New American Millennium - RRT3 Mod

[Meteor Man]

As silently as the turning of the Earth, a new era has dawned. Great new inventions like electricity, diesel engines, and radio promise to change the world. Western imperialism continues its global march, the U.S. recently joining the arena by taking Spanish colonial holdings in the Spanish-American War. But at home, the transportation network is still not up to snuff, and where the U.S. had once been a world leader in locomotion, it now lags behind the European powers.

This is where you come in. The opportunity is ripe for a tycoon with a few extra bucks to fill this nation's aching need for a comprehensive rail network. For this to be accomplished, a few steps are entailed:

1. A transcontinental line must be constructed as quickly as possible. While the 50-year-old Pacific Railroad works, it is in dire need of rebuilding for modern, heavier rail cars. The entire length will have to be built from scratch. Connect New York > St. Louis > San Francisco

2. The nation requires a comprehensive rail network to quickly move manufactured goods to our ports. You must connect at least 30 cities to your rail network. In addition, you must connect the following cities to Washington D.C. by 1950:
a. New York
b. Boston
c. Miami
d. Atlanta
e. New Orleans
f. Dallas
g. Chicago
h. Minneapolis
i. Detroit
j. San Diego
k. Los Angeles
l. Seattle
m. Denver

3. Finally, the U.S. has favored an isolationist foreign policy for decades, but that looks to be soon changing. In order to facilitate international trade, our nation requires rail connections to our foreign neighbors to the north and south. Connect to both Mexico and Canada.

BRONZE MEDAL
1) Connect New York > St. Louis > San Francisco by 1930
2) Connect at least 20 cities by 1950
3) Connect to Mexico and Canada by 1950

SILVER MEDAL
All of the Above, but
2) Connect 30 cities by 1950
in addition:
-Industry Profits: $10 million

GOLD MEDAL
All of Silver, but
1) Connect New York > St. Louis > San Francisco by 1925
2) Connect 45 cities by 1950
and, in addition:
-Connect all listed major cities
-Company Book Value: $100 million
-Industry Profits: $50 million

Good Luck!

***SPECIAL CONDITIONS***
-No Unconnected Track Laying
-May Only Start One Company
-Non-starred Towns Don't Count for Medal

---------------------------------------------------------

Hello guys, this is my Railroad Tycoon 3 Unlimited Mod! It covers a span of history from 1900 to 1950 over the entire United States (minus Alaska and Hawaii).

Basically what drove the creation of this mod was my want for more attention to detail on the map and more historical events in-game.

Notable additions:
1) well over 100 historical events and popups, many of them newspapers with headlines taken from real-life articles of the historical event. I went searching through newspaper archives for this haha
2) well-detailed map, every river labeled, most mountains and ranges labelled as well
3) non-starred towns: basically small cities that have minor demand for goods and may have some industries but don't grow over time. Makes regions like the West more interesting
4) Achievements. They're kind of like Easter Eggs in that you don't know how to trigger them, they just occur after a certain milestone and give a unique bonus like cheaper railroads or price increase of a good.
5) other assorted choice events. I.e. you can choose to go one way or another for different benefits (or potential losses!)
6) historical changes in prices of goods. For example, prohibition causes alcohol prices to plummet. War forces iron, grain, weapons and troops prices way up.
7) train robbery events!

Screenies!

Spoiler Screenshots :

Spoiler THIS IS AN ACHIEVEMENT! Don't open unless you don't care about having one of them spoiled for you! :

DOWNLOAD (dropbox link, size: 26.12 MB)
edit: or download below as a .zip in case something happens to the link

Installation instructions:
-Place New American Millennium.gmp file in your Railroad Tycoon 3/maps folder
-that should be it! let me know if you guys have problems, but should be that straightforward.

Have fun railroadin'.

 

[Quintillus]

Sounds interesting. I was always more into RRT2 than RRT3, and tried a lot of its scenarios, but it sounds like a well-researched scenario, and I'm downloading it (and RRT3 on Steam) and plan to give it a whirl. Large maps and lots of free territory to expand my route along have always been an area I'm fond of too, so chances are pretty good I'll enjoy this.

 

[coanda]

Fun map, thanks for putting it together. And your post convinced me to go dust off my RRT3 CDs and install the game for the first time in a decade, which was fun to play again; went and played through the campaign again too.

Would be nice if the briefing page of the ledger made it clear whether you had achieved the 1925/1930 goal. I must have failed the gold condition somehow, although I *thought* I had all the parts satisfied.

While I'm on a RRT3 kick, any advice on other maps (either built-in or customs) you found particularly fun to play?

 

[Meteor Man]

Fun map, thanks for putting it together. And your post convinced me to go dust off my RRT3 CDs and install the game for the first time in a decade, which was fun to play again; went and played through the campaign again too.

Would be nice if the briefing page of the ledger made it clear whether you had achieved the 1925/1930 goal. I must have failed the gold condition somehow, although I *thought* I had all the parts satisfied.

While I'm on a RRT3 kick, any advice on other maps (either built-in or customs) you found particularly fun to play?

No problem, glad you liked it. I'll have to go back and take another look at the victory conditions again.

As for other scenarios, unsure as I haven't played this in a couple months but I know the Hawk & Badger Railroad website has tons of cool maps that I have played.

I'll take a look around and let you know what I find.

 

[Quintillus]

I got around to trying this today, and it's certainly challenging enough for me! Although I should note that I played a couple orders of magnitude more II than III, so my play is sure to be sub-optimal.

First time around I decided to start in Florida. I guess because the terrain was flat? Long story short, I didn't make any money. Any that I did make in a good economy would be canceled out in a bad economy.

Second try I decided to try to fix that up by buying a lot of industry. So I bought some oil derricks, sugar and fruit plantations, and a logging camp over the first 15 years of the game. That gave me about $600K/year in profits, which I then poured into a Lone Star electric railroad. Which was all well and good, until around 1925 I realized that I had no chance of winning, and worse than that, my rail operations were unprofitable once track maintenance was factored in - my industry was subsidizing them, and I was making less than 10 years ago. I played on until around 1934, but profits were not forthcoming.

Third try, I decided to go east coast, linking DC to Richmond. Thanks in part to some dairy processing, this was mildly profitable, enough to enable to to issue bonds to fund a gambit - building a textile manufactury in Richmond, and hauling cotton from eastern VA/NC there. This paid off handsomely, and several years later I was able to expand south to Wilmington and Columbia, enabling the purchase of a lumber yard and a weapons factory that I supplied along the way. Owning industries and then supplying them by rail seems to be a more complementary strategy than what I had going on in Texas, and having 3-city segments of passenger traffic, with a few restaurants/hotels/taverns as well, is helping make express traffic profitable for the first time.

I still doubt I'll make NYC to San Fran by 1930, as it's 1914 and I'm still only in 3 states and D.C. (and I hadn't realized till re-reading the OP that I needed St. Louis too... had been planning a southern route). But it's a good scenario, I like the events and the additional non-starred towns, and it is nice to be making progress each time.

Edit: Well, I surprised myself. The profits kept rolling in, and I made good extensions to GA, AL, TN, up to St. L, and through AR to TX. Also bought up an unprofitable oil refinery in Memphis and brought in crude to make a pretty penny. Although I'd racked up loans with my quick expansion - reaching the $10M limit - from 1924 through 1929 I was able to pay them down to $5M, though my expansion slowed down, going only from Dallas to Lubbock in that time.

Then I took out the max again, waited for the depression to hit, and built all the way from Lubbock to San Fran at once, with a couple hundred thousand to spare. This did mean building some less-than-ideal track - notably a 15% grade in Arizona and going up and over the Tehachapi Mountains instead of tunneling through - but saved the possibility of a bronze or silver medal. I'll probably go back and make those lines more sane as I have money to build stations along the way. Including, of course, a station in Albuquerque, which my line goes just south of currently.

Edit 2: I should also note that my weapons industry fell apart after the Great War. Around 1922 I realized my industry profits were lower than would be accounted for due to the usual economic cycle, and sure enough, I was losing almost $250K a year on my weapons factory. Which makes sense historically, and was kind of cool (except for the bottom line). Made for a good example of when selling an industry may make sense, and that's what I did!

 

[Meteor Man]

I got around to trying this today, and it's certainly challenging enough for me! Although I should note that I played a couple orders of magnitude more II than III, so my play is sure to be sub-optimal.

First time around I decided to start in Florida. I guess because the terrain was flat? Long story short, I didn't make any money. Any that I did make in a good economy would be canceled out in a bad economy.

Second try I decided to try to fix that up by buying a lot of industry. So I bought some oil derricks, sugar and fruit plantations, and a logging camp over the first 15 years of the game. That gave me about $600K/year in profits, which I then poured into a Lone Star electric railroad. Which was all well and good, until around 1925 I realized that I had no chance of winning, and worse than that, my rail operations were unprofitable once track maintenance was factored in - my industry was subsidizing them, and I was making less than 10 years ago. I played on until around 1934, but profits were not forthcoming.

Third try, I decided to go east coast, linking DC to Richmond. Thanks in part to some dairy processing, this was mildly profitable, enough to enable to to issue bonds to fund a gambit - building a textile manufactury in Richmond, and hauling cotton from eastern VA/NC there. This paid off handsomely, and several years later I was able to expand south to Wilmington and Columbia, enabling the purchase of a lumber yard and a weapons factory that I supplied along the way. Owning industries and then supplying them by rail seems to be a more complementary strategy than what I had going on in Texas, and having 3-city segments of passenger traffic, with a few restaurants/hotels/taverns as well, is helping make express traffic profitable for the first time.

I still doubt I'll make NYC to San Fran by 1930, as it's 1914 and I'm still only in 3 states and D.C. (and I hadn't realized till re-reading the OP that I needed St. Louis too... had been planning a southern route). But it's a good scenario, I like the events and the additional non-starred towns, and it is nice to be making progress each time.

Edit: Well, I surprised myself. The profits kept rolling in, and I made good extensions to GA, AL, TN, up to St. L, and through AR to TX. Also bought up an unprofitable oil refinery in Memphis and brought in crude to make a pretty penny. Although I'd racked up loans with my quick expansion - reaching the $10M limit - from 1924 through 1929 I was able to pay them down to $5M, though my expansion slowed down, going only from Dallas to Lubbock in that time.

Then I took out the max again, waited for the depression to hit, and built all the way from Lubbock to San Fran at once, with a couple hundred thousand to spare. This did mean building some less-than-ideal track - notably a 15% grade in Arizona and going up and over the Tehachapi Mountains instead of tunneling through - but saved the possibility of a bronze or silver medal. I'll probably go back and make those lines more sane as I have money to build stations along the way. Including, of course, a station in Albuquerque, which my line goes just south of currently.

Edit 2: I should also note that my weapons industry fell apart after the Great War. Around 1922 I realized my industry profits were lower than would be accounted for due to the usual economic cycle, and sure enough, I was losing almost $250K a year on my weapons factory. Which makes sense historically, and was kind of cool (except for the bottom line). Made for a good example of when selling an industry may make sense, and that's what I did!

Yay sounds like some fun times. You make me want to go back and play this again. I usually start in the Northeastern corridor and build up a profit machine to spearhead West to San Fran and branch from there, buying up every available profitable industry in sight (I like to build steel mills and logging camps, and paper is also profitable. a bunch of the cheap farms are great little sources of income. Oh, and textiles. Cotton is king!)

I feel that Arizona has a bit of an unrealistic topography, among other things, so I will go back and look at this again sometime soon and tidy it up. Glad you had fun! RRT3 is easily my favorite tycoon game.

 

[Quintillus]

I got one of the secret events, too!

Spoiler :

Orient Express! That certainly helped with passenger profitability.

I played on till 1944. The Depression is tough! Of course, having several hundred thousand dollars' worth of extra maintenance in non-revenue-generating routes to complete the San Fran part of the goal did not help matters any. I lost money 6 years in a row from 1930 through 1935 (I made $60K in 1936), and declared bankruptcy in 1934 to help lessen the bleeding. Add in three crashes in 1935 and increasing maintenance due to aging locomotives, and things weren't looking great.

But around 1935 I realized I could issue about $250K worth of stock per year. Typically I don't issue stock much, as I like to play the ownership game too, but even if that had mattered here, it would have been worth it! By 1938 I was able to start dieselization, which helped with both maintenance and revenue due to improved speeds. And by 1940 I was adding stations on the western sections, helping revenue further. Now I have service all the way out to San Francisco, and super-long tunnel connecting LA to the Central Valley. Which reminds me, it seems a bit empty there. Maybe Fresno or Bakersfield could be an additional non-starred city?

I probably still won't get bronze, as Canada and Mexico want a ton of money (do crashes and breakdowns still affect goodwill, and make access cost more, like in RT2?), and I'm unlikely to get all the required cities... it may have made more sense to focus on that rather than making the southwestern route serviceable. But not counting write-offs of poorly placed track from 1929, I would have made $2M last year, so all the cities may yet be possible, just not with $20M to get Canadian/Mexican access too.

I suspect I'm slightly underinvested in industry for now, although with $33M of industry profits, perhaps not. But I haven't bought any industries for a couple decades... in the 20's, because the ROI wouldn't be quick enough to help build to CA; in the '30s, because I was broke; and in the '40s because I wanted to invest in the track I'd built 10-15 years before. And at this point the ROI is unlikely to be less than the remaining time before 1950.

Textiles are the best. My mill in Richmond has made $19M! It's rather interesting economically. I also own 4 cotton farms, which have lost about $1.5M combined in the save time span (though hauling it to Richmond has made up at least $0.5M of that). It might be more profitable to not own the cotton farms, but my reckoning has been that the loss on those is small potatoes in comparison, and it's worth taking a small loss to keep a steady supply of textiles.

Oh, and I noticed it's 1944, but the prices for weapons and ammunition are still at super-low 1920's level. The weapons manufactory near Columbia that I sold at a loss a couple decades ago has even gone out of business!

 

[Meteor Man]

I will populate the Central Valley! And make sure weapons and ammunition prices go back up for the second world war. Thanks!

 

[Quintillus]

I admitted that my attempted that started in NoVa was not going to succeed, and abandoned it in 1947. And took another spin, which has been more successful.

This time I started in Minnesota. Which may seem like an odd choice... but it was just asking for some industrial development, with all the logging camps, and mines not that far away! So I became a Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company... wonder how that could be abbreviated? Spent the first 10-15 focused entirely on industry, like my Texas game not building any rails... but instead of only buying existing industry, I strategically placed manufacturing industries, particularly for lumber and paper, near enough sources of raw materials that I could make a boatload of money from purely local transit.

That proved a better strategy, and by 1907, I had $8.5M in industries, funded mostly by $6M in readily-issued debt, with my stock having recently split 3-1. But then the Panic of 1907 happened. And it stuck around awhile this game. Profits went from double the interest payments to just equal to them, and in 1910 I declared bankruptcy, wiping out several million in debt. This allowed me to emerge more quickly in the teens, and soon I laid rail to connect mines to the steel mills I'd bought near Minneapolis, increasing their profits considerably. I also expanded west in Great Northern fashion, reaching as far as Helena, and connecting bauxite mines to a new aluminum smelting plant I built near Bismarck. This established a healthy industry, and both Minneapolis and Bismarck grew considerably. Alas, Fargo is a non-starred city.

My one notable industrial mistake was not buying the coal mines that I was hauling from. In the 20's, most mines in Montana and the Dakotas folded due to unprofitability. Thus answering my question - it's worth the loss on mines/logging camps/farms if it ensures your supply of raw materials. Thankfully, iron was more of a limiting factor, and I extended a line to another coal mine, but it was still a bummer to loose one of my most profitable routes.

Eventually I expanded east, hauling lumber from Minneapolis to Columbus to supply the toy factory I'd bought there, and then east to Pennsylvania to NYC, where I started hauling rubber to Minneapolis to make tires, to make automobiles in Chicago. That line was not as successful as the toy business, as the rubber went south from MN to Des Moines, where a munitions plant wanted it, till it closed. A new tire factory in Wilmington, DE also threw in a monkey wrench; I recently allowed NYC and DC to supply that one naturally, extending the supply line for the MN tire factory to Boston.

To get west by the 1930 deadline, I again needed loans, and I wound up building a non-realistic beeline across the mountains and deserts to ensure I could make the connection without running out of money; I still haven't actually run a train west of Helena. But though my money was tied up in industry, my financials were in much better shape than last time, and I did not go broke during the Depression, instead making modest profits. Combined with issuing stock, this allowed expansion, adding New England, and going across the Midwest to Missouri, Oklahoma, and into Texas.

Now it's 1940, and while the economy is picking up, I'm not sure if I'll finish in time, but it will be closer. Reaching all the cities should not be a problem. Reaching Canada and Mexico is more questionable. I still have $9.5M in debt from the jaunt west (at 5% interest, it was hardly worth repaying), so that isn't an option. Stock issues bring in a healthy $650K/year though.

It's been a good time, and has taught me the ropes of RT3's economy. It is so much different than RT2! Industry is far more key. In both this attempt and the last one, my income sheet shows that I would have lost millions if I had no industrial profits. While I'm not sure that's true - no small part of overhead, interest, and salaries are due to industry - it's clear that it would be much slimmer pickings if I were trying to make money without owning any of the industries my railroad was helping, as I tended to do when first starting to play RT3. I shudder to think what might happen to my railroad in the 1950s if I'm forced to sell much of my industry to fund the Canada and Mexico goals.

 

[Quintillus]

I got silver! The '40s were profitable, issuing stock helped increase capital, and though I had to sell 70% of my $20M in industry to fund the last expansion to Canada, I had enough to reach the goal. The West Coast was a bit pricey, but adding a North Dakota to Saskatchewan connection was about as straightforward as could be.

I decided to play on into the '50s as well, to see what happened after my industrial sell-off... the income statement was not promising! And sure enough, though I'd kept some key properties, income dropped by a solid $1.6 million per year (a 58% drop). This led to investors threatening to fire me in 1950. Couldn't blame them too much after I lost millions in 1949 by putting the cash cows on a fire sale, and making $50K in total profit in 1950, with much-decreased revenue. In 1951, I made even less ($25K), but didn't issue any stock, and with the stock price going up, didn't get fired. The economy picked up in '52, and I used that (along with some freshly-issued stock) to replace 16 locomotives, or almost half the fleet, while retiring a couple whose running loss, previously offset by fire-saled industry, no longer made sense. The U1 was my exclusive choice due to its moderate cost, decent fuel economy, and low maintenance; most of my H10's, Northern 4-8-4's, Pacifics, and Atlantics, along with the only Big Boy, were retired, though all Zephyrs and most Class 500's were kept.

The resulting $3.5M in locomotive write-offs was rewarded by investors threatening to fire me once more. But it paid off in 1953, with fuel + maintenance costs falling by $1.3M compared to 1951 - a savings of over 40% in that category, and about 20% of overall expenses. A respectable profit was restored, and I once again avoided the axe.

The other metric that really changed was percentage of revenue from passengers and mail. This increased from 57% in 1948, to 73% in 1954. And that's not the best time to be doubling down on passenger trains in the U.S., historically speaking! Thanks to the focus on rapid expansion to build the network, this had already been increasing quickly - in 1925, 21% of revenue was from passengers. With the renewed profits in '53 and '54, I've started investing in hotels, restaurants, and taverns to supplement passenger revenue, as well as buying some industries again.

 

[Meteor Man]

haha I'll have to look at knocking down the passenger prices as time moves on; good catch. And nice work!

 

[Quintillus]

haha I'll have to look at knocking down the passenger prices as time moves on; good catch. And nice work!

I should clarify that it was increasing due to my investing almost entirely in new lines with passenger routes, and not buying up any industries or building freight spurs. Have to connect to a bunch of cities after all! I don't believe I was getting any more revenue per-route than previously, just more routes.

I'd probably go bankrupt if revenue went down too much over time. That would be scary.

 

[Meteor Man]

I'd probably go bankrupt if revenue went down too much over time. That would be scary.

That's...that's the idea.

 

[Quintillus]

That's...that's the idea.

As it turns out, I got fired at the end of 1960, after six straight years of declining profitability. My re-investments in industry were not quick enough.

And then to add insult to injury, the AI proceeded to triple revenue and set record profits in 1961. Clearly there were some additional opportunities! It did this largely buy buying a gazillion locomotives (which I couldn't afford, but it could keep spending with $0), and using auto-consists. Which I'm not a big fan of - where's the strategy in saying, "just haul whatever's most profitable?" - but it certainly highlighted some unutilized freight options.

---------------

Edit: I may be addicted. I started another game, with a primary goal of not sinking my ship in 1949. And it's off to a good mid-game! I started in Ohio this time, with a Columbus -> Cincinnati -> Indianapolis route. It started off slower than the 3M game; my book value was about $5M lower in 1915 and 1920. But connecting across Pennsylvania was helping, enabling a profitable tire, auto, and passenger trade with to Philly and NY.

And in the late-teens into Roarin' Twenties, with routes south into Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia that allowed me to built textiles and take advantage of King Cotton, I caught fire. Profits were as better than I ever got in the MN game. I went from one textile mill in Columbus to (counting upgraded ones as two) three in Columbus, three in Nashville, one in Louisville, and two in Richmond very quickly, as each one raked in profits like profits were going out of style. And there are supplies for at least another couple in Raleigh or Wilmington, and another one in Birmingham, with future expansion.

But before that, I had a more important task for my profits - going west! In 1924 I expanded from Indianapolis all the way west, though Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, and Nevada, into California and to San Francisco. And other than traversing the Sierra Nevadas (which will need some re-work), it's a viable route! It will take a year or two to fund stations all the way out (initially, Kansas City is as far as they went; by early 1925 they reached Denver), but I'm optimistic that I'll really use these routes, and it has made a gold medal possible.

-----------

I'm curious if you've pulled off the electric route successfully? Other than my short TX try, I've done steam every time. And I'm skeptical that electric could help, particularly for gold. In my silver game and this one, my biggest pre-1930 expense by far is interest. And while in the last one fuel costs did become a concern in the '30s and '40s, and electric would help there, in the early game fuel isn't a big deal, but the extra cost of electric track would be. It would also almost necessitate the Europe offer, adding another million of costs, for the wider range of electric locomotives. Perhaps I'm missing their value, but with even Bronze requiring a high-capital transcontinental route by 1930, going steam seems to make more sense.

Or is electric the long game? As in, choose electric, but build steam until you get transcontinental. Swallow the higher cost of steam locomotives in the early game, which (at least if it's like my playthroughs) would cost less than electric track by a few million. Then, once you get NYC to SF, start electrifying, and save fuel costs in the long run.

In my current game I have fewer than 10 locomotives as of the NYC-SF milestone (1925), so I could see that working. Though I am hopeful that I'll keep costs under control despite going steam.

 

[Meteor Man]

It did this largely buy buying a gazillion locomotives (which I couldn't afford, but it could keep spending with $0), and using auto-consists. Which I'm not a big fan of - where's the strategy in saying, "just haul whatever's most profitable?" - but it certainly highlighted some unutilized freight options.

haha I basically exclusively use auto-consist, but I'm a lazy gamer in this game I guess. I mostly play RRT3 as a sandbox (but not the in-game sandbox that has unlimited money), and run lines all over the place with a metric***ton of trains, some with custom consists (express passenger trains and the like, or trains hauling resources specifically for my industries) but most without.

Edit: I may be addicted.

Hell, yeah! This game is awesome and timeless

I'm curious if you've pulled off the electric route successfully? Other than my short TX try, I've done steam every time. And I'm skeptical that electric could help, particularly for gold. In my silver game and this one, my biggest pre-1930 expense by far is interest. And while in the last one fuel costs did become a concern in the '30s and '40s, and electric would help there, in the early game fuel isn't a big deal, but the extra cost of electric track would be. It would also almost necessitate the Europe offer, adding another million of costs, for the wider range of electric locomotives. Perhaps I'm missing their value, but with even Bronze requiring a high-capital transcontinental route by 1930, going steam seems to make more sense.

Or is electric the long game? As in, choose electric, but build steam until you get transcontinental. Swallow the higher cost of steam locomotives in the early game, which (at least if it's like my playthroughs) would cost less than electric track by a few million. Then, once you get NYC to SF, start electrifying, and save fuel costs in the long run.

tbh I need to play my own mod more. What happened is I was really into RRT3 at the time and I poured ~100 hours of work into this mod, finished it (basically) but didn't really extensively playtest it because I was burnt.

So, I don't know! But give it a shot! It might well be the case that it works out that way.

I have finished this before and I thought I managed Gold, but maybe not. I definitely used steam though, as I figured the electric tracks were not worth the cost.

Also, I really hope it gives you gold if you complete all the objectives, and there's not some bug preventing it from firing. Fingers crossed.

 

[Quintillus]

haha I basically exclusively use auto-consist, but I'm a lazy gamer in this game I guess. I mostly play RRT3 as a sandbox (but not the in-game sandbox that has unlimited money), and run lines all over the place with a metric***ton of trains, some with custom consists (express passenger trains and the like, or trains hauling resources specifically for my industries) but most without.

Hell, yeah! This game is awesome and timeless

tbh I need to play my own mod more. What happened is I was really into RRT3 at the time and I poured ~100 hours of work into this mod, finished it (basically) but didn't really extensively playtest it because I was burnt.

So, I don't know! But give it a shot! It might well be the case that it works out that way.

I have finished this before and I thought I managed Gold, but maybe not. I definitely used steam though, as I figured the electric tracks were not worth the cost.

Also, I really hope it gives you gold if you complete all the objectives, and there's not some bug preventing it from firing. Fingers crossed.

I definitely get the get-excited-put-a-lot-of-time-into-something-get-burned-out cycle. See also, how work for my editor goes in bursts, as does work for SWY's CivOne.

I may get gold this time. It's 1937 and while I'm closer than I ever have been before, it's up in the air. I have tracks up and down the east coast (by the way, "jewel" is misspelled in the Miami connection newspaper), and am now heading towards New Orleans and Dallas, with Minneapolis and the West Coast still to go, plus CA and MX. Those are the big question marks - they're just so darn expensive. I probably will be able to get them, but hope that doesn't require torpedoing my future profits this time.

 

[Meteor Man]

I definitely get the get-excited-put-a-lot-of-time-into-something-get-burned-out cycle. See also, how work for my editor goes in bursts, as does work for SWY's CivOne.

I may get gold this time. It's 1937 and while I'm closer than I ever have been before, it's up in the air. I have tracks up and down the east coast (by the way, "jewel" is misspelled in the Miami connection newspaper), and am now heading towards New Orleans and Dallas, with Minneapolis and the West Coast still to go, plus CA and MX. Those are the big question marks - they're just so darn expensive. I probably will be able to get them, but hope that doesn't require torpedoing my future profits this time.

I'm currently finishing up a history course on the American West and so I'm a bit burnt on the West at the moment haha. But actually, truth be told, not as burnt as classes usually make me. This course was a lot more laid back and the only essay was during the midterm, compared to my Rome course last semester that had 2 major papers and a bunch of readings every night, this class was a cake-walk. I'm currently listening to Age of Gold about the California Gold Rush that is a pretty great book and it's getting me to want to play some RRT3 again. Maybe do some more modding.

(by the way, "jewel" is misspelled in the Miami connection newspaper)

let me guess, "jewl"

I'll update this soon, I'm preoccupied with my Star Wars mod atm, and finals this week (civfanatics needs a SW smiley, I think )

 

[Quintillus]

Nice, I somewhat miss the good old college history courses (and high school; my high school history teachers are still the best lecturers I've ever had). At the time I focused more on European history, but I've been reading more books on U.S. history lately, and I think I've found my preferred time period in American history - roughly 1870 to 1920. There was great scientific and industrial progress then, slavery was finally abolished, but the U.S. was not yet pre-eminent on the world stage. And yet that time period, other than WWI and remembering the Maine, is often lightly covered these days.

As usual, there's a relevant XKCD for this as well, which happens to describe the exact series of events which I am presently reading about. Some interesting stuff, from the failed gambit of Conkling, to the eminently-qualified President Garfield being a surprise nominee, to the scientific advances that very likely could have saved his life, and to his vice president (and future president) Chester Arthur having never held elected political office prior to the vice presidency.

 

[Meteor Man]

Nice, I somewhat miss the good old college history courses (and high school; my high school history teachers are still the best lecturers I've ever had). At the time I focused more on European history, but I've been reading more books on U.S. history lately, and I think I've found my preferred time period in American history - roughly 1870 to 1920. There was great scientific and industrial progress then, slavery was finally abolished, but the U.S. was not yet pre-eminent on the world stage. And yet that time period, other than WWI and remembering the Maine, is often lightly covered these days.

As usual, there's a relevant XKCD for this as well, which happens to describe the exact series of events which I am presently reading about. Some interesting stuff, from the failed gambit of Conkling, to the eminently-qualified President Garfield being a surprise nominee, to the scientific advances that very likely could have saved his life, and to his vice president (and future president) Chester Arthur having never held elected political office prior to the vice presidency.

The Gilded Age is an absolutely fascinating time in American history as it's the time when the US transitioned from a regional isolationist power and took its place on the world stage. The remnants of the old days of westward expansion and individualism were being replaced by modern institutions: most importantly the railroads, Standard Oil, and the rest of the robber baron companies. Corruption was rampant in both American politics and business (hence the term 'gilded'). This period is so interesting I think because of the juxtaposition of Old America with the New.

My exam on the West is Wednesday, today I get to take a paleoclimatology exam unfortunately history is just a minor for me... apparently my history exam was today but luckily was 2 hours after I showed up on campus thank God. Actually wrote an essay on the transcontinental railroad!

that XKCD is great, it's so true just how mindbogglingly large the past is. When reading books like Age of Gold it really does strike me just how much detail these historians can relate to the reader. All thanks to personal memoirs and diaries. We would never know about the tribulations of the settlers crossing the Great Basin in 1849 or the harrowing journey around Cape Horn or the terrible disease and squalor of the mining camps if it weren't for ordinary people writing down their thoughts and experiences for some historian or student to pick up and read 200 years later. I love history. I love how I can get lost in a world not that different from our own and yet so very removed from modern realities.

 

[Quintillus]

I'm glad you showed up before your exam! That must have made your heart beat a bit faster, realizing the exam was that very day.

History was a minor for me as well; I realized early in my sophomore year that from a career perspective, there wasn't a whole lot I was really interested in involving history. But as a hobby I quite enjoy it. I've also thought about how much personal diaries have contributed to history, and thought about how future historians may be challenged by today. Perhaps some people still do keep diaries, but I suspect the number is far lower than 100 years ago. Or perhaps it's perception and once you reach prominent enough levels of business and government, the rate is about the same. But if I wind up being prominent, how would a historian study me? E-mail archives, CivFanatics posts, and code commit comments, probably. Assuming that those survived, which is not a sure thing. It also makes me wonder, among those who are well known from diaries today, how many wrote (and kept around) diaries from their younger, pre-prominence days?

The particular period that XKCD describes becomes even more interesting the farther along my reading gets, and that time being on the cusp of modern America, yet still very much removed, is no small part of that. Washington DC remained in no small part a malarial marsh, yet Navy engineers were able to design a primitive air conditioning system to help cool the injured president. American doctors showed no understanding of the importance of sterilizing instruments to prevent infection, yet Alexander Graham Bell was working feverishly and with some success on a device that was a predecessor of the X-Ray machine in function. And while there was political intrigue aplenty during that time, nonetheless, even after Lincoln's assassination, there was still that early innocence allowing anyone access to the White House, and allowing the President to travel wherever he pleased, with no escorts or bodyguards - at least until he was shot. I'm also fortunate to have found a non-dry historian to retell the events - thus doing a respectable service to the grief and sorrow and loss of the time, as well as the initial anger and rage, and some of the intermediary - if ultimately unfounded - hope.

It also makes me wonder what the historians of 2150 will write of today. It is quite understandable why the Pantograph's writers thought the events of the summer of 1881 would be prominent in history at the time, now that I have some familiarity with them, yet that time period in general, including 1881, is a footnote to most history classes today. The unusual administration of today, with all its near-daily revelations, palace intrigues, firings, and leaks, also seems likely to be of great interest to future generations - yet will it prove to be in the long term? Or, if events return to the more commonplace, might it wind up being another footnote sandwiched between the end of the Cold War, and whatever events may be prominent in 20 or 30 years' time?