Poland

[Hawk]

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

Poland - Added in the Coast to Coast Expansion
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I played the Poland scenario from the expansion pack and managed to get Gold on Expert with a few years to spare. It's really slow going at the beginning. I took out a lot of bonds up front and bought mostly industry, but placed a station or two at the larger cities that didn't have any. Also rerouted the trains and micromanaged the three of them at each delivery to maximize profits by shipping to different cities each time. Took the $1 million offer from the German guy, but the economy was really slow for the three years and had to take out bonds to make the connection to Potsdam (and Berlin along the way). Dabbled a bit in the stock market but mostly bought my own company's stock. Kept buying industry when possible and upgraded the original locos with the cheap diesel. Also expanded rails during the Boom times and refinanced bonds down to 5% during the Boom. I almost always go to $9 or $10 mil in bonds when I can get them at 5% but make 15% or more off the investment. Only repaid them late in the game when I was gushing with cash. Actually made most of my profit from industries (>$40 million lifetime). After seeing how unprofitable the railroad was for the first several years, I replayed it with an entirely different strategy.
I took out $10 million in bonds and the first thing I did was retire all three trains and bulldoze the entire rail network (took about $1.5 million to do it), then used the rest to buy industries: a lumber mill, several dairy farms and a dairy processor, and I think a textile mill, as well as a few lucrative grain farms and produce orchards, anything that made (or was going to make) about 15% or more profit. Then started the clock going. After the first month went by, the stock price plunged to $1/share and so I bought like mad until I could buy no more. Everytime my purch. power would allow, I bought more of my company. Didn't even touch the AIs (who went down the tubes real fast). The stock price stayed a $1/share for several years, but when I got enough cash, I paid off the last couple of high percenrtage bonds. Just about the time the economy started to improve, or because of it, the stock price started going up, which gave big boosts to my purch. power and ability to buy even more of the company. Once I had all the stock, I issued more to give the company some cash and bought it up immediatley, all on pause. Refinaced all the bonds to 5% and took out the maximum to put into industries. Upgraded what I had, built furniture factories near the lumber mills, put distilleries and a brewery in groupings of produce and grain respectively and just kept reinvesting in industries. Needless to say, I didn't take the German's offer or the electric track upgrade option. It took at least 10 years to get lifetime company profits in the black, but actually got Gold at least 5 years sooner than with the "traditional" approach.
It could be looked at as a "Robber Baron" tactic, but I didn't know what would happen before I started. I was surprised to see that the value of the track and stations I bulldozed actually counted against company profit to the tune of about $7 million, which is why it took several years to recover. I just saw it as a way to minimize the negative effects of the unprofitable railroad.
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I did almost all of the second except I kept a little of the track and the iron bridges. I ignored the German offer.
Also, note that there is both steel and aluminum in this scenario which will limit the Tool&Die production (2 cargo bug). But doesn't hurt the recycle plants.
What I did was I sold all my stocks, retired the engines, bought 3 industries - 2 recycling plants and a textile mill and used about $700K to just bulldoze tracks and stations. The only remaining lines was between Lodz and Warsaw, but I kept all the steel bridges (just in case). What this does if pummel your companies stock price. Buy stock back later at $3-$4.
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It is easy to make money with trains early on - just not the trains they give you. The maintenance on them is horrendous b/c they are 20+ years old. Junk them. Take out some bonds and electrify all of your track and then buy the best electric. They will make decent money. (though I do suggest buying some industry) On my first try I have gotten to yr 17 (so far - have to sleep ) and have easily gotten the industry and general profit requirements. Only lacking in the Net Wealth. and I have way over half of what is needed.
As for the refusing the offer from the German industrialist, TAKE IT!!!! Its effectively a 7.5% interest double bond. At a time when you have a crapload of bonds at high interest that 1 mil is VERY useful, especially since there is no interest in the first three years. If the 75k ever becomes annoying you can "repay" the bond for the mil to buy into germany.
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Another approach to getting gold on expert:
Kept the existing track and stations, but retired the three trains. Then issued 10 mil in bonds. Used this to first buy industry, and then provide rail service to it. Used mostly class 132 locos because they were cheap, had low maint costs, and were reasonably fast.
Paused, then started out by buying existing milk processing plant in Olszytn, and three nearby dairies. Provided rail service to Warsaw. Next, I bought rights to Ukraine, and extended existing rail service to Rivne om map's border. Nearby were six grain farms, so I bought these and placed brewery in Lutu'sk, Later, upgraded this and added another. This RR line made pretty good money throughout the game. I just kept up finding good industrial opportunities, buying them, then providing rail service. Apart from the Rivne line, rails never made a lot of money, but they did make the industries more valuable. I ended up with two chemical plants, three breweries, an auto plant, aluminum mill, diary processor, tire factory, three dairies, and a bunch of grain farms. All had RR service.
When the Germans offered me what amounted to a 1 mil loan at 7.5%, and no interest for the first three years, I jumped at it. Never did get to Potsdam. When the AI's appeared, I made a point of connecting them together, and then to my network. Just track, no stations, no trains. By the end of the game they were paying me 800+k /year for using my track.
Lifetime profit = 55.8 mil
Industry profit = 79 mil
PNW = 21.8 mil
Finished in 23rd year.

[kingecbert]

I used the "robber baron" strategy. perhaps is the best way to get gold in this scenario.
the last two years i had to manipulate the stock market to get gold medal in time, but we can avoid it when the stock price is 1, 2, 3 or 4 bucks for 1K shares, you can buy stocks like a wall street's wolf.
The original trains are terrible, but i will try this scenario using the traditional approach: using rail network, i think it's way more difficult than using only industry.

[RulerofRails]

I used the "robber baron" strategy. perhaps is the best way to get gold in this scenario.

Depends what you mean, but I think that it is FASTER to get the medal without dozing the original track. What is EASIER overall is a matter of opinion.

I think this scenario has some solid strategy in it and I got the itch to play it again. This time I followed a similar strategy to the last comment in the opening large compilation post. Took out max bonds, invested all of this in industry except I bought one Class 132 (retired all the steamers) for the Lodz-Warsaw-Lublin run just using the existing stations. Built a Steel Mill down in the Czech Republic and two Meat Packing Plants. Bought up the Lumber Mill in Plzen and a few farms. The Steel Mill took awhile to come online, so first year I scarcely made any money (not counting engine retirement costs). Next 3 years I averaged 900k per year, after that things started growing nicely to give a 12 year medal. Had to buy-back around 18% (correction: 50,000 out of 300,000) of the company along the way to keep from margin calls. Early low ROI on CBV means that end of year share price draw-down is a little steeper than I anticipated. Didn't matter, after the medal, at undisturbed market value (no dividend either), PNW was 27M. I have some new ideas to try and maybe the medal is possible in 10 years? I noticed how much money a well supplied Recycling Plant can make, and plan to try to combine this with an early attempt to get an Auto Plant running right at the start of the scenario.

This is for fastest time, a no-industry game may be fun too, but I am pretty certain that some industry investment is fastest strategy here.

[Wolverine@MSU]

Early low ROI on CBV means that end of year share price draw-down is a little steeper than I anticipated.

There are a couple of things you can do here. One is to pause the game at the end of December, set the Dividend to $0, sell all your company shares, unpause the game and let the new year turn. Stock price will probably go way down, whereupon you can buy back more shares than you sold. Sometimes, the AIs (if there are any) will jump on the low stock price and buy them before you get a chance, thus raising the price and making you pay more. The way to avert this is to load the "Autosave"ed game, which reverts to the absolute beginning of the year before AIs have bought any stock. You then have first dibs on the lower stock price. This is especially effective in recessions or depressions, but can also work in normal, and even sometimes prosperity or boom (although see below).

The other strategy, provided you have a reasonable amount of company cash, is to pause the game in late December as above, only this time you raise the Dividend to the maximum amount. Then when the new year rolls over, the stock price usually goes up. This usually works when the economy is in prosperity or boom, but can work in the other economies. At the very worst, your stock price won't fall as much as it otherwise might have, even in recession or depression.

[RulerofRails]

Thanks for the tips! I I have tried the year-end pause trick before especially when seeking a buy-in around depressions. I learned it from some of your other posts. I have also had my company buyback stock or even done a merger or two on pause at the low year-end share price. When things are down to the wire I prefer not to use it, as I feel like I am making the game too easy. Generally, a buy-and-hold is still the most common stock strategy I use. In a scenario such as this (300,000 shares originally outstanding, low ROI, low share price) there is an opportunity to trade early in the game before getting a controlling stake in the company. Here, I engaged in some price fixing. I would set a target price for each year after September and would proceed to sell any shares above that value. I would often re-purchase any shares below a target price (often $5 or so less than I just sold for) in the first few months of the next year. If I make correct projections this should let me follow the climb in CBV with less risk of a margin call, as long as I pick the right target prices to buy and sell at. This strategy only works well to around 50% of share price, after that the market is far too disturbed by your efforts to be worth the fuss. To reach my goal I am after 2/3 to 3/4 ownership. So I look for an opportunity corresponding to guaranteed increased profits, where the increase is going to be enough that it will stabilize prices even though they have been inflated by heavy buying. Still, for the same reason I played on past my miscalculations and the margin call warnings last time, my limitation here is company profits. I needed to reach 7M profit per year while CBV was about 28M to reach that goal, so, as long as I had ownership to equal half stock value once personal debt has been subtracted I will get a medal in normal economies with an un-manipulated share price.

This time I managed Gold in 10 years. I bought immediate access to Ukraine for a rail connection to Ternopil. I started out with 4 Class 132s (retired the steamers) and less industry investment. I left all the original rail intact, once again having Warsaw as a hub with spokes surrounding it and utilizing the majority of the pre-built track. My first year was far better, and I kept slowly expanding rails for the first 5 years. This time I had more of the empire builders strategy and tried to work the existing industries and seeded groupings to my advantage. For example, I built a Brewery in Lutzs'k, buying the surrounding Grain Farms which were cheap at game start. As I expanded I then purposely built some track across my network spokes from Kielce to supply those farms with Fertilizer mid-game. I did get an Auto Plant running this time, but because of a different seeding pattern I thought it more advantageous to do it a few years into the map. I ended up hauling Tires up from Ternopil to the existing Auto Plant at Bialystock (there were two at game start, but the second one disappeared just after I connected there, that was lucky I guess, even with a station placement that should have given the one I wanted an advantage there still would have been competition) which was getting a decent supply of Steel from a Recycling Plant at Grodno. There was a stage when I did some rail expansion, then mid-game I upgraded most of my industries before a final push to the finish riding a wave of rail expansion profits. I connected to the larger AI and then from their Krakow station into the Czech Republic where there are plenty of resources on the map. I never saw Boom Times on the map. Because the medal is tested at year end, while I could definitely improve some things, I doubt I can shave a whole year off this. That last year I put 7M into company profits, to make that up over the previous 9 years would be extremely difficult. If someone manages, my hat is off to them!

Poland 10 years.jpg (104.35 KiB) Viewed 14602 times

I am playing with Mysterie's nice red true-to-life skin for the Class 132 (available on the main site under re-skins). This holds up as a good map for strategy, I thoroughly enjoyed revisiting it.

[low_grade]

Dangit RoR yes I like to think rather highly of my strategic abilities but you keep dashing my ego with results like this!

I've come up with a similar strategy, seems like prices are artificially low before this map begins, making the grain farms/brewery strategy in the Ukraine the most profitable single investment to begin with, along with the Coal Mines there, and even the Produce Farms. I'm also strongly tempted to build a Meat Packer just east of Warsaw...

And yes connect to deliver chemicals to the Fertilizer Factories and fertilizer to the Grain Farms, anything with Fertilizer makes HUGE profits! And rubber/tires/autos following that. But this puts me at maybe a 15 year Gold on Expert, nowhere near 10 years. Though my next try I'll go for rail development more strongly, I just didn't believe there was enough cargo to make rail profitable before industry development.

Also, I'm strongly tempted to convert to electric... the ICE just dominates, and there's a big discount on them which makes them even better. But given the constraints (win in 12-15 years would be nice, 30 million lifetime profit, means maybe 15 million into rail?) I'm not sure taking the $1M hit to get 25% off would be worth it. Yes, 25% off of 15M is way more than $1M, but maybe that $1M is better invested in other things early...

[Gumboots]

I've always found that one of the best starts is over near Gdansk. You have masses of cheap bauxite coming out of 2 warehouses and 2 ports. Enough to run an aluminium mill at full capacity, which means you can also run two tool & dies (one of them upgraded) at full capacity. Since nobody else on the map is making any goods to speak of, this is a good earner. Particularly since the warehouses at Kaliningrad are hungry enough to eat the entire production of the upgraded tool and die. So IMO a short line running Gdansk > Eblag > Kaliningrad should be, if not your first move, certainly a pretty early move.

There's usually an existing tool and die down at Torun too, and that river junction ends up being a good place to capture a large waste stream. Recycling plants are also good in this period, since they are effectively a small aluminium mill and steel mill and plastic factory all rolled into one. Ideal for supplying tool and dies.

[low_grade]

A couple thoughts. Background costs for the first year are just about $1.5M, mostly interest from the massive loans. If we can get steady 25% returns out of the gate (clearing $1M in 1993), we accumulate enough profit by the end of 2002 for gold. Paltry but steady 20% returns means only netting about $500k the first year and building on that, but still by the end of 2007 enough profits should accumulate for the $30M lifetime company profits goal to be met. If I focus on this, I can do it in 15 years or less.

Also, not sure it would make much of a difference, but scrapping the starting 20 year old locos might not be the best idea after all, since it hits company profits. Might make the difference in the long run of setting the gold back a year by taking $780k in profits off the top (also even with the 20% retuns model you'll be netting about $6M your final year, so $780k is only a month and a half you'd be set back.) But if instead they can be kept, run at least not at a loss, and if none of them crashes, it's probably marginally a better idea to keep them.

And, ran a few simulations, recycling plants are cheap to build, but I tried plonking a couple at ideal river locations and they only got to 20% returns after 3 years. Maybe better with rail support, or stronger demand for steel/aluminum, but I suspect they would only get in the way of an attempt at a 10 year gold. You really need all investments to pay off close to 25% immediately, or 30%+ after a couple years.

[RulerofRails]

Low_grade, I admire your skills with the game as well. You seem to understand the stacking method more than others. I have spent too many hours at the game to count.

What I love about the game is not only having a strategy, but then the implementation. I can try to document strategy (sometimes it's understandable ), but the implementation in a dynamic game world is always up to player skill and experience. Also, I consider very carefully any expense which isn't going to provide me a ROI or a cost saving. That sometimes means not doing some "fun" things such as special bridges, cool looking trains etc..

Those plays on this map were partly in response to the comment that it was "best" to "robber baron" the start which as I understand it in its most basic form is to bulldoze all your track. I was showing competitive results where I didn't bulldoze any track.

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When you mentioned the ICE, I was like Hmmm... I don't remember anything about it. I load up the game, then I discover why: the ICE is a 1.06 engine. I always play the default maps with a stock 1.05 install, which is why I didn't remember that being an option.

Given a medal can come in as little as one decade and you start with an existing non-electric network, I don't see a clear case for electric track to pay for itself in time for a faster medal (still can be an enjoyable strategy). If the goal was $300M company profits, there would be time for electric to pay off, but I would probably still initially start with the cheap Class 132 for some years until I could properly fund electric expansion and then switch to buying the Re 6/6 (second cheapest 8-cars-of-freight fuel costs in the game, half that of the Class 103, which itself is half that of the Class 132). Later I would try to electrify my existing network during a depression.

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I previously thought on similar lines to try to use the old Steamers as is. A quick try in-game and I abandoned that idea. Re-visiting it, perhaps there is a little merit in the idea, but only if those engines can fill a role for which you do not have the funds to buy a new engine. I would view replacing them akin to buying a new engine for that route (a diesel will do more work for you since they don't need water stops). So I would say that the old steamers should be replaced and soon, but maybe, just maybe, they can do something useful. But it would have to be a high revenue route seeing a 20 year old Red Devil has a bill of 108k for maintenance. The Class 01s are at 73k.

After all the recent number crunching I can tell you that a 20 year old Red Devil will cost about 900k more in maintenance over ten years than a brand new one which serves over a period of 10 years. A 20 year old Class 01 will cost about 600k more.

Fuel cost increase with engine age is linear, doubling every 44 years. For the ten years from brand new, an engine will incur an age penalty averaged at 0.11 per annum. Beginning at Year 20, this is up to 0.57 per annum. So 46% higher.

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I think I mentioned that the Recycling Plants need to be well supplied. There's not a huge supply of Waste on any map. IIRC, I was buying existing ones and not building new ones (haven't checked out if seeding matters for these). Yes, rail supply is needed for best returns.

ETA: Take a look at the Wroclaw Recycling Plant.

[Gumboots]

Re the three existing steamers: I've found they hit your profits anyway. So in practice, AFAICT, it's better to take the hit to CBV and buy new locos.

[low_grade]

Usually I'm just happy to get gold on Expert before the scenario ends, sometimes because dang this is a tough one, or I got a bad start but pushed through, or in most cases because the scenario is not too hard so I have the room to play with ideas or do things just because dammit I want a Daylight!

But, I've been playing 1.06 with all the extra locos (N&W's Class J should probably be banned, lol! just played Pacific NW and used a Berkshire 2-8-4 for everything until 1941 when the Class J became available, made the gold with three years to spare but would've been a lot tighter without the Class J) and frequently making available locos I want if there are really no good options in the scenario (mainly when I have to pick between Northern, Big Boy, and Challenger, ugh.) So in my current replay of all the original scenarios even on expert yeah there were only a few tough nuts to crack. Also I use the modifications I made to some of the engines back in 2009, which are slight improvements on a few major engines (thankfully I posted them here (thanks again for the website, Hawk!), I'd hate to have to figure out how to hex edit and interpret the files all over again, lol!) So yeah, I am mostly having pretty relaxed games, and even "role playing" the scenarios according to the creators' intents as much as possible.

But I also have a competitive strategic side which is of course what drew me into RT3, I hate losing! And I can figure this out! So I also appreciate some challenge in my games. And seeing what you can do RoR pushes me to question what is possible, and so helps me to see even more in the game than I already have enjoyed, so thanks!

Edit:
Also the Class 103 is second only to the AMD 103 Genesis hauling long trains of mixed cargo on the flat in my spreadsheet (though I'd like better reliability from it) while the Re 6/6 is towards the bottom-middle of the list of available engines (I penalize poor acceleration rather heavily.) In the medium grades the Re 6/6 moves up a few spots, and the Class 103 is without a doubt the best engine in the game (excepting the Quicksilver and Mercury Magneto of course, and the ICE.)

[RulerofRails]

Gumboots, yes I agree: scrapping immediately is the obvious option. I do that. However, there is some small possibility to make use of them for a short time such as a one-time supply run to a "critical" industry before scrapping. I haven't done it, but there's a tiny chance. . . .

I had another look at this one (I know more now). I noticed that the majority of your original stations (thankfully Warsaw is an exception) are 20 years old. The game "understands" that these cities have been connected for 20 years. They will therefore incur a revenue penalty of -20% on Expert level. This was really clever on the part of whoever made the map for PopTop.

Another thing worth noting: most of my short-term focus on profits is to unlock bonds. When they are already unlocked at game start, this is partly mitigated (we are still talking about compounded growth). So for example, when playing for fastest time it's ok if industries wont make 30% ROI in the first year, but should by the third year.

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As usual there are two common seeds. The seed (#1) I got the 10 year medal on is the seed with only one Meat Packing Plant on the map (down in Ivano-Frankivs'k). The other seed (#2) has two Meat Packing Plants: one in Grudziadz and the other in Gorzow Wielkopolski.

My habit is to only build station in cities, and recently I'm always on the lookout for clusters of Livestock farms whose "stream" will be caught by a Large Station in a nearby city. This is a reliable source of rail revenue. On seed #2 a Large Station in Bialystok placed on the same cell (might need to doze houses) as the eastern Auto Plant catches the stream from 3 ranches. When this is connected to Grudziadz it's possible to turn a profit* in the very first year (*even after engine scrapping costs have been subtracted). But whether it's faster to take

With seed #1 there is no obvious cluster of ranches, instead there is only one Meat Packing Plant on the map (city in the lower right corner of Ukraine: Ivano-Frankivs'k). If you try to haul Cattle from Warsaw down there on the Class 132 you will lose 20% of revenue. Not a great proposition and requires a large investment (access to Ukraine + track and station costs) of at least $2M. So not a great option given the average returns offered.

The positive thing about seed #1 is that there is enough Iron on the map to get a Steel Mill in Wroclaw going, and by extension the Munitions Factory in Opole without spending huge on stations and track. Also, Wroclaw-Opole is an obvious build for the AI, so if you want some control over the Steel industry further down the road it's better to connect there first.

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So I had a successful attempt at seed #1. First up I must say I was a bit "lucky" with the economy, the economy Boomed in 1995, then in 1997 settled on Prosperity for the rest of the game (didn't make any attempts at manipulation). The AI also liked to use my track, "donating" $3.7M of revenue to me.

I will upload the saved game just before the medal. I don't think I got the start quite right, for example in the first and second years I bought some Cattle ranches for $350k. These weren't solid earners. I built a Meat Packing Plant in Warsaw at the start of the game, fully expecting that more Meat Packing Plants would seed onto the map and thus elevate Livestock prices throughout the game. But they never showed up. In consequence the price of Livestock dropped to Orange-Yellow levels in Warsaw, which in turn made the Meat Packing Plant super profitable (up to $1.2M when upgraded). This also provided the extra revenue to shorten the game to 8 years.

When I finally bought access to Ukraine in the beginning of the final year, I first connected from Pinsk down to Rivne and Ternopil'. Then in about May I had the funds for a new connection and seeing that I had 35 or so loads of Cattle in Warsaw and a price differential of $60 for the haul down to Ivano-Frankivs'k, I bought 4 new trains for that run. Each started off at around $500k revenue, but since Livestock is a time-sensitive cargo they lost about 20% on the way, for about $400k each on arrival. This and some upgrades to industry throughout the rest of the year were enough.

Another game start fail: I failed to buy the Recycling Plant in Warsaw (would have been a better option than owning the Steel Mill in Wroclaw, but still IMO worth supplying even if I didn't own it, the screenshot shows the second small station I built for this purpose). I do have a suspicion that the Recycling Plants are a bit dependent on the economic state, but they are pretty insane on this map.

Before the game went off pause I had also connected to Biaylstok, as while there is no "cluster" of ranches in this seed, there was still a small stream (0.7 of a load IIRC). In my saved game you will see I bungled the placement of that station as it supplies both Auto Plants equally (I used the Pinsk one instead, the reliable supply of Tires from Ukraine meant I only had to haul Steel in to start production).

[low_grade]

Aw shucks I was all ready to be proud about a win in 9 years, lol! Thanks to some coaching, I got this one mostly right, though I made a few costly mistakes along the way (bought well supplied T&D in Warsaw and Ammo Factory in Opole only to see my feed sources stolen by newly seeded industries a couple years later.) I chucked the old steamers and went for Class 132's, and I bulldozed all the stations but Warsaw. Started with the Aluminum Mill down south and bought the T&D there a year later, connecting the Mill in Elblag to the bauxite in Gdansk and Kiliningrad, and Elblag to Warsaw. Bought into Russia and Ukraine at the start. Built a brewery on top on 2 grain farms in the same square between Ternopil' and Ivano-FranKivs'k and bought those two farms and the next closest. Rubber from Gdansk to Warsaw and Tires to Bialystok the 2nd year, buying both the tire factory and Auto Plant and upgrading both a year or two later. Also bought the recycling plant in Wroclaw, upgrading it in the 5th or 6th year. Connected to the AI's for a steady trickle of maybe $600k/yr and put stations in Gorzow Wielkopolski and Zealona Gora and connected to Wroclaw and Poznan. Then finally ran track into Ukraine, and a cut across line from Rzeszow carrying lumber to the Furniture Factory in L'viv and fertilizer to the station for the square with the brewery and my two grain farms, now upgrading the brewery, and connecting up all four big towns in the bottom right of the screen. I think that was the last thing I did, in maybe Aug 2000, confident that I couldn't make the $30M goal by year's end but would certainly make it by the end of 2001.

Never used Krakow, Kielce, Lodz, or any of the less-than-one-star towns, no Hotels, only bought into Russia and Ukraine, though Check Republic looks great late in the game. 15 Class 132's at game's end. Built only wooden bridges. Ran mostly auto consist 7+cab, except the train with lumber and fertilizer, that got a custom consist (but not forced to run at a loss) and a train from Ternopil' to Bialystock that I wanted to make sure had waited and had at least 4 loads of tires before setting off. Lifetime revenue express $4.3M, freight 14M, industry 38M, misc 3.1M (thanks AI!)

Edit: Oh, and I made a 1.05 install for this. Only crashed on me once!

[RulerofRails]

Aw shucks I was all ready to be proud about a win in 9 years.

You can be! Well done.

As I said in the older post, if anyone gets the 9 year medal my hat is off to you!

I wasn't necessarily trying to beat that myself in this attempt. I only went to try the other seed (#1) to make sure that I didn't use a fluke of a seeding pattern, then all my advice would make me look like a fool. I suppose you read the headache I caused Gumboots with the rare cheap Furnace on your Chile map. In the end that was a goose-chase other than a helpful tip.

The start seemed slow and I did some experimenting with the options for the start. I still wasn't completely happy with the choice as I said, but in the mid-game the results were stronger than I expected. I was pretty sure that seed #1 was going to be a little bit harder to win quickly with.

[TheBonobo4]

So I just got Gold on Expert on this one, but I've got to say I hate PNW Scenarios. I just don't find them fun. It's constantly (for me) a fight between margin calls, buying back stock, and dividends. I always seem to buy too much on margin and regret it later. So even though I got Gold, 1 month after the Gold kicked in my PNW dropped to about $18M, and I'll likely get another margin call.

For the record I got Gold in 2018, in the last year. The other goals (Industry profit and lifetime revenue) were easy, I had around $50M in both. I accepted the $1M from the German, as, like others have said, it's basically a very good bond that, once connected to Potsdam, is cancelled without having to pay back. I bought into Czech Republic and connected to Prague, and also Ukraine to get to a few cities there. I did spend the 1M to get cheaper electrics, but never managed to upgrade all my track to electric, so mostly ran the cheap $200K diesel. I scrapped the starter 3 locomotives, and destroyed the unconnected track you get at the start, connecting up the rest with Warsaw and building a few stations in the bigger cities.

I got a lot of early bonds and bought industry, I think in the first year my "profit" was about minus $1.2M, but then in the 2nd year I made around $1M in profit, though I don't remember exactly. I just wish I was better at PNW.

All in all a fun scenario, with a slow start as the company is terrible at the start. Silver is easy, but Gold for me was a challenge.

Oh, and one thing I find interesting is that you could get Gold with 0 miles of track. There aren't many scenarios like that to my knowledge.

[Gumboots]

I kinda like PNW scenarios sometimes. Depends what I'm in the mood for, but the juggling required to get high PNW can be a lot of fun.

Scrapping the 3 starter locos is a standard move on this map. Their age makes the maintenance cost so high that it's much better economics to buy new locos. You can win it on Expert with only the Red Devil too (steam nut I am).

It might be amusing to try to with it with 0 track miles, but I suspect the novelty would wear off pretty quickly.

[TheBonobo4]

Yeah, I like track and trains, so my ideal scenarios are CBV, city connections (either connect Ac to B or connect X cities total), Industry Profits, or haulage scenarios. So long as they're not too tough. PNW is my least favourite, but I reckon I just need practice or some kind of tutorial.

[Gumboots]

If you want to try some excitement on the PNW front, my California Uber Alles map is a fun one to play with. That only has one company to deal with, which simplifies things to some extent but also makes it more difficult in other ways.

If you're playing with the option of multiple companies there are various tricks you can use to boost PNW. The simplest is just trashing companies, which pretty much allows you unlimited wealth unless the author has put some restrictions in place. This is the classic "robber baron" playing style, but it can make things too easy.

A related but trickier situation is a scenario that allows multiple companies but does not allow stock issues or buybacks, or bonds. That can still allow some interesting company tricks, but isn't as exploitable as the unrestricted robber baron stuff. The default Southeast Australia map is a good one for this.

[RulerofRails]

For a good PNW result you need to buy on margin. There is a time and place to max your margin. The key is to have a plan and predict your upcoming results. If you know you have some exceptional growth years coming up (outright profits as well as good % CBV gain year on year) get in early. If you are really confident, max out your margin. Be aware that earlier in the year the prices are typically lower, also be wary of pushing stock price too much higher than 2x CBV per share. Be ready for a slight drop at year end.

The time for maxing margin is normally earlier in the game, while you still have prime expansion possibilities and before overhead is eating up potential % CBV gain. If it's a side mission and you never plan on paying a cent of dividends, you should be starting to sell out some large positions before growth starts to plateau. When would this be? When you start taking second rate expansion options, or for example make a big investement at low return that helps you fulfill a mission objective. Also, for rails-only strats, if you stop expanding earnings will flatten and drop slightly as demand stabilizes and stations age. You need time to exit positions, a few shares each month while the growth phase is still in full swing, so you want to be aniticipating 2-3 years into the future.

CBV per share is normally a decent indication of support for share price. Normally I don't sell that low, but it's a decent guage of support. Of course CBV will grow with time, but so will your negative cash balance as interest is charged. As the game progresses, economic state becomes more important as well. Especially later in the game I find it helpful to have target prices at which you would buy or sell. Don't get caught up in maintaining a certain ownership level unless there are hostile AI who also invested in that company, in which case you should probably use dividends to keep margin at bay. It does come back to management as well, the better you can run your company, the more reliable margin plays are going to be. For other companies, such as the AI, you have to predict their possible behavior. A tip there is to try to buy some of their shares in June if they had a great first half of the year and are looking to set a fresh yearly profit high. Most price gain occurs in the second half of the year. So heaviest selling will invariably occur then.

There are various ways to deal with the PNW element. These should probably be titled the "etheical tactics." Anyway, hope it gives you some ideas.