Epic History of Railroad in Utah (updated)

CeeBee51 · Post by **CeeBee51** » Mon May 07, 2007 12:11 pm

I got about 5 years in and my computer blacked out just like on the europa map. It was slowly working it's way there as the map colors were going weird at times and it was slowing down to a crawl every time I tried to do anything. Guess my computer just ain't up to snuff

snoopy55 · Post by **snoopy55** » Mon May 07, 2007 8:51 pm

universum - Atani will have to do the editing on the installer as he wrote it and I would think he still has the original. What I meant by Difficulty changes is to incorperate your Difficulty settings into the original with names like Investor_Utah or Investor_Hi_CS for high cash and stocks. What I'm looking at in how to keep it playing the same as possible, but working it GLOBAL also. The RRT_Goods.xml just neesd a change of the in-map file name to RRT_Goods_Utah.xml and change it in the Scenario XML. Tunnels is a real bother and it would be great if a load of us could E-mail requests for either that one change (maybe ALL XMLs able to be map name set) or slip us the ability to do it. The first is possible, the second, well............
The Train Museum could do with the Annex removed (the crane) and a reduced size steam engine (to match the museums size) added. The Distribution Center would be a better building for the Transfer Station, with a little color/content editing.
Attached is the Copper Museum edit I did. Check it out. A low Visitors -> Mail added would account for the mail, and do only mail out, and you have Tourists mailing things along with the Museum itself.

Let's let universum check this out first people, both because it's his map, and I don't promise my instructions are understandable to all.

universum · Post by **universum** » Tue May 08, 2007 5:04 am

Slappy Da Clown wrote:Installed with the installer. Got the following screen. Never had this kind of crash before. Will try again when atani updates the installer. Sounds good & looks good on here though. I cant wait to try it.

Just download manual installation version from my original post, unzip it to UserMaps\Utah, run the _ENABLE_UTAH_SCENARIO.bat and go playing, I am sure it will work. When you are fed up with it, run the other batch file and everything will be back to normal. Repeat as many times as you want.

Don't worry, batch files are only modifying files in Utah folder to make sure that required scenario global files are there and have latest timestamp or are deleted to prevent any interference with all your other maps.

universum · Post by **universum** » Tue May 08, 2007 7:03 am

snoopy55 wrote:universum - Atani will have to do the editing on the installer as he wrote it and I would think he still has the original. What I meant by Difficulty changes is to incorperate your Difficulty settings into the original with names like Investor_Utah or Investor_Hi_CS for high cash and stocks.....

Snoopy, I have incorporated your Copper Mine changes to my setup and updated initial post of this thread with it (version 1.1). Thanks.

I am not sure that having custom difficulties the way you suggesting for my scenario is a good idea because there is nothing to prevent players from picking their favorite difficulty level and failing miserably on first era goal because of the lack of money. They don't even have to pick anything, they just leave the defaults from previous game session.

My preferred solution is to make the installer install the files into UserMaps and tell user to run the _ENABLE_UTAH_SCENARIO.bat before playing and _RESTORE_REGULAR_GAME.bat afterwards. The solution you are proposing is not very scalable because it requires new set of difficulty levels with each scenario which ends up needing it and more importantly offers no assurance that they won't pick incompatible difficulty level.

In any case, if your setup is currently not providing correct amount of starting money (between $1,200,000 for Investor and $900,000 for Robber Baron), you should take it offline until you can fix it. Otherwise you are breaking my scenario

.

Slappy Da Clown · Post by **Slappy Da Clown** » Tue May 08, 2007 9:33 am

Hi universum

Thanx for trying to help, but. When I 1st started playing this game, you almost had to be a modder to get any custom map to work. Im not interested in that kind of play. I want to put a map in & be able to play & not have that effect the rest of my game or previously installed maps. In an effort ot make this game playable by ALL level of player atani came up with the setup installer & it works gr8. Sometimes not on the 1st try ( like this one ) but so far he always manages to get them working. I now have over 40 working maps installed in my game. I just have to start the game & select a map & play. IMHO if modders want their maps played by more than a few of their friends they have to be made more user friendly, the installer is a way for that to happen. Having only 14 working brain cells left I dont wanna have to remember that I have to run a batch file to make my game revert to normal play if my wife calls me to dinner or I pass out drunk. So, please dont be offended but I will wait for atani to edit the installer & I dont mind. And I hope nothing in this post offends you as that was not what I was trying to do. Although Im not a map modder I am willing to crash my game multiple times to help perfect a modders map, I cant wait to try this one. Hopefully we can all get to a point where it wll be too easy for a new player & we wont see them one time at the forum & then never again because they got disgusted. Keep up the good work.

K-class · Post by **K-class** » Tue May 08, 2007 10:31 am

Hi universum

2/3 of the way though this massive scenario - what where you thinking?

Great scenery and map but its just to large with to many objectives.

Anyway cant go any further as the track laying now freezes my pc.

Also at this stage I cant see anything new apart from a casino.

Also agree with the clown stick with the installer method.

CeeBee51 · Post by **CeeBee51** » Tue May 08, 2007 11:54 am

Great looking map but I'm not sure I like this global meltdown either. I sure wish maps that change things that affect other maps could be made stand-alone so as not to bung up my other working maps. I'm with slappy and k-class..... KISS works better for me.

snoopy55 · Post by **snoopy55** » Tue May 08, 2007 9:16 pm

universum wrote:I am not sure that having custom difficulties the way you suggesting for my scenario is a good idea because there is nothing to prevent players from picking their favorite difficulty level and failing miserably on first era goal because of the lack of money. They don't even have to pick anything, they just leave the defaults from previous game session.

In any case, if your setup is currently not providing correct amount of starting money (between $1,200,000 for Investor and $900,000 for Robber Baron), you should take it offline until you can fix it. Otherwise you are breaking my scenario .

The way this game is made, the map creater can make any changes he wants, and we often do. No one has a copywrite on these maps. As I prefer GLOBALS, I rewrite all maps I like to work GLOBAL for my use.
We have a few people (and probally more who are silent) who prefer 1-map-at-a-time arrangments on their system, and it's a each-to-his-own world whit this game. And I'm not condeming them for it, and they shouldn't condem others for their way. If someone wants and I have the time, I'll happily rewrite any map for single map setup. What we really need is for Firaxis to do 1 last upgrade and set ALL XMLs so they can be made map specific if need be. (Let us not get into "Ways-to-set-up-the-game" again, please)
As to the second paragraph I quoted above, I'm not sure what you are talking about as I have not done any setup for this game. If you are speaking of the Installer, again, Atani has done that. (I corrected your first post)

CeeBee51 · Post by **CeeBee51** » Wed May 09, 2007 1:11 am

Well said Snoops

Thats kinda what I meant even though I didn't get it said proper. Too bad Firaxis bailed on us before they did a proper job with the terrain editor and the game in general.

atani · Post by **atani** » Wed May 09, 2007 1:14 am

universum wrote: I am not sure that having custom difficulties the way you suggesting for my scenario is a good idea because there is nothing to prevent players from picking their favorite difficulty level and failing miserably on first era goal because of the lack of money. They don't even have to pick anything, they just leave the defaults from previous game session.

I am still trying to figure out a good way to handle this case, unfortunately as you (and others) know, you can only have one RRT_Difficulties.xml file in use at any time. I think the best option is to create "extra" entries for the difficulties which are modified and name them something like "XXX more money" or something along those lines rather than require the user to run a batch file if they want to enable/disable these.

universum wrote: In any case, if your setup is currently not providing correct amount of starting money (between $1,200,000 for Investor and $900,000 for Robber Baron), you should take it offline until you can fix it. Otherwise you are breaking my scenario .

Currently the installer is not adding these in, I am looking at how to handle this properly for the 1.1 installer. I should have it up and online very shortly. This will include your latest updates to the map including the new Copper Mine updates from Snoopy.

Mike

snoopy55 · Post by **snoopy55** » Wed May 09, 2007 4:52 am

Atani - that is what I meant by my example 'Investor_Hi_CS for high cash and stocks'. Add a version of his settings in right after each of the original settings. I really cannot understand the problem with using the original if someone wants, it makes it harder and thus much more of a challenge. I just copied each of his sections into mine and added the '_Hi_CS' after the name. It doesn't affect other maps and you don't have to remove anything to play other maps. It can simply be another GLOBAL XML added and each person can edit the added sections to their hearts desire.

Can anyone out there figure out how to put a engine/tender on a piece of track and reduce it to fit the size of the Arm Factory that is on the map?

As to the SKI Hotel, a European building enlarged a bit with snow added would be good. One or two of the EURO houses.

atani · Post by **atani** » Wed May 09, 2007 5:24 am

snoopy55 wrote:Atani - that is what I meant by my example 'Investor_Hi_CS for high cash and stocks'.

Essentially this is what the 1.1 installer does, except uses "(extra money)" after the original title so it can be distinguished. Unfortunately though you can see a bit of a bug in the game where it does not do an alphabetical sort on the drop down list, instead leaving the order as-is from the XML file.

Mike

snoopy55 · Post by **snoopy55** » Wed May 09, 2007 7:38 am

Mike - this is the order in which I was figuring to list it in the XML

Train Table Mode
Investor
Investor (more money)
Financier
Financier (more money)
Mogul
Mogul (more money)
Tycoon
Tycoon (more money)
Robber Baron
Robber Baron (more money)

I'm not understanding 'alphabetical sort'. It will post it in whatever way you write it into the XML, as you stated.

universum · Post by **universum** » Thu May 10, 2007 6:31 am

Slappy Da Clown wrote:Hi universum

Thanx for trying to help, but. When I 1st started playing this game, you almost had to be a modder to get any custom map to work. Im not interested in that kind of play. I want to put a map in & be able to play & not have that effect the rest of my game or previously installed maps.

Hi Slappy,

I am sure that Atani will do something reasonable but if you want to try it before he will, do what I said, you will be able to play it in a minute.

I promise you it won't touch any of your other maps and you can easily remove all traces of it by simply deleting the Utah folder in UserMaps (I assume you are capable of unziping zip file to a single directory and running a batch file there). You can check the batch files yourself, only thing it does is it copies and renames few files in Utah directory it resides to ensure they have latest timestamp. Give your abilities some credit and try it you will see it is easy.

universum · Post by **universum** » Thu May 10, 2007 7:05 am

K-class wrote:Hi universum

2/3 of the way though this massive scenario - what where you thinking?

Great scenery and map but its just to large with to many objectives.

Anyway cant go any further as the track laying now freezes my pc.

Also at this stage I cant see anything new apart from a casino.

Also agree with the clown stick with the installer method.

Hi K-class,

since my computer is the same specification as yours except for the memory which I have bumped up from 1GB to 3GB two months ago, I am affraid it is the memory. It is map size and number of tracks and trains which is too big. Short of getting more memory, I can only suggest trying this: play on easiest difficulty and get rid of trains and tracks as soon as you have completed the goal but I think that getting more memory is the only real solution. Karsten has 2GB and was able to complete the scenario several times.

As for the installer, I don't think that unzipping files to a directory and running batch file is all that difficult. When you are done, you can either run the "Restore" batch file or delete entire folder and be done with it. It won't touch any of your other maps and once you delete it, there will be no trace of it left.

Do you play other games with user created levels? Like all major first person shooters? Most of custom content for them doesn't come with installer and you have create folder and unzip stuff there.

I got about 5 years in and my computer blacked out just like on the europa map. It was slowly working it's way there as the map colors were going weird at times and it was slowing down to a crawl every time I tried to do anything. Guess my computer just ain't up to snuff

Hi CeeBee,

how much memory do you have? If I am not mistaken, Europa map is also 20x20 so it seems likely you would see the same problems with my map too. Since you seem to be running into problems much sooner than K-class, I suspect you either have less memory (512MB?) or you have a lot of stuff running while playing.

Do you guys see and hear your harddrives working frantically as Windows is pushing stuff from physical memory to the swap file and back?

Smr Simple!

Epic History of Railroad in Utah (updated)

Re: oh poop

OK

Re: OK