Beat that! ... if you like. A small contest.

[monthu]

Hi people,

I lately had a little contest running with a few of my friends. I created a scenario, wich is quite simple and straight forward. It is supposed to force the player, to build an efficient network.

The game is simple. Play from 1950 to 2050 and earn as much money as you can. Everything except building coalmines, copperoremines, farms and oilwells/rigs is allowed. When you activate the cheatmenu in the provided savegame, you will noticed the check next to the mighty destruction tool. I used that once to destroy a bank which was in the way of one station expansion. You got to trust me on that one You may use that once too. I trust you on that one In every other way using cheats should be avoided. If you do, please comment on that.

It would be great if anyone would like to play that and post their savegames here. I provided the .scn, .sav and my config. The game version ist 5.2.0 (sorry) but runs also on 5.3.0 and maybe others.

Try to beat 31 billion € Have fun

Kind Regards monthu

[LordAzamath]

There isn't any 5.x versions... 0.5.2/0.5.3...
And the scenario runs on any later versions... Revers is just not possible...

Anyway, I suggest you to update to atleast 0.6.0-beta2, if not nightlys

[Bilbo]

Hmm ... so can I build bunch of forests then ? :)

[monthu]

Sorry. Of course i meant 0.5.2 and 0.5.3. And yes, i will update soon

And you are of course not supposed to build forests as well

[FooBar]

I'm giving this a try

Can I disable breakdowns, or is that not allowed? I hate breakdown, because they always cause traffic jams on my network. In my opinion, if trains get serviced properly, they should seldomly break down, e.g. 2 or 3 times in 10 years.

[monthu]

Actually you can play that as u like I had breakdowns at normal. But yes, it can get quite annoying. For better compareability it would be good, if u leave it at normal. But before you don't give it a try at all, put it out.

[FooBar]

Alright, I leave it on then

Just bought my first airplane and already have most industries connected. I'm doubling all tracks now, so that I can buy more trains.

[FooBar]

I'm currently in 2001 and just got my first billion together.

I have all industries connected by trains. I funded a factory and oil refinery in order to be able to travel larger distances. I also dug some water at the edge of the map, and the game was generous enough to give me two oil rigs.

One of the two towns has grown to a large city (26k). The other town is heading in the right direction (4.5k). In 2003 I'll add a second airport (the intercontinental one) to both towns, so that I can have about 50 aircraft flying (or maybe more, the international handles 16 aircraft atm, so 32 per intercontinental might be possible).

I'm still unsure if I will upgrade to maglev as soon as that gets available. Depends on the income of the aircraft. I don't really like hauling things other than passengers with maglev, because that's not really realistic.

The only setting I changed was enabling trains to reverse at stations, because I'm using dualheaded trains.
Although I don't like 'em much, I left breakdowns enabled.

I'll let you know when I'm done

[Zuu]

Nice to see some challenges.

I've started the contest using beta 3 patched with my patch that let me scroll by holding middle mouse button and move my wacom pen up or down.

In game I've only changed some interface settings such as English instead of German!, link landscape toolbar with rail/road/etc. toolbar, main toolbar in center, length measurement tooltip and possible something more that I've forgotten. But only interface settings.


My question is am I allowed to use 0.6.0 things like bridges over diagonal tracks? That saves a lot of money instead of using tunnels, so that decision matters in the beginning of the game. Perhaps no then?

[FooBar]

My question is am I allowed to use 0.6.0 things like bridges over diagonal tracks? That saves a lot of money instead of using tunnels, so that decision matters in the beginning of the game. Perhaps no then?

Well, I'm using those too. I'm used to using those, so I didn't even realise they weren't in 0.5.x.

[CARST]

I played 2 hours and have now the first 12 years finished. I connected everything by train and the towns per plane.

I have 5.000.000 Euro cash right now, no credit, playing with your settings...


Hopefully i get close to your 31 billion, but i don't see me reaching them. Well, i continue reporting...


Sincerly,
C. Contest
CEO Contest Transport

[BeSt-Com]

i started playing yesterday (but only 1 hour a day time ...)

[FooBar]

Try to beat 31 billion € Have fun

It's going to be a close finish I guess. I either just make it, or just not make it.

I'm halfway 2027 and have 8 billion in cash now. Making over half a billion a year, and rising.

In 2023 I had to upgrade everything to maglev, because the reliability of the asiastar went south.

[LordAzamath]

hmm.. The income CAN grow so much because of inflation I think.. 31 billion is 31 000 000 000... To have this with 100 years you have to make approx 310 000 000 every year.. And you start with the third year max about income 5 000 000 because it's expensive to build and you have to pay back the loan too and expand... Inflation indeed...

[nezzybaby]

^To try and ellaborate a little on what you're saying, given an annual inflation of 2%, not actuallly sure if thats what you're using in this game, but lets suppose. By the 100th year what was worth a pound in the first year will be worth a little over seven pounds. By the 77th year this value is closer to £4, so technically Foobar already has 14Billion and is gaining at a rate of 0.87bil a year, roughly speaking this would imply that by the time he gets to the end he will be on 34billion, however this does not take into account any improvements in the network, as that figure could easily go up with more trains etc. I assume he's not gonna maintain the status quo for the rest of the game, but if he does he will be in the lead.

[FooBar]

Thanks for elaborating

I'm currently at the beginning of 2036, have a little over 14 GigaEuros in cash and making a little under 0,9 GEuro a year. If a plane decides to crash, this last figure can easily drop to 0,7 or so. Or if a UFO lands somewhere and I don't spot that in time.

I don't know how you got to those figures, but they are damn accurate.

In 36 hours I probably know the exact figure.

[monthu]

Im quite keen on seeing your savegame FooBar. With 14 G€ in 2036 this can become quite close.

Regarding the update question, i have to say that I instantly switch my whole network at the time when el/mono/maglev becomes available. In my experience the increased profit due to higher train speeds weighs more than the higher breakdown rate.

[FooBar]

I skipped monorail, but I switched to Maglev as soon as the vehicle reliability of the Lev1 became higher that that of the AsiaStar.
Usually, I don't swich rail types at all. A rail network stays a rail network for eternity. I only use maglev for new stand-alone passenger networks as soon as it's available. Monorail is not supported by the trainsets I usually use (either DBXL or UKRS). I also try to make my networks as realistic as possible, and rather go around a mountain than underneath (but since there are no mountains in this scenario...)

Anyways, I'm going to finish this game

[FooBar]

There we go... 32.3 billion cash, and a company value of 33 billion. A little less than nezzybaby's estimations, because I made some crucial mistakes in the end phase (trains getting stuck, not keeping up with newly spawned industries), but still enough to win the contest. For now

It was fun to play, but I'd rather have a more challenging landscape with lots of steep mountains and lots of lakes.

Now it's up to you guys, try and beat a company value of EUR 33,062,111,170


I attached my final savegame below, as well as a screenshot. For the savegame you need r11721 or higher. 0.6.0 beta 3 would probably also suffice, as that was released after r11721.

[monthu]

nice one ... i'll take a closer look as soon as time allows (most likely tomorrow). Hopefully i can learn something. If you like, create a scenario (which u think of would be more challenging) on your own and post it. I would give it a try. The contest should stay about the same, because i'm not into "but-that-junction-is-not-realistic"-discussions, if you know what I mean.