New Holyland Beta

[Cash on Wheels]

Played through again. Adjusted this start to $350k in player cash. Now that I have a better idea what to do, I was able to get to.......... $977m with a few mistakes along the way. Next beta is further down on this page.

[Cash on Wheels]

I have stopped at 1986 with a PNW of $25M. I don't see how I can ever reach 1 billion in the remaining 20 years. I think I can reach $250M, but that's just a guess.

I did not choose to add the new industries, instead staying with the default 1.06V industries. My industry base was just beginning to blossom after a 5 year recession. My next move was to invest into nuclear and then into recycling in the early 1990s.............

Due to the mass amount of $$$ needed and a little oilcan demand, Recycling & ammo have been added to version 2.

Oilcan or anyone, have you ever run into trouble with 'game messages' reverting back to 'dialog'

These yearly events do so:

Suez crx
G2T3
g3t3

I don't want the player clicking on 4 dialogs at the end of every year in the later stages!

[RayofSunshine]

Guess that I am doing better than OilCan, as in 1986 I do have $250M, but of the same comment, I don't see how it would be possible to get another $750M for the required $1B. Mathematically that is. OilCan's $750M? However, a very interesting scenario, even with those "mountains", which can be "negotiated" in track laying.
I did invest early into industries, so am getting a good return, so as to keep a positive "dividend", even though it is sometimes only $.05. Better than "$0". LOL

[OilCan]

Oilcan or anyone, have you ever run into trouble with 'game messages' reverting back to 'dialog'

Yes, all the time in 1.06V. My work-around solution is to start the creation of every new map in 1.05V, enter 1 event as a game message and then move the map into 1.06V. I duplicate the game message event, carried over from 1.05V, as a template each time I want a game message event in 1.06V.

Otherwise, every one of my game message events created in 1.06V converts itself into a diaglog. It was very frustrating when this started happening.

[RulerofRails]

I suspected that this was a bug with the radio button where it fails to set the flag in the file. Checked it out thanks to Milo's notes on the GMP file. Sure enough the flag that should be set 03 when the "Game Message" button is selected is remaining at 00.

While Oilcan's workaround is good when starting a new map, when you have everything setup (Quarries etc. pre-placed) you can't load the map in 1.05 anymore (unless you strip stuff, to put it back later).

There's another option if you are willing to use a hex editor. The easy option is to search for the event name. You should be able to identify that you have the correct result by seeing your message text a few lines lower down. Once you are sure, then take the decimal address of the start of the event name and add 2006 to find this flag. Set the flag to 03 and you have a working game message.

[Cash on Wheels]

Guess that I am doing better than OilCan, as in 1986 I do have $250M, but of the same comment, I don't see how it would be possible to get another $750M for the required $1B. Mathematically that is. OilCan's $750M? However, a very interesting scenario, even with those "mountains", which can be "negotiated" in track laying.
I did invest early into industries, so am getting a good return, so as to keep a positive "dividend", even though it is sometimes only $.05. Better than "$0". LOL

You are 8n good shape with $250m. If you choose wisely in An event in 1988 you should be well on your way. I wanted to simulate the dotcom bubble of 2000 & the housing boom of 2007. I'm working on having a fix economy in the later years of the map. I'll fix that & above when I discover some time.

[Cash on Wheels]

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New Beta!

RoR's game message fix worked!

REMOVED 01/29/18



-Renamed Blast Furnace to Cement Kiln, updated building on the first post
-Economy is no longer random in the last 10 years
-My run on expert with no AI netted a max PNW of $870M
-Forgot to make sure medal events fire, fix if you want.
-Too many other changes to list.

With all of the excessive saving, this map is starting to look sloppy. I will need to a .GMP edit soon!

[RulerofRails]

I ran through it. Got the billion in Nov. 1997 (economy went Boom in September). Map is easier now.

Didn't ever see a supply port in Alexandria (worth about $4-5m per year, without port too much bother to utilize all Crystal production IMO, on the Steel side Waste let me make some Autos later in the game regardless), had no seeded Nuclear Plants, and less Oil (eventually built beside the wells, produced Toys, no Diesel). This was more than balanced by more starting cash, higher density, less pax reduction, and fluking the second "bonus" choice.

Played with 3 AI again, and you sort of need to connect to Tel Aviv right away, but I found it far easier to encourage them to start companies by leaving the rest of Israel open for the first year or so. Otherwise, if I expand strongly out of the box they tend to become side-line investors in my company, and I really don't want to waste dividend. This time I ended the game with a double-tracked Stone bridge over the Canal.

Comments:
Events worked as advertised.

I noticed the river junctions in Egypt look better. Isn't it hard to get them looking nice? In case you missed it, Gumboots gave a tip or two to make them pretty here: viewtopic.php?p=34089#p34089.

[RayofSunshine]

There was an avenue of which I did not take advantage, which could be a mistake. It is that of getting finances from the Company transferred to my PNW. Millions at a time would make a difference.

[RulerofRails]

Ray, are you playing the latest version? It's easier and has bugs fixed.

IMO, the transfer option is best used near the start to help gain fast ownership. I'm talking about $500k company cash -> player, in the first year.

Start tips/spoilers: 1st year should be over $1M profits, if you connect Tel Aviv to Mitzpe Ramon and build a Cement Kiln/Furnace on the same cell as the quarry, if you installed the Cement Kiln you will want to upgrade that pretty quickly.

Transferring $500k company cash -> player could be roughly compared to needing to take out an extra company bond. Each time you use the transfer you are losing CBV so credit rating and Share Price take a hit, but IMO worth doing once in the early game simply to limit margin exposure when gaining 100% ownership of your company.

Strategically, the main reason to use this option is if you have spare cash but you can't raise dividends anymore. Because of the possible bonus cash here, this situation can happen (dividend can't be set much higher than company profit), but in my play above I didn't use it expect that once at the start.

Of course you should be investing until you dominate the map (shouldn't have spare cash beforehand). I didn't even use any dividends on my play until I owned 98% of all reliably profitable industry. This includes the regular Farms etc. running at 10% ROI. Of course those are the last I will buy (build to utilize all un-used resources first, this is normally much better ROI, 20%+), and if time is running out there's a time to stop buying them.

The simple calculation would be that 10% ROI will repay itself at 10 years from the end; 20% ROI will repay itself at 5 years. I use this as a rough guide, but if you really want to get technical you need to consider two other balancing factors: lower effective ROI due to overhead and the boost that extra profit has on share price (esp. in Boom Times when production/prices are higher).

In the last play I finished buying up all industries and expanding my rails (missed 3 out of the way cities) in 1989, so I turned dividends on for the first time at the start of 1990 (had -$10M personal debt with 100% ownership in my company and majority in the remaining AI). From then on, I mainly just bought the new farms. I did however develop the Recycling/Waste industry as well, so these expenses kept my spare cash fairly close to what I could set the dividend. My final dividend was set at $51.2M per year, so you can see cash was starting to creep higher.

[Gumboots]

Transferring $500k company cash -> player could be roughly compared to needing to take out an extra company bond. Each time you use the transfer you are losing CBV so credit rating and Share Price take a hit...

Which is not the case when you take out a bond. Or at least, not if you are using bonds properly. IMO you should be careful with that analogy because people are likely to misunderstand it, and before you know it we'll be dealing with the old "paying off bonds boosts your CBV" myth again.

[Cash on Wheels]

Ray, are you playing the latest version? It's easier and has bugs fixed.

IMO, the transfer option is best used near the start to help gain fast ownership. I'm talking about $500k company cash -> player, in the first year.

Start tips/spoilers: 1st year should be over $1M profits, if you connect Tel Aviv to Mitzpe Ramon and build a Cement Kiln/Furnace on the same cell as the quarry, if you installed the Cement Kiln you will want to upgrade that pretty quickly.

Transferring $500k company cash -> player could be roughly compared to needing to take out an extra company bond. Each time you use the transfer you are losing CBV so credit rating and Share Price take a hit, but IMO worth doing once in the early game simply to limit margin exposure when gaining 100% ownership of your company.

Strategically, the main reason to use this option is if you have spare cash but you can't raise dividends anymore. Because of the possible bonus cash here, this situation can happen (dividend can't be set much higher than company profit), but in my play above I didn't use it expect that once at the start.

Of course you should be investing until you dominate the map (shouldn't have spare cash beforehand). I didn't even use any dividends on my play until I owned 98% of all reliably profitable industry. This includes the regular Farms etc. running at 10% ROI. Of course those are the last I will buy (build to utilize all un-used resources first, this is normally much better ROI, 20%+), and if time is running out there's a time to stop buying them.

The simple calculation would be that 10% ROI will repay itself at 10 years from the end; 20% ROI will repay itself at 5 years. I use this as a rough guide, but if you really want to get technical you need to consider two other balancing factors: lower effective ROI due to overhead and the boost that extra profit has on share price (esp. in Boom Times when production/prices are higher).

In the last play I finished buying up all industries and expanding my rails (missed 3 out of the way cities) in 1989, so I turned dividends on for the first time at the start of 1990 (had -$10M personal debt with 100% ownership in my company and majority in the remaining AI). From then on, I mainly just bought the new farms. I did however develop the Recycling/Waste industry as well, so these expenses kept my spare cash fairly close to what I could set the dividend. My final dividend was set at $51.2M per year, so you can see cash was starting to creep higher.

I put my kiln in Tel Aviv where there is port demand & maybe ready mix. Thr disadvantage of placing it near the quarry is you cannot buy the quarry! Wasted profits!

I forget the lingo-- for when the majority - stock owner pulls cash out of his business......what's it called?

RoR do you have an accoubt for Twitch, youtube or anything of that nature? Cause I want to see how you blow thru these maps so easy!

[RulerofRails]

IMO you should be careful with that analogy because people are likely to misunderstand it, and before you know it we'll be dealing with the old "paying off bonds boosts your CBV" myth again.

I meant this in the simplest possible way: if you transfer $500k from your company to personal account you will be "burning" one of the bonds that should be fueling your expansion. You issue the bond, but instead of using it for a smart investment it ends up in your pocket. I didn't recall the old discussion before posting. I think this is a different thing, but, yes, issuing/repaying bonds has no effect on CBV.

I put my kiln in Tel Aviv where there is port demand & maybe ready mix. Thr disadvantage of placing it near the quarry is you cannot buy the quarry! Wasted profits!

Ah, yes, you're right that the Mitzpe Ramon Quarry is a little distance over rough ground from the town so if you build a Cement Kiln on the same cell, the price for the Concrete produced will not be as high as possible. I didn't play this map with the regular 1.06 Furnace. In that case you may have no demand for Ceramics out at Mitzpe Ramon unless you build a Concrete Plant, so I didn't think the Furnace recommendation through enough . In the case of the Cement Kiln there is an upside that can take some of the sting out of lost profits: long-term the Quarry will run at higher production since it's making more profit. I didn't do a detailed test of how much. Maybe next time I will try a Tel Aviv build, but at least in my case I preferred it this way (don't need to buy a train for the run as you will see below).

RoR do you have an accoubt for Twitch, youtube or anything of that nature? Cause I want to see how you blow thru these maps so easy!

No I don't have any accounts like that. TBH, I can spend a lot of time paused which I can't imagine can be very interesting for anyone. On this map I was trying extra hard (getting the medal quicker doesn't really mean that you had it easier, maybe just strategy, timing was better, see below), even more pause than usual (whole map is probably 8+hrs of non-stop play) because I failed at the $1bln the last time (which was really a second proper run because I scrapped my very first attempt it was somewhat compromised by some typos in the event scripting, but still poor strategy and not even close). That being said, once I fluked the choice for the Cable money it was a sure deal. Last attempt I didn't take the Cable money, and TBH probably achieved-industrial-ROI turned out better in that run. So this could be compared to Cable vs. no-Cable and probably not that much of an improvement thinking about it like that, read on for more details.

I didn't want to put the spoilers out there yet, but here goes: . . . . what I did at the start was the Cement Kiln (not upgraded) at Mitzpe Ramon and the connection to Tel Aviv (cheaply, flattest and least fills possible, with Small Stations) and then because I wanted to leave Israel until all 3 AI had started I looked elsewhere. I decided to go for broke with the Oil run. So sold all the stock in my company (started with full personal and investor cash), issued stock, then bought the rights to Jordan and Saudi Arabia. So CBV was down a fair bit. and after a brief second off pause, share price too. Then I bought up to full margin which equated to approx. 20% starting ownership.

There was a Plastics Factory in Ma'an, so the start of the Oil run was a connection from Al Qalibah to Ma'an. I bought 2 QJs loaded with Oil (the remains of what was left from the 3 year pre-game simulation period before production events have any effect) which upon delivery (in April) netted $885k in profit (after fuel, maint.). This with the Cement Kiln profit gave me about $1.1M in cash which was almost enough to sneak across from Ma'an to just north of Mitzpe Ramon with a wooden bridge. I got the connection in May (needed that little bit more Furnace profit). So the Oil was flowing almost from the start of the game.

Two AI (Jerusalem-Ashdod and Haifai-Nazareth) started up in the first year and the other invested in those two AI companies. In the second year (1975) therefore I linked them up and got haulage going in Israel. On the industry front only bought a newly seeded Dairy just on the south side of the Syria/Jordan border. The economy improved twice to Boom in December, so credit rating was good for the bonds to buy rights and link to Cairo. Consequence: beginning of 3rd year had the pipeline in place, ownership up to 79.5% with $1.1M personal debt.

I could post up the random places I saved the game if you want. The start is most impostant, as I said mid-game when looking for ROI I felt I was stronger last time. The economy improving early was a decisive factor and I will point out that some seeds will not work for immediate focus on Oil (I really enjoy playing diverse seeds after I learned that the idea of more resources on a reloaded map was a myth). I did explore the early Oil possibility with the 1st beta (even when I thought the connection to Turkey was needed), but the higher starting cash in the 2nd beta makes it much more workable. As map designer, you could easily lengthen/block pathways.

[Cash on Wheels]

I put my kiln in Tel Aviv where there is port demand & maybe ready mix. Thr disadvantage of placing it near the .......


No I don't have any accounts like that. TBH, I can spend a lot of time paused which I can't imagine can .................................... As map designer, you could easily lengthen/block pathways.

I had a small station bumped up against the quarry last play, and a 1 1/3s of train stopped at the quarry's SS. You also left out the revenue from hauling rock to tel aviv & concrete away.

Just a condensed 30 min video would be fine. I'm not losing sleep over it but it would be intereating to see.

The wrong cities in the first beta were because I bulldozed some event cities, then repo'd them closer to the seas. Whwn u bulldoze the cities it loses its ID #. That ID# the. goes to another city already on the map. + my game will not always recognize I pressed save!

I thought about blocking early oil access, but decided to let it be. However the triggers for the cable event will be looked at when I get new power supply.

[RulerofRails]

You have good arguments for the Tel Aviv placement, theoretically there's more profit available (per load of Rock processed) with that placement. In my last play I was tight on finances when I built my initial routes. I didn't have enough money for a Large Station in Mitzpe Ramon (or cost of extra track + Small pick-up station although I prefer to avoid those), let alone a train to run between Mitzpe Ramon and Tel Aviv. I think quite short term in the beginning of the game. If the long term prospects (of an investment that's great in the short term) are solid then that's a winner strategy for me.

My #1 concern with sustained high growth (any high $$$ goal) is not to flat-spot growth when I run out of bonds which I obviously issue as fast as possible (if economic decline causes it fine, but as long as I don't cause it). It's a tricky transition. At this point overhead will jump up (especially rapid bond-fueled growth is the cause), you need to out-run it. Thankfully on this map if you establish the pipeline before you run out of bonds you have a yearly source of capital for high capital projects, so much harder to flat-spot.

In other maps without this luxury, I haven't really defined what I do, but I think I am using some of the bond investment (the middle bonds, for example that could be bonds 9-15) for longer-term investments (mainly industrial in this category) and then switching focus back to short term for a bit to clear this transition. It's a tricky thing for me. Some games I get profit levels stuck (flat-spot) for some years before resuming the upward climb. I really don't know what others do about this. I seem to be one of the only ones who even talked about short-term biased investments in the early game. I'm not going to promise anything, but when the engine/car project is ready I might have time/ambition to consider recording something but if I do it will be just be a simple recording. I have no hope of explaining thought process at every step of the way. I endeavor to summarize the main points in my posts here.

PS. Also, are you watching your share price like a hawk until you achieve your ownership target? This may be boring/repetitive esp. to replay, but I don't let the game's limitation on updating share price only monthly from stopping share plays during that time. In the early game I am very often pausing on a slight increase of price, selling 1,000 shares to "update" price, then buying them back plus a couple more 1,000 (as many as purchasing power allows).


Side-note: in the latest version there is no chance for a Ready Mix in Israel. Possible locations (hover over the second "Ready Mix Concrete" entry in the overall industries list) are Cairo, Afyonkarashir, Faiyum, Al Qurayyat, Kerak, Mersin, and Isparta. The city ID# problem is a pain.

[Cash on Wheels]

Since beta #2 has only been downloaded twice by RoR & a mystery man. If mystery man will speakout I could do some cleaning up & send it to archive. Sending a map to the archs with feedback from one person is a bad idea!