New Map - Seattle Street Railway

[Gwizz]

This is not a metra map.  It is a ten year map.

It does use streets in and around the Seattle area.

In fact the Seattle area is the whole map.

I keep missing Gold by a pinch. Always fell a bit short on PNW. PNW is 15 Million for Gold.  My best PNW was $14.6 million  But then, I don't always use the best methods of play for winning.  On my last play through I invested in UP stock which was doing well, then I took some of it cargo and forgot I owned it's stock. Not a good plan as it's stocks fell in value and never recovered.

The next time I play, I will build more direct routes to my busy industries.   For now, I just don't have time to test the map to a Gold win.  Silver was an easy win.

1. Hauls, 2. CBV and 3. PNW are the only goals.

You don't have to use the Seattle Street Railway to win; But you receive a salary if you do.  Using the Union Pacific or the Great Northern, should give you a win as well, but no salary.  Possibly using one of the smaller RRs could give a win with more challenge.  There is a lot of random, so do restarts until you get the industry placement you want.

PS: I am about to complete another Play through of the map. It is hard to remember what is where, when I only spend a short time each day playing the map. With 1.5 years to go I have over 24 million in Personal Net worth, (9 million more then needed) about 56 million in Company book value and 140+hauls.  Looks like gold is close.

This time I made the route as short as possible with fewer turns.  Used mostly GG1s for the long routes and small inexpensive electrics for short drop shipping routes to feed the mainlines and keep the end of each route supplied with enough cargo so I could use only full trains on the long GG1 runs.  I also choose the Great Northern to control, thus giving up my yearly Seattle Street Rw salary. I stopped stealing cargo from the GN and UP Railroads except where I needed to use an industry in a competitors city.

I believe the Great Northern is the easier of the 3 big RRs to control.  The UP possibly the hardest to control.

To help my PNW, I used the stock market less on this try except to buy stock in Dec. that was about to split into 3 or more parts. I sold most of this stock in Jan.after the split, but kept the company value and the stock values about the same, with the stock value slightly less so it would gain back some value in a month or two when I could sell more of the stock at a profit.

During the game, when the AI chairmen sold my stock causing the price to drop, I bought the sold stock.

 

Every time the AI chairmen would buy my stock, causing its value to go up, I would sell a few shares to make a small profit.  Otherwise I mostly held only my own stock on this play through. I only went into margin a couple of times to buy every share I could before a major stock split. 

Seattle_Street_Railway.zip

[Gwizz]

I modified the above text.

Modified this post:

Won Gold with 10 months to go using the Great Northern RR.

When I play again I will see how hard it is to win using the Union Pacific.

[Gwizz]

With all the rain we are getting, I'm getting some time to do some tycooning.

Well, owning the Union Pacific in not easy. The company pays high taxes.  It has all steam and the mayor's family owns the electric Locomotive business in Seattle, therefore steam has a heavy tax.

Two starts and I receiced a margin call both times at the start of the second year.

On the third try I changed my style and I made it to the 2nd year without a margin call.  I'm still 74% in margin and I'm only using one steam loco. The other 7 are parked.  I'm letting the Great Northern, which I control, run on my track which will give me some cash. 

The two shortlines feed to each end of my mainline. They are making a small profit, so I don't have to worry about them. 

The GG1 comes out in June.  So, I will do some business with the mayor's family and replace my steamers.  In the mean time I will work the stock market for 6 months.  Maybe tomorrow if it is still raining.

[Hawk]

One of these days, if I ever get caught up on my MSTS projects, I'm going to play your new map.  ;D

[Gwizz]

I'm having a ball with this map.  It has many levels of challenge.

I ended 2 more attemps to run the Union Pacific RR.

At the end of the 2nd year I was not a James Hill.  I could not buy myself out a paper bag. So I quit.

Tonight I made it strongly to the end of the 2nd year.  I'm alway deep in margin.  My Union Pacific merged the two Shortlines and the Coal RR and I had a million  to spare. 

I control the Great Northen and it was making money even though I had my hands deep it it's bag of dollars.  I used it to double track and electricify my basic rail lines.  I used it to merge the Aluminum Company RR.  That may have been a mistake, but then it has to run over my track to use the industries on this line.  It does have the best North South main line and owns many spur lines. I try to stay off of it's track as much as possible.

Tomorrow if the rain continues I will see where this try goes.

[loco_motive]

A surprising scenario where the events seem to work and the goals are clear. So definitely worth a play.

Nice bridge between University and Montlake. Doing that with alternating stone bridges makes a nice visual as well.

...The following could be considered to contain spoilers so proceed at your own risk...

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After a bit of examination, it seemed that the Seattle Street track layout would make it the best company to own, regardless of any bonuses. I bulldosed Gr N a bit, after selling off all the shares of it and the 2 short lines, purchased and took over UP, did some bulldosing, etc, sold its shares, then bought into and entered Seattle Streets, which I immediately expanded both north and south to a few more cities.

My stock market strategy was to issue shares each year and then buy them, otherwise making no attempt to advance my holding beyond 50%, except for some very minor shorting of bad companies and more agressive accumulating some of the high return companies. I destroyed or used some of the other companies as they got in my way or were otherwise useful, such as for some track leveling and upgrading for main-line expansion phases.

Expansions came fast and furious in the first 4 years, with an expansion east out of Tacoma to iron and coal and cities, a NS expansion up to Juanita, a NS expansion up to Seattle Docks, an expansion SE from Bellevue past Pop's Pub to Western Timber Company's lumber and paper mills, an expansion up to the crops N of Pop's Pub.

Industry-wise, I decided to develop four auto plants first as it gives the biggest payoff in number of manufactured loads and possibly cargo and industry income as well. Also I developed as much other industry as I could.

Having over $10M company cash early in year 5, I reversed a small short position in Gr N and bought all its available shares, then merged to the great joy of most of the other shareholders (for even then about $3M less than its BV) and re-established that line along with a couple additional cities. I must admit the merge was a lucky mistake since I didn't notice at the time that I held less than 50%.

After that I did a little more but pretty much keep an eye on things and just let it run, buying up industry as it became worthwhile. Clearly, hauls was the critical path to the point of game imbalance, unless you want to do a lot of short-haul dumping. Further development to haul cargos to demand sites would yield a minimal advancement in completion date due to the long distances involved.

Hauls broke 1500 in 4/1940 for gold 5/1940, with $195M PNW ($88M before buyout), $133M CBV, $39M company cash, net of loans. CBV started at $14M and increased by $92.1M income, $1.65M retired engines, $25.2M stock issues and takeover profits. Industry Income in 1939 was $2468K on $17.4M Industry Investments for a yield of 14.2%. Not bad for such newly developed industry.  Running 64 GG1's and 2 1020's.

Working from the 12/1939 position and using company cash to buy back stocks and selling player held stock until player cash is positive reduces PNW into the $80M and CBV into the $100M range with company and player cash both positive and no company debt.

The game was on Expert, with only incidental multiple-counting of cargos due to occasional reconsisting, no depoting, and with minimal hauling and/or dumping of undemanded cargos.

[Gwizz]

Excellent report of a play through Loco-.

I was hoping the map could be played using a number of methods.

I enjoy depoting even though it is not very economical to use.

I tend to leave the IAs in place, only adjusting their track in a few places. This is a challening method for me. But then your methods do work well to promote a win.

Your play through shows others what can be done in winning a map in true tycoon fashion.

Thanks for your report.

[Gwizz]

Well I thought I could take of the GN by going deeper into margin.  I took over the GN with the UP and later a margin call took over me.

Oh well, On another day I'll try to win with the UP again.

[Gwizz]

It is interesting how much a random start can affect game play.

My goal for this game is to merge the 3 big RRs into one.

At the end of 2 years I had only about 26% of the gold company book value requirent,  But I had completed the Gold requirement for PNW and I lacked only one car load for the Gold hauling requirement.

In past games Company Book valve came easy but Hauls and PNW were harder to achieve.

For this game I used the Loco_M method to stop the growth of the other 2 big RRs by taking temporary control and cutting rail.

The UP now has about 30% of what it would be worth at the end of 2 years. 

I missed cutting rail between two stations on the GN. It bought another loco and has only loss about 50% of its total value.  I may run a spur over to one or both of these stations and haul away some of the cargo supply. 

To keep my profit numbers high, I stayed out of margin during the first 2 years and took only one 500K loan to start.  In Dec. with 8 years to go I bought stock in every IA that was going to have a stock split. (About 50% of them) In Jan. I took control of each IA in turn. I floated the maximum number of bonds and bought back stock with the AIs money and use the rest to improved the AIs business to make it more profitable. I also use what was left of AI money to double track much of my single trackage  Next I sold each AIs stock down to about 51%.  This took me out of margin down to about 30%

The plan is for the stock of the AI railroads to increase because of the improvements, then I will sell off the rest to become margin free.  Then I will buy the GN and UP stock at a discounted rate since they are basicly shut down.

I will then merge both. 

I didn't count on my CBV being so low but I was only running 27 locos at the end of 2 years.  About 10 were GG1s which may be the problem.  I've had small locos on their way to drop stations which gave me a large cargo count but little profit. I now have 36 locos and about 50% are GG1s. Since I don't need hauls except to generate profit I will park many of the small locos that don't have a demand station to buy the cargo.

Tomorrow I will run for a few more years and see what happens.   

[Gwizz]

I have another version of Seattle Street Railway. (II)

It has some longer IA Railroads plus the Milwaukee RR and in some ways this map may be harder than Version I. But I have further increased or decreased the value of some cargo, so maybe it is not harder. I've played it so much it is hard to tell.  I also have a couple of MS spread Sheets to go with it.  One, lists all stations on each RR.  The other lists the new values for hauling cargo and gives a few tips on playing the stock market.  While it has a strong stock market leaning, it can be played using a number of play styles.

If anyone is interested, I will do one more play through and post it.

[Gwizz]

I've added a list of the 14 Managers used in this map, to the 2nd Spread Sheet.  They are useful if you want to gain temperary control of all the AIs during the first month of operations. 

[Gwizz]

Don't forget that the full stock market comes alive on expert. 

[Hawk]

Gwizz,

It seems there doesn't seem to be any response to the latest version but I'm interested.

Could you upload it or at least email it to me?

Can I add it to my site?

[Gwizz]

With 50 downloads for version I, this is much more than I thought would go out the door.

Since version I was a simplified version.  I think I will up load version II.  It does play differently and has more events.

The only events I couldn't get to work were 3 that JSS told me how to do and I still can't make them work.  (putting a chairman back into each company)

I quess I wasn't a very good student.

Hawk, I may up load to your site.  I don't want this site to over fill again and I can't find my old password to check and fix it.  When I moved back home, some things were safely packed and I still can't find them. >:( 

I will double check the map and Spread Sheets tomorrow before I do.