How is the new Thunder Across the Prairie Challenge going for those trying it?

[Dray Prescot]

I have looked at the task list with only 10 years to accomplish it, 2 Cities with over 200k with San Francisco as the largest City. Along with transporting a lot of Passengers between Washington (DC) and San Francisco without STOPPING (what about maintenance for the trains along the way, I guess we would have to use Maintenance Stations since you can NOT make stops in City Stations). Lots of Large Cities, delivering a lot of Tools (that are not demanded until Cities reach 115k population), etc.

Can Players even accomplish all of those tasks in just 10 years, with no starting tracks/Stations/engines, and not a lot of cash?

[barut11]

this challange is not possible to finished in 10 years! You need to buy territory too, I want to heard from developer can he finished this challange, I can say no way and I can bet on that this is not possible finished in 10 years, maybe 20 years and that too will be tight! This is only my opinion, and when you look on rang list for this challange no rankings! I think that mean its nobody finished yet. I play 5 years and have 3 city over 100k and no way to come till SF in this period and built him bigest city in game.

[Dray Prescot]

I was wondering about that, I clicked on the territories button, in the top row and I got a map with lots of territories on also. So those are real as well?! It looks impossible to me. You just do not have enough money and time to grow to meet that task list.

Perhaps we should start on the West Coast in order to meet the San Francisco largest City Task.
But then there is the task for 1000 Passengers delivered without stopping from Washington DC to San Francisco. To do that Washington DC also needs to have a large population as well, with a rail connection that crosses the country. Which will require buying the territories as well as the track along the entire route.

added: I just checked into the startup again, and see that we Start in Washington DC with only 5 Cities in the starting Territory, Washington, New York City, Portland Maine, Jacksonville, Florida, and Charlotte. It looks like some territories are in the middle of the $1million to $2 million range to buy and it will require at least 7 or 8 territories just to reach San Francisco. Other territories are in the $2 to 3 million range. We do not even have enough cash to get into another territory, we have to start with making those 5 Cities very profitable, just to get enough cash to open a new territory to expand into. So basicly we start off with the East Coast of the United States open to us to make money in.
After a quick look, it looks like the Southern Route to San Francisco is the cheapest and quickest.

[gardlt]

I was playing the Australia DLC. Didn't see that the territories are enabled. That makes strategy a lot more interesting. You can't cheese Express so easily. Definitely it will take longer than the previous challenges, but shouldn't be impossible within the 10 years.

I have never tried it, but I would imagine that if you miss a task you just don't get a score for that, or you get the minimum of 10k. I think you would still get a rank.

Try to focus on maximizing your return in the long term. Notice that the 1st business and construction tech card gives +15% industry returns.

Normally a running industry, purchased at the cheapest price and without upgrades can give 25% return per quarter if consistently producing. Look for those items like Vegetables with low output which are easier to keep running. With the tech this is 29%.

There is also the refund available from the jump in company value via larger bond amounts once those industries are running. It's about 20% "refund." In the shorter term up to 39% return per quarter could be had normally. Of course any upgrades will compromise this return. But sort of thinking that an industrial strategy is competitive here which is nice for a change. Certainly a strong development in your starting few territories, perhaps leaning out as you approach the west coast. But need to keep momentum for opening a couple extra to make the Vegetable target.

Good luck, looks fun.

PS. I'm sure you realized but the target is to produce the Tools not haul them. Some of them could be stored in a warehouse while your cities are reaching the required size. . . .

[pterrok]

1st--to the devs, as of right now, it is STILL saying the wrong challenge is 'new'.

So I got to a station placed in SF late 1865 and was throwing in the towel; this one has too much micro-managing for my tastes. Have to get 15 cities to 100K which means you need to (probably) finagle your starter lines in way more places than I wanted to.

AND 2 to 200K?

AND then have SF be largest? Uh huh...

Cash still really was rolling in despite having to buy all the regions; I just placed a small station in Washington and dragged a line to SF over rivers, through mountains and western mesas and over older tracks--just over 5 million to build with no special bridge or tunnel bonuses. Set trains going on it and was saddened that by the end I got just 985 passengers to SF by the end. ;-p (Shoulda put ONE more train!)

Only had 4 objectives complete but the score wasn't going to Thunder Across the Prairies but the prior one...

BEST THING about this challenge: I rode along a train from Wash to SF as I was giving up--it's INCREDIBLY beautiful watching all that change in scenery across the US.

[Doc Woods]

I finished it with about a year to spare. Although it didn't save a score (which I think is related to it showing the wrong scenario as new). There also didn't seem to be any requirement to buy territory for me...

The trick I used was to service San Francisco early using warehouses. That way it doesn't have to be connected to the network, so you can tick off the "largest city" option while everything else is still small. At about the half-way point had a reasonable sized warehouse-only network in the west at the same time as a regular network in the east.

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I wonder if the buying territories depends on which DLC you have, and potentially makes it quite a bit easier if you don't have to do it?

[gardlt]

I was coming on here to say the same thing.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2096362396

I did it with all DLC installed, so I had territories. I didn't reach San Fransico till May 1863. Territory purchase costs are $20M+ depending on the route you take. Also, your access to resources/cities is obviously greatly restricted, so your earning power is far lower as well. Score for a similar effort run without territories is easily 800k+.

Devs, please allow territories for everyone here before activating the challenge. Otherwise, everyone should uninstall the DLC before playing. If current DLC owners could vote, I'm sure the majority would support an equal ranking for everybody.

This scenario plays much better with territories. You feel like you are picking your own transcontinental route and developing that. It's a shame if tactically no one should play it that way.



PS. I sent an email to devs outlining a teleport exploit I found. It's quite a technical thing, and only works in certain situations, but it grants almost free money. I had a run of Great Plains that I had almost finished with it. I just completed that to test, and sure enough the leader-board is active.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2096397122

[jmuria]

Originally posted by gardlt:

I

I did it with all DLC installed, so I had territories. I didn't reach San Fransico till May 1863.

Really? Wow! How did you do? I reached San Francisco by 1965, and I couldn't accomplish the passengers task. Anyway I enjoyed this challenge a lot, for me it's better than most of scenarios.

[gardlt]

There are many small things that can be optimized, but one of the bigger ones for earning power is to understand a little how the game's passenger/mail mechanic operates. Express will take a route to their destination as long as it is not more than twice the direct city-city distance. With the right setup you will be able to haul paying passengers on multiple hops in between their home and destination. In practice route planning often comes down to patterns on the map. From any given town, the best direction for express is towards the part of the map with the most dense city spacing. With territories, there are more layers to this. The southern route, which I took, lends itself to good express revenues. The cities there chain up nicely to the eastern seaboard where we start.

For the passengers task. I suggest to use a min car setting, just reserve a platform especially for this. This way, the carriages of passengers bound for San Francisco will be full. Also, if there is no waiting train in Washington, passengers bound for San Francisco will gladly hop on a local train that's headed to pretty much any other city, except probably NYC and Baltimore. If you don't use a wait strategy, you should block all other trains from picking up passengers in Washington.

[Sir_Daddy_Man]

I don't understand why DLC is considered in these challenges. Someone with none installed should have the exact same game mechanics as someone with everything installed. If not, the challenge isn't fair.

I have all DLCs, and beat the challenge, albeit with a mediocre score. Here are some keys:
1. Ignore city growth on the east coast. Growing NYC or DC will make it impossible for San Francisco to beat it.
2. Plan your route. I went through the Midwest, and prepped those cities to grow to 100k.
3. Once on the west coast, throw everything at SF first to make it the #1 city. Once that happens, shift to the 15 resources in LA.
4. The 200k cities have to be connected directly. Just being part of your network won't be enough. Ended up running a direct line between Chicago and SF for this.
5. The 1000 passengers between DC-SF: Leave one slot open in a DC station for this task. Have multiple trains set to 3 passengers only to run from DC to SF. Let them carry passengers/mail on return. Run a dozen of them or whatever it takes until you have a return train waiting at DC.
6. Once SF is biggest city, use warehouse strategies (see Adekyn's YT videos for assistance) to grow multiple cities at once - particularly those in the Midwest (OKC - Pitt)

[Gutsy_Fungus]

Got it all done

https://ibb.co/4tR3Bg6 [/url

[donnyb317]

I got 8 of the task done. But Houston shot up to 248K. San Fran petered out at 158K and will not budge. SO I did get 2 cities above 200K, Just not San Fran. San Fran seems to lag behind city growth in two of the scenarios. Houston shot up with only 2 meat, 1 cloth and 1 clothing. I had San Fran maxed out for industries. Yes you need to use switching stations and maint stations. I did not use warehouses I think there a waste of time and expensive.