I started over and REALLY SCREWED UP for some reason. Went for the company up in the corner, E R U A L (or something like that - I'm STILL at work in a REAL boring meeting). Because it cost so much to get enough to take over, pretty much could not do anything after that. Not sure how I did it the first time.
Anyway, did not have lots of time to check as wife had me making pictures for Christmas presents, so my concentration derailed.
Anyway, while changing S & B medal events to 35 & 40 years, I saw you have a BUNCH of events I bet I can learn from.
As for the map itself, I almost have to think about it. This was one of the few ones I did not spend a lot of miles riding the rails . . . NO TIME!!! I loved building on the southern beach. Did not really get into the mountains building or riding, but what little I saw of the paint job and fauna was top-rate.
After the 15th, don't have to come back to work until next year. Hope to get MANY hours in. After getting stung so bad last night on IN, I'll try your other map Lama before returning.
Hey, AZ, did you take over one of the big six companies (the three out of Ernul, the Cabo line, Perion Central, and Rhion Northern), at first?
That seems to work best.
Also, after the takeover, I issue new stock right away (twice), and then sell off my player-owned stock, down to 25%, or just above $100k personal debt.
That way, especially if you maintain a high dividend, both company and player should do well, financially.
Enjoy your vacation, AZ! Ah, the sense of freedom.
Well I got fed up with trying to win on Expert. My main problem was making money but I also had a huge job connecting two towns at a sane expense - on Normal (& Easy - see later) you can just link them for say $200k but on Expert you had to dig a tunnel and it came nearer to $1.5m. Thats between Montanicas and Granol. I started with the Ernul Montana line to M. on every try until the following.
Anyway I started playing on Easy and picked Rhion Northern for a change - I bought a Dairy farm and a train with the cash and a bond. I knew I could win quickly but aiming principally to take everyone over. After 19 years I am just about to get Gold and still have 9 companies left - obviously these are all fairly big so I've stopped targetting one at a time and keep buying 5,000 lots in each and then wait for a while until the price drops again. Course two of the nine are very profitable so may have a problem finding enough cash to buy them.
Have to agree with AZRR that the scenario is addictive but is quite slow on gameplay because some companies run an incredible number of trains and when you take them over its hard to find them all and re-route them to (hopefully) more profitable stations (that you own - some AIs seem only to run trains on someone elses lines so can never make money!).
Anyway 11 years to go though I don't think I'll have as much time in the next few days (it's been raining heavily here in Britain for the last 2 weeks but is now forecast to clear up so I won't have the excuse to stay in :D )
belbincolne wrote:Have to agree with AZRR that the scenario is addictive but is quite slow on gameplay because some companies run an incredible number of trains and when you take them over its hard to find them all and re-route them to (hopefully) more profitable stations (that you own - some AIs seem only to run trains on someone elses lines so can never make money!).
As long as I also own >50% of my own company and >50% of the one I want to take over, I pause the game, become chairman of the victim company, go to the train routing screen and change the routing to my liking. Then I become chairman of my own company and take over the victim. Since the game is on pause, the AI never gets a chance to muck with the routes I've set for his (former) trains. This technique works especially well when you have lots of trains, since the new ones seem to get scattered all over your livery.
Hey, yes, thats a great idea. However in this scenario I only own a bit of my own company cos I need the cash to take over the other 20 companies and, even on Easy, I simply haven't enough for both. Mind you as mine is probably doing a lot better than all the others (but a lot of that is thanks to takeovers - you can get a lot of "free" trains plus lines for about the cost of buying into the territory) maybe I should have.
Now don't get snookered in. Those trains aren't "free". You paid (sometimes out the nose) for them. Maybe someone can clear this up:
OK, you buy out a company. What you pay is $X per share, right, not a total asset (company net worth) price tag? If there are 20K shares at $1 per share (for simple math), and you own 11K shares, do you get $11K added to your PNW? Do owners of the other 9K get $9K shared amongst them? If this is the way it is, point here I guess is, in a way, trains and all other assets sort of ARE free because your company's purchase money went in players pockets!
Any of this make sense? Maybe I'm just not that much into the way of this securities and exchange thing.
Yes thats the way a takeover works just as in real life. You and other players get cash (thats why you need to have as many shares in the AI as possible - to stop enriching the other guys and letting them have cash to buy shares in other companies with and thus frustrate further takeover attempts). Your company gets the "real" value of the lines, stations, trains etc i.e. $200k per large station NOT what you paid (normally well over the odds unless AI near bankruptcy). Thats why buying lines of a bankrupt AI (haven't any trains - they vanish into thin air) is good value cos they're always half price. In this, and many, scenarios, though you've to pay (say) $2m to buy access to a territory but you can often buy an AI for less than this in which case you really have got the AI for "free". Course buying a 2nd AI in the same territory doesn't have this benefit.
This also made me realise another snag in Wolverines takeover strategy in this sort of scenario. ie as you can't connect to the AI in another territory you can't change the trains to run on other lines. In this scenario the North West Company (Cobo?) always has at least twice as many as can be profitable so you can use them far more profitably elsewhere. Still there's two solutions. (1) You leave half the trains with no destinations at all so they're easy to find after the takeover or (2) If you know where you intend to build the line as soon as the takeover is complete you send the trains along it. Of course "cant connect" comes up but if you've done the job right as soon as the takeover is complete and the line built they should start running and, even if they don't, they should be easy to find.
Another way to distinguish your trains is to rename them before taking over the other company. Go down the list of your trains and put a "!" or "*" in front of the names. Then after taking over the new company just scroll through the train list and look for ones without the "!" or "*".
As for stratrgy in this one, I just started and have played for a few years. I spent a long time looking over the cargo screen and looked for a company that had big price differentials for some cargoes between its stations. I then looked at the stations themselves to see what cargo there was to be hauled besides the high-demand stuff. It turned out in my case that there were also fledgling industries that would grow upon delivery of said cargo. There was a steel mill at one end of the line that had lots of coal already, and there was a lot of iron to be had just beyond the last station on the line. There was also a lumber mill at the end of another company's line with scads of logs just starting to pile up there and a couple of oil wells close by (there was an oil refinery in the city with the steel mill). I took over the company that had access to the iron and bought the lumber mill as well as a couple of the oil wells by using the price break of new ownership. I got pretty good return on these industries, expanded closer to the iron and began shipping it to the steel mill, which I also bought when it started to turn a profit. Turns out there was also a Tool & Die in the city that started soaking up the steel; bought that one too, upgraded both and now I have $hitloads of industry profits from these.
I have also started buying into other companies, a little at a time, starting with the ones that are gaining in stock price. Turn on the "Earnings per share" and "Income per share" lines in the stock price screen (the red and blue ones) and use them as an indicator of who's making it and who isn't. If these two are going up, or at least positive, chances are the stock price will follow too, so buy into them early. Companies that are decreasing in stock price I stay away from, unless I want to buy them (i.e. the second company above that has the lumber mill and oil reserves). Keep a close eye on what the competitors are buying so you don't get caught without having enough shares left to buy to take control.
So far the strategy is working. I'll report on how I fare in the long run.
I played on medium and got the silver. It took a few years to get my bank account rolling but that's nothing unusual. I started by hooking up the larger cities and as I had money to build stations I filled them in. For me, the locomotive of choice for the first 10 years or so of the game is the shay. It is the best engine for all the heavy grades involved until the 2-8-2 is available, speed is not as important as pulling power. I would have won the gold but my trains were too busy waiting to get past each other. I have two suggestions which you might consider: After the player has connected the 13 cities and used up the original track allowance, you could allow more track in the last few years of the game so double track could be placed. If I had the double track I could've won the gold. No. 2. I managed to get 27 loads of goods to Eureka, I was lucky there. Perhaps you could place a port in Eureka that demands goods. There was a long period of time that the price of goods in Eureka was below the level of profitability. I enjoyed Northwestern Pacific and I will play it again. Good luck with all your endeavors! :D
Good discussion on both maps. Since I always run with cabeese and the AI never does, that's the way I tell which trains came from a takeover. Will have to catch my breath and try IN again.
Just finished NWP. Got all gold for goods, lumber and paper, but screwed up in the later years not routing passenger trains out of SF soon enough. Missed Silver by four loads.
NWP was a fun map too Lama. Good routing and consist practice. Great break from that cuthroat IN. :)
Guys, I am thrilled that my maps got you into having a debate here!
Thank you so very much for your comments and reviews!
Most of the questions have already been addressed, so there's just a few things I wanted to add.
Post-merger train management
Like AZ, I also run cabeese, so that makes things easier.
Wolve's neat trick won't work on this map - you cannot resign!
But even keeping track of your own trains can be a challenge on a large map. Since I usually have separate, insular divisions, I give each division a different symbol as a prefix (#, $, *, and so on).
Prefix ":" might mean trains south of Rhion, "#" trains north of Rhion, and "$" trains on my Montavi River lines, possibly with a separate division east of Garmo.
After that, the start and end stations with three letters, linked with a dash for trains that stop only at major junctions, ... for locals, .-. for skip-stop service (A-B-D-B-A-C-D-C), and --- for limiteds.
I also add G (goods) or P (passengers) for specialized trains.
So "$Ern---Syj P" is the Ernul to Syjonsur Limited, express only.
":Rhi...Kor" is the local from Rhion to Kors, with an any-load consist.
This is really helpful when looking at the trains list in the ledger - I know at a glance where these trains run, since the name of the train is shown when you hover the cursor over its line. If the local is doing better than the through train on a given line, I can put the through train on a local or skip-stop schedule.
If the local does not make enough money, I might extend its run, say all the way to Olfaromst, and slash the Olfaromst to Kors local.
Merger economics
Really, the stockholders own the company, and the dividend and rise in value is their return on investment. When I buy a company from its stockholders, I don't just pay them for the assets (cash + track + stations + trains - bonds). I also pay them a premium (or get a discount), depending on the assumed future prospects of that RR. This premium reflects expectations of future dividends and a future rise in value.
From my chairman point of view, I am not buying the company for its assets, alone. If it has $1,200,000 worth of engines that turn out to be 20 years old, that's worth zero to me, even though it was, strictly speaking, part of that company's book value.
Strategically located track, stations, and access rights (which used to be factored into CBV, back in RT2 days!) are more important, and of course my selfish greed as the tycoon.
Industry
In the example I gave above, where I had ca. $10mil in industry income in 14 years, I only bought a dairy farm with my start money, and a lumber mill a few years later, when the logs started getting there. These two, alone, were good for about $5,000,000 of industry income. Everything else was hotels and such, which, with the AI busily running trains on my lines that gather every last load of traffic, are all making very nice money. Hotels that make $50k per year and more, even in small towns that have a junction, are not a rarity.
Just a quickie to say that on Easy I did get Gold after 20 years and now, after 24, I've only got three companies left to takeover. One is in the bag but I've not got a majority of the shares in the other two (and there's none left to buy) so I'll have to pay double and whether I can raise the cash will be interesting - and even then I may not win the bid from past experience.
The Caboose tip was a good one because I do the same and it was certainly helpful in finding the new trains. Even then the 4 years I've just played took two hours - I took over another 5 companies during this period.
Well I've played to the end and there was still one AI left - it was doing awfully and I had three attempts at taking over offering double the book price but all were overwhelmingly rejected and as I'd won 10 years earlier I'm still of the opinion that the idea of being the sole surviving company is an impossibility. I'd taken over all the big companies and the survivor was a real tiddler but before I'd bothered to buy in 85% of its shares were owned elsewhere. C'est la vie. I'll give it a rest for now :) :x :)
On cabooses originally I never bothered with these but in the last few months I've found that the number of breakdowns does seem to be significantly less when I use them and the tip above does make them extra whorthwhile :o
For the last few years the number of trains running on some lines meant that 10 - 20% were stuck at any one time. I double tracked around major problem areas but hadn't the cash to do anything else and certainly not to electrify.
I started on IN last night about one or so in the morning. I had to quit because I have to sleep at some point. Sleepy engineers and heavy locomotives are not a good combination oddly enough. I haven't finished the game yet so I can not make an informed comment for now. I read the remarks about keeping up with your trains and where they go. When I have to keep up with them I do what most railroads did when they had timetables. The term, "symbol frieght," means the train is named by it's origin and destination. Example: A Southern Railroad train from Memphis to Birmingham would be designated MB1 the number would be for what ever order the train was scheduled. MB5 would be the fifth train on the schedule between those points. I do that with RRT3 at times to keep track of trains and it's borrowed from actual railroad proceedure. Perhaps that may help with IN to always keep a grip on your operations.
wsherrick wrote:I had to quit because I have to sleep at some point.
Sounds familiar.
I gave IN another look last night, myself, and, after 25 years, am on track for a Bronze on Expert, which is honorable enough.
But I had a really hard time with the cash flow.
That means, though, that the map works as intended. I finally wanted a scenario where the AI is not just a bunch of bumbling push-overs, but a force to be reckoned with.
Even on games where I got Gold, at the end of the game, there are usually still some strong holdouts, those that connect big cities off my network (like Brep, Brisansc, or Montisol), or that bridge gaps in my network (like Bahia & Montana, or the Ernul-Esztafor lines; sometimes, I've had no track at all between Ernul and Syjonsur). These guys make $500k+ profits per year, and often the chairman holds a majority, which means they'll never sell.
Is the alternate Gold possible? I doubt that I can get there, but there are certain gamers who just run with the stock market as serious robber barons. For the rest of us, it is just a maddeningly almost-reachable carrot dangled from a stick.
I got Gold on Expert by making 20 points (in 19 years). I just kept buying into the competitors, a little at a time, and took them over at strategic ponits, concentrating on the ones that were connected to the capital cities. Once connected I ran trains between the capitals, which had enough different cargoes and price differentials to make it work. I also kept all the trains the taken-over company had, just went in and changed min/max to 2 and 6 before the takeover. After absorbing half of them, I was able to get almost all the shares in the rest of them by paying a little extra for the first ones to line my pockets a bit. All except one that is. I had 28K or 29 K shares, the original owner had the same, and the rest were scattered in 8K lots among several other owners. I tried buying them at 2X stock price a couple of times, but they didn't want to budge. Only after I won the Gold was I able to buy them out.
Here are a couple of other tips to get the most out of potential victims. It assumes that you have >50% ownwership in your own company. The economy was pretty good for most of the game, later in a Boom, I refinanced all my bonds and maxed out at 10M at 5% interest. Just before taking over a company, I would assume ownership, do the train rerouting thing and then issue as many bonds as I could until the interest was at 8%. I used this money to buy back shares, or better yet buy industries, since they all had a buying price reduction. I could pick up things with 10-15% (or better) return for a bargain, especially newly created properties (one or two years old). When I went back to my company to take over the victim, I would sell down to just over 50% ownwrship, dropping the stock price drastically, and getting a real bargain for my parent company. I did this for several companies, and was able to get almost 20M in additional bonds at 6% (average) interest. What a deal!!! Since I was getting cash for the shares I had, I was increasing my own buying power, allowing me to buy more shares of future victims.
Another thing I did, but don't know how much it helped (or hurt) me was to break connections that AIs had made with my track. I often waited until several of their trains were on my tracks and then bulldozed around the connections they had made with my track, reconnected my track, and put Post Offices at the ends of their stub tracks to keep them from reconnecting. After I took them over, I bulldozed the POs and reconnected the tracks.
I liked this scenario a lot, and plan to give it another try with a fresh map seed to see whether my strategy really works.
Lama,
First: thanks for the maps.
Although I'm not personally good with 'last-man-standing' scenarios, IN is still a fun map.
NWP, on the other hand....its diabolical simplicity is definately frustrating!
Before 'officially' releasing it, you might want to tweek the colors a little. They seem a little 'patchy' in a few areas (especially around Eureka).
NWP would have been a great type of map for PopTop to have had in the initial release of the game.
I started NWP, and didn't get very far. I built a paper mill and then a lumber mill, but neither one was making enough of a profit to get me enough "seed money" to actually start building track. After 10 years, I gave up, reasoning that I didn't have enough time to connect and haul all the required loads. I will go back and try to pick a better starting strategy.
