South America III, 1900-1920 -- How is it possible to transport 24 cars of Niter to Ica by 1901?

[captainpatch]

This one totally eludes me. You start with $1 million and can borrow about another $500,000. The ONLY city that Lima can reasonably connect to is Ica. Add a spur to the nearest resource (Corn) to at least keep those cities from shrinking. Three Small Stations at $40,000 each. Supply Towers at $30,000 each (At least 3.) At least three trains (4 is better) at about $50,000 each. Setting that up costs right around $1.5 million. Then rather thin Revenue kicks in. The second set of Tasks starts with "Transport 24 cars of Niter to Ica." Just creating a connection (+1 Small Station, 2-3 Supply Depots, plus some VERY expensive track because of the terrain) costs more than $1 million. Now, you have NO borrowing power because loans are maxed out. So that means the entire construction MUST be financed by the paltry Revenue from 1) Lima-Ica, Passengers and Mail only because both cities have Beer. 2) Corn to Lima. 3) Corn to Ica 4) Possibly Ica-Lima, same as Line #1.

You have, at most, two years to complete the Task. On just those 3-4 lines, no way will you earn the necessary $1+ million just to get started. Furthermore, while you are earning the necessary cash to build the Niter-Ica line. As the time ticks by, you MUST have enough time to run THREE trains of 8 cars of Niter each from Niter to Ica. Travel time one-way is about three months. Round trips mean you WILL run out of time. Which means you MUST buy three trains (at @$50,000 each) and run them one after the other. Plus make allowance for at least one Random Breakdown.

The ONLY way I can see this this scenario being won is via LUCK. Professors wanting to buy some Research points. (@$30,000 for @100 Research Points). Resource sites offering about $100,000 for making a connection. (Which you demolish _immediately_ to recover the Small Station and track costs.) And whatever else provides "free" money.

I just can't see being able to BOTH build the Niter-Ica connection, and then deliver 24 cars of Niter by the end of 1901.

[Danone]

Hello, the track seems a bit too much expensive, are you sure you avoided unnecessary bridges and tunnels, dividing the path in more segments?

Focus on the objectives first and, if you manage to spare money you get on bond, begin earlier to build the path to connect the rural station to Ica.

I remember that task is quite easy, even in Realism mode. I should have a save game to show if you want.

[Mikey]

Don't bother with the corn from the get go, you will need to build either a bridge or a tunnel to effectively get it. Focus on the Niter and study the terrain to lay out your tracks in a cost effective manner

[captainpatch]

1) Generally speaking, you need to satisfy a city's Needs to some degree to get them to grow. And that Corn field is the ONLY nearby basic Need commodity. Both Lima and Ica start with populations less than 20,000, so they really need some growth if they are ever going to make something of themselves. (Besides, you need to be hauling _something_ to meet the quarterly income Task requirement. Passengers and Mail alone really wouldn't be enough I think.)

2) The problem with that Niter-Ica stretch is the altitude change. Even with Today's super-engines, railroads need to keep the track grade under 6%. In 1900 it was more like 4%. If you DON'T do some digging and tunneling, the track WILL average (much) greater than 6%. Just keeping down to 4% is what drove the price up to over $1 million.

[Now, if it happens that THE GAME allows for 1900 locomotives to climb 6,8,10,12% grades, that's just plain wrong. That _should_ result in Bad Condition Breakdowns every couple of inches.]

[Mikey]

Ok some basic ingame physics for you.
If the start is higher than the end it doesn't really matter what gradient your tracks are... on the return run you are empty and the train can easily overcome the 10% grade you get around Ica.

You also seem to think you absolutely have to grow the pops to get the task done, you really don't. There is nothing in range that will boost your profit except for the dairy farm and you would need to use most of the year just to be able to get that one in.

Again, focus on the Niter. Set up the rails, buy the Niter quarry and start hauling it back home to momma.

[Danone]

Originally posted by captainpatch:

1) Generally speaking, you need to satisfy a city's Needs to some degree to get them to grow. And that Corn field is the ONLY nearby basic Need commodity. Both Lima and Ica start with populations less than 20,000, so they really need some growth if they are ever going to make something of themselves. (Besides, you need to be hauling _something_ to meet the quarterly income Task requirement. Passengers and Mail alone really wouldn't be enough I think.)

2) The problem with that Niter-Ica stretch is the altitude change. Even with Today's super-engines, railroads need to keep the track grade under 6%. In 1900 it was more like 4%. If you DON'T do some digging and tunneling, the track WILL average (much) greater than 6%. Just keeping down to 4% is what drove the price up to over $1 million.

[Now, if it happens that THE GAME allows for 1900 locomotives to climb 6,8,10,12% grades, that's just plain wrong. That _should_ result in Bad Condition Breakdowns every couple of inches.]

Sorry for the bad quality of the video, I recorded one gameplay I did today, what I wanted to show is that with some 200,000 $ or less you should be able to open the path between Ica and Niter rural station, without needing tunnels or bridges, but some groundworks - I connected the fishing hut first; moreover you also can start delivering some Corn to both Ica and Lima without too much difficulty. By 1901 they should be 100% and 70+% satisfied already.

What I notice with a bit of disappointment is that, instead, Stop signals have not been fixed yet.

https://youtu.be/0i_6fc6oshw

[captainpatch]

So, apparently the game does NOT factor in steep grades properly. Those double-digit grades between Lima and the Corn Station would NOT have been at all manageable with the only available locomotive. Uphill OR downhill. (The loco's brakes would burn out trying to keep hundreds of tons from rushing downhill at breakneck speeds.)

Which means that we shouldn't be paying attention to track grade AT ALL. They are being rendered to be meaningless numbers. The only probable effect is likely to be that it takes longer to get from Point A to Point B than it would on a 0% grade track.

[X037]

Originally posted by captainpatch:

The only probable effect is likely to be that it takes longer to get from Point A to Point B than it would on a 0% grade track.

Significally longer in fact. It can reduce the speed to a crawl.

[chaney]

If it makes the game physics more acceptable, just consider the game grades to be in some different unit. I know, it's grade, it's a percentage, it's defined ... maybe they are decigrades, so you can divide what the game says by 10 to get something more real world. Maybe divide by 5, doesn't really matter. The game is nothing close to a simulator, so we have to accept some sloppy details like this. This sort of "filtering" of the game information should make the grade behavior seem a bit more sensible. I'm not justifying anything, just offering a way to cope with the disconnect from reality.

[captainpatch]

Originally posted by chaney:

If it makes the game physics more acceptable, just consider the game grades to be in some different unit. I know, it's grade, it's a percentage, it's defined ... maybe they are decigrades, so you can divide what the game says by 10 to get something more real world. Maybe divide by 5, doesn't really matter. The game is nothing close to a simulator, so we have to accept some sloppy details like this. This sort of "filtering" of the game information should make the grade behavior seem a bit more sensible. I'm not justifying anything, just offering a way to cope with the disconnect from reality.

Even though RE "is only a game", it IS, in fact, modeled after Reality to a large extent. The available locomotives, for example are related to where the _actual_ models became available, and where. The "Realistic" track layout takes into account how much curve is workable before a train would undoubtedly "jump the tracks". One of the environmental factors they were _trying_ to incorporate was track grade, which IS a _real_ thing. And the reality is that none of these trains would be able to handle anything greater than a 6% grade. (In fact, RRs worldwide bend over backward to keep it under 3%. They will lay down a hundred miles of low-grade track, twisting back and forth just to advance the trip a straight line of 5 miles.,,, and track materials, labor, railroad bed, and right-of-ways per mile ain't cheap.)

I am disappointed that the devs circumvented their own design by NOT enforcing a "no grade above 6%" rule. (Which is, I suspect, a sop thrown to players that just want to get from Point A to Point B following the shortest path.)

[chaney]

I'm pretty inclined to notice and be bothered by this kind of detail. Over time, I have learned that I don't have the ability to get most of these kinds of problems "fixed" so I have learned to cope by "filtering" mentally to accept the mismatch with reality. Saving energy for the biggest issues as hills to die on gets more things improved, and lets me enjoy the game. It still does distract, but it's some help to filter.

[Jenska]

keep in mind , this is a GAME, if you want an RR simulator, buy one; they are excellent if a bit pricey, but that's what realism costs (ask the military about simulations). I hate disconnects in mechanics but as Chaney says you can't fix them so, "god give me the ... and to know the difference". Focus on the bigger picture and just play it.

[captainpatch]

I absolutely HATE that line of reasoning. "It's just a GAME." It excuses EVERY flaw a game has. Ignores the fact that the devs were trying to simulate something that had a REAL existence, REAL details, a REAL history.... from which they deviate for who-knows-what reason, without any explanation why they simulated _this_, but not _that_.

The whole point of forum is to give players a venue in which to air their praise and/or complaints, and to seek out explanations for something they don't understand about the game. Those that say, "It's just a GAME" are essentially saying, "That doesn't bother ME, so shut up already."

[Jenska]

I didn't say you're wrong, I just pointed out that for realism purists there are other products that fit the bill better. And I'm not excusing anything, I have lots of bug and gripe posts on these forums. I'm just saying that some things are just the way they are and since RE 1 is a done deal, we'll have to hope that the devs are listening and RE2 is better. Other games do things differently and none of them is completely "realistic", but where do you draw a line between realism and game play. I have some of the flight and rr simulators, and can't even play them on my just 2 year old laptop; there realism is a priority over play-ability, I accept that and only play on my MUCH more powerful desktop system which I can't take on vacation or outside on the porch. I CAN play RE on my laptop as it is, and that is a plus. There is a scale of expectations on many sides, and those expectations must be met with development time, $$ and user acceptance. RE cost LESS than a single engine and route for a simulator, so I accept less realism in RE, and I accept the higher cost and computer requirements for the more realistic simulators. Having played simulators since the original Flight Simulator , and most of the train GAMES since Sid Meier's RT 1 , I've come to scale my expectations based on the overall feel of the game and accept various parts of the game as the abstractions that they are, not absolute matches to the real world. RE was a somewhat different approach to the game and was pretty rough inits initial form. One might even say that there were serious design flaws that we have been stuck with. But the devs added things to the game and fixed or mitigated many of the initial problems. A rework from scratch to fix it isn't practical, so we will get RE2 instead. Having said all that, your mileage (and expectations) may differ, we each have personal preferences and opinions to which we are entitled. They are not wrong, just individual.

I'm a professional software engineer and understand the nature of (bad) design decisions and the fix or start over concept very well from an economic viewpoint. NO game in this genre has a complete match to reality, even though they are ALL based on real concepts and real history; they are ALL abstractions out of necessity, just look at the cost of the simulators and the military budget for training. RE1 has run its course for good or bad, beating up on it serves not useful purpose; so RE2 is our next best hope.

[captainpatch]

One (positive) aspect about airing complaints is that _hopefully_, when the devs are working on the NEXT version of the game (RE2, RE3, etc.) they will note the complaints and perhaps take them into account when hammering out the details of the design. After all, they can't address what you (and perhaps others) feel is a real issue unless SOMEONE stands up and makes some noise.

From the Marketing/Development side of game creation, a reasonable rule of thumb is that for every "voice" on a forum, there are hundreds/thousands of other consumers thinking the same thing. It's just that the VAST majority of consumers, they don't feel motivated enough to get up on a soapbox. Most of ^them content themselves to simply NOT buy that next version. ("Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.") Which is why _smart_ devs pay attention to EVERYTHING that appears on the game forum.

[Then again, some/many game _publishers_ really don't care what the consumers think. If they feel confident their entire production run WILL sell out and they will make what they consider a decent Profit, who cares what the consumers think or want? For example, the LARGE majority of Civilization players WILL buy the next Roman numeral of Civilization, just because, "it's Civilization!". And in the economic scenario of game creation, distribution, and marketing, it is the _publisher_ that usually calls the shots. Because they front the money that devs NEED to create the game, they can dictate WHEN a game will (or won't) release, ready or not. And usually they can also order the devs to NOT expend resources to develop a game feature that the publishers feel is superfluous and unnecessary. Failure to comply with a publisher's demands can -- and most likely will -- make it near-impossible for a developer to get his NEXT project funded adequately.]

[Jenska]

A completely valid analysis, and if you want to read 5 years of the same comments, go read the world of warships forums which mirror you pretty well.