Gold on Expert Sept 1913, just waiting for Steel to trickle in. It was a real bugger getting coal and iron to sit on the same mill with all my trains on autoconsist. Plus I was playing a game to see how much PNW I could amass ($221M) which gave me reason to not issue stock, to make it more of a challenge. So I let a few years go by without trying too hard.
There seemed to be a glitch, the "regulations" were firing every year, though at first I had 40 and then soon over 50 towns once that event started firing. Ah, I see, once I reached 50 connections and got to the 95% level of avoiding regulations, there are 11 separate events that check annually on that 5% chance. Which almost guarantees one of them will fire. Annoying, could be fixed.
I started in the land of Fez just going blind into the scenario. Not much to work with, but my credit is uprated. I start with Safi to Casablanca and a textile mill on some wool near Beni Mellal. Only one Stirling manually routed the first couple years. Maybe not the best choice, as it took some time for the textile mill to pull wool from two other nearby sheep ranches, and the was no cargo to speak of on the coast. Slow start to be sure. But wait a few years, credit rating continues to rise, wool starts arriving, and I can expand to Marrakesh and Essaouira, which generates enough profit to get me over the hump just as credit is going A, and I bond out ridiculously. Buy into neighbor, blah blah blah, expand east waiting for 1895. Diesel in Ain Oussara.
Somewhere after I crossed over into Spain I bought one of the AI's just for fun. I had been buying into AI's more than my own company, and had majority in this one with book value $28M. I noticed its chairman was in the red by $4M... He was also into my company... I issued stocks twice, sold out my shares of stocks in his company, and laughed my ass off when his broker called!
He finished the game with -$173K. I bought back into his company enough to regain controlling shares and then bought it for like $15M. With the cash I bought into a majority in my own company finally as the broker call forced the guy to sell all his shares in my company, too, causing the price to collapse. That was right devious of me!
I sold a lot of industries in this scenario, oddly. I overdid the textile mills around Beni Mellal, I was up to 3 upgraded for some reason (big stacks are temping for quick cash...) but the wool went elsewhere or something. And the Oil Refineries. Kept the oil wells, of course, and the great profits hauling diesel out of Ain Oussara, and half my cash back. Then when I bought the AI a ton of his industries were losers. So it looked like I was losing money and my stock tanked, and I bought in more, when really I was shifting cash from under 10% return to over 20%, I feel like I played a fast one here, too, lol!
Overall, just from a first attempt, aside from the one "glitch," very nice, long-play scenario! It took me 31 years, and I was developing my network all the way up to just the last few when I knew I had it but was just waiting for steel. It got me to do a few things I don't normally, which is always nice. The terrain is terrible, but it forced me to make compromises and I got the connections done. I even allowed sections of 8 and 7 grade in the rough jagged tracks I laid as best I could in places, and generally with the P8 was permissive of a couple 6's here and there. 5's for stretches if needed, and 4's without thinking. There were still many cities I consider unreachable, which is unfortunate. A bit of path smoothing maybe...
