The_Thirst_of_the_Irish

Discussion about reviews and strategies for user created scenarios made for RT3 version 1.06.
RayofSunshine
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The_Thirst_of_the_Irish Unread post

:-) This is a very good scenario, with many facets to obtain its goals. Mostly to get the Irish drunk, or at least have a great party. There is financial assistance by joining the Island of Jersey, then by connecting Brest to Paris, with another assisstance to connect to London. The last is a help purchasing the Western part of England. By the time I connected to Dublin, I had "whiskey" or "alcohol" on the bridge connecting England to Ireland, but that was ended, as I played another scenario, I "saved" it to the Irish sceanario.

However, on my next attempt, I was competing with 3 AIs instead of the 2 AI defaults. There was a better chance to control the 2 AIs and thereby merge and be the sole railroad.

A very different challenge with the 3 AIs, as there is always 1 gungho AI, with the manager putting all the revenue into his stock. And with all the "stock splitting" with all the railroad in operation, it is ""really"" a challenge.

One of the biggest challenges is that of obtaining an AI railroad, that they can start another one. A goodly problem with this challenge, is that sometimes such new start managers buy up all the stock, so there is very little change for a merge.

Overall, as I was not able to get any medals, this can be a great challenging sceanario in a very well created game play.

A salute to its creator. :salute:

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edbangor
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Re: The_Thirst_of_the_Irish Unread post

Ray of Sunshine wrote::-) The last is a help purchasing the Western part of England.
I think you'll find that the 'west of England' is actually Wales!!
Good job there's no Welsh people on here, or you'd be facing the wrong end of a leek about now. ^**lylgh

Anyway, I too enjoyed this map a lot. It has a nice scenario with some good little sub-plots along the way with some nice bonus and things to trip you up.

I did get caught out by the AI's starting new companies, after I'd bought out their first, but I soon managed to put them out of business by doublicating their railroads, and running them better.

Great, and original scenario. Congrats to all involved. !!clap!!
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ishaybas
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Re: The_Thirst_of_the_Irish Unread post

Excellent scenario!!

Played Expert and got gold after 20 years on the first attempt, and enjoyed every minute of it!
Thank you
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Re: The_Thirst_of_the_Irish Unread post

edbangor wrote: Good job there's no Welsh people on here, or you'd be facing the wrong end of a leek about now. ^**lylgh
"Why bother to dress when as soon as I arrive on the Naughty Hellfire Club, I'll be debagged (?) and radished for non-payment of debts."
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belbincolne
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Re: The_Thirst_of_the_Irish Unread post

Gave this a first try - for some reason I'd not picked it up when it came out. Made all the targets (except sole company) with over 10 years to spare and thought I'd be able to send the AIs bankrupt. Sorta worked with the English one and got majority of the stock and took it over but unfortunately by then the French AIs stock had split so much that there was no way I could get over 50%. I thought it would be in trouble because I'd put my rails onto each of the three ends of its lines so it couldnt expand. It couldnt but instead bought Farms / Industry and made a fortune from it! Gave up with about 7 years to go but will give it another try because it is a fun scenario - and its still snowing / freezing here!
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Re: The_Thirst_of_the_Irish Unread post

Well second try I bought AI stock fast risking personal bankruptcy also railroaded rather than Industry. When I was near to connecting to Ireland I built a Brewery so I'd have stock ready to ship. Got all the targets except takeover with 15 years to go and was vastly profitable so could afford to go deep into the red to get 51% stock in an AI and take it over at inflated price so giving me enough cash to buy a majority in the other one even though I was in trouble if a recession drove the stock down. It didnt and within two years I'd enough cash to take it over. Of course another AI had started with owner holding 100% of shares and he refused takeover despite 100% markup.

Waited another year - and until December so that he'd no time to start another before year end in case medals only clicked in at year end. This time he accepted but no Medal came up. Let it run another year and no more AIs appeared but still no Medal. Still 10 years to go and no pint in playing on but that seemed to be the only flaw in a fun scenario :-D :-) :-D
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Re: The_Thirst_of_the_Irish Unread post

A player can obtain 51% of the AIs stock, but seeing that there is the possibility of a merged manager starting a new company, the idea would be to wait until the final stage of paly to buy it. HOWEVER, by that time, the AI's purchase price is so high, it is sometimes diffilcult to have that much revenue for the merge. A good challenge.
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Wolverine@MSU
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Re: The_Thirst_of_the_Irish Unread post

Ray of Sunshine wrote:A player can obtain 51% of the AIs stock, but seeing that there is the possibility of a merged manager starting a new company, the idea would be to wait until the final stage of paly to buy it. HOWEVER, by that time, the AI's purchase price is so high, it is sometimes diffilcult to have that much revenue for the merge. A good challenge.
If you own 51% of the stock, you can take over the manager's position and manipulate the company to keep it's profits down, or buy back stock with extra profits (giving you a larger share of total stock). If others have stock in the company, you can issue shares and buy them up, further strengthening your hold on the company (all this is done with the game paused of course). When the time comes to merge, you can sell off a bunch of stock to drive the price down to a more resonable level.
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Re: The_Thirst_of_the_Irish Unread post

Read the thread some time back MSU, but failed to reply. Sorry, but had other things on my mind.
Your suggestions are note worthy, and the reason I probably did not reply, as I don't do very well with the manipulation of the stock market. Just like I don't do much in the line of taking over the AIs, and run them into th ground for later financial gain. I basically play a "boring" straight forward system, and maybe the reaon I don't always get medals. But I will give it a try in the future, as right now there are a few new betas which are calling for my attention. *!*!*!
But thanks again for the suggestions. :salute: !*th_up*!
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Re: The_Thirst_of_the_Irish Unread post

Gave this one a try, fun if you're looking for a speed run. Gold on Expert at the end of 11 years, sort of. I'd met all the conditions but had to edit the gold event to be check years elapsed "<=30" instead of ">=30" as written... The price reduction on industry is ridiculous, and the events that punish you could be written better. It was weird getting newspapers about the union being upset that I was receiving unfair prices for industry when I had in fact not yet taken advantage of the cheap industry, should check for LIP first. Given the meteoric rise in my stock prices with industry at -75% (meaning I could expect 40%+ returns) I confidently issued stock several times to boost my expansion, and let myself stick at -$3M on margin for a while to hold a little over 10% of my company while slowly buying into the other two. Then 9-10 years in when I'd connected to every town I finished the job of taking over the AI's. I essentially swapped my own stock for theirs, by selling mine and buying theirs for several months in a row, I could get the AI tycoons to over-enthusiastically sell their own while I had the price inflated, and buy mine while it was way under book value, getting them to margin out. Idiots. By selling some of my remaining shares, I forced the AI's into margin call, and more or less made paupers of them. They each only held onto a single share of their own companies when I merged with them. I peaked at maybe -$8M on margin while accumulating vast majorities of the AI stocks, And got more than that back after my company paid out $16 for the two.

The three events that each reduce industry build/buy by 25% should be combined into one. LIP goal at least $200M, PNW goal at least $100M, I was at $108M and $43M by the start of the 12th year. And it would be nice if the status weren't an annual dialogue but actually on the status page.

Still, even a bit imbalanced, it was an interesting, quick, fun challenge. Terrain took some figuring out in places, which I enjoyed, too. Not your usual take on France/England/Wales/Ireland.
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RulerofRails
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Re: The_Thirst_of_the_Irish Unread post

I never played this one before. I noticed that the start year is 1970 which is fairly rare, so I'm a bit curious how your engine choices panned out?

All those resources. . . . Bit messy, but maybe an attempt to give the AI a chance? But they never get a chance with that industry reduction only applying to the human player. Maybe if it only applied to the AI, it could be a challenge.

Congrats, on baiting the AI. :salute: Handy trick for when the AI players start with majority positions in their railroads. You might notice that some AI characters take the bait easier than others. Also, tends to be more successful in better economies. Good place for it is to eliminate the competition in Age of Steam V - Phoenix Rising (optional challenge, not the creator's intent).
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Re: The_Thirst_of_the_Irish Unread post

Started with the cheap and cheerful EP2 Bipolar, then VL80T from 1971 when the EP2 became unavailable :-( . Though, I did end up replacing my original EP2's with the nippier VL80T's at some point. Then BR E111's from 1974. Class 103 is awesome but expensive and I didn't need it. Being able to build/buy industry means I bought everything I could, aside from production, lest supply get diverted (autoconisists) and that $1.5M for a Meat Packer that was bringing in almost $700/year is now worthless, and also, I didn't need it. That's why I kind of want to goad you into a speed run. I'm wondering if you can do it in 5-7 years... (which means you have to do it in 4 to really impress me :twisted: :lol: !) But in other words I was relying entirely on industry for profits, only building rail to cover all cities to prevent AI respawn. And for fun, the terrain made me think a bit.

But I'm not trying to suggest that this map would be much better if it were more of a challenge. And maybe just leave as it for the odd surprise for someone like me going through the archives and playing everything. It's crazy easy if you've gotten through enough of the really tough scenarios, but the emphasis is on crazy. It's a hoot, to be sure!
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RulerofRails
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Re: The_Thirst_of_the_Irish Unread post

low_grade wrote: Tue Dec 26, 2017 10:20 pmThat's why I kind of want to goad you into a speed run. I'm wondering if you can do it in 5-7 years... (which means you have to do it in 4 to really impress me :twisted: :lol: !)
^**lylgh . I did actually play it (against 3 AI). Didn't want to seem like I was raining on your parade. Last merge was Aug. 1977, you expect too much. :-o I did make a strategic error in ignoring (not paying attention) the connection bonuses until the very end. The AI were in London. I ignored Brest till late since it has a port (while being on a peninsula) and I didn't want to send stuff there only to lose it out onto the ocean heading offshore. The potential of Brest is that you can get the connection almost immediately (weekly check) with non-electric track (small stations, wood bridges allow for better routing). Probably a year there, maybe two? If you issue stock, that could give further increase. If you manipulate AI share price maybe save some more on mergers. . . .

I went with an electric network thinking that perhaps cargo density was high enough that it could pay off (also the limited diesel options, reliability is !*th_dwn*! ). First I used the E428, proceeding onto Re 6/6, then BR E111. Once the Class 132 came, it was Diesel all the way to the finish. Used it for the Alcohol hauls too.

I didn't go for the tack of buying all industry on the map (no doubt it is actually the fastest if you go very quickly for the reduction). I hand-picked what I thought were the best ones (for example one that I could buy and then upgrade to keep ROI above normal). Before merging the AI I had $11.2M down in industries, stable for the two years before the mergers: 1974 and 1975. Economy declined during that time from Prosperity to Normal. I had bought some of these before the price reduction (Brewery and Auto Plant), big mistake in hindsight. Definitely dilutes ROI. In 1974 industry profits were $6.9M and in 1975, $5.8M. So average ROI I saw was 57%. Which is actually quite poor, seeing in a normal game I aim for 25-30% when hand-picking and this should have been 100-120% here. Those ones I built/bought before the reduction and supply issues at the Auto Plant (should have added a second Steel train early, did at the very end) were limiting factors. Although, knowing that just buying anything in sight is going to return almost 40% (based on normal 10% rate) rails can never compete with that.

To be fair, I think the super cheap industries may be a mistake. The description "story-line" only talks about 25% cheaper. Probably the author just copied the event 3 times and forgot to remove the effects.

I'm thinking to try again. This time with diesel (more focus on cheap industries) and taking the Brest connection bonus immediately. I never issue stock apart from first year, but maybe I will break my rule for once and see what happens.
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RulerofRails
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Re: The_Thirst_of_the_Irish Unread post

Yeah, after studying the events and a bit of experience, 4 years is doable with a serious attempt. Please note that I played this with regular 1.06, so no price islands. Did this because apparently the AI here were supposed to be a challenge. . . . The cargo supply on the map is really crazy. If you load the map in the editor you will see that the map has been "pre-seeded". Also that there's a ton of cargo floating around already. I should have picked up on this last time, but when I started the map and saw a Corn Farm with a total readout on lifetime production of 96 loads it clicked. Also explains why the counts on the resources make no sense, they were reset. For example, Steel started with a count of -13 loads.

I focused very much on Uranium haulage. First year I just wanted to make sure to get 50 loads before year end. This was mainly deliveries to Angers and even then late in the year some back from Angers to Saint-Nazaire (price in Angers fell below ocean price during the first year). This is a good example of how default 1.06 (without price islands) is very reactive, and too exploitable TBH. First year profit was about $2.6M.

Beginning of the second year I made an offer (at regular share price, cost of $1.3M) on the AI who started Caen to Saint-Lo. Didn't own any shares, but my reputation was good enough to win 13/7 (need those access rights, he had invested in my shares already and never restarted a company). Then I connected from his tracks to Jersey using a wooden bridge. Screenshot from finished game shows how its done. (Side-note: Jersey-Cherbourg run is very lucrative thanks to "fishing" maritime stream of Tires and possibly Fertilizer, should ship that to Chartres for the Alcohol production).
IrishThirst-Jersey bridge.jpg
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Last time I went for cheap bridges. This time because I went diesel, I opted for cheaper engines. This saved me $7M on engines throughout the rest of the game. Only used Deltics (actually the game was too short to worry about their bad reliability :lol:). Looking at the books, cheaper track would have saved closer to $5M. Used my previous run as a reference to calculate. At $280k, the Deltic (never bought anything else) can almost be "disposable" at least on Uranium runs paying up to $90 per load. This drops the requirement for it to cover it's purchase price on the 1st run from $50 per load to $35 (with 8 cars). I know there's the expenses and rot to factor in, but this is a metric that helps me get a feel for how rail ROI in the short term is.

Next step was to head for London to get the next bonus. The idea was that I wouldn't develop the line, went from Paris via Lille, but rather I would spend approx. the same amount as I would receive. This would obviously give the pax bonus (not sure how much point it is in such a short time-frame), but also increase CBV which will raise credit rating making max bonds available a bit faster. Had to fork out about $1M for a suspension bridge this time.
IrishThirst-London.jpg
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As I said, Uranium demand at Angers had been overwhelmed. The money-maker was to be a line down to Limoges which had a Nuke Plant as well. Managed to place the station on the same cell which was good enough for a $70-80 differential per load. Bought the trains needed to load virtually all Uranium in France and ship it to Limoges.

In conjunction with this I built the industries needed. Upgraded Brewery in Chartres, then Distillery on top of every Produce Farm (countryside stations used for pickup of that Alcohol). Built two Lumber Mills on $0 Log stacks. Bought a couple newly seeded Dairies at $100-125k. Also bought 3 of the Chartres Grain Farms just before Fertilizer arrived, these were lowest ROI of approx. 100%. Later in the game I bought a Tool and Die that I had shipped a stack of Steel to (approx. 30 loads), but that was it for industries. In my last post, while wondering how to go quicker, I said I would invest more in industries, Um, yep, spoke too soon again. :-? You might have noticed that events help Alcohol production/price. This put their ROI at 300%+.

As the Uranium profits started to wash in, there were too many developments to chronicle, but one of the strategic points was that I decided to head for Ireland fairly quickly. Bit finicky, but used a wooden bridge costing approx. $1M. The idea was to ship out Clothing to Wales (price diff. on first run about $100). Also, with a Plymouth connection via another wooden bridge, ship out all the $0 stacks of Chemicals at $72 per load differential. Profit for the second year was up to $23.8M, stock split 10 for 1 at approx. $400 per share! Pic of the bridges from the finished game:
IrishThirst-Ireland bridge.jpg
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Eventually Uranium price at Limoges dropped (didn't take that long actually). I waited just a little while and soon Angers demand was back up and some shipments were made at $55 or more per load. Didn't optimize this that well (too much going on, Alcohol shipments were taking longer anyway. Lost some of the stack down the river.
IrishThirst-Uranium swamp.jpg
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Third year profits were a bit weak thanks to the overhead penalty ($14M). I was issuing stock, did it at the beginning of the first two years then at the end of the third (actually kind of forgot). This was enough (approx. $7M finance injection) to take over one of the remaining AI before year end. I had enough left over to take over the other one as well, but there were a couple cities* where the AI had potential to restart a company (given how rich my shares had made the AI chairmen who knows if it would have really happened). So, I connected to those instead and made the final merge in Jan. 1973. Obviously I left the company with weaker profits in the 3rd year over year end. Cost for both mergers was about $11M.

*You might notice that in the end I didn't actually connect to all cities. I'm pretty sure that the AI looks for pairs and the odd one here or there (most difficulty to get too/least profit potential) will probably block search for a "pair." Examples: Bantry, HolyHead, Falmouth, Mouscron, etc..

This shows the AI appetite for my shares and how I still had majority share in the company.
IrishThirst-stock market.jpg
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In the end Alcohol shipments were the limiting factor (didn't use custom consists, only started to load trains once I had connected to Ireland). In hindsight, could have optimized by building a second bridge to cross to England further west. Also should have gotten a bit of Fertilizer to Chartres early. During the first year I also had Auto consist trains running to/from Chartres so some Grain was shipped away. This shot shows the final train (made sure to send 30 full loads) about to arrive. The reason that the notice has come up before the delivery is that I didn't restrict auto consists within Ireland.
IrishThirst-Alcohol.jpg
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Conclusions: 1.06 (default) without price islands can have yo-yo of cargo back and forth. With price islands back the map would have taken longer. For example, there would have been a wait time during which it was impossible to send Uranium back to Angers. I used the default to try to maintain AI challenge, but if the AI can exploit it the human player can too. Much better to play with price islands, but give them cash injections and the cheap industries.

Even industries at a guaranteed 40% ROI are taking 2 years to pay back the investment (1*1.4*1.4)=1.96-1=0.96. Since this can only be unlocked in the second year, that puts it at 4th year or later. This is obviously too long. Even if rail ROI was a bit lower (it can be much higher as shown), building more industry can mean more time elapsed before tasks complete. As you can see from my last post, I did intend to take more advantage of cheap industry, but in the real world it was obvious that the price differentials were to good.

Electrifying is useless in the short term. It's essentially lower immediate ROI on rail. It's advantage comes in the long term. Because of this, normal expansion with diesel is theoretically faster. As such, the only argument for electrics is if the scenario must be played for a period beyond the expansion phase (such as $1B PNW/CBV). In the past I have gone faster on Chip off the Old Block with Diesel (Class 132) vs. electric with the E-88, and some subsequent testing on DutchAtlantis lead me to the conclusion that even in a dense environment there was little in it (long-distance connection always done with non-electric track). Although, scenarios with cheaper electric track and those with limited track availability (favoring quality over quantity), for example Italy, can go some way to equalizing short term ROI. In terms of the poor reliability of the diesels here, I think the cheaper engine option is bringing the Deltic down to a level where it's reliability risk is "affordable". If I continued playing with long term focus (was too busy/not paying enough attention to even build service everywhere, so some are running dry!) would definitely slap cabooses on quickly. Also, since rail expansion is over would probably spend a year or two scooping industry before electrifying in time for the BR E111.

I must also point out that while I think that the cargo supply here is completely overdone (probably because started game was saved in the editor), the setup of the Alcohol goal is well done. A fun map :-), unfortunately it's over too soon.
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Re: The_Thirst_of_the_Irish Unread post

Tight!!! !!clap!! !!howdy!!

But you gotta give me credit for seeing the potential for a 4 year win! :lol: Of course I knew you could do it! But wow! You've basically given a game-guide walkthrough to destroy this scenario. The 3rd AI slowed you down, too! But cool that you got it without any shares, I never think to try that. Then again, there's rarely the opportunity to display such tycooning prowess in the first year, the potential of this map is off the charts. I'll have to keep that it mind, it never hurts to ask, right?

I like to start electric if there are good options and decent starting cash, because I like them better over a 20 year game, and I always assume a first attempt might take that long. Absolutely diesels are a better option here. And really any time you have confidence in a 12 year or under win, I'd say. Electrics perform better, but the upfront is a bit steep. Also, as I described my play, I wasn't concerned with profits from rail. As soon as I'd decided that I should have switched to diesel, my bad. And I hadn't read the events until after I had met gold conditions but hadn't gotten the medal, so I didn't realize what the connection bonuses were. Given that knowledge I probably would have started diesel.

I decided early on I was okay with a lazy play, and the pace met my expectations. So 12ish years, I know with more industry development as you described I could have shaved a couple years off easy. Placing industry on a resource stack for guaranteed short term maximum ROI is something I should have done more of. Also I just set up autoconsists with normal 3 city loops or chains and "leapers" that connect the "ends" of the chains or loops, so to speak (A-B-C and A-C-B, C-D-E and C-E-D, and A-D and or A-E.) You point out that in fact, and I kind of saw it but didn't want to pay that much attention in my breeze-though, there are profits to be made in rail. So you tightened that, too.

Hmm... sounds like if I tighten up Alcohol I might be able to beat you! :lol: Naw, hindsight's 20/20, just one more thing. You could get March maybe? But not by Dec 1872, that's dreaming going for a 3 year win. :twisted:

And I figured I only needed to break up all unconnected neighbors, but wanted to explore the terrain a bit, and completeness just for the sake of it, there's another couple years right there, probably. You haven't commented on the terrain... I'm lazy, and I'm okay with a bit of slop, a random blip of 4-5 isn't going to slow a train down. But still, this map made me look close for the path that would keep me, in short, straight, quick to lay stretches, at 2-3 grade tops. And it was almost always there, but boy is it irregular, many initial attempts found many consecutive 5's and 6's. Getting through Cardiff and Swansea for example. I'm sure the map creator isn't to thank, but he sure happened upon an interesting heightmap, I think.

But wow, dude, even though I kind of understand it, that's still crazy amazing, 3 years and 7 months!
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RulerofRails
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Re: The_Thirst_of_the_Irish Unread post

low_grade wrote: Wed Dec 27, 2017 11:02 pmBut you gotta give me credit for seeing the potential for a 4 year win!
Yeah, thanks, I was less sure. Second time helps a lot. I forgot to mention that economy improved to boom within the play so conditions were pretty favorable. But a lot of the strategy is compromise, there will always be slightly different conditions to adapt to and in hindsight I will want to do something differently.
The 3rd AI slowed you down, too! But cool that you got it without any shares, I never think to try that.
If you meant merging the AI at the start of the 2nd year? This was actually quite important because he wasn't very profitable so I got him at close to book value. Actually, his assets (two Deltics, track stations) were useable. But, main draw was that I was also getting $4.5M worth of access rights for free! Without this it wouldn't have been as easy to make the call to go to London for the connection bonus. Also, his tracks were closer to Jersey so that was less cost to get there. As far as trying to merge AI without any personal share ownership, there is no guarantee (probably actually depends on some of the share price numbers, such as weighted return?). Seems to work more often than not when first year profits are fairly high (no exact definition, but $1.5M+ should do) and his low.
Then again, there's rarely the opportunity to display such tycooning prowess in the first year, the potential of this map is off the charts. I'll have to keep that it mind, it never hurts to ask, right?
Sure, I'm happy for recommendations. If I trawl through the archive many of the goals seem tame and uninteresting, but this is a good lesson that the potential can actually be very interesting.
You haven't commented on the terrain...
Well the short of it is that I didn't find it too bad. I have been testing the effect of longer trains thanks to the new double cars on limited track scenarios (Building to Buffalo, SCBC, and default Italy). So maybe I enjoyed the freedom a bit more on how I could deviate to avoid stuff (I use "Auto-Grid..." and "Auto Hide Trees..." during track lay). I would agree that there are some terrain features here which need creativity. Biggest peeve would have been Cardiff: please give us room to get in from the east without threading the buildings. The building placements are buckling the terrain up making it hard to get through. I just bridged it. Other thing that bugged me was the awkward placements of Le Havre, Nantes, La Rochelle and perhaps Limognes, with centers either in rivers or inlets.

In terms of grades I was being a bit too aggressive (short term) to go for realism. Had a sprinkling of stray 6s around (mainly on spurs, some of which I built very quickly near the end and were never used). Also my bridge south to Portsmouth had a massive kick up from the wooden bridge (wouldn't have had it with suspension but I was being cheap). Had a 15-12-7-7-7-6-5. Had two 9s and a 7 climbing up to Bangor. Then the little kink shown on the left. Could have bridged it but was going for savings.
IrishThirst-Cardiff bridge.jpg
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Note: Your comment about chains and leapers caused me to think quite a bit about what I currently do for routing. TBH I probably thought too much. :lol: My explanation of how I came to the conclusion got quite wordy. They say if you're sure it doesn't mean much to you. I am not sure, but it's how I think at the moment.

With this game the basics for freight profits are simple: make money off price differentials. But there's more layers. For example: distribution pattern, timing, auto consist, and long- vs. short term focus. Your job is to find the right compromise amongst these and other factors (balance with industry profits, right mix of expansion vs. goal driven actions).

Rails are just the physical connection between points. The layout should hopefully be efficient for as many of the trains using the line as needed (compromise, compromise). What matters for consumer cargoes is the routing/distribution pattern. This will determine the actual interaction of price between points (cities).

When cargo is very plentiful (stacks), and there's a good differential (no definite limit here, depends on loco costs, but $30+ should be solid) it's probably worthwhile to go for the short term, even buying extra engines so that as much is picked up with the same approximate differential strength (will probably begin to weaken as soon as cargo starts being picked up). Super plentiful cargo is probably a sign of oversupply and/or poor economic design by the map maker (on this map it was likely a mistake).

In normal density, short term is trickier to do. With medium densities stacking works (haul as much as possible simultaneously to one location; wait for demand there to be overwhelmed; then haul everything on to the next organized location). The lower the density, the more long term I think. Also realize that as cargo density decreases ROI is going down so at some point there will be crossover with industrial ROI. Don't forget to factor in Express revenue.

When going for the long term, I try to design routes in such a way to preserve price differential strength. There are a lot of factors to weigh. One of the most obvious being that the ideal for maximum revenue as distribution for consumer cargoes must be balanced with the supply considerations of resources.

When thinking long term, the key word is reliable. Isolated locations (geography, edge of map, on a peninsula, away from rivers and ports) wont be good for demand. Best demand area will often be the center of a flat landmass. Rivers and sea side with a port are regulated zones where demand strength is good but stabilized with the consequence that re-haul revenues will be lower. On this map Angers is pretty good for demand. Where I am going with this is that for rail profits it's better to have production in isolated locations, then distribute from there towards better demand locations.

If studying the price map is necessary to get a good grip on industries, IMO it's even more important to get a good grip on where you can make reliable rail profits.

Current rationale on routing (subject to change!)
Majority of cases I think that A-B-C-B service is best for the long term. From a distribution standpoint (cargoes that are consumed by houses don't have a definite journey end-point) there is little reason to skip a city when your routes run from isolated areas towards best strength demand area. If the price at B is weak enough that transfer from A-B stops temporarily, then any distribution from B-C should make better money than if you had the train run A-C in the meantime (running that connection will actually delay the process as the price at A will rise further thanks to transfer from C). After this transfer, price will be rising again in B, so A-B will resume. The indication I would see for a skip is if the transfer stops long enough that cargo starts to drift out of station catchment. I would call these "bottle-necks." An example would be a station with lower than usual demand if you are forced to place your station of center by terrain/river or the like.

Some people in the past have assigned shapes to networks. What I am describing is probably most like hub-and-spoke. However, I believe actual shape is irrelevant; rather referring to the routing principle. Reason I bring it up is for the illustration that we don't want a web: don't link the spokes. Also, we aren't talking about a specific city being the hub, rather an area. If demand should eventually be overwhelmed in the demand area, distribution down the other spokes will begin.

I have the opinion that it's theoretically better to have fewer locations at higher output. Quite a few maps have neighboring cities producing the same cargo types. This is something a bit experimental in my thinking at the moment, but lately I've been linking those two together (as long as they aren't the same distance from the best strength demand or in other words approximately equal), still with the simple service pattern, with the general idea that the price will remain lower in the one further from the best strength demand. On this map for example linking Angouleme and Poitiers (Meat) is probably beneficial. Poitiers being on the river plays into this.

As always this stuff is ideal/theoretical because resource flows also matter so the two must be balanced. Efficient resource flows ensure good production making it probably more important. My general tack is to try to facilitate transfer along natural flows other than diverting them elsewhere.

For resources (long term) A-B-C-B works in many places, but skips are needed more often to ensure resources stay with the train. One note is that especially with the more sensitive cargoes (for ex. Livestock) make sure the train goes all the way to the industry. So if Meat Packing Plant is in D, and Livestock catchment at A have the train running A-B-C-D-C-B. Reason? cargo dropped at a station ends up in the middle of that station, it only has to travel half the station radius to "escape." This ensures that the cargo remains on your train. Remember that cargo dropped off at your station only needs to wander for half of the radius to escape (3 cells for Large Station). Another note: running direct A-D here will probably cause a higher price at A. This may be desired in some cases, but probably equates to less profit long term (if you don't own the industries).

Resource collection from rivers and ports is a good play. This is a place where skips will be needed even more often. Longer term this takes more precedence over distribution when supplying active industries. Often there will be multiple resources available for pickup, perhaps all needed at different locations. Compromise is again the name of the game.

There is some overlap between distribution and resources for cargoes such as Grain, Sugar, etc. that may either be consumed by houses or delivered to an industry. While it's better to have these converted to a higher value cargo (Alcohol), sometimes they are so plentiful that distributing them is worthwhile. The general location where this makes most sense will often end up being a link between regions on the map (as you may discover via a trip to the editor after playing).

Express traffic seems to do fairly well in a simple A-B-C-B setup even if cities are irregular size (as long as they aren't crazy small) as long you use Hotels. Likely exception would be in between some very large cities or between those in the high demand area that have many in-coming deliveries (akin to the idea of a "hub"). Would use dedicated express for those (at least reserve part of the train for express). With the expanded weight scale Gumboots is doing there will be a lot more reason to have dedicated express trains.

The point of all this is to try to haul cargo not more often, but at better price differentials. Depending on loco availability and time period running cost may or may not matter. If it does matter, don't forget that the skip routes will cost more in fuel.

I don't think I put my thoughts on this down before. I haven't had this rationale for that long. For a long time I was pretty lazy with routing patterns. Indeed if you have a company focused on industries you want production to happen in the best demand, so it might make sense to have many skips, especially heading to the ports to dump cargo out in the ocean. And, yes this map is so short term focused that a lot of this stuff doesn't apply. :-)
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Re: The_Thirst_of_the_Irish Unread post

Ah, right, the free access rights he'd have! In my play the two AI were in England and merging was a distant option, so I had to fork out $3M then $1.5M and $1M I think? A lot, but, as you'd earned 23M in your second year, so in my play even such steep access rights were delays of months only... so you still would have made 4 years.

But lol TLDR, j/k! I almost took out my routing illustration as being too nerdy, but that's what got you to put it all out there! :lol: I'm at where you were, lazy a bit, I like an easy game kinda, but I've been like this my whole life, way too smart to try hard, else I shine too much, so I like to still win while being lazy. But there are great challenges to be found in this game, so why not?

Yeah, I realize my standard is to evenly distribute with the leaps, demand goes flat for me, but I've always been successful with the diminished returns even so, and it's so easy to route. But, your theory is compelling, and also easy, at least the first adjustment, to A-B-C-B instead of A-B-C and A-C-B. And I'll attempt to not connect spokes from demand centers, that's also interesting. I'm still a bit suspicious of pax working as well... I feel like they like hubs, and I'm not sure how hotels would factor in except as another 1/1 supply/demand. Okay, maybe it improves the chances of a small town producing express that wants to go to the next town, and once the delivery is made, now all other towns know that that town has a connection to the next town. My concern is the depreciation. Direct links between big cities often pay (more than the distance ratio better) than their closest neighbors which also demand the same number of pax/mail. I like to go through busy maps and look at the cities with piles of pax and find distant demand with $50k+ fares at 6.8 loads or whatever and create new autoconsist routes between them, and take whatever freight makes the train, too. I guess my play is cautious. I don't want to lose on the first try. And to be fair, not all maps deserve a 2nd play (Sicily and Scandinavia most recently) so as I'm going through I'd like to win the first try, in case I don't care to play again. But you do inspire me to go back and make serious attempts at some of the more interesting maps that I've not recently revisited. It would be nice to have a list of the better maps. Or I've been thinking at least, in the downloads, a category for "unfinished" maps (like Sicily and Scandinavia...) to sort out the chaff.

Demand centers will be my focus for the next few maps, I want to see if I can put into practice what I think you mean.
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Re: The_Thirst_of_the_Irish Unread post

Yeah that was a bit long. :-P Glad you understood. I believe that Hotels keep delivered passengers around on the map longer, especially over year end. During that time most seem to decide to continue on instead of disappearing. What I seemed to observe is that if I run express to skip a couple small cities, the volume of traffic going through those small cities will drop.

Most traffic seems to be happy to take the indirect route with stop-overs. I will also put on the connections between hubs and far away very large cities, but will only do so when there is a build-up of loads that wont take the indirect route. Which appears to be what you tend to do as well. I am unsure whether Hotels pay a set rate or based on delivery revenue. At the moment I believe that running pax through 2-3 Hotels on the way to destination will give more revenue, but this is not based on any real evidence. Didn't test. I will note that I have been running dedicated express trains more often with the new scale, and those tend to have a route of stopping at every station, out and back, but also tend to visit more than 3 stations. Typically I would say 5, depending on spacing/speed of train.
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Re: The_Thirst_of_the_Irish Unread post

Okay, I've looked around, but can't find what you're referring to... expanded weight scale? Double cars?
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Re: The_Thirst_of_the_Irish Unread post

It's still a WIP which is why I'm only testing them (using stand-ins for the unfinished cars). A fairly recent version of the planner (minor updates since), and explanation of its advantages: http://hawkdawg.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=44452#p44452

Just for the record I was playing this one with default assets. I brought the new scale up because with the new system, more separation of freight and express, it's easier to see express volume.

The new scale adds more eras, so Gumboots has undertaken to make new cars for it, when doing so he thought why not make them doubles so trains look more like real trains. They behave quite well in the game on corners too, their weakest part being that they act as one unit horizontally. If you have a sudden peak on your track they will look a bit strange going over it. But, overall very nice. Over half of them are already done. You will find all the ones that are finished scattered throughout the more recent posts in the massive cargo revamping thread. The current latest are the boxcars: http://hawkdawg.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=44828#p44828 . It's still a WIP because they are not all done yet. Also, because engine fuel cost and acceleration is fixed (changing by event is broken), I have been trying to balance up the locos both for the new scale and to be more usable in relation to one another. These are also currently unfinished and what I was working towards (don't have all the time in the world and sometimes I'm a bit slack zzwhip ).
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