want just any city able to accept the finished bars).
You can set just about any "in" to "out" ratio for any industry. (For example, one of my outback oilfields on the Australian map I'm working on demands beer to increase output and also to accomplish one of the scenario goals. Just like us Canucks, Aussies like their beer!) You also don't "need" to have a mine to get gold ore, you could set a village to produce gold ore: this makes sense if you wanted to emulate the Klondike gold rush era where small villages & towns of miners produced gold by panning for it in the surrounding streams. To keep it realistic, you could have a village produce a bit of gold, a town produce double the gold, but produce zero gold once it reaches city size and up and the strong arm tactics of gold moguls with hired Pinkertons move in and set up a monopoly (everyone should watch Deadwood religiously!). Lots of options, it's all up to how clever you are in the XML files.
Lots of rambling there, but here's a short list without having to know much about the XML to improve what you could have going on in the mountains.
BC/Alberta mountains
- Lumber mills
- Gold mines
- Coal mines
- Vinyards (grapes)
- Occasional grain farm in a valley
- Power plants
- Steel mills
- Wineries
- Paper mills
- Tourist centers (produce passengers[out] from passengers[in], take a look at some of the maps and their XML files on here to see how people accomplish this -AZCanyonV2 I think)
- Oilfields
- Farms (either grain or corn)
- Ranches (cows / sheep)
- Mines
- Refineries
- Steel mills
- etc (auto plants, military bases ...)