Trouble with State of Germany

[Gumboots]

Sorry, that was a mistake on my part. I actually meant Prussia. A Bavaria start is one I've never cracked.

Anyway I'll take a look at it tonight and see what happens. Sounds like you've tried Prussia, and I know I should be able to win that, so I'll give it a go.

The English one is pretty easy IMO. Once I realised that you don't have to try to acquire majority holdings in the AI companies it became a walkover. All you have to do is buy enough of their stock to stay slightly ahead of their chairman, and in the later stages they'll buy back stock so heavily that you'll automatically end up with a majority. This makes taking them over cheap and easy, as long as you are patient.

[Gumboots]

Just took a quick look at this map. There are actually 15 German states. You only have to connect 13. So, that leaves two spare ones you don't have to worry about.

I think you're not looking at the terrotories closely enough, and are assuming some of them aren't German states when they are.

By the way, you can cheat a couple too. If you use a large station, sometimes the coverage will be enough to have a city show as connected even when your station is just outside the territory border. This works on a couple of German states. It might help if you get into trouble again, since it should count towards medal stats but wont make you pay access costs. You can even connect Krakow in Poland with this trick.

[belbincolne]

I cant count. There are actually 14 so connect all but one of the 2 expensive ones = the 13 needed. I've done this (twice) and each time its said 9. Which is very wierd because I've now discovered why. I may have bought the rights but cant have laid a line or station in them so it doesn't count. Strange because I would never have thought I'd not laid a line in 4 states both the times I got that far - but I must have.

You can connect several towns from outside their state and usually this is very profitable but I'd have thought that you still have to buy the rights at some time for it to count. That's the next thing to check out! Another interesting thing that I've not found in any other scenario is that you can buy farms/industry (hadn't enough cash to try building industry) in unowned states - including other countries.

I got nowhere with Bavaria so quit and went back to Hannover. I actually got all the Gold requirements - but after 30 years not 25 so have at least now got Silver.

Sorry to have messed you around needlessly.

[belbincolne]

Well as I suspected connecting to a town from outside its State doesn't give you a tick in the box for that state. Can now get silver pretty regularly but gold is still elusive - principally because the economy always seems to go downhill as year 25 approaches.

[Gumboots]

Just do a Prussia start. Hanover and Bavaria aren't worth the time IMO. Even if you could win from those starts, they're so boring for so long that it'd be more interesting to play something else.

[MoridinUK]

Ok so I'm having trouble with this map in 1.05.

I fear I've made a big mistake and will have to restart my current attempt, one lives and learns lol! My first big mistake was to start in Hanover. It was the only start with an advantage rather than a disadvantage, but one has to pick before you can check out industry placement... :( Hannover seemed goo, it had some good cheap states near by!

Once I got there though, the industry was all wrong! Some grain farms and bakeries but no brewery. Some logs and lumber, via warehouses, ports and industry but no where demanding the lumber. I was unable to build anything at the start that uses the lumber either, no furniture factory!

One dairy farm, one produce farm.

Not much huh? SO I plumb for buying up the grain farms with a view to building a brewery when I could afford it. That was where the trouble started... the grain farms could only make 50-75k a year each on their own. I struggled on and started connecting up cities but between interest and not being able to expand my industry I'm making very very little. Since then the ai has built a brewery but it is barely making money (I can buy it for 950k so I could take another bond for it) but without laying rails I can't see how I can improve the grain supply? Two of my grain farms feed into the Bremanhaven station, where there is a bakery... :( the third feeds into hamburg but is only just closer to hamburg than Breman and the new brewery..

I've connected Bremanhaven, Breman, Hannover, wolfsburg, slazgitter and another (can't remember off the top of my head) Using a mainline approach with each station being on a spur (practicing for when speed is a real concern!) My stock has split 3 times before I noticed I started with no shares!! ARGH!!! so the PNW goal is in real trouble and I think I'm about 15 years in! :(

So did I just pick a really duff start or is there something more fundamental with my approach?

[RulerofRails]

Don't worry about having trouble with this one. My first time playing this, I did a terrible start also. I chose Prussia but then started in the tiny landlocked "island" part of it. Talk about a dumb move! I don't remember, but I think I got Silver as a result.

Anyway, for Hannover there are two types of starts that I will use depending on the seeding. If there are two warehouses (supplying Logs) in Bremen there should be a stream coming down the river to a Lumber Mill in Hannover. Hopefully there is a port at Bremerhaven as well. The strategy is to take out a bond and issue both lots of stock, buy the Lumber Mill in Hannover which should be around 900k, and connect Hannover to Bremen via Waldsrode (don't build a station there yet). (ETA: this run is tight to be able to build a large station at either end and still have money for a Beuth, but it's possible with a wooden bridge and not building right to the middle of the cities, remember you need 460k remaining after building track.) Then, as the money comes in connect to the port in Bremerhaven to feed the mill more and then focus on the close cities just to the southeast of Hannover which are great for passengers so build a Hotel in Hannover fairly quickly, just watch out to set trains coming out of Hannover to express only or custom consist so that they don't cart away the Logs from your mill. This should be a profitable start even if you hit lean times.

When there are no warehouses in Bremen, do a rails only start using the initial bond available. Connect Hannover to all the close cities to the southeast and build a Hotel in Hannover immediately. Don't build service until you need it, no maintenance sheds are needed in the first year and with close cities it's easy enough to avoid making one per city. One shed services this initial line fine seeing we start with routes between all three cities and Hannover. Use the Beuth as the Firefly is too expensive to run and loves to breakdown. You may have enough money to connect down to Gottingen before the year is out. Then take out some bonds and expand up to Bremerhaven stopping in Waldsrode this time. Be careful not to take out many bonds above 11%. Build a Hotel in Bremen and another in Brunswick (largest cities not at the edges of the current network). These Hotels will give industry revenue so don't be concerned about buying farms (poorer ROI over time) to try to increase this number to make them cheaper later. I played this start up to about this point. Even though letting a rails only network sit for a time is going to see profits drop considerably, I am inclined to do this until hopefully either the economy improves or my credit rating gets better before expanding to some of the cheap states. The reason for this is that buying access rights counts against CBV and hence your credit rating drops each time you buy rights. The idea here is to take out a fair amount of bonds at a better rate and then buy at least two sets of rights while leaving enough money for at least one city connection and hopefully two.

Remember to keep those passengers happy, connect to as many and as large cities as possible; later on use dining cars, Hotels in every city and make sure that the first train out of a new station goes to the second station down the line to keep initial connection profits higher (depending on the city size, but generally place another city to city inbound). Those hills don't faze passengers so connect to the close cities even if you can't make a direct connection and have to skirt round the hills (Darmstadt area is a good example). Post offices are good later in the game also. This is the type of map, close cities and few resources especially in Hannover, that has limited industrial opportunity especially in Hannover. There are too many demands competing for the little cargo there is. There are still some good opportunities like with the Lumber Mill (first start strategy) and on the resource stream coming down the river from Austria, but they are few and far between. Last play I was really trying to serve passengers and mail, I got the medal in a bit over 13 years with only 9 real industries (many Hotels and Post Offices) and was already seeing express revenue above 10M.

For the PNW goal, you need to get a decent stake in your company, and it will be difficult to do this if you neglected to buy as much as you can just before your profits are rising substantially (start of the game definitely). I would try a fresh start. Good luck!

Edit: I tried a few more seeds and there can occasionally be other industry opportunities this early too. The rails only start will work every time, but there may sometimes be another better option, not solely the Lumber Mill. This is good for re-playability.

[MoridinUK]

Thank RoR! Good advice there but I am now torn between my desire to persevere with my mess up and see if I can at least win bronze, or just restart and enjoy!

Replay ability is high with this game!

If I do carry on I think I will buy the brewery that has poped up in breman, and bulldoze the bakery in bremahaven, to get some grain moving there... there is so little alcohol on the map at the moment! means another bond though... gulp...

Or just restart! I tend to load the map, resign 4 or 5 times as this puts more industry on the map, does that still work?

[RulerofRails]

The tips I gave are from my experience playing on hard difficulty. On easier difficulty there will be more resources on the map. I have never been too interested in finding out more about how the game keeps the old and adds new resources when the game is re-started. I simply re-boot the program from windows when re-starting to avoid an easier-than-intended map. Maybe the effect is somewhat random, but I wouldn't know if it will actually add anything to cities themselves, or how to use it to maximum effect. Using this method is cheating in my opinion. I would encourage you to practice economy building with the normally seeded maps as it is often when things get tight that you pay attention and learn lessons about how to build and manage more efficiently.

Without knowing the positioning of the Grain Farms, I can't give an opinion on whether I would buy the Brewery or not. Maps like this (especially the open plain with rivers and close cities) tend to get scattered with industries that aren't supplied as years go by. This means that late game there is even more potential for the current industries to have their resources "stolen" by a new industry in a better location or to have a train on auto consist sometimes cart the resources to the next town rendering supply inconsistent. As I said, express is the ticket here. If you need to bulldoze the Bakery, this makes the Brewery sound marginal at best as far as performance over time compared to buying the Grain Farms themselves for example. As others have said, location is the key to industry, both the location of the industry and the resources it needs. An industry in a good location will do well on its own. Trying to make one work in a bad location is an uphill struggle. Sorry can't give a yes or no, but that's my

[MoridinUK]

All advice and discussion is welcome.

There are three grain farms, two feed into Bremahaven. One to the east, one to the north east of the city. The third is south south west of Hamburg, it's cargo is heading there at the moment, but it is SNE of Bremen and only a smidge further away. The bakery is in Bremahaven, the brewery Bremen. I already own the farms. I was thinking that the grain would be freed up to get to the brewery, but I need to lose the auto consists. There are no other grain farms in quite a long way... This gives me 6 grain cars a year for the brewery...

It is indeed marginal....

:S restart I should think...

As for loading up the map a few times, we should all play as we'd like to! I've no idea actually which difficulty it is on, I expect Normal. as I try to never play Easy levels, (it makes it too easy so when you step up you have no working strategies, Civ is the best example, play on Settler or Chieftan and jump to Prince and you stand no chance...) I haven't actually seen it add that much more industries, but maybe more starting cargo on the map...

[MoridinUK]

So I restarted, on hard, no map reload just one go and play with what is there...

Rail only start as nothing really tasty in Hanover.

I've connected holstein, Oldenburg, mekelburg. I bought a brewery in Breman and the lumber mill in hanover, the mill does fine... nothing else wants the logs.

Now the brewery was going well, but now I can't get the grain to the station. the Ai just pops up bakeries at the stations the scattered grain farms feed into!!! ARGH! I ws delteing them but at 150k a pop this is a no go.

AS the consists also wont let me set a haul anything except it is really awful to set up! and I can't haul it to the station with the brewery because the price is way too sensitive... if just 1 truck of grain gets to Breman the price drops below the other stations and the grain just piles up and a bakery spawns... :( One even spawned in the station I built which only had the grain farm in its cache! :(

I almost want to upload the save somewhere for some general advice on the mess I've made lol...

let me try this domshard.gmc that is my google drive so should be all safe... let me know if it wont let you in...

[Hawk]

You can attache files to posts up to 25 MB here. Just zip them up to make them a little smaller in size.

[MoridinUK]

You can attache files to posts up to 25 MB here. Just zip them up to make them a little smaller in size.

This is awesome news...

Here's the zipped save...

domshard.zip

(6.34 MiB) Downloaded 357 times

[RulerofRails]

Something else I should have explained: Grain is one of those resources that are demanded by houses along with Produce, Coffee, Sugar, Rice and in the earlier times Oil and Coal. This is on top of the demand at the Bakeries. The effect of this is that each city demands some Grain because of its houses. This is the reason that the price in stations without a Brewery or bakery is so close to those that have one of these industries. This is why the price map for grain looks confused on this map because of the numerous cities on flat ground. Compare this to the price map for Logs which stays much simpler because only Lumber Mills demand it.

I managed to download and open your saved game from the original link you provided. I wouldn't call it a mess. I am always after efficiency and there is always something that can be done, but this a decent effort. I totally agree that custom consists are time consuming, that's why I minimize them in my strategies.

In your case, to save the Brewery I would build large stations (built right next to the farm so that it will reliably catch most of the Grain no matter the direction it starts drifting) on short spurs out to the Grain Farms themselves. The price outside of the cities will be lower, so Grain will load on the train. As general practice this may be (depends how you setup routing and whether or not there is a demand for other traffic and let it jump on the train coming from/to that station) bad for industrial ROI as the extra money you spend effectively makes the industry cost more and the trains bringing in the grain may not be very profitable. My practice generally is to avoid non-city collection stations both for this reason and to also make my games more challenging. When I do use them I tend to make trains returning there haul nothing. This is a finer strategy point, but my current view is that while some profits may be made in hauling cargoes out to this station, in the long-term there is a greater risk of then losing control of this cargo as it drifts out of the station's collection zone for a period of time when it useless to me as I can't make money hauling it between my cities.

Just thought I would add: I noticed you have only 12 engines running 4-5 cars each. This isn't much capacity for the size of your network. If you look at the passenger overlay there are large numbers of passengers waiting to travel between some of the cities on the network. I understand if you are trying to go for a higher average speed, but for maximum profits I would be running more trains and on the flat they would be 8 cars or 7 with diner or caboose once they are 5 or so years old. Without double track, running one long train compares quite favorably in terms of speed with two shorter ones since one will always have to stop to let the other pass, it is obviously half the maintenance cost and cheaper on fuel too. Also, I almost always only build large stations because they invariably provide more cargo to haul, occasionally when I am strapped for cash I may build a small station so that I can get the profit from an inbound train and then use this profit to upgrade to a large one straight away.

Final thought: take a look at how all Breweries on your map are performing. I don't see a single one on the entire map that has consistent profits. This is a good illustration of why I am not very bothered with industries on this part of the map. Something that you might want to do on your map is to buy the Steel Mill in Rostock, but only if you also plan to soon connect to the port in Haderslev to ensure a reliable supply of Coal by buying special trains for this run and express only for all others leaving Haderslev. I would take out bonds for this seeing you have plenty of cheap (6%) bonds available. I would also buy the Tool and Die in Neubrandenburg and then upgrade it. I would also be careful with station placement in Neubrandenburg (close to the Tool and Die to prevent the Weapons Factory from "stealing" Steel) and with what trains I run between Neubrandenburg and Rostock to prevent Iron being hauled from Rostock. Alternatively, the cheaper, nastier option would be to build a new Tool and Die on the same cell as the upgraded warehouse in Rostock. The Tool and Die will happily consume Iron until 3 or so years before the end of the time for a Silver/Bronze medal. I think Gold is still possible here, but try to go for some more profit right away as your purchasing power is a bit low especially if the economy sinks. Good luck!

[MoridinUK]

Something else I should have explained: Grain is one of those resources that are demanded by houses along with Produce, Coffee, Sugar, Rice and in the earlier times Oil and Coal. This is on top of the demand at the Bakeries. The effect of this is that each city demands some Grain because of its houses. This is the reason that the price in stations without a Brewery or bakery is so close to those that have one of these industries. This is why the price map for grain looks confused on this map because of the numerous cities on flat ground. Compare this to the price map for Logs which stays much simpler because only Lumber Mills demand it.

This explains alot, and also why bulldozing the bakery in Bremen was probably a terrible mistake, it is a large city and so with the bakery and brewery it's demand for grain would have probably stayed a little higher than the surroundings. Then a custom consist train would still load it! 1.06 would solve this in a flash...

I managed to download and open your saved game from the original link you provided. I wouldn't call it a mess. I am always after efficiency and there is always something that can be done, but this a decent effort. I totally agree that custom consists are time consuming, that's why I minimize them in my strategies.

:) happy it hear I didn't bring tears to your eyes! lol

In your case, to save the Brewery I would build large stations (built right next to the farm so that it will reliably catch most of the Grain no matter the direction it starts drifting) on short spurs out to the Grain Farms themselves. The price outside of the cities will be lower, so Grain will load on the train. As general practice this may be (depends how you setup routing and whether or not there is a demand for other traffic and let it jump on the train coming from/to that station) bad for industrial ROI as the extra money you spend effectively makes the industry cost more and the trains bringing in the grain may not be very profitable. My practice generally is to avoid non-city collection stations both for this reason and to also make my games more challenging. When I do use them I tend to make trains returning there haul nothing. This is a finer strategy point, but my current view is that while some profits may be made in hauling cargoes out to this station, in the long-term there is a greater risk of then losing control of this cargo as it drifts out of the station's collection zone for a period of time when it useless to me as I can't make money hauling it between my cities.

My only question here is about drifting cargo, I thought that if the industry was in the stations Cache it would send all its cargo to the station, is this only the case if the Cache covers the surrounding cells too?

Just thought I would add: I noticed you have only 12 engines running 4-5 cars each. This isn't much capacity for the size of your network. If you look at the passenger overlay there are large numbers of passengers waiting to travel between some of the cities on the network. I understand if you are trying to go for a higher average speed, but for maximum profits I would be running more trains and on the flat they would be 8 cars or 7 with diner or caboose once they are 5 or so years old. Without double track, running one long train compares quite favorably in terms of speed with two shorter ones since one will always have to stop to let the other pass, it is obviously half the maintenance cost and cheaper on fuel too. Also, I almost always only build large stations because they invariably provide more cargo to haul, occasionally when I am strapped for cash I may build a small station so that I can get the profit from an inbound train and then use this profit to upgrade to a large one straight away.

The medium stations in the Brunswick area cities was all about conserving a little cash in the start. I guess station maintenance pails into insignificance? I'll get them all up graded asap. How many trains... I feel this is always one of my weaknesses, I always stretch my trains as I only have enough after building for one or two. I'll have a look at the express traffic and see if I can lengthen some or add more! I intend to double up my main line if it gets a bit too crowded.

Final thought: take a look at how all Breweries on your map are performing. I don't see a single one on the entire map that has consistent profits. This is a good illustration of why I am not very bothered with industries on this part of the map. Something that you might want to do on your map is to buy the Steel Mill in Rostock, but only if you also plan to soon connect to the port in Haderslev to ensure a reliable supply of Coal by buying special trains for this run and express only for all others leaving Haderslev. I would take out bonds for this seeing you have plenty of cheap (6%) bonds available. I would also buy the Tool and Die in Neubrandenburg and then upgrade it. I would also be careful with station placement in Neubrandenburg (close to the Tool and Die to prevent the Weapons Factory from "stealing" Steel) and with what trains I run between Neubrandenburg and Rostock to prevent Iron being hauled from Rostock. Alternatively, the cheaper, nastier option would be to build a new Tool and Die on the same cell as the upgraded warehouse in Rostock. The Tool and Die will happily consume Iron until 3 or so years before the end of the time for a Silver/Bronze medal. I think Gold is still possible here, but try to go for some more profit right away as your purchasing power is a bit low especially if the economy sinks. Good luck!

I'm terrified of a complex industry like steel, so I hadn't even looked... I'm also terrified of finding 10 mil for Prussia (I need it for gold and I dont know when to save for it? There is lots of options for expansion and profitssssssssssss in Prussia!) I really really wish you could right click on a cargo type in the auto consist screen to exclude it.. even if it was only one cargo type! My head would hurt less!

Thanks again for the attention and advice... One day we could try a MultiPlayer and I could watch how to really play the game...

[RulerofRails]

My only question here is about drifting cargo, I thought that if the industry was in the stations Cache it would send all its cargo to the station, is this only the case if the Cache covers the surrounding cells too?

You are right. If the station's cache covers the industry it will receive any cargo at the industry itself. The reason that I suggested a large station is that there will always be a gap when there is no train to receive the Grain and it then starts to drift to surrounding cells on the map. By using a large station you get a few months between pickups while still catching all the cargo. If you are really careful with minimum wait-to-fill and custom consists you can achieve the same result with smaller stations, but it's fiddly to instill a timed schedule considering breakdowns, other traffic, etc., and the game doesn't always observe order with wait to fill (if a second train arrives while the first is filling, the game will often switch to filling the second one, this is a pain ). Using larger stations is simpler and easier and means you can focus your attention on more important things and hence still get a better result even though maybe it cost a hundred or so $k more to begin with. Of course you could always decide that it doesn't matter if you can't catch all the cargo, but I like to try to maximize the use of what's in my reach.

The medium stations in the Brunswick area cities was all about conserving a little cash in the start. I guess station maintenance pails into insignificance? I'll get them all up graded asap. How many trains... I feel this is always one of my weaknesses, I always stretch my trains as I only have enough after building for one or two. I'll have a look at the express traffic and see if I can lengthen some or add more! I intend to double up my main line if it gets a bit too crowded.

My thoughts on rail expansion is that it is front-loaded. This means that most of the benefit is immediate. Essentially, a new connection can pay for its track and station within the year, and then I can use this money for a new connection the next year. This can enable a very rapid expansion across a map. For this reason, I always make sure that there are enough trains on a new route before doing anything else. As I explained elsewhere, the general rule is two per new connection (D-B and C-D). (On this map, territory access costs must also be paid, making the "previous connection pays for a new connection within a year" not true here.) Also, longer trains will give more passenger and mail revenue as the quoted price may drop significantly between trains if only one or two loads are hauled on one train and then the rest on another train.

I'm terrified of a complex industry like steel, so I hadn't even looked...

The principles are the same with the complex industries. The Rostock Steel Mill can be compared to a simple one even, seeing the warehouses mean a local, reliable supply of Iron. It is just up to you to find the Coal. The reason the Steel Mill is just starting to show profits is that a supply of Coal reached it over water from Heldberg, but as you can see from the price map, local demand in Heldberg then improved so Coal didn't start making the journey anymore. This is why you need to bridge this gap and then you will have a good industry earner (should be around 500k per year in good times).

I'm also terrified of finding 10 mil for Prussia (I need it for gold and I dont know when to save for it? There is lots of options for expansion and profitssssssssssss in Prussia!)

Prussia may seem tempting, but remember that it will be a big hit on CBV and hence your share price. I don't believe that your margin level will support this much price drop very soon. As a strategy decision, irregardless of this, connecting to the other territories one by one (you need to do this anyway) is for me like climbing a mountain in steps. If you leave Prussia for last, your profits will be high enough that you should be able to save up 10M in less than 3 years. If you tried to save up for this connection straight away it would take much longer, and if you financed it with bonds everything you built there would effectively have a reduced ROI (return on investment) to pay off the interest owed. I know there are more resources there, but express is so good on this map and all that are needed are more cities to connect to, that I wouldn't worry about it until last.

One day we could try a MultiPlayer and I could watch how to really play the game...

Sure. If you can manage to host a game. The Matchmaker that Florian made seems to be offline, but there are other ways such as using TeamViewer but it needs to be downloaded and setup. PM me if you get something working on your end. Anyway, I can't guarantee that you will see anything particularly exciting. In single player I tend to spend most of the time on pause looking at things all over the map. This is a shorter game, but I would probably spend 2-3 hours playing it. Most of the advantage I find lies in the decision-making and is simply a case of this strategy is slightly better than that one in terms of consistently higher profits sooner. Over the course of a game there are many decisions to be made, and I am constantly discovering/realizing new options for new strategies or refinements. However, I am pretty sure you would get some new ideas that you could use in your own strategies. That said, confidence in a strategy needs to be built up individually, and the more you have the further you can push things especially when it comes to the risk you want to take on as far as margin buying and taking out bonds.

[MoridinUK]

I got gold with 2.5 years left to run! woot!

Connected Prussia last, bought rights while paused and then built a quick connection across to madgeburg, still while paused. The game gave me the win immediately. I did run a couple of extra months to check the 10mil loss on the CBV didn't drop my personal net worth below 15 mil which it didn't so YAY!

Some of the southern most states had some nasty hills in them as I had totally forgotten about what hills were like by the time I got there... lol Thanks for the help and tips!

[sleepy]

I'm partially through my playthrough at 1860, and I'm worried I might not get Gold in time. This campaign definitely seems to be harder than the American scenarios, and only 5 states are connected so far, though the game tends to pick up pace later through the game.

Bavaria was my starting state, which I'm beginning to regret as the only large cities are Munich, Nürnberg (the authentic spelling), and Ulm which I snuck in across the border. The station building costs are also irritating. Hannover has a couple almost two star cities, but Prussia seems to be the best deal when it comes to land area and high profile cities (Berlin and Cologne). However it comes with a penalty but I think it's worth the cost.

I will say access rights to Darmstadt is fantastic deal - for $400,000 you get Darmstadt and Wiesbaden, which are hubs of cargo activity. When I play more through the map I'll post more.

[sleepy]

Alright, I finished at Feb 1871 with only three years left. Revenues really started to increase towards the end of the game to make a win possible. I spent the last year replaying several times manipulating my PNW by buying huge amounts of stock on margin and buying back stock to keep my purchasing power up. I went from $4 million to $15 million in a little more than a year

(If you want to know what my final rail network and serious stock price manipulation looks like. Haven't gone full robber baron yet.)

As far as I can tell, buying Hannover is a must if you want access to Oldenburg to complete Gold. This kind of irks me, as I wish it could also be connected by buying access to Prussia, but I can't argue with history I guess. Starting in Bavaria is actually quite profitable, as Nurnberg, Darmstadt, and Munich turn into economic powerhouses, with perhaps Munich a little less due to its noncentral location. I would guess that starting in Hannover could be very profitable, with Bremerhaven and its two ports and many big towns and cities close together. Bremen turns into a natural economic hub.

I placed a paper mill in Darmstadt which produced a lot of profit. I did the tactic of buying industry early, which I should've done more of. I bought two fruit orchards near Munich that at the end of the game produced ten times what I bought them for at the first year. I would enjoy another playthrough in the future at a different starting location, as this map was fun but not too easy.

The only train I ever used was the Beuth 2-2-2, cheap and decently speedy. The Crampton 4-2-0 had abysmal speeds on Germany's very hilly terrain. More often than I'd like to admit, I accidentally bought sluggish Fairlie 0-6-6-0 which I immediately replaced with a Beuth. I ended with 61 trains.

This was also the first game I got to play at 1920x1080 and with the patched rt3.exe, which made the graphics look bearable and even visually appealing for once.

[Hawk]

This was also the first game I got to play at 1920x1080 and with the patched rt3.exe, which made the graphics look bearable and even visually appealing for once.

What I don't like about wide screen monitors is the way it stretches everything out. Circles aren't circles anymore. They're eggs laying on their side.
Some games have the capability of setting the aspect ratio. Games like RT3 don't and to me the game just doesn't look right on a wide screen; at a 16:9 or 16:10 aspect ratio.

I have 3 monitors hooked up. 2 are wide screen but my main monitor is a square flat screen. That's where I do my gaming.
I love CRT monitors but a decent one is too heavy for old retired, lazy fugs like me.

Sorry 'bout getting