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Finished the play (no AI, only using one company). Starting as late as possible. 2020. Oil is a major factor on the map. I deliberated a lot on getting a good start, but eventually I went with a Plastic Factory in Benghazi (Tool & Die seeded, bought it second year, Oil wells first), in the country of "Tripoli." Probably that should be Libya*? Really industrial. Within the first 5 years, had two upgraded Plastics Factories and 5 upgraded Tool & Dies pumping out Goods. Good thing that the ocean was there to give demand, but this sort of supply is good to see some healthy demand in you network too. Used Diesels early.
I was thinking that northern Africa was good for expansion because of the cheapish access costs and the lack or rivers. I was a bit conflicted on strategy in the mid-early to mid-game. I bought into North and South Nigeria, to take advantage of some more Oil and to get Machinery production underway. Started an unconnected network for this (only time). Then it was Algeria, and Morocco. But then I was in a bit of a quandry. I wanted to get into "Outside Africa" or more specifically the Middle East and its endless supplies of Oil. I tried saving up a few times, only to decide, that it made more sense to go to Egypt, then Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, then French West Africa (profitable $1M+ Nuclear Power Plant) first. Got first Auto production going in that time too. Finally got into the Middle East after 19 years, and unleashed it's potential. After that it was a pretty quick expansion game, steadily expanding south and trying to optimize resource usage with industry buys/builds. Built electric track for the next 8 years and then did the final push on the less profitable with normal track.
As far as ideas for the scenario, there's lots of access rights needed. Maybe, some system that is a pure modifier of access rights cost. Perhaps, based on company efficiency LTD. So, CBV/LTD company profits/years elapsed. Increase the cost of access rights in a scale based on that.
Might need tuning, but the general idea I had:
If at the end of the year, if CBV/LTD company profits/years elapsed is <3%, have access cost increase by +1%
... 3-5%: increase of +2%
5-10%: increase of +3%
10+%: increase of +4%
Should slow the better players more. My figure at the end of the game was 3.8%. Earlier in the game it would have been higher. With this system in place my figure would also be higher: more CBV lost to access rights cost.
*Side-note, the names are definitely from the colonial period, in 2020, they don't make much sense. The borders also. I can see that the author ran into the problem of not having enough territories for this map. For example, the 3 west african countries identified as "Outside Africa." Since the main strategic value of the borders here is defined by their entry cost, I would consider combining "Northern and Southern Rhodesia," the way that Liberia was already done, just adding the entry costs together. Same could be done for "Eritrea and Somaliland." This would give two more territories to play with. Because of the territory limit, it will always be a bit of a fudge, that's fine. There are therefore many ways to "fix", but I'm looking at the two part countries: Uganda, Bechuana-Land and those three west coast countries classified as "Outside Africa."
In case it's helpful, here's a link to an illustration of just-prior-to-WWI boundaries vs. those in 1880. The fact that Germanies' colonies are present would indicate that it is pre-WWI. Link:
http://brilliantmaps.com/africa-1914/
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There are also some "stray" territory pieces:
Small piece west of Opuvo
Some cells of "Outside Africa" along the Uganda-Congo State border, just east of Mambasa
One cell of "Mozambique" to the NorthEast of the "Sahara Desert" label
Spelling
Tangier, Morrocco is mispelled. Missing the "i".
Tricky terrain for stations
Mists'iwa: hard to place a station covering all houses.
Malta: Had to bulldoze houses, even for a Small Station placement.
Notes:
Windmill and Customs House are buyable. Don't see a reason?
In a couple places the terrain/river interaction needs a little love. Kayombo-Lubumbashi area stood out in particular.
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Just a comment about your tutorial on placing the station near the rivers. It's a compromise with ideal coverage, but I would recommend putting the station further from the river even if you want to bridge straight across. For two reasons: (1.) trains wont be accelerating from a standstill up the grade, (2.) economic cells with rivers on them have a higher price, depending on how this is managed, but most likely result is that more traffic goes on the river and less profits for your railway.
Here's a picture of my Parakou station. I connected before I had rights in French West Africa. It's not on the same economic cell as the river.
In my shots above you can see that full coverage of Khartoum is impossible with one station, so I used two. Asyut, meanwhile is separated by a "lake" this means that demand doesn't get from one side to the next, so built two stations, western one for the main reason to supply the Recycling Plant that was a source of Steel for my Auto production occurring at Port Sudan.
When you mention laying track from the other side of the river, I believe the only time that you need to do that is if the opposite bank is higher. But it works anyway when unconnected track is allowed, so a valid tactic on this one.
Water (need for a bridge) is defined by the little squares (16 of which make up an economic cell). When the grid is on, even if unconnected track is prohibited, you can always find the water cells by hovering your cursor over them. Look for the notice "Invalid Position Over Water." This can lead to some skirts of coastlines that I previously thought were impossible. See this track to get into Sicily on the PopTop Italy map:
http://hawkdawg.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=44513#p44513.
Actually Vittorio has a pulling power of 8 versus 5 for the Duke (Vittorio has lower free weight which dampens this). With 8 freight cars Vittorio has max speed of 21mph up 4% grade, Duke is 14mph.
180/150 = 1.2, so fuel cost for the Vittorio would be 20% higher if hauling default B era freight. Worse with express, since in that case it'd be (99+56)/(70+56) = 155/126 = 1.23, but not much worse.
duh, I need to code in the AI for territory access!
