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DoR's saved games and screenshots.

Started by Dutchman on Rails, August 31, 2009, 07:38:55 PM

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Dutchman on Rails

Hi All,

After the Rogaland challenge, I've returned to my own play, which is to go through the paces of the industrial revolution, trying to get a feel of how history was made. I hope my thread here, in which I will occasionally post saved games, screenshots and small stories on how things are going, will give some of the feel of this interesting period.

Simutrans 102.1 Experimental 6.3, Pak.German.

http://simutrans-germany.com/files/upload/DoR Birsteiner Kreis January 1815.sve

First, a saved game of the start-up situation on my current game.
The scenario is as follows. It's almost the end of the Napoleonic Wars, which left mainland Europe recovering from the economic hardships of that time. The small region of the Birsteiner Kreis reflects that. In this landscape of hills, small rivers and a few large lakes, only a handful of small hamlets exist. Everything is very quiet. The people are industrious and may set up industries whenever they have the chance (industry settings have been set to one chain per 1500 inhabitants), but new inventions are still years away. They are also homely though and do not travel often (travel has been set back to 1).

http://simutrans-germany.com/files/upload/DoR Birsteiner Kreis January 1825.sve

Ten years later, 11 small coach companies are struggling to survive. Sometimes, a small profit is made by a few of the companies. Others are running losses continuously and slowly using up their starting capital, hoping to last long enough for more promising transport potential to arrive...

Combuijs

Interesting starting conditions! I'm curious to know what's going to happen. I've played with 7 companies a few times, but you tend to get headaches to sort each one out everytime.
Bob Marley: No woman, no cry

Programmer: No user, no bugs



Dutchman on Rails

Well, Combuijs, the general idea is to eventually have the companies specialise in an economic model like I'm used to in Europe. My own company (which hasn't set up shop yet) will be the main rail provider, another one will service the electricity grid, still others will be local transporters or (later) airlines, and so on, and I may close a few companies (or make them non-active should it turn out completely removing them is impossible).
The use of the companies to make passenger lines and fire up the economy a bit was the result of a compromise. I want to start in 1815 because of the end of the Napoleonic wars and also to get a feel of the period before the railways. But the low density means a single company would cause rather uneven economic growth (only a few towns) or, with only 50,000 to start with (I lowered that too) spend too much, and Pak.German doesn't give me any full industry chains to transport cargo (there are some industries, but the final consumers are missing until 1835). So I had to press the companies into service as interdependent coach services. Most will survive (I've now reached 1831), only one I'm slightly worried about, but I've already found out that beer is a good money maker for carts, and it should still have enough money by the time the industries will open, so I guess it will survive.

Dutchman on Rails

As it turned out, the previous game did indeed get a little annoying. Not so much because of the many companies, but the following issues:
- I had underestimated the effect of Simutrans Experimental on the coaches. Lines that easily make a profit in Simutrans, turn a loss in Experimental if the journey can not be made within a month.
- As far as I can tell, the stops can only be shared by companies if they are public, which caused effects I didn't like (mostly that it's difficult for the players to pay for expansions, upgrades they can pay).
- The transition from the situation that came into existence, with the companies each keeping their own route, to the idea of 'functional' companies turned out to be too cumbersome (and unrealistic, as companies that were doing well would have to close first).
So, a new game, this time with larger towns and a less ambitious base plan (though the HSP lines will, if possible, still be run by a separate company). Two saved games for today, the first one is the startup, the second one shows the largest town, Friedrichskoog, in 1829.

http://simutrans-germany.com/files/upload/DoR Kreis Friedrichskoog 1815-01.sve

http://simutrans-germany.com/files/upload/DoR Kreis Friedrichskoog 1829-07.sve

Combuijs

QuoteAs far as I can tell, the stops can only be shared by companies if they are public

You are telling far enough (e.g. it is true what you are saying here).
Bob Marley: No woman, no cry

Programmer: No user, no bugs



Dutchman on Rails

Well, after some time, it's time to add a screenshot.

This one takes us to the year 1840. Since the second half of the 1830's, some brewers have set up shop, along with a power plant run by an inventor ahead of his time.
Near the town of Sankt Augustin, this led to an opportunity for the still young transport company. Barley is taken by trains to the brewery, while carts supply the hop and bring premium beer to the local market. The hop yard is off screen to the northwest.


Dutchman on Rails

After some delay, two more screenshots from the same game.



Some of the developments near the experimental power station in 1843. The short line from the northern coal mine was already there. More recently, a new line was added from the southern coal mine. Both mines get supplied wood from a forest to the east.



A helpful event was: "Economy booming", adding a subsidiary winery with two grapes farms, connecting the lot to a pre-existing gasthaus. A small enterprise of road connections was set up to take advantage of this development.

These will be the last screenshots of this game for some time. Developments (or my notice of them) on the side of the Pak 128.Britain cause me to set up a new game with this pakset, going back even further in time...

Dutchman on Rails

Contrary to the previous post, I had some initial problems getting the Pak.Britain-Experimental games to work and I'm still experimenting (in part at least). So I went on for some time with Kreis Friedrichskoog.



Miltenberg is geographically a dead end. With the first rail line running on to the northeast, people have to change to coaches. Still a big improvement in their journey time though.



A bit further down a long bridge spans the valley, making for a picturesque scene.

Dutchman on Rails

#8
Here's a screenshot from my latest game, using Simutrans 102.2.1 and Pak.Britain 1.06. I hope you enjoy.



Deep in the woods near Settle, a slaughterhouse forms a hub in a small transport company, bringing cattle and taking premium meat for the butcher some miles away.

Dutchman on Rails

The neighbouring village of Grantham, a few years later.



The village of Grantham boasts a famous pub, catering for some very thirsty people. Perhaps the amount of drinking is the reason why the population hasn't grown for years...

The premium beer is brought from the local brewery by trains. 4 trains of 10 horses and 19 cars each are needed to keep the pub well supplied. The original stops of the earlier low capacity cart service are still visible. Grain is brought to the brewery by cart from three direction.

The Hood

Nice to see some screenshots of pak128.Britain games :)

Just a small suggestion - I always think screenshots look better without the blue station coverage overlay, but of course that is up to you.

Dutchman on Rails

#11
Well, The Hood, I agree. It's just that I always forget. I tend to take my shots in the heat of play, seeing a nice scene and touching the 'c' without remembering to turn off the coverage and turn it back on again. But I'm happy someone enjoys my shots. :)

Anyway, here is the next one. The same brewery, but some years later, and a lot happened. In fact the only thing that was not changed was the coach house... :D



With larger and larger volumes of grain traffic, the company decided that canalizing the river to the nearby lake would be worth the high maintenance costs. Sailing boats took the place of the carts, bringing grain from four farms to the brewery.

The canal also allowed for a favourable spot for a passenger quay, offering a service between Grantham and Settle (some people may remember the slaughterhouse in Settle). As some more villages surround the lake, this service is expected to expand.

Edit: And another small one, this time of a small dock/transfer point near Rochdale.


Dutchman on Rails

#12
After the previous screenshots, I found out that the passengers service made so much money that, given that it would still be 70 year before the railways, income would outrun costs of new projects very quickly. A download and trial also learned that it was now possible to start a Pak.German game in 1815 with industries. So the next screenshot is from a new Pak.German game, started in 1815.



Estenfeld boasts an old monastery, the monks of which brew a fine beer that is served in the local gasthaus.

Apart from barley and hops to the monastery, and the all-important beer service to the gasthaus (where the real money is made), the company also has two small passenger services, one connecting the industries, the other linking Estenfeld with nearby Buchloe. No passenger ever made use of these lines though, and employees are sneering at the service. The director remains stubborn about it though, claiming that it will boost economic growth to have these services, and that in the end passengers will come.*

* The reason that, even with these small hamlets, there are no passengers, is that passenger_factor has been set to 1, meaning precious few travellers. Apart from passenger travel hopefully boosting growth even with the odd one traveler, the second reason is to deliberately slow company profit down (from 8000/year to about 2000) and make things more difficult in the medium term.

Dutchman on Rails

The same brewery in 1838. The arrival of Adler in November 1835 made for greater potential both in transport and in profit.



In the meantime, I've found the challenges of a 1408x672 map (the mini map fits almost precisely to my screen) to be irresistible (it also seems to move the industries further apart), so I've started over. As I suppose more monastery breweries and more carts and Adlers hauling grain around are not so interesting, I'll wait with shots of that game until I have something else to show.

Dutchman on Rails

As anounced, a game on the bigger map, also with Simutrans-Ex.

This company spent all of it's operational life so far in and around the village of Wuerselen. So the next three screenshots show the development of this village.



1815 shows the usual brewery, with hops (green), barley (yellow) and beer (red) being transported. The village is still only a hamlet, a lone town hall and pub along the road.



1839 shows the fast growth of the village, which is now a respectable 4000+ inhabitants. Halfway through the 1820's, a minimal (one coach) passengers service was laid in to stimulate town growth. It runs on a complex schedule, alternating between inner-city routes and each of the routes to the outlying industries.

From 1835, the railways arrived. However, work on the barley rail line was interrupted with the expansion of the pub chain with a wine press and two wine farms, one of which almost next door to the pub. So first two carts lines for grapes (purple) and one for wine (blue) were laid in, and of course the passengers service was extended.



After the boost the new transport options gave the company, more rapid expansion of the services was made possible. In 1843, the barley line capacity had been tripled, and work had begun on rail lines to replace the carts on the two grapes lines (far from completed though). The bottom-left corner shows the situation around the winepress, with both the stops for the carts and the sidings in operation.

Dutchman on Rails

After a long absence, here are some more screenshots.

These are a little different than usual though. For those who haven't followed the discussion on industry balancing (see http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=5039.0), a short introduction.

I'm now playing a game of Simutrans 102.2.2 with Simutrans Experimental 7.3 and Pak128.Britain 1.07, but the industry in Pak128.Britain is heavily modified to push down the productivity of all the shops, along with smaller modifications in ships, a few in horses and carts, and the usual heavy modifications of the .tab config files. It's an experiment of concept to see what happens with lots of small shops needing supply from big factories.

Anyway, the best way to show I think is to give something of a replay report with the usual screenshots. One difference is that I use raw screenshots, mostly because the financial status gives information too.

I started in January 1750, with the usual 1408x672 map, 30 minimum towns and 8 industry chains. This looked like the following.



In this game, I chose the Cattle Farm -> Diary chain in the red circle as a starting point. In this experimental setting, it's normally possible to make a profitable cart transport route with just one industry contract, but only just. The reason is the maintenance cost of the depot. You need multiple cargo routes to offset that cost and make a decent profit, and it never becomes very high. However, cooled goods like milk can be reasonably profitable with just one route, as the running costs of the carts are the same as for other goods, but the revenue is much higher.

At the end of the year, this gives us a small monthly profit and a picture of a calm, rural setting.



Because of the lower production of the diary, the smaller density of carts is enough to supply all of it's needs.

Dutchman on Rails

One of the issues with such low settings - from industry production to starting_money - is of course that initially there are periods of looong wait before enough money has been saved until the next step. Of course, with starting_money at the usual 20000000 instead of my 1500000, that would be a bit shorter... ;)

But in 1759, enough money had been saved for the next step.



The builders' yard in the circle, with it's attached quarry (stone) and forest/sawmill (planks) offered two viable routes. With low demands (40 and 30 units per month) and revenue, one would need both routes to make the profit offset the costs of the depot.

The lines were set up gradually as money from the original milk route kept flowing in and profit of the new too lines steadily increased from a trickle to a small stream. Over the period 1759-1762, the annual inflow gradually increased from 275 to just over 400.

The clay pit showed a small quirk. The builders' yard needs only 20% of clay, that's just 8 units /month. Not nearly enough for a viable route. I'll see if I can make this small change on the fly, bringing it up to 50%.

Finally, another screenshot. Traffic here, with two lines, is a bit more busy, but still not crowded.



One last caution. As usual with my games where the game itself is still under development, this game is in borrowed time. The reason is that I expect a bugfix in Simutrans Experimental, which is expected to solve an issue that has been preventing me from using Pak128.Britain-Ex so far. When that happens, and if that works as expected, I'll continue my experiments by restarting with Pak128.Britain-Ex.

jamespetts

DoR,

thank you for the narrative and screenshots! Very useful and interesting. Do you think that you could post your updated .tab files?
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Dutchman on Rails

As requested, all the tab files: http://simutrans-germany.com/files/upload/DoR%20Config%20Files.zip

I'll gloss a bit over the next two freight lines, as I think talking about every carts route will become a bit tedious. :-[

After changing the percentage of the builders' yard demand for clay, of course a clay route was added. In 1770, it was time for the next expansion.

This time, the colliery and coal merchant near Newbury would be connected. But with a small difference, as the map shows.



The route is in the red circle. But instead of building a new depot, which would be the 'correct' way, the vehicles would be sent from the existing Wakefield depot (in the pink circle) on a five-month journey (please save the picture to enlarge if it's not visible well). The reason? Waiting for enough money to build another depot would take several years. This way we could start making more money earlier.

As it was, the coal merchant had a monthly demand of no less than 44 tons of coal, the highest on the map. This move added another 250 odd to the yearly profit, shortening the time before the next project could be started.

As I suppose screenshots of carts on the way will also become tedious, I add one shot of the growth at Port Talbot in late 1781. As can be seen compared to the 1750 shot, it has grown considerably due to the delivery of milk.


Dutchman on Rails

I had to switch to keeping the density of industry chains manually (at 1 chain for every 1000 souls), to get the kind of conditions I want for this experiment.

Also, as the quick wins were slowly running out, it was time to think about long term plans with rather heavy investments as the map shows.



At Inverness there was a textile mill (1), with clothes shops in Inverness and Lowestoft (2) as it's customers. Things got further complicated when in 1780 a greengrocer with a fruit orchard opened in Inverness (3) and in 1796 a china shop with a pottery opened in Lowestoft (4), supplied from the existing clay pit in Wakefield. At Newport, there was a brewery with a pub (5).

This should allow for a phased buildup of combined land/sea routes over time, linking the various industries together and creating a basis for sea transport that may also help future passenger travel.

But there were catches. The combines land/sea/land routes would of course take a heavy investment in depots. Of course starting at Inverness would help a bit, as money could be made there. But the following shot shows this was not without it's problems either.



The main problem was that the orchard was on the other side of the river than Inverness itself, requiring a bridge and it's maintenance. Together with a wool service, this should be viable, but that takes a heavy investment. The dense forest does nothing to help either.

So first, to take the last quick win, a grain/beer service was set up in Newport before starting to save for the Inverness project.

To be complete, I also attach a screenshot of the situation at Lowestoft.


jamespetts

Very interesting! Good to see Pak128.Britain being put to good use, not to mention Simutrans-Experimental...
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Dutchman on Rails

#21
Well, James, while I thank you for the compliment, due to the large amount of personal intervention on my part in both the game and the Pakset, I'm not sure if it's 'good use' or 'abuse'... ;D

The latest two parts I found out needed intervention were for me:

1) That Nelson's column, when it showed up, instantly quadrupled my largest town, and according to my rules would have forced 5 new industry chains. After pushing down it's level from 200 to 15, it became more manageable for my purposes...

2) That when using the manual industry density increase, if I saved the game and reloaded it between two times, I always get the equivalent of a 'new industry chain' event, never an 'industry expands it's chain' event. I had to correct that with more manual intervention at a suitable moment.

But back to the story. My games have a tendency that it encourages me to deviate from my long-term plans, and the years following the last chapter were no exception...

So let's take a look at another map with numbers:



It all started well enough according to plan. In 1804, work started at Inverness on the fruit and wool/textiles services (1). Here a novelty for this game was used, as the wool services' return leg passes the clothes shop. So on the way back, it delivers whatever textiles are available.

But 8 years later, on reaching the 11000 mark, and with savings running up high, another greengrocer with fruit orchard opened up in London (2). As more profit always brings faster saving for future big construction, and this was not too far away from the depot at Wakefield, 5000 of the savings were spent into building services here. This quick win paid off, but the plan to build shipping lines had to be temporarily abandoned.

Then, in 1814, several things happened in short succession. First, a column in memory of Nelson was erected in Port Talbot (3). Although initial rumours spoke of a jump in population from 1700 to 4500, it turned out to be only to about 2000 (see above for the intervention). The screenshot shows the new monument.



In December of the same year, however, the builders' yard at Wakefield closed, dragging the stone quarry and the forest with it (4). Although the clay pit didn't close (it still had a contract with the Pottery at Lowestoft), it's transport services for the moment were down too. So all the vehicles were stabled. They were not sold, and neither were the stop at the clay pit nor the depot demolished, for possible future use.

The people of the region didn't despair though, but set up new industries to replace the lost trade potential. First, the orchard at Inverness signed a contract for supplying cider to the pub at Newport. Being far apart, this was not so useful at this time.

But a few months later, an arable farm opened near Inverness, contracting the local greengrocer (5). This opportunity was used to set up a vegetables service, pushing traffic on the road to Inverness to the limit of it's capacity, but making up in part for the lost revenue at Wakefield. The screenshot below shows the situation at this point.



And with this underway, the same thing happened in London (6). The lost revenue may have been more than compensated by this and some of the stabled horses put to good use, but the downside is that the plans for shipping have gone nowhere and money was again at a low eb... ;)

Dutchman on Rails

#22
This will be the last post in this series for now, as Simutrans Experimental 8.0 has been released. Trying out certain aspects of that version has priority, as they have the potential to remove some awkward aspects in my experiments (manual industry increase), and hopefully allow Pak182.Britain-Experimental to come into play. Should the trials present favourable results, a new experimental game will be set up using Simutrans-Ex 8.0 and Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.6.

However, we go out with a bang.

First, again, a map with numbers.



The last of the quick wins came in 1814, with the opening of a bakery in Wakefield. As readers will recall, this was the location of the former builders' yard, where a depot and numerous stabled vehicles still existed. So a new line could quickly be built (1). The destination of this line was build on the shore, in preparation for a dock (see screenshot below).



Readers will have noticed that so far, with each step of the way, profit slowly but steadily increased, and also depots were built at four locations. The cumulative effect was that the moment where building a shipping service would become easily affordable came ever closer, and that the origin-shore and shore-destination infrastructure would for many parts be prepared.

The final building block came into place in 1824, when a small shipping service (and therefore a depot) was built in Inverness, increasing the supply of wool to the textile mill (2).

After this, events moved fast. Two years later, a cider service was laid in between Inverness (3) and Newport, through a dock near Aylesbury (4). The busy traffic can be seen at the next screenshot.



The new service was an instant success. Where the other short-haul services earned a few hundred per year, this one earned a few hundred per month. So in 1829 already a service for textiles was opened between Inverness and Lowestoft (5), followed two years later by a clay service from Wakefield to Lowestoft and a corresponding china service within the latter place.

The last development was in 1830, when a hardware shop opened up in Port Talbot. The steel mill supplying it contracted the colliery all the way at Westbury, giving the potential for an east-west transport service.

At this point, with a healthy income of over 7000/year, several possibilities were open. Short-distance rail lines for the busier areas had come into reach, eventually growing together into a network. Passenger services would also slowly become viable.

The main difference with earlier games would be that this took significantly longer. Also, more variety of small amounts of goods were transported as opposed to large amounts of a few.

A lot of lessons had been learned though. When setting up the shops, no attention had been paid to the fact that some accept more than one type of good, effectively increasing demand. In future experiments, I need to keep that in mind. I also underestimated significantly the potential for a long-haul shipping service. At several points, I was very close to building one, but went for a quick win instead. This was a mistake, as the spectacular results of the cider service shows.

If Simutrans Experimental 8.0 and especially the industry model works as advertised, this relieves me of having to keep the industry/population balance manually.

Dutchman on Rails

I'm sorry to say that I ran into trouble with the Simutrans Experimental versions 8.0 (and 8.1) on the factory_spacing setting. Soon after, I also ran into trouble with the image repository I use.

Several years ago, I posted screenshot threads on the Transport Tycoon Deluxe forum. This forum has facilities that are more convenient to me, so I will continue my story there in a thread on the Simutrans section.

jamespetts

DoR,

sorry that you've had problems with the factory spacing - I'll look into that when I can. In the meantime, it's very interesting to see the continuation of your story. How are you finding 8.1 balances in comparison to 7.3? It it 8.1 or 7.3 that you are using for this?
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Dutchman on Rails

Hi James,

Thank you for your - as always - positive comments.

I'm still using version 7.3. I do not know anything about the balance of version 8.1, and since changing most of the config files and part of the Pak128.Britain-Ex set is by now second nature, I'm not sure if I can help, as my balance is not the same as the one people get with a default installation.

You know where to find the continuation of the story. Do be welcome on the forum. We're now coming to the parts where there are enough shops to find out if my thoughts have a chance of working out.

Isaac Eiland-Hall

If you're interested in continuing to post here, you might have success using http://files.[ simutrans [dot] us (site down, do not visit) ]/ - it's there to be used for all Simutrans folks for Simutrans-related things. You don't have to sign up, although signing up is free if you're prefer - I run the site, though obviously it's a pre-made script...

Dutchman on Rails

Thanks for the offer, Isaac. But I've seen some of that site, and for me, the tt-forums have facilities that suit me more for this kind of thread. Also, two switches in short succession would be too much.

In any case, there's a link here, and I'll be happy to also answer any questions here. If the link goes too far back in the thread, I'll repost it.