The 1700-2050 Ships & RVs Thread

[leifbk]

1825. Enter the era of the Queen of the High Seas, the Clipper. She ruled the waves for 50 years, from 1820 to 1870.

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This is not a typical year for the economy. The Clipper arrived in April 1821, and it takes a few years to upgrade the fleet. There are no Brigs, Merchantmen, or Barques left, only Schooners and Clippers. And the profits look very promising. The annual net income has apparently doubled since 1800, but note the positive "New Vehicles" numbers. I've been selling excess ships like a maniac, and there are still too many ships on several routes. However, the Ship income over running costs exceeds 6:1, even before I've removed all the dead weight.

The future looks so bright that I've got to wear shades.

The arrival of the Schooner, and subsequent upgrade of the fishing ships, enabled me to go further out from the harbour and access remote fishing grounds. The entire Eastern quadrant of the world is filled with fishing grounds, and now I've got 61 Schooners fishing, and 8 Clippers to take the food to Gurplass. That was the town which offered the initial subsidy that got me started on this road to prosperity, way back about 1715.

[leifbk]

In celebration of the company's fortune presently passing £100,000,000 I hereby present a full size screen dump, 2560x1346 pixels:

1841-12-17.png

(1.03 MiB) Downloaded 6 times

Some years ago, a dredging site was discovered at the Western corner of the world. I dug a few canals, and sent the sand to the Brick work (north of Mjølby, not shown) and the stone to the Lime kiln (upper centre). The chemicals from the Lime kiln is fed to the paper mill, which has again increased its output considerably. I could also send the Farming supplies to the forest (lower centre), but the land transport by horse carriage prohibits it. I don't want to clutter this particular part of the landscape with more canals, so for the moment I'm not doing FMSP here.

(In my usual 512x512 games, I invariably have a paper mill going full tilt, churning out hundreds of crates each month. I did this small map as a challenge to see whether it was possible to create a thriving network with such limited resources. It apparently is.)

Note the use of Schooners for the sand and the chemicals. As we know, small and frequent supplies does a lot more for production than the big and far between. The clay is delivered to the paper mill by clipper, which in my heart I consider an abuse of this beautiful ship. I'm going to use the Whitgift barge for that route, as well as for the sand and stone, from 1870.

To enhance the production at the lime kiln, I diverted a small amount of coal from the brick work, setting up 8 2-horse hoppers on a shared timetable route from the coal mine to the lime kiln. Note the one-way signals at the stations. When you set up timetables for articulated vehicles, you should make the route totally deterministic; you don't want the horses to go this way and that and mess up their sequence.

[leifbk]

I succumbed to the temptation, and dug a hole for the ships to the Stavskår forest. The 48 2-horse flatbeds have been replaced by 3 clippers taking the wood to the paper mill. The forest is receiving farming supplies from the lime kiln, and is occasionally going Gung ho. Some care with the placement of the harbour was needed as I didn't want the FMSP to end up at one of the livestock-producing farms.

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I've changed the destination for the cardboard, it now goes by ship to the Omgrunn Fish Market. The Gurplass inhabitants were fed up on pickled herring. The Glass work on the other hand is now producing bottles for the Brewery, which seems a lot more appropriate.

[Kevo00]

Great set of screens - really interesting. I have never played this early. The poor productivity of the road vehicles compared to the ships really comes through in those profit statistics.

[leifbk]

Great set of screens - really interesting. I have never played this early. The poor productivity of the road vehicles compared to the ships really comes through in those profit statistics.

Thank you for the praise. One of the purposes for creating this thread was just to (hopefully) serve as an eye-opener to the fun of playing with the early ships. I hope for more interest in pre-industrial and early industrial games, and then hopefully somebody with the skills will produce suitable graphics for those times.

The profit of the sail ships was much poorer before the squid ate the fish. Andythenorth has fiddled with the profit parameters to enhance the usability of ships in general, and much more so with the Fish2 ships themselves, a subject to which I shall return after 1870.

[leifbk]

It's 1850, a period of consolidation.

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A new coal mine popped up a few years ago. Situated at the southern shore of the Omgrunn fjord, it provided a good line of transport to the Daskegrend lime kiln, which previously has received its coal from the Rekhella coalmine at the opposite side of the Gurplass-Vangsvarp landmass. I've now routed the Rekhella coal to the Mjølby lime kiln, and eliminated the minimal coal trickle which that industry received from the Stutsjø coal mine. As a result, all my three forests now get ample supplies and are yielding huge amounts of wood.

There's a new Metal foundry in the picture too. I've still only got metal for one industry, the moneygoround moniker previously described, - which from a social-economic perspective of course is totally insane. It's a closed circuit that produces nothing of value for anything else.

And then an Oil Well has appeared. There are interesting times ahead.

[leifbk]

A new dredging site was discovered off the Rekhella coastline:

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It has a very good production, more than 100 tons each of sand and stone per month. The stone goes to the Mjølby lime kiln, which in turn produces more chemicals and farming supplies, which both in their turn boost the production at the paper mill, which in its turn again boosts the production at the fish market. And the sand goes to the glass work, which produces even more bottles for the brewery. And the ardent Laskebekk blacksmiths rejoice.

Lately, I've been approached several times by peddlers of some newfangled steam-powered contraptions which are supposed to run along the roads and scare the horses. The price is preposterous and the capacity is unimpressive to say the least.

Some rumours even want us to believe that the world is round. As everyone can see from a map, it's actually flat and diamond-shaped.

[STD]

I also really like these screenshots . I also never tried to play earlier than 1930. Expect more screenshots from the game. Interesting to see the further development of your company .

[leifbk]

I also really like these screenshots . I also never tried to play earlier than 1930. Expect more screenshots from the game. Interesting to see the further development of your company .

Hey STD, thank you.

I'm having a good time with this thread. It's great to document the development of a game in real-time, and it also makes me "work" a bit harder on the details of the game. It's easy to get bored with these games, in particular 18th century transport is a lot like watching paint dry. It's good to have the FF button, knowing that nothing much is likely to happen anyway.

It also gives me a good opportunity to practice my English and try out different prose styles. I've been reading stacks of Victorian prose, and please bear with my feeble occasional efforts to emulate it.

[leifbk]

It's 1865, and for the first time in history, I've opposed the whims of the Powers who decide where and when to put new Industries. As everybody knows, Mr. Bessemer of England some years ago invented the Method bearing his name, by which it is possible to produce high quality steel at a very modest price. For years, I have awaited the arrival of one of these facilities. When the Powers then decided to place an old-fashioned Iron work amidst my fields, I became so hopping mad that I ordered my men to tear down the still unfinished building and instead erect a Steel mill at the site.

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The Iron ore from the 2 western mines is being redirected to the new Steel mill. The town of Smedplass, in the extreme North, is running a facility called a Scrap Yard which is salvaging metal excellently suited for recirculation through a Steel mill. I have already set up a Harbour at that site and am, as I write, in the process of filling up the first ship load of Scrap Metal.

[leifbk]

It's 1875, and we're half-way through the game

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The transition from sailing ships to steam ships is proceeding well. The process takes some time, as I'm doing route by route.

The first to go were the Schooners. They disappeared from the roster very soon after 1870, and their reliability was going south fast. I've got all the Fishing ships in one vehicle group, and simply upgrade them all at once. This is unproblematic, because the Fish Island Trawler has almost exactly the same capacity as the Schooner. While it's slightly slower, it also takes slightly more load. The rest of the Schooners are mostly traded in for Barges. The latter have more than 50 % higher capacity, so a pruning of each route with about 1/3 is needed.

Since I got the hang of Vehicle groups (which is a fantastic tool), I'm putting every shipping route (except for the fishing ships) in its own group, and when it's time to upgrade, I normally just use the "Replace Vehicles" menu item. But the transition from sails to steam is special. Maybe it's just me being excessively pedantic, but I'm naming every vehicle with the classic ship type abbreviation, ie. "S/S" for Sailing Ship, and "M/S" for Motor Ship. (The fishing ships are called "F/S" regardless of the type of propulsion.) The proper name is a combination of the town name of the delivering industry and the cargo name, for instance the coal ships from Svalstua coal mine are called "Svalstuakull". Finally there's the serial number starting with 1; when you copy a vehicle with a name ending with a number, the system will automatically increment it for the next vehicle.

So, for the new machine ships I'll buy a new ship, refit it to the correct cargo, name it, copy the orders list from the corresponding sail ship, and put the new ship in the same group. Then I tell the sail ships to go to the depot and stop as the final order. Then it's just copying new ships and selling off old ships until the replacement is complete.

To the economy stats: I cannot say right now if the Ship income over running costs is giving a correct picture, as I still haven't got total control over excess tonnage. The cost profile of the Squid ships is also very different from the Sailing ships. The latter are more expensive to buy, but cheaper to run, than the former. In 1900 the picture will be much clearer.

[leifbk]

It is the year 1900, and the family fortune is steadily growing; I'm getting obscenely rich.

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I set up this Oil refinery at my own expense. The Powers dumped an Oil refinery at a totally inappropriate place; it has now gone bankrupt, while my own is going by on such meagre resources as can be found. There is still only one source of oil, but I'm being told that others will follow. The Refinery is producing Chemicals that for now are shipped by barge to the Metal foundry previously shown, which also receives metal from the Steel mill. The manufacturing supplies go to the Stockyard, while the goods go to the town of Omgrunn.

There's also a production of highly combustible liquids called Gasoline from this refinery; currently they are being mostly burned as waste, but there are rumours lately that these fluids may be used to power a new kind of engine called the Explosion motor.

My ship income over running costs has been going down to a little above 4:1, which is a lot less profit than I expected from these engine-driven ships. They get slightly better cargo rates than what the sailing ships did, but their running costs are higher. It is not like the golden days of the Clipper, when the ships hauled a 7:1 profit.

The Little Cumbrae and the Whitgift barge are the dominant ship types. I have purchased a few Altamiras for freight of the crude oil and for some end-products across open water, but they don't exactly push the profit through the roof. Soon there will be a fast Packet Steamer which I will purchase for the freight of food and drink.

[leifbk]

The first Gasoline-powered cart has been made available.

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I must say that both its capacity and speed look pitiful compared to the horses, but it looks far more promising than the Steam-powered behemoths that I previously have been offered. As soon as these "Automobiles" surpass the 4-horse wagon both in speed and capacity, I will seriously consider to send all my horses to the Stockyard.

[leifbk]

1912: A new facility called a Machine Shop has opened, and it's a truly wonderful invention.

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It converts Metal and Gasoline to Farming supplies and Engineering supplies. You may send it either metal or gasoline or both; they don't seem to care whether they only get one or the both. I'm now sending all my Gasoline to this facility, and the Engineering supplies are being sent by barge to the Oil well, which is pumping out oil at a formidable rate, which in turn makes even more gasoline at the Refinery to send to the Machine Shop. I've also attached a second Oil well to the network, but that doesn't have quite as high base production as the first one.

The Farming supplies go to the Fruit plantation that feeds the Brewery, and beer production once more has increased, to the enjoyment of the industrious Laskebekk blacksmiths.

[leifbk]

It's 1925, and the horses have all gone to the Stockyard.

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The Automobile from 1915 changed the entire picture. Loading 10 tons and speeding along at 32 km/h, it totally outperformed the horse carts. The 2-horse wagons were replaced by half the number of Automobiles, and the 4-horse wagons with 2/3 respectively.

I have been able to greatly simplify the routes, as the Automobiles occupy a lot less space on the roads. There are no more dedicated roads for 2-horse wagons. A couple of low-volume ship routes have been replaced by Automobiles, because of a much shorter and more direct route.

The statistics show that Road vehicle income over running costs now is exceeding 3:1. We may expect that number to rise in the future, as new Automobiles that will dash along the roads at breath-taking speeds, maybe even 40 km/h, soon will be available.

[le_harv]

I am enjoying the early start and has encouraged me to give it a go. Also through this thread found out there was a FISH2! Then I discover that English is not your first language yet your stories are very funny. Keep it up!

[Kevo00]

Cool. Although the internal combustion engine has improved your road profit margins somewhat, it's still a tiny business compared to shipping. It'll be interesting to see what you can do when you get to serious trucking.

Do you have any trams or are they banned too? Freight trams do a real knock up job for me.

[leifbk]

le_harv & Kevo00, thanks for your replies.

I haven't "banned" trams, I occasionally use the HEQS cargo trams when there's no good alternative. In a few games I have used the heavy trams to move oil, with good profit. The Hennigsdorf is awesome for its time. The problem is that the cargo trams don't develop much; the Ishizuchi is the final all-round cargo tram. In the 70s or 80s they are easily outperformed by the big oil trailers and I want to switch over, but it's a lot of work as the cargo tram lines tend to go through several long tunnels. So I feel kind of stuck with cargo trams.

The Dynamo is good for Recycling materials after 2000; it seems to be the only decent vehicle for land transport of that cargo.

English is not my first language, but I'm considering it a close second Ever since 1972, when I discovered the joy of reading Tolkien in his native tongue, I've been an avid reader of English and American literature. Norwegian is a close cousin of the English language, but the grammar and syntax is a little different, and my use of prepositions may sometimes look a little weird. Just think of my ramblings as the letters from a Norwegian magnate to his English friend.

[leifbk]

Here are the 1950 statistics:

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The 25-year report is a little late this time because I have been busy with the upgrade of the fishing fleet. Most of the 75 old fishing boats have been replaced with the new Cape Spear class, thus reducing the total number of trawlers to 35. There are still some small fishing grounds close to the market being served by the old boats.

The Road Vehicle income still constitutes a fairly small part of the company's gross income, but the RV income over running costs has passed 13:1. The awesome 25 ton truck, with the equally awesome name of ATP Instructor, is making huge earnings. I have replaced several shipping routes with this excellent vehicle already. I expect to replace even more, as the trucks are getting larger and faster all the time. Recently I had news of an articulated hopper, being able to transport 35 tons, but as I was busy with the fishing ships, I had to turn down the early access offer.

As the picture shows, I have become involved in the Aluminium trade. The Bauxite goes to a newly erected Aluminium plant close to Laskebekk. The metal is freigted by ship across the Omgrunn fjord to the Svalstua foundry. The Bauxite mines were discovered on steep hill tops, and would perhaps be better served by those Helicopters they are building abroad.

Some years ago, I financed a coal mine in order to increase the metal production at the steel mill. It was hideously expensive, but the impact on the family fortune was hardly noticeable.

[leifbk]

The 1975 statistics are ready:

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The shipping profits are soaring, due to the new Marstein class. These ships make good speed, 42 km/h with full load. They are smaller than the Altamiras, only 270 tons, but the higher speed compensates for that, so I have been able to swap them 1 to 1. The smaller 'Cumbraes have also mostly been swapped for Marsteins, but on a few low volume routes I have either downgraded to barges, or where possible, moved to land transport. I'm actually making a little less on shipping than 25 years ago, but note that the number of ships has gone down from 322 to 238 during that period. The number of road vehicles is about the same, but they have become dramatically more capable over the years, and their gross income has doubled since 1950.

As you can see, the Stavskår forest is once again served by road vehicles, like before 1843 when the harbour was built. But these big beasts load 60 tons of wood and travel at 48 km/h, thus each of them is equivalent to 18 horse-carts. There are huge wood trucks available taking twice as much, but as they take up a lot of space I'm a bit reluctant about them. And then there's the concern about articulated trucks that you'll want them all to travel at the same speed, because they can't overtake each other. The clay from the Kreklingvarp pit is brought by big hopper trucks to the paper mill, and they travel along the same road as these wood trucks.

The Road vehicles are doing overall very well, with an income over running costs of more than 14:1. The livestock and grain transport go by small and fast vehicles, and for the rest I'm using the big articulated trucks. Soon there will be even faster big trucks available; a large articulated oil tanker running at 64 km/h is already present. However, I'm moving all the oil by ship. In this world with all that water, that is an easy choice. The incentive to move to land transport has also been somewhat diminished by the fact that ships travelling at 42 km/h perform quite well compared to trucks going at 48 km/h.