The following text is a compilation of what was salvaged from the old Gathering Forum. It contains postings from several different people.
Thanks goes out to Wolverine for putting this all together.
Hawk
Orient Express
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Does anyone have advice on how to maintain the 30mph plus required speed avgerage for express trains on the Orient Express scenario? I tried many things and it would always seem to either fall below 30 or be impossible to make money. Any advice on this is appreciated.
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Don't run trains.
Buy industry for all but the last year of the scenario.
Yeah, its a snoozer alright.
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Well, no express trains. Freight trains aren't considered in the average. Following the monk story you will get a very fast train. Unfortunately this will cost a lot. In the beginning decide for "sciences & research"(first option), later cooperate with the unions.
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Quote: how to maintain the 30mph
might be obvious but you never know but don't allow passengers on your freight trains...
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wrote: Following the monk story you will get a very fast train. Unfortunately this will cost a lot.
You need to connect Vienna to Zagreb, pay $100k for rights to Russia, connect Chrisinau to a meat packer, buy one loco to haul 3 loads of meat. That sounds real cheap and easy if you ask me.
But the truth is it isn`t necessary to get the Orca or take the speed technology. You meet the speed goal by sending one load of mail or passengers on a long straight flat track with stone bridges. Zzzzzzzz.
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You need to connect Vienna to Zagreb, pay $100k for rights to Russia, connect Chrisinau to a meat packer, buy one loco to haul 3 loads of meat. That sounds real cheap and easy if you ask me.
Vienna-Zagreb or Budapest-Zagreb aren't really cheap in the beginning considering that these routes will provide mostly losses. I had to give up my first try on that scenario for that reason. The AIs took advantage and connected the profitable central line(Budapest-Timisora). Later you can go for the Orca. Going early for the Orca is a trap, imho.
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You can run express and meet the 30 mph goal as well. Just have one dedicated express train per route, and have the service and maintenance stations on a spur line off the main line, and make sure when they go there they have no cargo.
This is the best of both worlds; you meet the goal, and you can also make more money than anyone else with a freight only/industry only approach.
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Hi
Actually maintaining the 30 MPH average speed isn't that difficult. Really !! Here's what you must do:
1.) No Maintanence or Service buildings on the main line
2.) Use routes that are reasonably long and keep the grades under 4%
3.) Make sure there are no sharp curves in the routes.
4.) Keep your express trains at 4 cars ( including Caboose and Dinner ) long or shorter.
5.) If you run more than one Express Train on any given track, double track it.
Keeping all this in mind, the key city is.............. Budapest.
If you lay your track right, you can get good runs to Vienna, Zagreb, Nova Sad, and Belgrade. You might even be able to get a reasonably fast run to Bratislava, but I didn't try that one. By the way, for the record, when I did this experiment, I was using the "Artistic" bonus, which has no effect on your locomotives speed or pulling ability.
In a nutshell here's how I would play the Orient Express:
1.) Start Company, Issue 2 sets of stocks, and 1 bond. Build a Station in Vienna ( any size will do: this keeps the other guys from building there ), and buy as many ( 2, 3 if you're lucky ) dairy farms as possible, especially any that feed into Budapest, Vienna, or Zagreb. I've played this one several times, and I've noticed that the AI doesn't always connect to Budapest, even when you don't build anything there. I would say that the AI will connect to Budapest 50% of the time ( 80% if you don't build at least a medium station there ) and will connect to Zagreb about 75% of the time.
2.) Regarding your "prior" investments, I would go with either "Influence" ( under Arts and Politics ), or Construction. "Influence" cuts the cost of international access by 75%, and "Construction" cuts the cost of building track and stations by 20%. The improved Train Speeds or pulling power ( Science and Technology ) aren't needed to achieve your goals, and the two options under "Business and Finance" don't help a whole lot either. If you want to start off by buying lots of profitable industries to support you at the end, you may want to consider the "Industry" investment. The "Artistic" Investment could be useful if you run LOTS of Express Trains ( Hotel, Tavern, and Restuarant Revenues +15%, Overhead -20% ).
3.) As Soon as you can connect Belgrade to Vienna and Zagreb. Watch the grades ( try to stay under 2% if possible ) and use stone bridges to cross the rivers. As Mentioned earlier, build "Maintanence Spurs" near each city. I would build one maintanence center ( and a water tower ) near Budapest, and would build only water towers at the other cities.
4.) As soon as possible connect to Nova Sad and Belgrade. Again, watch the grades.
5.) When it becomes available, convert to Electric Locomotives, I can't remember which one, but one of the two is fast enough to keep your express trains up to speed. Start saving up the money for the push to Istanbul, and raise your Personal Wealth.
6.) When you can afford it, connect to Istanbul, and buy up as much stock as you need to get your wealth up.
By the way, if the competetition does connect to Budapest at the start, don't dispair, simply connect his tracks to Vienna, and rake in the dough as he runs his railroad into the ground making you money. When I played OE last night, neither competitor connected to Budapest, even though I left it wide open. One connected Zagreb to the town to the North, and the other connected two towns Northeast of Budapest. As soon as I could afford it, I connected both of them to Budapest and raked in the dough, until the Zagreb Northern went belly up.
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Belgrade costs $3,000,000 access rights. Definitely not worth the profit you may get there. If you accept the serbian separatist offer it will be only half but probably you run into more trouble. And I don't think that the AI will connect Zagreb early because you are supposed to do that. In my 2 games the AI focused on East Hungary.
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Ok, I must have a cursed game.
I'm playing on normal - I tried on easy - forgot I was playing easy actually, just familarizing myself with the game after RRT II. Any way I digress...
Orient was unbeatable on easy. I ran into this with one sinario on RRT II - something to do with the math, so I started over and got gold on my first try of each right up to this blasted sinario. I can't get ANYWHERE! Fast or slow on normal either.
Problems
- not making any money with idustry
- not making any money with trains no matter how I manage them
- AI companies both fold within 10 years without fail. I usually buy one out when the shares hit $1 to "start" my rail road ventures after the first 10 years of buying industry... No good. I just can't see getting enough money through this game to get the land rights and buil the track... never mind the 15 mil PW.
So - with the AI crapping out hopelessly within the first 10 years, this tells me there is something wrong with this sinario or my game install. I've tried up to the second patch. The fixes in the third look like they would make this map worse. I've also tried a reinstall... nada.
Thanks in advance for any sugestions. I just keep reading over and over to buy industry - run trains this way and that - the AI does this and that... and my AI does not build past their fist two stations and then peters out to liqudation.
I really don't want to cheat past this crack pot of a map. Great QC on this one.
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Try restarting the scenario. There are random elements to the industry placement, and perhaps you received an abnormally hard one. A reshuffle may be in order!
Also, don't worry about the AI. Don't try and buy their companies unless they're liquidated, because you will inherit *all* of their debts. All you really can do is connect to their rails (while buying some stock *if* they are staying afloat) and generate more rail traffic.
Industry linked to your rails is the key. Try building a paper mill at the start if there is logging camps near Vienna or buy one if you can. Then use your rails to keep moving the paper around so that the profits stay high.
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I've played Orient Express many times. Trust me, the AI will connect Zagreb early in the game about 50% of the time. Connecting to Zagreb is NOT something you are required to do. Doing so may ( or may not, depending on how you play the assignment ) help you with the average speed issue, but it's by no means required to win.
Regarding Belgrade. If you look at the map, the easiest, least expensive route to Istanbul is to cut south across Serbia and then East across the Ottoman Empire. Yes, you can follow the north bank of the river (Danube ?? ) and avoid entering Serbia, but then you have to pay $1,000,000 to cross Romania, and $3,000,000 to cross Bulgaria, so this route actually costs you MORE !! And this doesn't even factor in the cost of building through the mountains. I agree the Serbian Separatist offer isn't worth it.
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wrote: ... and avoid entering Serbia, but then you have to pay $1,000,000 to cross Romania, and $3,000,000 to cross Bulgaria, so this route actually costs you MORE !! And this doesn't even factor in the cost of building through the mountains. I agree the Serbian Separatist offer isn't worth it.
I admit that I didn't check that out. Romania was a bargain for me. Apart from the very west it's flat and fast. And in reality Serbia isn't that flat and the game engine doesn't like river valleys. Next time I'll check that.
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I'm new to this game, but after three failed attempts at Orient Express after scoring gold on the first try in all but two of the previous scenarios (silver in those, and would have been gold had I understood how to merger) I think the main "problem" with this scenario is not that you have to build a long connection through multiple territories and mountainous terrain. It's not even that you have to keep a torturously high average express speed. The biggest problem is amassing the kind of PNW necessary to make gold while doing all those other things. The economy is so balanced that if you try to follow the model of starting a short line and building it up, or of starting several short lines, in four or five years the economy around your short line has balanced out and if you're hauling anything at all it's at really low rates. You're forced to continuously build track for low returns just to keep any revenue coming in, and you never seem to hit the "snowball" point where things take off and the money starts falling from the sky. On my best attempt by year twenty I had all of ten trains running on over 400 miles of track after merging with one of the AIs -- and none of the trains were running at capacity or making more than 100k a year average profit each!
If you concentrate on purchasing industry you can run twenty years into the scenario and still be in very poor shape in that you're still not close to making PNW and you've got miles and miles of difficult, expensive track to lay, and not enough money to lay them, before 1913 even if you connect to AIs.
Interestingly, the best attempt I've had so far was the first one where I attempted to follow the typical model I've been using in the other scenarios, but with a little more attention to track laying to keep speeds up. After it became obvious by 1905 that that attempt was not going to make silver, let alone gold, I came to read these hints and then started over -- twice -- only to do worse each time
Oh, well, back to the drawing board, or the board room...
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The key is to master the economy in one area, not over the entire map. You need a good network of rails to support specific industries that will make you the cash that you need to get all of the goals. Face it, if you make enough money, you can lay rails anywhere, and you will have a high PNW if you invest in your company.
Your rails will not make the majority of your money on this map, but someone is always making the money. Make it your goods that are being hauled around, and things will work out much better for you.
Try getting the Industrial bonus that lets you buy/build industries for 30% less, and if you use your rails to leverage an advantage, you will find that the other goals will take care of themselves.
Focusing on rails along won't work well. Only buying industries is also not effective, and will take a long time, and is boring. Merge the two!
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wrote: Only buying industries is also not effective, and will take a long time, and is boring. Merge the two!
Particularly if you have to connect Vienna and Istanbul.
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Well, you may as well start connecting the two while you make money. Usually you can get 50% of the rail down as part of your railroad's backbone. Then you can just burn rails for the rest.
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I must add to current strategies that the railroad is not necessary at all. With 30% cheaper industry, many of the well placed industries can pay off in less than 3 years. I played with industry-only investments and finished the game with gold in 1905. I laid track from Prague to Vienna, made one passenger run to get the speed. Then I made a track from Instanbul to Vienna and that was it.
I invested heavily in:
- Produce & Distillery
- Logging Camp & Lumber Mill & Paper Mill
later in:
- Grain & Brewery
- Dairy Farm & Cheese... something
- Cattle Ranch & Meat Packing Plant
I invested all over the map. I chose the route for Vienna to Istanbul (buying rights) by potential industrial profitability, so (in my industry seed) I bought rights into Russia, Romania and Bulgaria.
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So, any of y'all made the Gold with the difficulty on Hard? I get the connection (Vienna/Istanbul) and the PNW with no problem, but even with getting the Orca way early, I can't seem to the the average express speed out of the lower 20's!! And, I mean, those Orcas do fly, but 23 mph is the best I've ever gotten.
Yes, I'm on 1.03, yes, I make sure that only the Orcas haul express, yes, I don't let them have more than 4 cars. This is starting to get to me!!
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I averaged 44 mph on normal, and got gold with about 10 years to spare. I sent 1 express car on one train, with an Atlantic on a flat straight piece of track with no bridges. Industry is far too lucrative to ignore when you get over 10% returns, and interest rates drop to 5%. I almost owned the entire map at the end.
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Quote: the average express speed
i read a good piece of advice on this in another thread and perhaps you did as well. if not, let me see if i can remember all of it. this person said every express car is factored into the speed so don't have mixed trains. and, since it only calculates the speed while passengers are aboard, put a shed and tower on a spur, unload the passengers, go gas up with no cars, then come back to the station and load up.
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I did the same thing
Somebody had one lined the idea in a thread and I thought they were kudding...until I tried it Plenty of money in industry and freight. I am in awe of ppl who can run express the whole game and still make the ave speed
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Watch out now with this one. It is much harder to win with industry now as you can no longer buy industry in countries that you don't have rights to.
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wrote: Watch out now with this one. It is much harder to win with industry now as you can no longer buy industry in countries that you don't have rights to.
hmmm, I never could.
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Quote: I can't seem to the the average express speed out of the lower 20's!!
I didn't even bother with that part, all i did was refrained from hauling any express cargo until december of the final year then let the fastest engine take one passenger car between 2 cities connected by straight section of track thats not too long or too short so the train can reach its maximum speed without servicing then BAM! .....got gold on normal i think it would work the same way on hard or expert , dont spend too much time on one map you'll get bored quickly
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Quote: dont spend too much time on one map you'll get bored quickly
Getting bored isn't the problem. I'm just determined to finish the campaign with all golds on Hard.
I like the idea of hauling nothing but cargo, then only one express in December of the last year, but it does seem like a bit of a risk. Suppose the darn train breaks down? Then you'd still miss the gold! I guess the logical thing to do would be to do a save just before you let 'er rip.
I'm still amazed that even with the Orca, you can't get express speed up. I mean, that sucker really flies! Of course, it's still a steam train, so it stops for water a lot.
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I think this would work on hard as well. I wanted to build the original route as close as I could and get the gold on normal without any "tricks". All service areas were on spurs. I would only haul 1 express train between stations on the "mainline". I had limted express trains coming from a few branches. You want to run long runs longer than short runs as this will help the average more. The run from Budapest Novi Sad is a good one. This is about all the water capacity of the engine. Rember haul your passengers drop them then go service and pick up passengers for the return trip. I really wish 1.03 had been out then as I made a goof up in my 1 "Orient Express" train that I ran the full length and had to delete 30 something entries to fix it.
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Quote: Watch out now with this one. It is much harder to win with industry now as you can no longer buy industry in countries that you don't have rights to.
Tis true:
Before the patch, in the Germany campaign, I was able to buy existing industries and farms in states and countries to which I had no access. After the patch, I was not able to do this. Did indeed make life harder.
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Quote: but it does seem like a bit of a risk. Suppose the darn train breaks down? Then you'd still miss the gold!
you have better chances of winning the lottery than your new engine breaking down on the first run unless the programmers intentionaly made it that way so you cant do something like that
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In my view, not the most realistic scenario in the campaign, but the most fun for me. I'm glad Pop Top added a little humor to keep us from getting too serious about all of this.
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Hmmm - the problem with servicing on spurs is that you don't really know how far your loco will go before it's out of water (not to mention all the hassle of setting up the routing). I replayed the Orient Express again last night, and managed to get the average speed up above 25 with no tricks, mostly by cutting out short express runs, which allowed the Orcas to really show off their stuff. It seemed like I was popping up 1 mph every other year!
However, I was so focused on the speed element that I didn't work as hard on the PNW element, and when 1910 rolled around, it was clear to me that even if I managed to get to 30 mph, the PNW wasn't going to be there, so I just dumped the game.
Another question on the OE scenario: What "bonus" have ya'll gone for at the start? I've normally gone for the "Influential" bonus to get the cost of acquiring rights reduced by 75%, though I'm guessing most of you go for the "Science" bonus to get the pop in speed. Of course, speed is not a big factor on short runs anyway, only on long ones.
I'm now absolutely determined to whack this scenario on Hard with no tricks for the gold!
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The Distance isnt really an issue to me. Braitslava to Budapest and Budapest Nova Sad are right at the limit. Sure setting up the routes is a bit of a pain. Once I would set up an express route I would duplicate the train and change the consists and engine (I used Consolidations on the Freight only runs). Lastly remember to downgrade the priority. I ran only one express between stations. I was well over the average the whole time. I also had alot of freight only lines that had no express trains at all on.
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wrote: Only buying industries is also not effective, and will take a long time, and is boring. Merge the two!
Particularly if you have to connect Vienna and Istanbul.
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Well, you may as well start connecting the two while you make money. Usually you can get 50% of the rail down as part of your railroad's backbone. Then you can just burn rails for the rest.
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I must add to current strategies that the railroad is not necessary at all. With 30% cheaper industry, many of the well placed industries can pay off in less than 3 years. I played with industry-only investments and finished the game with gold in 1905. I laid track from Prague to Vienna, made one passenger run to get the speed. Then I made a track from Instanbul to Vienna and that was it.
I invested heavily in:
- Produce & Distillery
- Logging Camp & Lumber Mill & Paper Mill
later in:
- Grain & Brewery
- Dairy Farm & Cheese... something
- Cattle Ranch & Meat Packing Plant
I invested all over the map. I chose the route for Vienna to Istanbul (buying rights) by potential industrial profitability, so (in my industry seed) I bought rights into Russia, Romania and Bulgaria.
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How to make a good profit? I am always making profit from the passanger routes, because profit from the goods are very low (less then 50K a year! But here passenger profit also is low. I understood the economical model, but industrial routes can not be profitable! How are you making money on delivering goods? Thank you very much!
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Well, this one was actually easy after I failed a few times running trains. What I did was just buy industry. Industry, industry and more industry. I didn't even build any rails until there was probably 10 years or so of the scenario left. At that point, I simply bought rights to the required territories and put down a single line from Vienna to Istanbul hitting the major cities. I then ran freight-only lines between various places. Then I waited till I had the PNW goal and then ran a single passenger express for the gold. I took the Arts & Politics option to give me cheap access rights.
This map can generate a lot of money on freight only routes, by the way. Just don't run passengers except between major cities. If you do want to run as mainly a railroad instead of industry, it is still best to start with industry and give the cities a few years to grow. Then run freight-only lines for the most parts.
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I won this one (gold, normal) yesterday.
I didn't do the jules verne story.
I didn't buy any industry.
I ran completely mixed automanaged trains with 4 cars with an average speed of +40 mph untill 1900 (because then cars become heavier)
I set up all my stations and tracks like this:
Code:
| w1 | w1
| |
| m1 | m1
| |
AAAA / BBBB /
---========---------------------=========------
/ /
| |
m2 | m2 |
| |
w2 | w2 |
AAAA , BBBB :: stations
w1, w2 :: water/sand towers
m1, m2 :: maintenance facilities
= | \ / :: track
I set all my trains up like this:
dest : cars : what?
AAAA : 0-4 : any cargo
BBBB : 0
BBBB-w1 : 0
BBBB : 0-4 : any cargo
AAAA : 0
AAAA-w2 : 0
Never run more than 1 train with possible express cargo on single track.
I started with a connection between Pecs and Novisad. Next was from Novisad to the north (but I don't remember the city anymore). From there around the river corner to the 2 big cities on the way to Vienna. Next from pecs to Zagreb. From Novisad to Belgrado (you have to buy Serbia). Wait a few years untill you have enough money to buy Romania and start the same in Romania without connecting to Belgrado. If you have more money, make the connection to Belgrado over the Serbian mountains, it's much easier, faster and cheaper than the river bed (no tunnels/bridges needed).
Let this run for money. If you have 5M$ company cash, and a pretty big amount of personal puchasing power, pause the game and save. You're gonna try to meet the gold in 1 shot. If it doesn't work, load the game again and wait untill you have more money...
1) Issue as many bonds as possible, buy the other acces rights (8M$ total), lay a single track to Istanbul as cheap as possible without tunnels/bridges and put a small station in Istanbul.
2) Buy your stocks and watch your purchasing power. It will first go down, but from a certain point, it will go up if you buy more stock. When you see this happening, you know you've won. The stock prices will go way above their value. Don't care. Keep buying untill you have them all. Your total net worth will be above the required amount even if you only had half of it before this.
Unpause the game, wait 5 secs and you have the gold.
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Do me a favour and try this again on Hard setting. I've never know anything like it. The economics go way out of the window. In one try I had a minimum two car freight train and another 2 car express and neither left the station (Vienna) for 2 years. The only time I had enough to buy into another country I was bankrupted in three years by the expense.
I've tried your maintenance lines system and the extra cost ruined me. I've tried most of the eight starting methods and all were dismal - the best being the stupid stock win of $500k because at least it kept my initial costs down. In every game the AI's have always both gone bust.
I simply dont see how the system can work - you haven't enough money
I'm trying to write a methodology for getting Gold on Hard and have done the previous nine with ease. At the moment I'm inclined to think O E is impossible on this setting so, please, give it a try for me!
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I did it the same way no quest, no Industry, mixed trains, extra maintenance spurs for lone engines, (As bonus skill I chose Tech, but horsepower not speed !)
BUT: why the heck do you need 2 maintenance spurs for each station? One of those is definitely enough, my friend. can stop worrying about extra costs, for the maintenance per station ratio is not higher than usual that way (except for the short track pieces)
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Thanks - but where you on Hard because the difference is amazing - far more than in any other campaign.I assume he meant a service tower & a maintenance not 2 m's - I've always assumed both were needed as they have different functions. Which train did you use by the way?
I've played it again in the last few hours and after10 years was -$250k with 2 bonds and no prospects so just gave in.
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wrote: I simply dont see how Greymanes system can work - you haven't enough money
I'm trying to write a methodology for getting Gold on Hard and have done the previous nine with ease. At the moment I'm inclined to think O E is impossible on this setting so, please, give it a try for me!
I was playing on Normal. I'm almost done the first time around with all scenarios. I'll probably be doing them all again on Hard after that As far as money goes, money is not a problem at all using Industry on that map although it depends on your initial seeding. I had the fortune of being able to buy Dairy very cheaply on my map. I had 3 dairy with my initial money + loan and stock. There are few setups you can run with trains that will beat that in the first year on most starts for that scenario.
I was then able to add a few more industry + associated farms (meat packing, brewery/distillery I forget which now) and a few others here and there. I guess the point is to look at the map before you start before you decide on one way or another, shrug. Since I took Politics with reduced access costs, buying into other countries was no problem at all (75% reduction in price). Heck, I even made the PNW with no tricks, I was just that profitable.
I was even running very profitable freight-only routes for the 1/3 last part of the game. The only tricky thing I did was to run no passenger trains at all until I was ready for the win.
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Ofcourse you only need one such a spur if your station is only connected from 1 direction. If your train can travel back and forth between your 2 initial stations with 1 bucket of water, you don't need such a spur at both stations.
The only extra-cost you have is that piece of track (+/- 100K).
The way I used them, was to try to prevent turn-arounds at the station.
I didn't try on hard, I'm still busy with the campaign on normal difficulty. I have to say Argentina is a lot easier and more fun. Rhodes is again difficult to start...
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O/K - but until you play it on Hard you wont see what I mean - I've just abandoned it for now and Did Argentina on Hard - got Gold 1st time no worries and there was hardly any difference in difficulty from Easy. Not the case at all with OE. As you start with 1.1m how do you buy industries there'll expensive and only return about 10% for the first few years so how can you build up money fast? Especially as without trains to haul their produce they're just as likely to go bust?
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wrote: As you start with 1.1m how do you buy industries there'll expensive and only return about 10% for the first few years
In Rhodes you only have 700K , 1200K when you issue 1 bond, and you still can't build a single lumber mill... I've tried this one by starting with industries and starting with railroads, but I always seem to do better with railroads than industries. I'm not very good in the industry-spotting of the game (yet).
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wrote: O/K - but until you play it on Hard you wont see what I mean - I've just abandoned it for now and Did Argentina on Hard - got Gold 1st time no worries and there was hardly any difference in difficulty from Easy. Not the case at all with OE. As you start with 1.1m how do you buy industries there'll expensive and only return about 10% for the first few years so how can you build up money fast? Especially as without trains to haul their produce they're just as likely to go bust?
Bond + issue stock. I was able to buy 3 CHEAP dairies. i.e, 450K, 600K and 500K. I still had money to lay a small station and some track in both Vienna and Budapest to reserve them from the AI with about 7k give or take left over. This is on normal. Buying dairy for those prices returns far more than 10% You don't get that on every map, only some.
Normally I tend to ignore industry and only build rail, but in this case, with the seeding I got, industry paid more.
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wrote: As you start with 1.1m how do you buy industries there'll expensive and only return about 10% for the first few years
In Rhodes you only have 700K , 1200K when you issue 1 bond, and you still can't build a single lumber mill... I've tried this one by starting with industries and starting with railroads, but I always seem to do better with railroads than industries. I'm not very good in the industry-spotting of the game (yet).
Nope, but as I found out, you CAN build a paper mill I see no way of starting with rail on that map, there just isn't anything good to connect to at first. That map is a gold mine once you get going though with very nice, long, profitable routes. Once again, it was the seeding I was lucky at. I tried a few routes to those 1/2 star starting cities, but it just didn't work out for me. I just got lucky and found 5 logging camps sitting on a river. The paper mill started me off with the lumber mill following. Heck, I think I had all the town connections for the gold done around the late teens or so. The rest of the game was just buying stuff to get my B.V. up.
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Well now I wouldn't have believed it but it is the best way (so far) to get near to Gold. Incredibly at the start of the final year I had over $10m cash plus the Cash from raising the max 20 bonds and selling the two largest industries and thus I was able to connect the two and set up my express. First time I've connected the two on Hard. Bingo I thought.
What happens - nothing - my train won't take off even with only one car plus the share value drops 50% so my PNW drops like a brick and yet another campaign is lost. I kept playing for another three years and the ****** trains (I put one at each end) still didn't set off. I built another couple of stations to tempt travellers. Nothing. Then I set them off as express Nil minimum - when they'd both arrived the express speed was still Nil. I give up. Any ides/comment?
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My experience is that express trafic takes a while to develop, so the passagers / mail didn't want to got to your other stations. If you'd built the line a coupl of years earlier and just run freight whilst you wanted for passengers who wanted to travel to your other stations you might have do it.
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Well, if you happen to still have a save game from the year or two before the end, go back to there, setup a bunch more stations if you can and run 1 car expresses between all connecting cities (A-B, B-C, C-D) on express with no other express on the line. One of those trains is sure to have at least 1 passenger then. I had been running many freight routes for a number of years before I went for the gold to finish, so my traffic was developed.
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Yep I'm an idiot - I didn't read your system well enough and should have done a save after say 20 years. Anyway I'll have another go next week.
Course I've now bashed off Argentina (dead easy, dont know why some people have found it hard) and have been trying Rhodes Unfinished - this is possibly worse than O E! I got gold first bash on easy but oh Hard the economy is so way down that you make no money on either trains or farms so I'm feeling suicidal. I'm away for the w/e just to take my mind off them
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Well, i'm on Japan Quakes now, that is a whacked out scenario lol. Think I'll just skip it and move on or do them all on Hard now.
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Winning the Orient Express on hard is not difficult if you go the industry route with a single passenger train at the end. Select the industry option at the start to get cheap industry and then buy three dairies. (other maps have other optimal industries - look for industires that have lower earnings or losses in the previous year, each map has at least one industry you can buy cheaply at the start.) After the first year look for a mill to buy that has a good supply of logs - buy it. You need to control the mill so you can expand it after you put down two furniture factories right beside it. This normally takes a three years to establish your credit and make enough capital. Past this breweries and distillaries are good on this map. Just make sure to put them as close as possible to their supply and buy the supply. You now make money on both types of industries. Oil comes on in the mid 90's and can be very profitable.
My earliest win date on hard is 1898.
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As some of you know, I'm playing the campaign on hard. I feel a rather large satisfaction in finally getting the gold on BOTH the Orient Express and the Rhodes Unfinished scenarios!!
In the Orient Express, I started out in Vienna, with track to Bratislave and Gyor. Of course, I knew that the AI would start a rail line leading out of Budapest, and that was fine with me!
So, what I did was to go about 6 or 7 years, then issue bonds and link Bratislava to Budapest. Other than the "burn track" (check Mobius' site for the definition of "burn track"), that's the last track I built.
Soon enough, the AI was running trains like mad over to Vienna and Bratislava! Also, it seemed to energize the AI company that had started in Budapest. It started to expand rapidly! However, all those extra lines just wanted to run MY rails over to Vienna & Bratislava, which made me buckets of money.
Of course, I bought back stock to finally get total control in about 1904, when I gave myself a very nice dividend!
Also, to deal with the speed issue, I built spurs in Vienna and in Budapest, and put the service towers and maintenance sheds on the spurs. Then, of course, I figured out how to manage each loco to make sure that it got the minimum service necessary for a decent run. This quickly got my average speed above 30 mph.
When electric trains were offered, I converted the whole system to add electric catenary (don't forget that if you try this, you'll have to add catenary starting at the end of your line in Budapest and just a bit southward). This kept my speed up.
Oh, I also built one brewery in Debrecen (it was totally surrounded by grain farms), but I never built track there, nor did the AI. It ended up providing a fairly reliable $200K-$400K per year, which really helped!
As to how I ran the "burn track" -- don't fool around with Serbia or Bosnia. Just buy Romania and Bulgaria, since the land that way is much flatter, and, therefore, the track is cheaper.
Also, on the startup questions, I selected "Artistic & Influential", then took "Infuential". This saves buckets of money in trying to get rights to run rail!
Overall, the hardest scenario to get the Hard/Gold on, but satisfying nonetheless!
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Don't feel bad about either the Orient Express or Rhodes Unfinished. I always play on Hard (otherwise, the challenge is just not there!), and I must have retried the OE at least 20 times, and the RU about the same.
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Thanks guys - I'm just back from two days mountaineering in North Wales in howling gales and day one driving rain and two just a little snow so I'm totally knackered but I'll be trying again next week - how about some hints for Rhodes?
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Quote: how about some hints for Rhodes?
Re-start Rhodes
Re-start Rhodes
Re-start Rhodes
Re-start Rhodes
Re-start Rhodes
Re-start Rhodes
Re-start Rhodes
Re-start Rhodes
Re-start Rhodes
Until you get a favourable start, otherwise is almost impossible
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You have just enough money (if you issue a bond, that is) to connect the 2 cities on the left + 1 train. Go with a long straight, single track, in the valley, out the valley (don't care about that litle city there), to -euhm- (the bigger city on the left). Then connect that small city you passed by and buy 1 train to service the 3 stations. I had 3K company cash left at that point
The fact to have 3 stations from the start helps you to get going. Next things to build are ofcourse the maintenance buildings. I was lucky in the game seeding though. There was only 1 meat packaging plant in that region of the map, and it was right at that small village, so my trains never ran empty. I didn't have enough money to buy that meat packaging plant in the first few years (each time I thought I could issue enough bonds, it had become more expensive ).
I know many here say you should start with buying industries, but I try to get gold on every map without using industry for more start-up money.
Oh, and give the tribe leader some cows, no gold or cash money He'll give you some of his diamonds as a nice "thank you".
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thegent wrote: Until you get a favourable start, otherwise is almost impossible
exactly.
Look out, what industry you have at the start-station, and if there's resources araound, and a market for the product. Otherwise restart.
a useful situation is eg. a toolshop in one of the next villages, as you always have steel from the storage. And, with a bit of luck, you can make a fortune with weapon delivery.
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Take a look here (fifth post from the top) to see what I did to get the gold on the Orient Express with the difficulty set on Hard:
http://www.gathering.com/forums/viewtop ... c&start=15
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Well I just got Silver but miles off gold. Train speed 23 and I daren't look at PNW. The AI's built in ridiculous places which I never went near. I did get a lot of cheap farms etc but, once again, the cost the middle stretch of line plus the country entry rights meant that I ceased to be profitable and of course no chance of electrifying.
Interesting though that every time you play industry costs are different and the AI's do different things so (as the gent says for Rhodes) you really have to keep restarting until you get a nice one.
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Just got gold playing at hard and not buying any industry that wasn't going to be serviced by my rail network. This prevented me from buying all those juicy dairies and such, but added to my enjoyment of the game, because I was forced to pay attention to the industrial potential of an area before laying track there.
Started out by taking the industry-industry choices. This gave me a 30% discount buying and building industries which came in very handy at the beginning of the game because I could afford more industries early on.
Started in Budapest because there was more industrial potential there. Built lumber-furniture-toy-paper complex near 4 logging camps, and put in cheap train line to haul all this stuff back to Buda. This lumber venture turned out to be real cash cow.
There were a couple of breweries in Budapest at the start, and a ton of grain fields to the North. Having visions of becoming the beer king of the Balkans, I bought it all and tried to hook it up with trains. Made money but nowhere near what I had hoped for.
The two AI's, in their collective wisdom, decided to forego building in Vienna, preferring to build out in the boondocks - probably hoping to make a fortune hauling gunny sacks and spitoons to the hicks out there. Vienna didn't have nearly the industrial potential of Budapest, but there was some money to be made with a distillery and some fruit orchards. Also, there were two warehouses in Vienna. Both supplied woodpulp and bought paper, so all I had to do was put a paper mill nearby and collect 200k/year for my trouble.
I built the straightest possible line Vienna-Bratswhatever-Goya and Budapest. I found through experimentation that maintanience spurs at Buda and Vienna could maintain the trains. I put two frieghts and one express with five cars each on this line pulled by Consolidations. The average express speed stayed at 35 until the heavier cars came along when I had to cut back the cars.
I developed industry-rail around Budapest and Vienna until 1890. Then I bought every oil well in Europe, plopped down a couple of refineries to process the stuff, and started making tracks to Istanbul. Once there, I worked on the PNW getting it to 15mil, and winning the game in 1911.
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This is sort of a similiar setup to how I got Silver - the AI's and goods availability being almost identical BUT what I don't understand is how you built a furniture complex or oil refinery. In all the campaigns there's only one extra building you can erect - usually a brewery. I haven't started to investigate scenarios yet, but there's nothing in the manual. What am I missing?
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wrote: In all the campaigns there's only one extra building you can erect - usually a brewery.
There's a scrollbar in that window
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Hehe, he was definitely missing sth.
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Yeah it's 3pm here so I'm just getting ready to start again! Here's what I've put in my "Getting Gold" notes. Feel free to comment as rudely as you like!!
Campaign Ten: Orient Express Connect Vienna and Constantinople and have an average express speed of over 30 mph plus a Personal N W of $15m in 35 years
This may campaign may be the hardest despite complaints that it’s only a repeat of an RT2 campaign. In fact on Easy it’s easier to connect the two cities than it was in RT2 but getting the speed was a real b.. for me! Anyway you start with four options and two subdivisions. One: Science & Technology (Loco Speed + 25%, or Loads increase 30%). Two: Business & Finance (Stock - $500k gift, or business 25% off fuel & 20% off locos). Three: Industry & Construction (30% off industries – incl hotels etc, or 25% off track and station costs). Four: Arts & Politics (Mergers –50% overheads –20%, hotels etc +15%. Or Influential –75% entry to other countries). Phew what a choice. Especially as you’ve no idea what each brings unless you’ve read this!! 4a is useless for the requirements of this campaign. I only got bronze using 2a and 4b. (Remember I didn’t know what I was getting when I chose them). You’ll get a Zagreb offer – forget it. Later in the game you get the chance to sign up with Serbia – No, no, no! Then to join the club – well I’ve done both and suggest not bothering. On Easy setting you make enough money to expand rapidly. On Hard the economy is way down and it’s difficult to make money and expand, and, if you borrow too much, the interest cripples you financially. So how do you do it? For sanity’s sake I suggest you content yourself with Silver or Bronze because the only way is to run your railroad so stupidly that any sane board would fire you immediately.
Do nothing but start the game then take either 3a or 4b. On 3a keep waiting till the discount appears then pause and buy every profitable business you can find possibly taking a bond as well (use a return of 12% as minimum), keep on buying for the next 20 years or so. With 4b buy at day one looking for about 10% return. When the money is rolling in at $1m+ p a save the game and build your first line – dead straight from Budapest to Novi-Sad. Run a Consolidation with one Express carriage between them – this will not set off possibly for years so you can run a freight only one as well which will earn good money, but – as you haven’t built any service points – you’ll have to stop it before it breaks down. When the Express has finally completed a journey change it to Freight (2 min/4 max is fine). If the Expresses speed is above 30 (mine was 34) from now on you must only run Freight! (I said this was a mad way to run a railway) If below 30 go back to your save and start again! Add service points and connect to Vienna and Belgrade (you can do this from north of the river with a big station). If the AI is in Vienna don’t connect to it but make sure you put in a large station or it won’t get recognised. Run one freight between each station and one Vienna-Budapest. Stop buying Industry with about 10 years to go and let your money roll in. Buy entry to the Ottoman Empire and build west along the bottom of the map (I did it without any bonds) until I could turn north up the valley to Skopje. Freight routes between each village and back to Istanbul are real profitable. I then took bonds to buy into Serbia and make the connection to Belgrade. I had enough money to repay all the bonds (but maybe buying Industries would be better) and increase Company dividends to $1m and now sit back and pray your P N W rises to $15m. When it doesn’t cry and try again. There are other connection options and a system for running Expresses using legs for Services but I found the forgoing the easiest – others will disagree!
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Well I played it again and found the scrollbar - I'm mortified that it's taken me so long - and that I had to have it pointed out of course if I played when sober it does help.
Anyway I'm now on Rhodes and thegents ideas dont seem to work - ie the start seems identical. Dont want to clutter this thread up with irrelevancies so have opened a new one. Please go and put as much assistance in as you did here!!
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This is how I got gold on hard.
I picked industri and waited 2 months. then bought a brewery where there where allot of grain frields. This start will make you 300-400K a year.
then I connected vienna with gabor, and worked my way to Zargrab. Got the quest for the monks. I did almost broke my company getting there fast. They told me to go to romania.
Bought the right and made a track from a major river town with meat to the city and quickly got the power train.
I was now 6 years into the game and the rest was a walkover.
I keept building industry but now I could also build tracks and did not have to bother with express speed. I started with 40 mph and finished with 34.
Never run express until you have the quest train.
The industri profile is very good in the beginning... it will make if the for the income on express that I did not run.
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At the beginnning of the orient express campaige you have to pick what you invested in.
there is:
science and technology
industry and construction
and a few others
science and technology gives you faster trains.
industry and construction gives you the option of industry or constuction, i picked industry and i could buy buildings for cheaped (i think it was 30%)
does anyone know what the other ones give you?
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science and tech: faster trains or more powerful hauling
industry and construction: choose between cheaper industry or cheaper construction costs for train-related items
art/politics: huge reduction in territory rights costs. I forget the other option here.
I also forget the 4th set of choices.
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the 4th option is business and finance, you can pick stocks and bonds or new busines and speculation. stocks and bonds give you $500k, business and speculation gives you 25% cheaper fuel costs and 20% cheaper locomotive cost
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Choosing the stocks and bonds option gives you, in addition to the 500K, a AAA credit rating.
Recently, I played a game with these options. I started a company with minimum outside investors, and then waited until I got the 500K and increased credit. At that point I took out 5 bonds, and bought all the outstanding stock. All this ended giving me 100% ownership, and 2200K to play with.
My credit rating went down the tubes (F) and I didn't want to issue stock so it took 2-3 years to get my credit back, but that still gave me plenty of time to build up my company enough to win at hard.
As a result of 100% ownership, the PNW goal was in the bag. Connecting the cities isn't a problem, and the average speed requirement can easily be met by building a relatively straight line Budapest-Vienna, placing maint spurs at both ends, and running nonstop express between the two.
Have never dealt with the monks, and haven't a clue what happens there.
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My strategy for Orient Express :
I've chosen train speed +25%
At the beginning, I only build a small statiob in Vienna, and wait for the AI company to be created. The best is when both companies are near each other. In this case, I connect them to each other, then I connect AI's company to the largest cities around them. No train, just track. The return on investment is much hicher (and secure) if the AI use your track than if you use your own.
Another consequence is that AI's companies won't die, and they may even become florissant. The more flourishing they are, the more they'll use your track, the more you earn. I suggest you to organize the track as such :
----- : your track
=== : AI's track
S : station
S S S
| | |
| | |
S -------- S ======= S ======= S ======== ...
| | |
| | |
S S S
Never stop AI's development, it would threaten your own development.
Once your income is sufficient, just achieve your goal. Well, for the train speed, that's not a problem, you just have to build only trains when you think you have finished the track between Vienna and Istanbul.
Personnally, I build (and used) a track between Vienna and Bratislava. It didn't produce any significant income, but it was much more harder to achieve the 30 mph goal. I had to fulfill the Jules Verne quest for it. Next time I play this scenario, no train before victory !
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How to easily meet the minimum speed requirement, and make money to boot:
1 - Build a straight track Vienna-Bratswhatever-Goya. Connect Brats by using a large station on the right side of the river. This lets you keep the line straighter.
2 - Connect Goya-Budapest. It's OK to skirt a bit around the hills south of Buda.
3 - Build maintance spurs at Buda and Vienna.
4 - Consist a four car express train pulled by Consolidation. Set routing as follows:
Vienna-Budapest-Buda Maint-Budapest-Vienna-Vienna Maint-Vienna.
In my game, this train averaged 35 MPH from the gitgo. I had a couple of local frieghts on the same track, so I gave the express priority. This way, you don't have to futz around building a special track for one train at the end of the game, or whatever. This train made money from beginning to end. It doesn't hurt to double track the stations at Vienna-Budapest and ditto the main yards.
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Dont know how you did that because that was what I did on several tries and I never got above 23mph - the only way that worked for me was using the Buda - Novi Sad line - and only once in case there was slowing caused by goods trains which you can hardly keep a close watch on with all the other line to build.
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Went back and started a new OE campaign to see if I could duplicate. No problem. 35MPH
Went back again to double check. Set up one express only 4 car train pulled by Consolidation nonstop
Budapest-Vienna-Maint-Vienna-Budapest-Maint-Budapest. This train had priority.
Setup two frieght only locals Vienna-Brats-Goyr-Buda. Stations and maint facilities were double tracked.
After 10 years, average express speed was 40MPH.
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This is really weird - unless you've taken the option with train speed or pulling heavier loads. I must have had ten tries without getting above 23 - you are on Hard I take it although I cant see that would make any difference.
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No-I'm on hard (which shouldn't make a difference) and have taken the finance option.
I know you've covered this already, but here's a checklist.
1 Your express train is powered by Consolidation, is pulling four cars of either express only or any cargo. This train has priority, runs nonstop Vienna-Budapest, unloads, goes to maint spur, returns to Buda, loads and goes nonstop to Vienna, unloads, goes to maint spur, returns and loads.
2 All other trains have consists FREIGHT ONLY.
3 Track at stations and maint yards is doubled
If you're doing all the above, and aren't trying to climb the highest mountain, then I dunno.
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Can anyone provide a list of what advantage each of the choices at the beginning of this scenario gives you? I don't have the editor installed.
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Science and Tech:
A) Improved engine speed +25% (Seems a good choice considering the gold goal)
B) Improved engine pulling power +30%
Business and Finance:
A) Better credit rating +5 & extra cash +500K.
B) Cheaper engines -20% & fuel cost -25 (levels, not percent).
Industry and Construction:
A) Buy/Build industries -30%
B) Build stations -20% & build track -20%
Art & Politics:
A) Merger premium -50%, overhead cost -20% & restaurant, tavern & hotel revenue +15%
B) Territory access cost -75%
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I didn't do anything too special to get gold on hard with this scenario. If you run spur lines at every city, maintaining 30 mph with consolidations is easy! A little trick is to carry one or two loads less on the runs that go up the hills! Then you can use Shays to carry all of the freight.. Use Shays loaded to the gills (5 or 6 loads per) to carry freight, and have them lower priority.
If you've selected industry at this point, just make buckets of money. You can't go wrong with 30% off - even if you buy already established industries, you will still get 15% return because of the discount. 15% year over year is MORE than enough to get $8-10M/year profits. As long as you never sit on cash and always buy, buy, buy!
The real key for the average speed is to have maintenance spur lines, and high priority express trains that NEVER have too much cargo (2 loads MAX), and never more than one express train between two cities. If you do that, it's almost impossible to have less than 30 MPH.
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This scenario's utterly driving me up the wall for two weeks now, I definitely could use some advice.
Before anyone asks: yes, I've searched the forums and I've read all other threads on this topic but none proved helpful to me. Reason being they're about meeting the avg. speed requirement which isn't my problem, simply making a decent profit's proving to be the real challenge
To summarize: express works fine - it's actually the best money-maker I've discovered thusfar - but come 1900 it's lost on me because of the wagon size increase. At that point I either have to forsake the avg. speed requirement, as none of the available locos can ferry more than 2-3 cars - caboose included - at decent speed, or I have to abandon express income alltogether.
Industry on the other hand just doesn't make me enough profit until (too) late in the scenario. Sure, grain/produce/alcohol is quite abundant in Austria-Hungary but the profit margins on those are extremely low as well. Other industries either require huge investments (often killing my income through interests alone) or simply aren't possible due to lack of resources...
A little aside: I'm also having trouble connecting to Zagreb (to get the Orca) because - one or two times notwithstanding - a competitor always grabs it early on. Not that big a problem as such, except that taking over their company and hooking up to their (former) rail is apparently NOT considered a valid connection to Zagreb??? Not to mention that it can take a loooong time for them to get liquidated, and merging with their company before that happens tends to kill my own (skyhigh interests)
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Forget Zagreb. I never bothered with that nonsense when I played the scenario. I used a mix of industry and rails to start generating profit. I only had active rails and industry in the northwest corner of the map before I had enough profits to burn rails all the way to Istanbul.
The real key to any map is getting your interest payments under control. Don't take out a loan unless you know you can make more money than you're paying in interest. If you have to take out 2 loans to finance a connection to another city, you've borrowed too much, or you are connecting to a city thats too far away. Build a network of rails all connecting cities that are close; connecting 4 or
Orient Express
Re: Orient Express
Couldn't see that this has been talked about, wondering what's going on since it seems like an event isn't firing and I'm wondering if it's 1.06 related. Wanted to try to get the Orca, plonked down a station in Vienna in Jan 1881 (and yes it said connected), but in May when the event is supposed to fire asking me to go to Zagreb nothing happens.
One clue, May have something to do with me previously opening the editor? Not sure if I unpaused it or something. But come June when I went to open the editor and see what's going on it doesn't give me the warning where I select okay to go into editor mode. What's worse, I exit the game, start again, go to load a Campaign and choose After 09, which should then start me a fresh Orient Express, and the same thing happens. And I get no movie...
Guess I could try starting a new campaign and skip right to OE...
Anybody want to take a crack at explaining this?
Edit: never mind. I was misled by the strategy described above of simply putting a station in Vienna to trigger the quest. It seems that station needs to be connected to another to satisfy the condition. So, did that, got lucky with seed and was able to be profitable running south out of Vienna. Industry was profitable, too. Went for engine speed, got the Orca and finally started regular pass service. Ave speed was 60 so I started using trains of mixed pass/freight. Then cars got heavier and I had to reduce from 5 to 3 cars, but still made enough money. Finished in 1901 with ave express speed of 53mph.
One clue, May have something to do with me previously opening the editor? Not sure if I unpaused it or something. But come June when I went to open the editor and see what's going on it doesn't give me the warning where I select okay to go into editor mode. What's worse, I exit the game, start again, go to load a Campaign and choose After 09, which should then start me a fresh Orient Express, and the same thing happens. And I get no movie...
Guess I could try starting a new campaign and skip right to OE...Anybody want to take a crack at explaining this?
Edit: never mind. I was misled by the strategy described above of simply putting a station in Vienna to trigger the quest. It seems that station needs to be connected to another to satisfy the condition. So, did that, got lucky with seed and was able to be profitable running south out of Vienna. Industry was profitable, too. Went for engine speed, got the Orca and finally started regular pass service. Ave speed was 60 so I started using trains of mixed pass/freight. Then cars got heavier and I had to reduce from 5 to 3 cars, but still made enough money. Finished in 1901 with ave express speed of 53mph.
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Ghostier
Re: Orient Express
Hi,
Well this map is 1 of the few maps that give the expert players a headache lol.
So even after reading this guide here: http://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/534361-railr ... faqs/49084
Which explains a lot of the details in an order that can be followed quite directly there was 1 thing I needed extra clarrification on so as to get gold before 1900(yes, I am trying for the absurd, just to see if I can get it)
Now I can get the trainspeeds to 35-38mph quite consistantly with a single express car going downhill, with the ctrl clicking maintenance jobs to be cancelled while the train is going downhill. (I tried building special maintenance lines but for before 1900 gold these extra expenses will add up, and I don't plan to restart the map instead of 20 times 1000 times to get a seed of industries that will compensate for the loss of income effeciency.
What I want to make sure of is that I get the Orca. Only I prefer to play the industrial setting and this creates a bit of a crux. you can take as long as you want before getting the meat to Chisinau. Though I'd suggest doing it before 1890, so as to actually start running trains, but getting the message for connecting to Zagreb requires a bit of planning, as I've been noticing it has something to do with having a station(I believe both medium stations and large stations work) in Vienna as the person before me has already pointed out, and a connection(It would seem to another station of your own.(I even tried connecting a normal size station to a small station with the maintenance sheds planned for inbetween, might as well try for less than 200k expenses, hehe, but didn't work) I'll need someone to confirm this, as I also tried cutting costs by connecting to 1 of the AI's terminals, but it bounced on this 1(admittedly I didn't build any trains, so that could've also been the issue).
The timing of the message is may 1881, you start the game at jan 1880. So second question is by what date exactly do you have to have this track in place.
So the questions again:
Your station in Vienna, needs to connect up to another station of your own in another town?
The date's this all has to be done by?
If you have to build a train as well?(cheapest is 30k at this point in the game)
Thnx for your help in advance,
Regards,
Ghostier
Well this map is 1 of the few maps that give the expert players a headache lol.
So even after reading this guide here: http://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/534361-railr ... faqs/49084
Which explains a lot of the details in an order that can be followed quite directly there was 1 thing I needed extra clarrification on so as to get gold before 1900(yes, I am trying for the absurd, just to see if I can get it)
Now I can get the trainspeeds to 35-38mph quite consistantly with a single express car going downhill, with the ctrl clicking maintenance jobs to be cancelled while the train is going downhill. (I tried building special maintenance lines but for before 1900 gold these extra expenses will add up, and I don't plan to restart the map instead of 20 times 1000 times to get a seed of industries that will compensate for the loss of income effeciency.
What I want to make sure of is that I get the Orca. Only I prefer to play the industrial setting and this creates a bit of a crux. you can take as long as you want before getting the meat to Chisinau. Though I'd suggest doing it before 1890, so as to actually start running trains, but getting the message for connecting to Zagreb requires a bit of planning, as I've been noticing it has something to do with having a station(I believe both medium stations and large stations work) in Vienna as the person before me has already pointed out, and a connection(It would seem to another station of your own.(I even tried connecting a normal size station to a small station with the maintenance sheds planned for inbetween, might as well try for less than 200k expenses, hehe, but didn't work) I'll need someone to confirm this, as I also tried cutting costs by connecting to 1 of the AI's terminals, but it bounced on this 1(admittedly I didn't build any trains, so that could've also been the issue).
The timing of the message is may 1881, you start the game at jan 1880. So second question is by what date exactly do you have to have this track in place.
So the questions again:
Your station in Vienna, needs to connect up to another station of your own in another town?
The date's this all has to be done by?
If you have to build a train as well?(cheapest is 30k at this point in the game)
Thnx for your help in advance,
Regards,
Ghostier
Re: Orient Express
Hey Ghostier!
Yeah, this map is a great challenge, and so some folks here have even taken their own stabs at it with customizations you can find on the maps DL page. As far as I know, you have things right, though you probably don't actually have to start a train running between the Vienna station and whatever other station you connect it to. And I'm not sure if it matters what size stations you use. I'm pretty sure I had a large in Vienna and a medium in Sozembathy (memory), and that was enough to trigger the Orca. Good luck!
Yeah, this map is a great challenge, and so some folks here have even taken their own stabs at it with customizations you can find on the maps DL page. As far as I know, you have things right, though you probably don't actually have to start a train running between the Vienna station and whatever other station you connect it to. And I'm not sure if it matters what size stations you use. I'm pretty sure I had a large in Vienna and a medium in Sozembathy (memory), and that was enough to trigger the Orca. Good luck!
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Ghostier
Re: Orient Express
Ok, just updating the info over the orca so it's exact.
you can build the track and station upto the month before (april)
you need to build both stations yourself.
the second station needs to be in another town.
still testing this concept: (you do not need to build a train or run the goods of a train between the stations to get it to work.)
It might not be necessary but I have yet to play a game in which I do it this way.
earliest I've managed to get the Orca's is 1895 so far, which is early enough for a 1900 finish, going to test if I can manage to get the orca any earlier. But you really need a good industry seed for this.
Also remember that you can transport the meat to Chisinau despite the station selling meat for a higher price than the station supplying it. But watch out for that third load. Try sending 2 loads first and than 2 loads later if the station that your sending from isn't stocking up sufficiently.
you can build the track and station upto the month before (april)
you need to build both stations yourself.
the second station needs to be in another town.
still testing this concept: (you do not need to build a train or run the goods of a train between the stations to get it to work.)
It might not be necessary but I have yet to play a game in which I do it this way.
earliest I've managed to get the Orca's is 1895 so far, which is early enough for a 1900 finish, going to test if I can manage to get the orca any earlier. But you really need a good industry seed for this.
Also remember that you can transport the meat to Chisinau despite the station selling meat for a higher price than the station supplying it. But watch out for that third load. Try sending 2 loads first and than 2 loads later if the station that your sending from isn't stocking up sufficiently.
Re: Orient Express
This scenario is a great challenge, as there are so many different ways to play it 
Basically, you have to adjust your strategy depending on what bonus you choose.
First, I'd like to clarify the somewhat misleading condition of "connecting" Vienna and Istanbul - from what I have experienced, just making the connection is NOT enough - you have to OWN all the track.
Now, I'd just like to add a possible tactic that has been scorned upon in the above discussion - offering support to the Serbs. At best this gives you a zero-sum game, so what is the reason this event exists, other than as a diversion of focus or trap? Well, what's in Serbia that (most of the time) is nowhere else on the map for quite some time? Yup, you guessed it - the Steel Mill. Grabbing it at the first possible moment - or waiting two months for better credit rating - will cost you a total of 3.2 mil and will give a gross profit of 500-700K that same year, and keep rising... Connecting to the Tool & Die you also purchase in Novi Sad will give you net profits of ~1.5 mil/year within a few years time. Must make sure the mill is well suplied of course.
Basically, you have to adjust your strategy depending on what bonus you choose.
First, I'd like to clarify the somewhat misleading condition of "connecting" Vienna and Istanbul - from what I have experienced, just making the connection is NOT enough - you have to OWN all the track.
Now, I'd just like to add a possible tactic that has been scorned upon in the above discussion - offering support to the Serbs. At best this gives you a zero-sum game, so what is the reason this event exists, other than as a diversion of focus or trap? Well, what's in Serbia that (most of the time) is nowhere else on the map for quite some time? Yup, you guessed it - the Steel Mill. Grabbing it at the first possible moment - or waiting two months for better credit rating - will cost you a total of 3.2 mil and will give a gross profit of 500-700K that same year, and keep rising... Connecting to the Tool & Die you also purchase in Novi Sad will give you net profits of ~1.5 mil/year within a few years time. Must make sure the mill is well suplied of course.
Re: Orient Express
I'm wondering why everyone isn't choosing the banking option ( 500k + AAA ) because with it you can borrow 10 million right at the start. I've never played an RT game before so we'll see what happens in my first game, but I've got 2 distilleries in Vienna at 850k each with 6 orchards in the next town over which should by themselves cover over 60-70% of my annual interest. Rates of return are so high at the start before the raw materials get in.
Re: Orient Express
Here is my January 1882 on this scenario with the finance bonus. Anyone want to comment? It looks like I'll easily get gold for the scenario, but I've never played before so I'm sure I don't know what I'm talking about.
1) 30+ mph express average will be no problem, I'm averaging 33mph on my west track hitting 4 stations.
2) I hooked up the 2 AIs for that misc income :)
3) I can start refinancing soon from 11+% interest down to 6 or 7
4) It looks to me like the best strategy is to buy industry cheap and then hook them up followed by express trains once you have a lot of cities connected. Clearly to me the finance bonus is far superior in this scenario because of this. But let me know if I'm wrong and I'll finish this another time.
[spoiler] doesn't work, is there a way to hide images?
1) 30+ mph express average will be no problem, I'm averaging 33mph on my west track hitting 4 stations.
2) I hooked up the 2 AIs for that misc income :)
3) I can start refinancing soon from 11+% interest down to 6 or 7
4) It looks to me like the best strategy is to buy industry cheap and then hook them up followed by express trains once you have a lot of cities connected. Clearly to me the finance bonus is far superior in this scenario because of this. But let me know if I'm wrong and I'll finish this another time.
[spoiler] doesn't work, is there a way to hide images?
Last edited by grashopa on Thu Dec 06, 2012 10:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Orient Express
Spoiler? That option isn't available here.grashopa wrote:
[spoiler] doesn't work, is there a way to hide images?
Why would you post images then want to hide them?
Hawk
Re: Orient Express
On for example the civilization forums it is courtesy to put images in spoiler tags so if there are a lot of images in a thread you can open close the spoiler tags and only show the ones you want to see.
Re: Orient Express
Oh! I know what you're talking about. That isn't available here.
Never really saw a need for it.
Never really saw a need for it.
Hawk
Re: Orient Express
Hmm. Might try it. Can't remember what option I took at the start last time I played Orient Express. I got Gold anyway (on the hardest setting) but it's always fun to try new things.grashopa wrote:I'm wondering why everyone isn't choosing the banking option ( 500k + AAA ) because with it you can borrow 10 million right at the start. I've never played an RT game before so we'll see what happens in my first game, but I've got 2 distilleries in Vienna at 850k each with 6 orchards in the next town over which should by themselves cover over 60-70% of my annual interest. Rates of return are so high at the start before the raw materials get in.
Getting the express average is easy, but once you have a network going there's very good money in freight too. Just don't mix them on the same trains. I usually don't let AI trains onto my lines as I find them more trouble than they are worth. I'll sometimes help an AI with a connection for their own line though, just to get things pumping.
Complete express car and caboose packs - Custom double tankers (Alternative F era) - Pennsy H3 Consolidation
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Слава Україні! Героям слава! Re: Orient Express
Yeah - I also noticed if you connect to a town near them they are more likely to expand their own line to meet you. Express makes a lot of money once you get a lot of cities connected though without AI help it may not be the best use of your cash.I'll sometimes help an AI with a connection for their own line though, just to get things pumping.
I finished in 1902 - 8 years later than I should of because I accidentally caused my main express route to slow down and ended up dropping from a 32 avg to 28 without noticing. Thankfully we came out of the depression at the same time my avg hit 30 so I had the 15m for the gold. With the finance perk you hit 1.6m in income from the start - I just built a couple lumber mills after that and that was all I needed.
The other benefit to the finance perk is that you can start with 30% ownership of your company instead of 15 by only taking 400k from investors and just borrow off your AAA from the start. That saves a lot of money as you can do the stock buybacks much earlier as well. In real life whoever can borrow the most money wins just like in the game :)
Re: Orient Express
Ok, I'm gonna try this map again tonight just for fun. 
Haven't played for a while anyway (been busy with other stuff).
Haven't played for a while anyway (been busy with other stuff).
Complete express car and caboose packs - Custom double tankers (Alternative F era) - Pennsy H3 Consolidation
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Слава Україні! Героям слава! Re: Orient Express
Ack I just started playing another scenario, and it just isn't as fun starting out like a Bain capital throwing 10 million around picking up businesses left and right :) Guess I'll have to learn how to really play now.
Re: Orient Express
Ok, I tried it on Hard. It works. Got Istanbul-Vienna hooked up in Sept 1908, with all steam, double track everywhere, 100% ownership of the company and a PNW up around $60 mil. Certainly kicks the game off to a good start. I was just messing around and not really trying that hard, and still romped it in.
I didn't max out debt to start with. Went for about $7 mill, then stopped when the interest rate started looking dodgey. If you're playing on Hard apparently you don't get an AAA rating. It only gave me AA, so the interest went up pretty steeply once I borrowed heavily.
Since I was messing around I wanted to see how heavily I could load things up and still get away with it. I found I could run the priority express Stirlings with a 6 car max load, plus a few Consolidations running mixed cargo on some of the less important runs, and still stay above the 30 mph express speed average. It dipped to 30 at one point (when I couldn't replace old Stirlings with more Stirlings and had to get more Consolidations for express), so I cut the remaining Stirlings back to four cars until the Atlantic became available, then loaded those up. I ran the Atlantics with 6 express + dining car + caboose and the average speed started climbing again. Ended up at 31 in January 1914.
Point is that there should be no need to worry about the speed requirement. I'm not sure why some guys seem to have difficulty with it. I was running at least one freight train and one express train on most runs, with two of each on the more lucrative runs, so you don't need to skimp on loads and only run express on "ideal" runs that don't really earn you much. Just load them suckers up and run 'em normally.
Oh and I went a bit different on the routes this time. Went from Vienna straight down to Zagreb (no intermediate stops at all), the Zagreb to Split (better earner than you might think). Then hooked up Vienna to Bratislava and over to Budapest, then laid track north-east into the boonies to bring in extra coal for the steel mill I had at Bratislava. Added a run over to Arad ready for the Istanbul hook-up later.
After that I bought into Romania and did the basic runs along there, then bought into Ottoman and Bulgaria on account of a tasty patch of cheap oil wells and a good demand for diesel there. Went round the coast from Constanta straight to some town starting with B (skipped the one in the middle) then over to Eli-whatever to the oil refinery, which was already connected to Istanbul. Then I just raked in silly amounts of cash until I had nine or so million, and then bored a tunnel straight through from Arad to that Cr-something town west of Bucharest (can't be bothered looking it up right now).
End of game.
I didn't max out debt to start with. Went for about $7 mill, then stopped when the interest rate started looking dodgey. If you're playing on Hard apparently you don't get an AAA rating. It only gave me AA, so the interest went up pretty steeply once I borrowed heavily.
Since I was messing around I wanted to see how heavily I could load things up and still get away with it. I found I could run the priority express Stirlings with a 6 car max load, plus a few Consolidations running mixed cargo on some of the less important runs, and still stay above the 30 mph express speed average. It dipped to 30 at one point (when I couldn't replace old Stirlings with more Stirlings and had to get more Consolidations for express), so I cut the remaining Stirlings back to four cars until the Atlantic became available, then loaded those up. I ran the Atlantics with 6 express + dining car + caboose and the average speed started climbing again. Ended up at 31 in January 1914.
Point is that there should be no need to worry about the speed requirement. I'm not sure why some guys seem to have difficulty with it. I was running at least one freight train and one express train on most runs, with two of each on the more lucrative runs, so you don't need to skimp on loads and only run express on "ideal" runs that don't really earn you much. Just load them suckers up and run 'em normally.
Oh and I went a bit different on the routes this time. Went from Vienna straight down to Zagreb (no intermediate stops at all), the Zagreb to Split (better earner than you might think). Then hooked up Vienna to Bratislava and over to Budapest, then laid track north-east into the boonies to bring in extra coal for the steel mill I had at Bratislava. Added a run over to Arad ready for the Istanbul hook-up later.
After that I bought into Romania and did the basic runs along there, then bought into Ottoman and Bulgaria on account of a tasty patch of cheap oil wells and a good demand for diesel there. Went round the coast from Constanta straight to some town starting with B (skipped the one in the middle) then over to Eli-whatever to the oil refinery, which was already connected to Istanbul. Then I just raked in silly amounts of cash until I had nine or so million, and then bored a tunnel straight through from Arad to that Cr-something town west of Bucharest (can't be bothered looking it up right now).
End of game.
Complete express car and caboose packs - Custom double tankers (Alternative F era) - Pennsy H3 Consolidation
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Слава Україні! Героям слава! Re: Orient Express
Yeah thats what I did as well.Then I just raked in silly amounts of cash until I had nine or so million, and then bored a tunnel straight through from Arad to that Cr-something town west of Bucharest (can't be bothered looking it up right now).
I had the same routes except I made intermediate stops between Vienna and Zagreb ( produce, paper mill, lumber mill/furniture ). I also thought you had to in order to get the number of passengers up...Oh and I went a bit different on the routes this time. Went from Vienna straight down to Zagreb (no intermediate stops at all), the Zagreb to Split (better earner than you might think). Then hooked up Vienna to Bratislava and over to Budapest, then laid track north-east into the boonies to bring in extra coal for the steel mill I had at Bratislava. Added a run over to Arad ready for the Istanbul hook-up later.
Do passengers take stage coach or something to Zagreb / Vienna if you don't hook up intermediate cities? Or if you do hook them up but only run your express train from Vienna to Zagreb? I for example had one express train from Vienna to Zagreb which stopped at all intermediate cities. Wondering how many trains I should have and what stations they should stop at. Assuming Vienna to Zagreb with intermediate connections and Vienna to Bratislava/Bucharest how many trains did you run and between which cities?
EDIT - I had 5 3 freight and 2 express (Vienna Zagred and Vienna Bucharest) and I think I built a freight and express for every 3 cities I added.
Re: Orient Express
This scenario doesn't care about the number of passengers hauled, and I've never had much useful traffic out of the small towns so I skipped them this time. Main thing was that due to the industry setup on this particular play, I wanted direct traffic between Zagreb and Bratislava and Vienna. That was where the money was this time around.
Can't remember all the trains offhand, but I played it until 1914 just for the hell of it. Haven't played since, so that is still in autosave if you want to take a look.
Can't remember all the trains offhand, but I played it until 1914 just for the hell of it. Haven't played since, so that is still in autosave if you want to take a look.
Complete express car and caboose packs - Custom double tankers (Alternative F era) - Pennsy H3 Consolidation
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Слава Україні! Героям слава! Re: Orient Express
Played this again last night, just to try a few things out on the original map after playing EPH's Express D'Orient. I took the finance/stocks and bonds option for the good initial credit rating, so engines were just the basic models with no tweaks.
I found out that it's possible to maintain an express average of 34 mph right through until game end, by only using Consolidations hauling a mixed consist of 6 cars plus caboose. This is good, because it means fewer trains hauling more cargo each, and the most profitable cargo.
The trick is to only allow mixed consist on long runs. Short hops are run freight only. If you allow a Consolidation to get up to speed, it actually makes a very decent express loco. Stirlings are only fast if the grade is a perfect 0 everywhere. They're so gutless that even slight imperfections will really knock them back. Even with a perfect 0 grade everywhere, you have to keep them lightly loaded, which cuts profits.
Consolidations have much more grunt. They just need longer to wind up. On a long run like Zagreb > Pecs, where the terrain is very good but not absolutely perfect everywhere, a Consolidation hauling 6 freight plus caboose will be catching up to a Stirling hauling 5 express plus caboose by the time they get near to Pecs. That's right. It can leave later, with slower acceleration, and still match the Stirling on station to station times even while hauling a heavier load.
ETA: Oh and of course, any train running mixed consist must have a priority setting, and if there's any chance of it meeting another one they must be on double track, and they are only run on good terrain that will let them reach top speed.
It's also a good idea to run freight only until you have several trains on good long runs. That way, if one of them breaks down it wont totally ruin your express speed for that year.
I found out that it's possible to maintain an express average of 34 mph right through until game end, by only using Consolidations hauling a mixed consist of 6 cars plus caboose. This is good, because it means fewer trains hauling more cargo each, and the most profitable cargo.
The trick is to only allow mixed consist on long runs. Short hops are run freight only. If you allow a Consolidation to get up to speed, it actually makes a very decent express loco. Stirlings are only fast if the grade is a perfect 0 everywhere. They're so gutless that even slight imperfections will really knock them back. Even with a perfect 0 grade everywhere, you have to keep them lightly loaded, which cuts profits.
Consolidations have much more grunt. They just need longer to wind up. On a long run like Zagreb > Pecs, where the terrain is very good but not absolutely perfect everywhere, a Consolidation hauling 6 freight plus caboose will be catching up to a Stirling hauling 5 express plus caboose by the time they get near to Pecs. That's right. It can leave later, with slower acceleration, and still match the Stirling on station to station times even while hauling a heavier load.
ETA: Oh and of course, any train running mixed consist must have a priority setting, and if there's any chance of it meeting another one they must be on double track, and they are only run on good terrain that will let them reach top speed.
It's also a good idea to run freight only until you have several trains on good long runs. That way, if one of them breaks down it wont totally ruin your express speed for that year.
Complete express car and caboose packs - Custom double tankers (Alternative F era) - Pennsy H3 Consolidation
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Слава Україні! Героям слава! Re: Orient Express
And while I think of it 
to get the required PNW for this scenario, and assuming your company is run reasonably well, you will need at least 30% ownership to get the $15 million PNW.
IF you are taking the finance/bonds option at the start of the game, which is what I would recommend for anyone who has trouble winning this scenario, getting the required percentage of ownership is easy. When the scenario starts, put in your 100k but only take 500k from other investors. This will start your company with only 10,000 shares instead of the default 20,000. You will own 2,000 of them, so straight away you have 20% ownership.
Do not buy or build anything now. Don't spend a cent. Just scout the map for the most lucrative industry opportunities, bearing in mind that you want to get industries that will tie into a nice, cohesive network easily.
After a month or so, you will get the excellent credit rating and another 500k in cash. This is when you start buying and building stuff. Take out a lot of bonds (****** the torpedoes, full steam ahead) but don't go over 12% interest rate.
If you purchase and build sensibly, your company should get off to a good start. This means share prices will be going up almost from the start, and your purchasing power will go up too. Keep a close eye on it, and buy shares on margin as early as you can. At this stage of the game, buying an extra 1,000 shares will only put you in the red to an amount that your basic wage can cover easily. IOW, your debt will decrease with time even if you do not pay any dividend, because the interest on your personal debt is less than your wages. This is a very safe position to be in, and means you have 30% ownership in the first year.
You can, if you like, try to buy 2,000 shares before the first split. That will incur interest that wont quite be covered by your basic first year wage but, should soon be made by up following years. IOW, it's still pretty safe as long as share prices are rising. If doing this, I'd keep enough company cash to buy back some shares if you get hit with a margin call (it's very unlikely to happen).
Short version: you can easily get your PNW goal, even without paying any dividends at all for the entire game, and without having any pesonal debt after the first few years, and without having to spend company cash on share buybacks.
to get the required PNW for this scenario, and assuming your company is run reasonably well, you will need at least 30% ownership to get the $15 million PNW.IF you are taking the finance/bonds option at the start of the game, which is what I would recommend for anyone who has trouble winning this scenario, getting the required percentage of ownership is easy. When the scenario starts, put in your 100k but only take 500k from other investors. This will start your company with only 10,000 shares instead of the default 20,000. You will own 2,000 of them, so straight away you have 20% ownership.
Do not buy or build anything now. Don't spend a cent. Just scout the map for the most lucrative industry opportunities, bearing in mind that you want to get industries that will tie into a nice, cohesive network easily.
After a month or so, you will get the excellent credit rating and another 500k in cash. This is when you start buying and building stuff. Take out a lot of bonds (****** the torpedoes, full steam ahead) but don't go over 12% interest rate.
If you purchase and build sensibly, your company should get off to a good start. This means share prices will be going up almost from the start, and your purchasing power will go up too. Keep a close eye on it, and buy shares on margin as early as you can. At this stage of the game, buying an extra 1,000 shares will only put you in the red to an amount that your basic wage can cover easily. IOW, your debt will decrease with time even if you do not pay any dividend, because the interest on your personal debt is less than your wages. This is a very safe position to be in, and means you have 30% ownership in the first year.
You can, if you like, try to buy 2,000 shares before the first split. That will incur interest that wont quite be covered by your basic first year wage but, should soon be made by up following years. IOW, it's still pretty safe as long as share prices are rising. If doing this, I'd keep enough company cash to buy back some shares if you get hit with a margin call (it's very unlikely to happen).
Short version: you can easily get your PNW goal, even without paying any dividends at all for the entire game, and without having any pesonal debt after the first few years, and without having to spend company cash on share buybacks.
Complete express car and caboose packs - Custom double tankers (Alternative F era) - Pennsy H3 Consolidation
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