I finished this attempt. My plan of industries until Tennessee opened went pretty well. Maxing out bonds on industries gave me a little lull that I could possibly have managed better. Textile Mills were my best ROI performers early on. (BTW, paying off the taxes to enter Tennessee over five years is cheaper than the lump. 250k x 5 = 1.25M which is less than the lump sum of 2M which is apparently interest free
.) The effect of this strategy was that I had bought lots of industry before it increased in price. Still, I suspect that a strategy that involves getting the 2M express speed cash bonus at the start of the second year will end up being a quicker route to success. This time I also realized that the Kentucky threat for not connecting is a bluff, so I built industry there instead. So many things to discover about the map.
By 1910 when Tennessee opened (I chose Virginia as my "starting territory" even though I really started in North Carolina), I had over 2,500 track pieces saved up. Within a couple of years the Memphis to Knoxville route was complete as well with a much straighter track layout this time. Almost immediately my company started earning 10M per year up from around 3M. After using up all that saved track, I turned the focus back to industries. I had better ideas this time as to what would work. This time I focused on the industrial side more. A great tip is to build Tire Factories and Aluminum Mills to harness the plentiful supplies from the Warehouses. As these are new cargoes, this is a good opportunity for building new industries before the computer does. The profits are great too. I ended up with 4 upgraded Auto Plants on the map which are all visible in the screenshots below. Hawk, both attempts I have tended to build up one town into a real manufacturing hub. Nice strategy idea I learned from you. I have tried to adapt here as it fits my play style of this scenario really well. Thanks!
This time I picked all the cheapest track options. Ironically, I didn't even notice that speeds were less, as by the time I was running trains other than the Shay the first engine upgrade had wiped out the speed reduction to put speeds back to normal. This choice really is a no-brainer. After looking in the events to try to decipher why the engines look much better in the stats than they perform the first time round, I can be quite sure about this. The track maintenance increase is nothing. Cheaper track will have less maintenance so this is really just balanced out. Maybe the cost is slightly higher, but the extra track is totally worth that slight cost. Also the overhead reductions aren't worth it either. The war will send your overhead into the roof, whichever track choice you made earlier. There is no way to avoid paying gobs of maintenance near the end of this one. Again, there is a small difference, but the extra track represents plenty of haulage revenue which will more than cover the extra overhead costs. And finally, with all the engine upgrades coming your way that will make your engines into thirsty speed demons, I don't see the need for the speed increase. Forget the better rail options. Cheap and sweet for me!
Here's a screenshot of the end of the 21st year with one section of my motor manufacturing enterprise in Paw Paw Junction. I was 5M off the CBV target, so had to wait another year.
- Big Valley bridge.jpg (51.21 KiB) Viewed 5149 times
Notice how my average express speed is 53mph even though I was running all trains as haul anything including my two original faithful Shays that were with me to the end.
This is the story: my initial connections in 1910 didn't attract any passengers to a fast route, so in 1911 I ran a Pacific (I had one engine upgrade by this time) with one passenger car downhill from Bear Wallow to Coleburn. This resulted in a speed record train with a speed of 56mph. But, at year end my ledger showed an average express speed of 74mph! I got the bonus. Then I re-purposed my train consists from only freight to any cargo as I wanted to make use of the express events. My average speeds each year in the ledger were between 30 and 35mph. With more trains near the end this dropped to 29mph the final year. At first my average express speed as shown in the ledger would drop 2 or 3 mph per year, then this decreased to only one mph decrease in the final year. I am doubtful that express was hauled that much faster than freight as I wasn't using any special priority trains and everything was on auto consist. This effect is possibly due to the way the game handles those years when I didn't haul any express.
So say my express speed is 74 per year in the 12th year of the game (I have no idea why the speed record award speed was different to this). In order for the game to display this as true it would have to in effect make the average express speed for all the previous years 74. As I had already played 12 years at this point that would be a cumulative 888/12=74. Adding a new year of say 35mph to this total would give a result the next year of (888+35)/13=71. The next year with a speed of 34mph I could calculate (888+35+34)/14=68. This is exactly the kind of thing that I observed in this game. This means that it would take a LONG time before average speed would drop below 40mph in this game. Not that it matters very much here, but it may prove useful for future strategy. Anybody think this sounds right from their observations?
Well, I was focusing on Express here by building a Hotel, Restaurant, Tavern, and Post office in almost every city. I only built one of each per city so as not abuse the high revenue they give here. My Knoxville Hotel report 359k profit one year, so they are definitely worth the effort when you chose the express bonuses. I also earned plenty of revenue from hauling all that express. As seen from this screenshot taken just after the medal,
- Big Valley company balance.jpg (61.3 KiB) Viewed 5149 times
train/track/station operating costs of 67.5M are almost paid for by the 65.2M express provided. Factor in the Hotel/R/T profits and express is a good deal!
This play my newest engines was the Mikado. I bought 6 or so of them for the Bristol - Erwin - Bryson City route so I could run 8 cars up instead of the 4 I was running with Pacifics. Otherwise, my engines were Pacifics east of Nashville and Atlantics west of Nashville with 3 Mikados mixed in there. This time I had 100 trains at the end all running 8 cars without cabooses.
I was plucky this time and was sure enough that I would get the medal before I might get sued, so I didn't pay for insurance.
As in the last play I paid off all bonds at the end, but unlike last time when I paid off around 8.5M of personal debt with dividends, this time I had 100% company control throughout with the 2M cash bonus wiping my max of 640k debt out without paying out a single dividend. After the first 3 years when I was issuing stock to get bonds for a Textile Mill, I didn't issue any more bonds so my debt was being controlled by my salary early on.
I am not confident that this is the best way to win this one, but it was great fun to play it with this slant. I felt a lot more in control of the map with the experience from last time, and got the order of industry investments cleaner this time to make a better economy. Still plenty of room for improvement though. I now realize that the new cargoes being introduced are the place where a considerable portion of potential for investment in brand new industries lies. So I don't feel so constricted in gameplay and wasn't frustrated about where to build a new industry this time. Sorry the screenshots are blurry, I think I need to adjust my compression settings some more. That's it from me on this one, on to the next scenario.
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But I neglected to do this before setting up for an attempt on my first play.
I like IrfanView because it is quick to load and easy to use, I have GIMP as well but that thing is painfully slow to load, so never use it. What do you use? I will do some research on how to use the settings to better effect.
