First things first, welcome back Lama, even though I wasn't around when you first "went away to buy a pack of cigs and didn't return"
I really enjoyed this map. I downloaded it and at first look it didn't seem inviting. Lately I created a stream of "Other Lands" maps and invested a lot of time in realistic landscaping - so yours looked a little awkward. Still, I had decided to play it at some point and I eventually did (just finished now). After laying track around, however, I admit my first impression was harsh - apart a rounded coast and some spots where rivers flow up a hill, it is perfectly realistic and it looks really nice when you lock the camera in a train and follow a trip.
Resources wise it seemed a little scarce at start, but it's not, actually, since growth is set at a good rate. It was easy to be profitable and to find good industry opportunities.
It has different strategies possible and I will definitely replay it using a different angle. Since I got only bronze, miserably, I definitely owe it to myself as I was doing so so well...
Anyway, I know I enjoy reading tales of other people's games, so I'll post mine here too.****************************************************
At start I had a look around trying to decide if it was better to have an industry start or a track start. Since there wasn't any obvious concentration of raw materials in the available regions and the main station for my company was already laid, I went for trains instead of industry. There was also some track laid, which I used, and which led me to believe that it was a "connected track only" scenario - only 20 years later I realized it wasn't. So, with the available funds and initial profits, I built a "J" like line, connecting the closer cities north of Ankh.
After this, I bought profitable farms and a distillery at half price because it popped up (it ended up being the single alcohol producer around and a great cash source). The game was going so well that I noticed all the other AI companies were easy targets. In year 5 I bought Quirm Northern, which had connected Quirm and Pseudopolis and linked it to my network. To do this I maxed out my bonds and then took about 2 years to repay the expensive ones.
Then crampton and dx-goods came along. While I was busy paying my debt I also updated the network with double line in some places, spiked maintenance for all trains, dedicated express trains, long haul cargo trains and hotels in Quirm and Ankh. Once it was all done I went for Lancre (can't recall name of co.). Did the same, bought it out, connected to my network (at Quirm) and upgraded service. I also spent some money in industry in Greater Lancre - there was lot of cattle and wool untouched, so I built the factories, bought the farms and organized the service with it.
Money was abundant by then, but time wasn't. I was very proud of having an excellent company (well above the target for Company value, for passengers delivered to Quirm and Lancre and for avg express speed) but worried looking at how far Bad Shoe Shine
was... Building the track up to Uberwald was easy, buying the Uberwaldbahn not so (I acquired around 51% of the company stock, but it was so profitable it was going to be costly to merge so I just left it untouched). This was with about 10 years to go - I still hadn't hauled even 200 passengers out of Ankh-Morpork or a single weapon to the north. Looking back, I know that I left it to too late to focus on the game goals. For the passengers, I expanded the network in the Ankh-Morpork area, linking every town, built hotels in all stations and set up a lot of express trains (Stirling are just perfect for those 3-cars-express). I wondered if the 400 was a mis-type, but once I did all this, the count just started going up nice and steady, so it definitely isn't.
For the weapons I messed up. I had an upgraded steel mill in St. Nitz outputing steel, which I decided to haul to Ankh-Morpork and built a weapons factory there, since lumber was available from warehouses. However, this is "across the map" to Uberwald and the distances were too big. So, after one year or so, I just sold that factory and built another one closer, in Skund. I also bought a bunch of logging camps, built a lumber mill and a direct track for the steel to get to Skund. This seemed like a perfect plan and I had still enough years to make the 20 hauls of weapons. Money was so easy I upgraded everything right from build time.
It didn't work. I couldn't figure out why at start, but the weapons plant wasn't using the resources and making weapons -every year its production was no more than 1.0, 1.1 ... The last five years were passed in this agony. Other than replacing broken engines, all my money was used to delete and build industries around, making sure steel and lumber demand didn't take the resources out of Skund (originally, they did), but it wasn't that.... With a couple of years, it hit me!
: Weapons price in Skund was still 0, the factory wasn't making any profit and that makes it downsize production!! DUH! I even explained this to Wolverine the other day, concerning the bauxite warehouses in my Tazara scenario..So, I failed miserably and next time I will probably expand NE first, into Discworld, and other afterwards to Quirm and north! End of story. I also didn't meet the 400 passengers by a thread, but after the medal I left the game running and that was a matter of one more year. The weapons though, got me winded enough for a second try one of these days.
Thanks for the very nice scenario. Here's a screen grab of my results:
