Hauling Freight in Vista

[UncleJR]

Ok, so is the fact that we have to buy access to the cities pertinent?

I lost terribly on my first outing at this. I have the feeling that we're supposed to haul raw material to the factories, but aside from that I'm lost. Think I got caught up in the idea of buying access.

Well, back to the fray.

[CeeBee]

What factories? Hardly any around and cost to build is real high. After looking at the map for 30 minutes I'm at a loss on how to even try to start so I'll wait and see if some other has any ideas

[UncleJR]

Well I did notice a textile mill in the south with a couple of sheep farms not too far out. But that hardly made me enough to really get a good foothold.

Aside from that...

[UncleJR]

Managed to scratch up a bronze.

guess it depends on what industry spawns for you and respond to that.

Try try again.

[Orange46]

Think of this scenario as the opposite of "Europe" (which I started yesterday). The only goal is to make money - however you want to. None of the restrictions or nasty surpises (taxes and dividends) of my past scenarios are in this one - you can do anything.

In Europe, you have to buy your way into your first country. (By the way, I didn't see this scenario until yesterday.) In Hauling Freight, you have a world of freight waiting for you. Basic industries pour out cargoes and the industries gobble them up. On all but one of my tests I was able to get traction by connecting one basic industry (sheep is good) to its user and by sending the cloth to a station near a large city. In another other test it was livestock and another iron to goods. In my first tests I shipped cotton from a port to a cloth mill and then to a depot just outside of London. Depots on the outscirts of cities work nicely. However, in all tests a number of random houses popped up in the rural areas. These are great places to set a depot and ship a full load of finished goods to and the houses generate much higher prices than the suburban houseless depots. What's nice is that the goods the house can't use usually quickly migrate to the nearest city, so that the house depot should recover and accept finished goods at a decent price every few years. In my last test I had 3 such house depots and no suburban houselss ones. Eventually, you should get enough cash/credit to be able to connect to (or build) a second industry (one useable industry usually pops up after a while), or you can just ship produce or milk to your house/suburban depots or corn to the ranches and dairies.

I haven't decided if it is a good idea to connect to cities. They are expensive but they produce very profitable express and are good places to ship cargo to, but you take an initial book value hit because RT3 doesn't give you any ledger credit for the purchase price. I bought access to my first cities after having developed all of the industries that I could supply (including building one or two) and I never owned access to more than 5 or six cities. And, of course, you should buy before you supply, but that isn't usually possible until later on, as cash is quite hard to come by early in the game.

[CeeBee]

I'm guessing a restart or 2 might be necessary in some cases if there isn't a chain available at startup?

[Orange46]

Yes, restarts sometimes happen, especially if you want the gold.

[CeeBee]

Gold is good but generally I'm pretty happy with any medal.

[CeeBee]

Well, in this case I'd be happy to last more than 3 years . Even 2 meat packing plants and 2 stockyards connected got me booted by my shareholders

[Orange46]

Oops

[CeeBee]

hehehe... last try I'm throwing in the towel after 4 years as my book value is less than when i started... tried being a lumber baron but everybody is building with bricks I think

[WPandP]

I played this through last night and had a fairly comfortable start, hauling between a Sheep Farm and a Textile Mill on the outskirts of London, then linking a Logging Camp to a Sawmill. I was able to buy the Sheep Farm for rather cheap right at the game start, and it became reliably profitable, paying for itself within 3 years. Plenty of traffic to keep my trains running, but I had to swallow a 14% bond to do it; took quite a while to refinance that down to 9% and then finally pay it off.

My funds went through the roof, though, when I finally scraped together enough money to build a Paper Mill next to the Sawmill (since I already had a train tasked to the route). It was the only Paper producer on the map, and compared to other industries it was fairly cheap to build, and almost immediately was netting me some $500k+ per year! I also got lucky earlier on and bought a freshly-opened Iron Mine for not too much, that just happened to be one station away from a Steel Mill.

Still, even with so much going for me, I only got a Bronze. Granted, I did not do any "rail baron" type maneuvers to game it out; I stuck with the one railroad and did the best I could with it. And, I didn't buy stock on margin. Had I really attacked it, I might have achieved Silver. But Gold seems really out of reach.

And I don't really like how expensive the cities are, to gain access; I found that the money I spent just to get into Birmingham and London simply wasn't worth it, I made so much more money by hauling freight, and vastly more by my industry investments. Maybe something different that could be done would be to place various Warehouses in the centers of the cities, that only convert one cargo to another, so that you gain a sort of new industry by pushing your rails into town and delivering there. Then, I'd also reduce the territory access amounts a bit. Or, instead of reducing them altogether, maybe you could introduce events that reduce access costs based on loads delivered to any city. Or, just a minor reduction each time you build a station within a city.

Just a bunch of thoughts. I definitely did enjoy playing it through!

[groundhog]

After several bad starts (4-5 years each) I managed a Gold in 21 years, but playing on "Medium". Will try later on "Expert".

Ports supplying materials were important. Built corresponding industries & hauled finished products to markets. Only bought rights to a couple of the less expensive cities. Mostly hauled materials to factories to get a start, then built factories after I had some money, didn't buy existing factories, farms or mines.

Went into deep debt both personally and corporate at times.

Good fun anyway.

[Orange46]

Originally, I wanted to eliminate express all together, so I made the access fee a uniform $10 million. But, during testing, I decided that what I really wanted was a scenario that had low express revenue and besides, it's fun to run a small number of passenger trains. So, after some trial and error I settled on the current amounts. Lower amounts made the game too easy, and higher amounts totally killed buying access into cities. Now, I think it's worth gaining access if done at least 5 and probably 10 years before the end of the scenario, so as to give you enough time to recoup the initial cost. (What actually motivates me to buy into my first city is when an accessible city offers a bribe to the first RR to connect to it. That lowers the initial book value hit and makes me take the bait. My second city is usually London, unless I'm maxed out on bonds. London generates a lot of express and its a good place to ship cargo to.

[belbincolne]

Well I made a mess of it a couple of times and had bad luck on one but on my 4th try although I made a hash forgetting to buy stock at the start I got Silver on Normal which would easily have been Gold if I'd played the stock market better as I was only just short of it . Don't know that initial seeding makes much difference - there's always something to haul and really the big boost would come if you could raise enough cash to buy the 1st new industry to arrive - I never have

[Orange46]

I must admit that my best outings involved buying or building a new industry early in the game.

[belbincolne]

No mistakes this time - Gold (only on Normal) 18 months early. Next week I'll give it a try on Expert

[belbincolne]

Played it on Expert but could only manage Bronze. Industries nothing like as profitable and, although trains between towns were the most profitable ones, they made nothing like the money they did on Normal.

[nedfumpkin]

Gold in the 21st year playing on hard.

The trick is to start with a bond, and you'll have 1290 bucks. That's enough to buy the two sheep farms and connect the closest to the mill. After your first year, you can connect the second sheep farm. Owning them generates constant revenue and you won't be able to afford them later.

Next I connected to the two meat plants, and supplied from the ranch near the lumber mill. As soon as I could afford it, I bought the lumber mill and connected it to the logging camps near Manchester. Bought those too. Then I concentrated on iron and a tool and die, then came the steel mill. I only bought access to London and Liverpool, and that was not until mid-game.

Try to get half the 51% of the stock as early as possible by buying a bit on margin, and the rest by buying it back. That will keep your pnw close to half your book value. I only build a paper mill because the cost to build is too high. I focused on buying industries before they turned a profit.

Took a few restarts for sure though. :)

[Orange46]

Good show.