Bulvanian Petroleoum

Goal: Invention of automobile has made the world desperate in need for more fuel. Manage the quickly growing economy of Bulvania and ship diesel to the car owners of the world.

Author's Comments: The map was created using Linux version of RailRoad Tycoon II with the Second Century expansion pack installed. The map is not located to any known region of the world.

A new transportation vehicle, automobile, has been recently invented and the world is looking for sources of fuel to run its automobiles. Soon, mass production of automobiles is due to start opening new markets for shipping oil, diesel and automobiles.

Kingdom of Bulvania has great potential in providing fuel to the global markets. You, as a transportation engineer of the Bulvanian Petroleum Inc, are responsible for building transportation routes for shipping oil, diesel and automobiles.

The Kingdom of Bulvania is a remote and mountainous country with no oil fields of its own. However, the kingdom is located by the sea and the most profitable oil shipping routes pass through the ports operated by the Kingdom of Bulvania.

Currently the economy of the Kingdom of Bulvania is dependent on paper industry. This is expected to change due to the ideal location of the kingdom in the middle of the oil shipping route. It also is expected that the economy of the Kingdom of Bulvania starts growing in tremendous rate once the oil starts pouring in.

It should be easy to earn bronze and silver in this scenario. The gold, in my opinion, is a more challenging goal. Here are some tips for striving for gold.

Expand your track aggressively at the beginning of the game so that you can start shipping oil early in the game. Recall that an oil well only produces three loads of oil per year and it may take quite a time to deliver the loads. Trains of the late 19th century are quite slow and depending on the length of the route, they may take upto five years to deliver their loads. If you are shipping all the oil a well may produce, you may estimate that in ten years you should be able to ship thirty loads of oil. Again, let me remind you that it will take some time to deliver the first loads. For the gold you must deliver at least one hundred loads of diesel to the ports so be sure to start shipping oil and diesel early in the game.

Watch out for congestion. In this scenario cities grow rapidly and lucrative routes open up frequently. However, the kingdom is a very mountainous one and there are not so many good places to lay track on. When the diesel trains start pouring in, you will have lots of trains running on the same pairs of tracks. To accommodate that, be sure to build enough track for the trains running long routes. If necessary, build a couple of stations to each major city and balance the traffic between the stations in order to avoid congestion near the station. Moreover, select your locomotives right. Fast locomotives do not typically climb well and they may even bring the whole system to a grinding halt if they stop on a hill.