A comment on my strategic thoughts this time round:
Once again there are two "common" seed types.*** I will identify Seed #1 as having a Textile Mill in Orange. Seed #2 doesn't have a Textile Mill in Orange, but has one in Warwick instead. With my personal play restriction of only building stations in the cities, this means that the Wool stream is a lot more accessible with Seed #1 (in the rivers that are next to towns). Therefore Seed #2 takes longer to complete, for example my last play was 14 years compared to 9 for Seed #1. I'm focusing on the Wool haulage that will generate revenue from the beginning of the game. If I need to make a profit with those loads that's better than deciding what hauls count as "legitimate" IMO. I doubt anybody played this map without re-hauling Wool.
Seed #1:
There's easy money available in the short term via Wool haulage initially from Dubbo to Orange, then when finances permit extending up to Carinda. One needs to plan for the price of Wool at Orange to drop as a huge stack builds. There is the option to try to shoot straight over to Sydney, but connecting to Griffin (remember to stay on the flat ground for cheaper track costs) seems easier. The obvious idea is to try to maximize what you can get from Wool haulage without ending up with too many useless engines. By the time Griffin is overwhelmed, likely some upstart Textile Mills have sprung up somewhere in the flat western plain. Don't worry, these are good, helping prevent price stagnation. Revenue from Wool will still fall, but it wont be too hard to keep up the count of loads hauled and you'll have plenty of loads of Clothing to play with. I tended to have more success going for cheaper connections to get hold of Meat and Alcohol, but there's also the possibility to head for Sydney (never connected there in my last play), bridging the range is just a bit expensive and the distances are high enough that normal haulage doesn't pay that well (Wool pays pretty well for awhile).
Seed #2:
This seed is a little trickier in my scenario where I'm only building stations in the cities. There's no great catchment of Wool at any city. However, Cargelligo with an off-center station catches a little Wool. The idea I used was a straight connection (wooden bridge) Wagga Wagga - Weethalle - Cargelligo with a branch just south of Weethalle out to Griffin. Built all large stations. With a U1 engine this is a reliable run for revenue of approx. 200k per year. I took the advertisement offer, and that does have a definite impact on your early game since funds are pretty tight when using this strategy. Took me a lot longer to extend the line (the gov. funds helped), also new Textile Mills were a bit slow to show up. Got one in Orange in 1956. Ended up going to the north for Wool, then connected to Sydney via Canberra (and other small towns) from the southern end of my line in Wagga Wagga.
PNW:
When playing without industries revenue and therefore profits are not as stable. This makes PNW trickier. This was the hardest target. For seed #2 I used most of the pennies for the start but with seed #1 if I played again I would use a little less investor funds so that I can take 15% ownership immediately.
There's many strategies that work on this map. For example if buying industries, careful track laying means it's possible to connect Dubbo to Orange or Cargelligo to Griffin AND have just enough to buy the respective Mill for 750 or 950k at the start of the game. If the Mill is more expensive, start with a Small Station at the mill (most loads are deliveries). This can be a fun play also.
I definitely played differently than I ever did before so that means replayability is good. Happy railroading to all.
*** Edit Jan. 2018: Have done some investigation since. These two types are the ones that happen if you start the game from scratch, then load the map. Good news is that reloading from the Main Menu will enable better "randomness." More info here.
