Gumboots wrote: ↑Tue Aug 01, 2017 5:24 pmIMO 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.
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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.
Cash on Wheels wrote: ↑Tue Aug 01, 2017 10:34 pmI 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
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. 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).
Cash on Wheels wrote: ↑Tue Aug 01, 2017 10:34 pmRoR 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.
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