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The story of Big Bucks Bus and Rail

Started by LeifInge, May 14, 2009, 03:38:39 PM

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Asterix909

As someone else mentioned, I think the more pictures you show, the better. They are not only entertaining but informative too.

I have some questions about your bus lines:
Do each of the cities have internal bus routes, with trans-city routes between them?
Do you run buses between just two cities, or do you string them? for example, if you have three cities, A, B, and C, do you have a bus line that goes A->B->C->A or do you have multiple lines A<->B, B<->C or A<->B, B<->C, C<->A?
Hopefully all that makes sense.

I am relatively new to the game, so I am curious how other people run their bus lines... I tend to run local circuits within each city (in a 'circle' within the city) then regional circuits in the A->B->C->A style, then larger circuits between regional circuits... I feel as though my lines are not very efficient though... buses fill up too early in the circuits.

LeifInge

Thanks for the feedback, i'll try to upload more pictures in my future posts. Feel free to request pictures of different things you want to see!

Let my try how the BBBR network is built up. I have in many ways three layers.
- First there is the local busses, I'm trying to have a local busnetwork to ensure that the whole village is covered stations. These lines offen have a maximum off 4 or 5 stops. If they get much bigger I'll split them. The layout is varying, either circular or linear, depending on the form of the city. In each city I got one Main Stop, which is the startingpoint for my next "layer" From the main stop I also have tourism and commute busses to nearby industries and attractions.

- Second I've got intercity buslines, I allways make these between two cities, never more than that. These goes between each city main stop. Like in the north I have these intercitylines, all moving people down to the regional hub, Springfield:
* Springfield - Hillfield
* Springfield - Heppfield
* Springfield - Brentchester
* Brentchester - Hillfield
* Hillfield - Maliborough
* Heppfield - Maliborough
Springfield and Springborough are the two regional hubs, serving an area each. Brentham does the same, but have on even more important role in my network.

- Third I have the main lines, these are offen railroads.  These are key lines which moves large numbers of people between regions. All these main lines meet in the main hub, in this case Brentham. At the moment I have two main lines:
* Brentham - Springfield
* Brentham - Springborough
When I continue the expansion southwest and also connect Ashmouth, then Brentham - Springden will be my third main line

When the region grows I'll might use several main hubs and regional hubs. There is a limit for how many people you can move through one station :)

Hope this overview were informative and answered your question.

One last tip is to rename all your line to the name of the destinations. Then it is so much quicker to find them keep a good overview! :)

Asterix909

Thanks for the info on your lines! I just went into one of my saves now and modified some of my lines to be more like yours... got to give it some time to see how it pans out though.

Quote from: LeifInge on May 16, 2009, 09:47:19 AM
*To be honest: The missing money is actually my fault when I placed some rails out in nowhere by mistake, but hey, crime is a much more fun excuse :)
I'll also take a moment to mention that I really like how you handled that situation. I used to micromanage things hardcore, but recently started playing games a bit more hands off- and I find it to be much more fun.

In a game like Simutrans, when you accidentally place some track wasting a bunch of money, delete it and chalk it up to corporate scandal!
In a game like xcom, when your guy gets blasted and killed in an ambush, play it out, people are not invincible!
just letting things go with the flow even at your own expense because of mistakes or random luck tends to be so much more fun in its own way than controlling every last little detail and outcome.

Severous

Hi.

I just found this account and am following it with interest.

My experience with this game is limited to Pak64 and money is easy to make (in 1800 when I started). So my advice may not be relevant to your version and era.  But here goes.

Why not build a ship service to connect the two south west towns. 
-Port (and ship yard) in the most southerly part of the bay equal distant between Appington and Brentden. Add bus stop and sufficient buses to transport passengers from both towns to/from the port. You have a bus route there already.
- Port on the coast half way between Springden and Ashmouth. So ferry has perfect east/west journey after headland off Brentden
- Ferry service between the two ports.
- Rail line directly north through easy terrain to Hillville. Hillville becomes the hub.
- latter, branch lines to Springden and Ashmouth.

My thought process was that this set up means no single journey has elements of both north & south travel (cancelling out income earning) , plus uses just two ports. It connects large numbers of long distance passengers.

Sorry its a bit late, its the poor transport service down here in the south west you know.  Which ever way you go..perhaps you will connect us soon.
Regards
Sev.

LeifInge

Asterix909: Cool that like my way of playing. There is of course some times when I reload. If i have an idea I'll save, try it and if it works really bad, then I'll reload. Anyway, having fun is always my main focus. Its not a goal for me to do everything perfect. 

Severous: Your idea is good, and to some excent it has allready been discused... It is company strategy to expand southwest by boat, but I can allready tell you that there is one major problem. More info will come in my next update.

Sorry to keep you waiting, but the next update is the 10th, so it will be long and important. (hopefully not too long, but there is much to say and celebrate)

Asterix909

Quote from: LeifInge on May 16, 2009, 01:32:08 PM

what bus stop is that (with the yellow squiggles) and how is the non-adjacent stop sharing with the train station?

Ashley

You can make non-adjacent stations/bus stops by building a continuous station and then deleting the parts in-between. You can completely cover an entire city with one stop by this method (so one station can cover a large city) meaning no problems of inner-city congestion/running buses etc. It's a cheat though :)
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Asterix909

Ok. So I knew about the 'cheat' way to do it... I guess I was wondering if there was any other way, especially since in the pic, it appears he actuall has three stations placed (just noticed one, actually) and they are separated by a 4-way intersection... which means (assuming he did it like you say) he would need to have placed...3 extra station tiles then deleted them, and had two re-built on by NPC buildings.

B=npc building
S=station
+, -, | = roads

BSBB
S+--
B|BS
B|BS
B| S

All three of the stations are under one name... so he would have at one time had this:
X=temp station

XSBB
S+--
XXXS
B|BS
B| S


Oiy, good luck to the non-native English speakers reading the gibberish I just wrote - I barely understand what I'm saying! ;D


I occasionally use the 'cheat method' in order to put two stations with maybe a road between them under one name- or stations separated by landscape problems... But I've never done so to the extreme (what I'd label as maliciously).

cascadia

Quote from: Asterix909 on May 29, 2009, 06:32:49 PM
Ok. So I knew about the 'cheat' way to do it... I guess I was wondering if there was any other way, especially since in the pic, it appears he actuall has three stations placed (just noticed one, actually) and they are separated by a 4-way intersection... which means (assuming he did it like you say) he would need to have placed...3 extra station tiles then deleted them, and had two re-built on by NPC buildings.

B=npc building
S=station
+, -, | = roads

BSBB
S+--
B|BS
B|BS
B| S

All three of the stations are under one name... so he would have at one time had this:
X=temp station

XSBB
S+--
XXXS
B|BS
B| S


Oiy, good luck to the non-native English speakers reading the gibberish I just wrote - I barely understand what I'm saying! ;D


I occasionally use the 'cheat method' in order to put two stations with maybe a road between them under one name- or stations separated by landscape problems... But I've never done so to the extreme (what I'd label as maliciously).


The problem with using the separate stops as one station cheat is that you WON'T get the traffic and income from intra-city (within the same city) demand, so it's harder to make a profit, since intra-city transit in dense urban areas is one of the easiest ways to make money.

LeifInge

#44
Quote from: Asterix909 on May 29, 2009, 06:32:49 PM
Ok. So I knew about the 'cheat' way to do it... I guess I was wondering if there was any other way, especially since in the pic, it appears he actuall has three stations placed (just noticed one, actually) and they are separated by a 4-way intersection... which means (assuming he did it like you say) he would need to have placed...3 extra station tiles then deleted them, and had two re-built on by NPC buildings.

Actually the stops only need to be next to each other diagonally, so I haven't deleted a singel station :) No cheat, no building and deleting. Just placing them normaly...

Anyway, cool to have some discussion. I'll try to give you guys more to discuss with my next post. BBBR needs to take som strategic choices.

mwoodburn81

If you look really close, there is a "parking"-type bus stop between the rail platforms and the simple bus stop. 

LeifInge

Here comes, by far, my longest post ever on this forum, this year there were just too much to tell. I hope its not to overwhelming, and that you give me some feedback on the four different strategic areas. I promise you that I'll not make this a habit, and try to keep the post shorter than this one.

Start of 1940
This meeting was planned to be a huge celebration. There were two great things to celebrate: 10 years of operation and the completion of the southwestern expansion. A huge dinner was arranged with the finest food the region could offer.  Three local Chinese professional had been hired to launch a huge firework at midnight.

One after one the mayors arrived, by bus or train - most of them with huge, happy smiles. But slowly a rumor started to spread; something had gone wrong in the southwest! Suddenly a press conference was arranged, and a clearly concerned CEO arrived. Then the shocking news was told, new demands from the government lead to a crisis in the ship building industry. At the moment there were only two large ships available. Both ships had a prize over 200000, much more than the company was able to use in the nearest years. This meant that the final expansion southwest were delayed for several new years.


(This one was the cheapest of the two :( )

After some critical question from the press, the CEO admitted that his staff had made a mistake, and promised to work hard to find the quickest possible solution. At the same time he pointed out that the company had several important and expensive challenges in the near future, so he said it was up to the owners to decide. At the meeting he planned to point out four strategic areas, and let the owners decide which strategy the company should follow.

When the owners meeting started the CEO decided to let the ship scandal rest until the announced scenario presentation. Instead he started to present where BBBR was after 10 years of operation, and pointed out three success stories:
- First he talked about Maliborough, once a small village with 1382 people living there, now it has three new monuments one Russian Church and 3590 people living there.  I 1939 they built a new monument and also provided a new church to the growing Russian minority. The church will surely provide lots of new tourist to the town in the future!


(The graph shows the growth, it's easy to see when the three monuments were built. Also you can see the new Russian church

- The second success was the fact that during the last ten years over 705000 travels have been bought from BBBR in the first 10 years, growing from 24184 the first year, to 104282 in 1939.



- And finally, the region has grown from a collection of small villages to a region which is growing larger every day.  9748 more people is living in the region now, than in 1930. From 16343 to 26091 gives a growth of 59,6% an average of 4,79% each year.



He also told how 1939 had been a good year, with the highest number ever to come in one year, 1438, but at 5,83% it is over 1% lower than the record in percent. The operational profit was around 50000. Most of it was used to buy one new Kei Kiha on the line from Brentham to Springfield, increasing it to three. There were also some new local lines started, to ensure good coverage.

The CEO then started to focus on the future for the region and BBBR. He pointed out several challenges that had to be dealt with in the next decade:
-   The fact that not all cities in the  had a connection to the transport network, and the problem with the overpriced ships
-   The rapid population growth meaning that several of the bus stations get overcrowded on regularly basis. In the future some cities also might need a more efficient local service.
-   The need to renovate and upgrade the existing train stations, especially Brentham



-   New technology means new demands from passengers concerning travel time, so the trains and railroad tracks might need an upgrade to remain as profitable.
-   The need to increase profit to make money available for investments.

Based on this the CEO presented four strategic areas:

-   Expansion first, this means that the company should try to connect the remaining villages as quick as possible. This should be prioritized over investments on the existing network.
PROS: All villages in the region get to take part in the growth. More potential passengers are brought into the network.
CONS: Some of the villages could be hard to connect to, making the price high.  Also the profit might not increase because of expensive maintenance.

Local focus, by focusing on giving every village in the network excellent coverage. At the same time the company can save up some money to future investments.
PROS:  maxing growth within the villages connected. Not too expensive, only time consuming.
CONS: The profit will not increase by much and some villages stay unconnected.

-   Renovation, upgrading existing lines and stations, in order to make especially the trains go faster and to start carrying mail. This also means that some of the stations get a facelift.
PROS: Faster transport means that more people can travel, and also more mail. It also ensures that the travelers continue to pay extra for speed.
CONS: The towns far away from the railroad will still need to use slow buses. None new villages get connected.

-   Railroad instead of buses, by building new railroads to replace some of the slow bus lines. One priority should perhaps be Springfield to Maliborough, but also building a line to the towns east for Brentham.
PROS: Profit might increase, possible to finance parts of it by selling buses. More people will be moved faster, and only have to wait at spacious train stations, instead of small bus stops.
CONS: Again, no new villages get connected by this. It would also be expensive, leaving little to other investments.

The CEO then challenged the owners to discuss what the company should focus on. After a heated debate, where the mayors of Appington and Brendten of course talked enthusiastic about the benefits of expansion, while the mayor of Maliborough wanted a new railroad to his town, the owners decided that they needed some more time. They also wanted some external consultants opinion. They therefore decided that the next years should be used to do only some minor adjustments, before the next year decided on a long-term plan.

Key Numbers:
Proceeds: 337398,66
Operational Profit: 50036,08

Traveled:  104282

47 lines (48 road and 3 rail) (+4 inactive maillines)
11 RVg-KS 33 (0)
4 RVg-KS 45 (0)
27 RVg-KS 69 (-1)
12 RVg-KS 4051 Post Truck (0)
3 (1 x1 and 2 x3) Kei Kiha 22 (+1)

5 Largest Cities:

Maliborough  3590 (+488)
Brentham     2293 (+417)
Appingmouth 1769 (+74)
Oldfield        1736 (+56)
Brentton      1714 (+34)

Total inhabitants: 26091 (+1438)

jamespetts

Very interesting! If you're looking for advice, you could do a lot worse than prioritise having a direct rail line between Oldfield and Malliborough.
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Severous

Great post LeifInge!.  Must have taken a while to put that together.

Might an investment in old technology be allowed?  'Show obsolete too' in the shipyard ferry tab might reveal some cheaper options (it does on Pak64 which is all I have). Whilst the slow speed may reduce income per passenger, on the ship journey, the additional passengers will pay top dollar on the other legs on their onward journeys.  The smaller loads on earlier ferries may allow higher % loadings and be easier to deal with the fewer passengers once they disembark and want alternative transport.

Go for profit..not town growth. Aim for vehicles 100% full on all legs of all journeys.  No worry about speed and quality. Fewer lines that force passengers have longer convoluted journeys to get anywhere. Add capacity to existing routes if there is clearly a demand.  I found mail to be a big loss maker.
Regards
Sev.

Combuijs

The mayor of Combuijs City (just outside the borders...) advises to build roads from Springden to Ashmouth and Brentden (unless you can find some old secondhand boat of course  ;)) to get every village growing. Profit and traffic growth will raise from then on.
Bob Marley: No woman, no cry

Programmer: No user, no bugs



VS

Ah, lack of small ships strikes again :(

I would focus on consolidating a railroad backbone. No idea what you did with traffic, but it always keeps me from using buses. Might be different for you though ;)

My projects... Tools for messing with Simutrans graphics. Graphic archive - templates and some other stuff for painters. Development logs for most recent information on what is going on. And of course pak128!

mobo

Have you considered building a railroad to these 2 cities in the southwest? With a little bridge across the water (in the south where it is narrow)? You hae to invest in the rails of course, but you can use the train that already runs to uhmm.. Springden?! (the city at the eastern shore of that lake) and make it travel a bit longer.

One more about the cheating: If you build some adjacent stops and remove the middle ones so you get non adjacent but "combined" stops this is an usual method in simutrans. Might seem a bit awkward but there is no other way AFAIK.

If you use this method to spread one stop all aross a bigger city this is called cheating by some players (or maybe exploiting would be the correct term). However this isn't a big problem, you can adjust so many parameters (like starting money e.g.) that everyone plays it a little different anyway. And as long as you play alone you only cheat yourself.


Asterix909

Quote from: LeifInge on June 01, 2009, 09:50:29 PM
Here comes, by far, my longest post ever on this forum, this year there were just too much to tell. I hope its not to overwhelming, and that you give me some feedback on the four different strategic areas. I promise you that I'll not make this a habit, and try to keep the post shorter than this one.
I have not read past this quote yet, but I just want to say: long posts are not bad! I am really enjoying your story, so the longer the post, the more content it has which means more fun for me! ...ok, now to read the rest:-)

VS

By the way, I would love to see a save... please? :)

My projects... Tools for messing with Simutrans graphics. Graphic archive - templates and some other stuff for painters. Development logs for most recent information on what is going on. And of course pak128!

Asterix909

If you continue adding villages to the network, you will increase passenger loads. If your current capacity is near full, I'd suggest focusing on the renovation option. This will let you benefit from the added passengers from any newly connected cities.

LeifInge

First of all, cool to see all the replies. Glad to see that there is some people reading this. Nice to get different ideas on how to go from here.

At the start of 1940 BBBR only had 2633 cash, so any investment(s) is a bit restricted by this, since the owners expect a surplus, at least at the end of each year....

Jamespetts: I think it could generate more profit if I get more people over on rails. But why Maliborough to Oldfield? It would take some years to get enough money to build it.

Severous: Took quite some time to get that post finished :) But my excellent excelsheet made it easier. Got the growth of all villages + the economy at the end of each year registered there. Of course it would be tempting to use old technology, but new goverment regulations make this impossible... So BBBR need to come up with a new solution! I'm just glad they discovered the problem before they built any docks. It is tempting to go for max profit, but in the long term the mayors expect that the region continue growing as much as possible.

Combuijs: Why roads? Wouldn't the maintaince be quite high, rails are more expensive to build, but profit vs. maintaince is much higher because of the speed and capacity.

VS: It really is a problem, there should be a smaller ship in this time period :( Traffic isn't a problem at the moment. Trafic density is set at 7, and I'm able to transport enough passengers to keep the cars (mostly) away.

mobo: Building a southwestern railroad is an option, but if I do, then I need a new train as well. The one I have one barely is big enough for Brendten. Of course I could just let the stations be crowded, but that wouldn't be in the spirit of the game. The mayors don't like crowded stations.
About the station placement, as I've said before, all my stations are adjacent. There is no holes or deleted stations. I even try not to use parkinglots to much, I rather start a local line to make sure all the houses are covered. What might confuse some of you is perharps that I use one busstop and one postbox stop, since the combined stop isn't possible to build yet, and I try to have at leaste some post service. (Need to do something about is soon, since none of the train is carrying mail atm...)

Asterix909:
Nice to hear that you like long posts, I'm just afraid to make the to long and boring without any progress.

VS (2): I'll got the save for each year except the start. I persume that start of 1940 is most interesting. Just tell me where and how to post it, and I'll try to get it out soon...

Asterix909 (2):
Some parts of the network have more capacity, at least the busses are flexible - since I just can and another bus. The railroad backbone is more crowded, with little extra space.

Thanks for all the comments, please keep posting, and I'll try to give you the next update soon.

Combuijs

QuoteCombuijs: Why roads? Wouldn't the maintaince be quite high, rails are more expensive to build, but profit vs. maintaince is much higher because of the speed and capacity.

In that neighbouring country the central government pays for some of the roads, as it is in anybody's interest to have a connection between villages. The inhabitants then can cycle or drive to other villages. Where did your original roads come from? Who laid them? Well, that same institution can build additional roads to open up remaining villages.

In absolute sense roads are cheaper in maintenance. But when the villages are growing you get in capacity trouble, you need too many busses. So you have to build that railway connection in the end anyway (certainly in pak128). I guess the Brentham - Springden line is not doing too well at the moment in terms of profit. To boost that line you need to connect at least the South West as early as possible. The Springden - South West connection may start out with a loss, but an improved Brentham-Springden line will compensate.

But this is of course just a foreign mayor talking...
Bob Marley: No woman, no cry

Programmer: No user, no bugs



VS


My projects... Tools for messing with Simutrans graphics. Graphic archive - templates and some other stuff for painters. Development logs for most recent information on what is going on. And of course pak128!


VS

Thanks!

I guess you decided to focus on moving people, because these industries are practically screaming for service. Too bad... you could have told the mayors additional funding would allow faster growth later :)

Anyway, forget what I said about rail backbone, you don't have (yet) anywhere near enough need for that. Rather you already have it. What is already built seems to be enough, in fact more of a future investment than used asset. If you are "roleplaying", don't forget that tracks are made for denser traffic than the one train you currently have there. Don't let them nasty mayors push you into bankruptcy with dreams :D

Anyway, great! I like watching games like this, and learning from that.

My projects... Tools for messing with Simutrans graphics. Graphic archive - templates and some other stuff for painters. Development logs for most recent information on what is going on. And of course pak128!

Silver

this is a story about a savegame of simutrans pak 128?
:o
wow, quite interesting!!!

LeifInge

VS: Some interesting observations, I'm aware of the lack of industryservice, but wanted to have growth in many cities from the start. Because I'm doing this as a story there is some choice which is different from a normal game, i think (hope) that the roleplay makes the story more interesting to follow :)

Based on your obeservations, what would, in your opinion, the next logical step? Going southwest? Expanding the railroad to Maliborough? Perharps just save up some cash?

Silver: Is pak 128 so rare? :) I've just always used it... hope you enjoy my story, nice to have one more reader.

VS

#62
If I took over the game right now, I would...

a) Save some cash, let the cities grow and maybe start moving some coal to power plant using already existing roads - the mine to the south maybe? I play in a very different style, first get some money-making industry chains and then start expanding a well-covered passenger service, typically with train loops so that I don't have to care about passing. Actually, that brings me to the second point.

b) Think hard about bulldozing some of the not-yet-used mail stops which surely eat some money.

c) Weep about trains. An observation that is interesting to me (and I missed that at first sight) is that you treat trains like point to point connections. One connection, one train, one track.

First, that's rather suboptimal, you could do a lot better. Simply put one has vehicles which make money and infrastructure that loses money. So you want to maximize ratio of vehicle / (station & way). As short (straight) ways as possible, small stations, lots of vehicles. It works great with buses. Splitting the three coach trains might improve a lot rail & station usage and then, your stations will be unnecessarily long to hold them, so you could save something on that. I guess a hundred simu-euro each month. Not much, but if you had more stations - I'll get there in a moment. Introducing some places for passing on rails would be a must so that these many little trains can all go at once.

Secondly and mainly - you miss too much interconnectivity. You fanned out the rails, and wasted a lot of money by going straight to some places, while trains are (in my personal opinion) absolutely great for routes that connect lots of places. On the way to Springden you missed Hillville and Ashmouth, which could bring to network more passengers and reduce number of buses needed there. Same for Springborough, you could have gone all the way to Oldfield. Actually looking at the map, there is a "strong axis" which might be a good idea to connect with train:


More possible ways to connect the cities here, keep in mind that these are not city to city, but rather long lines or loops.

If you want to do that, reserve some land so that you can expand stations when the time comes...

My projects... Tools for messing with Simutrans graphics. Graphic archive - templates and some other stuff for painters. Development logs for most recent information on what is going on. And of course pak128!

LeifInge

Thanks for the advice, I see that we have quite a different playingstyle :) It would be fun to play the same map some time for like 15 years, just to compare what we do different.

I know that get as good coverage as possible perharps isn't the most profitable - but in this story I think it's most realistic.

Atm all post stops are used, but especcialy those in the southeast isn't very efficent. I want to keep them anyway... Hopefully it would help when I get a train carrying mail between Brentham and Springborough. Moving mail helps the villages grow.

When it comes to train, I do have a preference for using point to point. Might not be the smartest but I really dont like the issues of crowded stations, which I feel that a line with several stop easily gets. At the moment I see that the one train per line isn't very profitable, but as the villages grows, I plan to get more trains going. Hopefully it isn't to many years before I need to get another Kiha, and I will then split it into two sets. I also hope to buld railroads to more villages in the future, keeping Bretham as a main hub.

Conserning goods: It might be profitable - but the low village growth it gives makes it hard for the mayors to accept.


Rohal

Hi LeifInge,

first of all it want to say that I like your story, I´ve downloaded 1940.sve to what can be done, atm I would say that your buses need to be modernised to keep profit, because of the raising speed of new vehicles.
I also would like play the game from the beginning to see would could be made with my style of playing out of this game. It would be nice if you could upload your very first savegame.
Continue with your good work.

Greets

Rohal

LeifInge

#65
Hi Rohal, my first savegame is from 1931, but I'm not sure if I want to give all of them out. I kinda want this game to be the story of BBBR, with the roleplaying element. This means that the saves should be used mainly as a second source of information.

What I plan instead, and that I hope you will participate is to start a new thread were I will post a map, and let everyone start and see what they can do of it. I'll try to make that post after I've updated the story with the end of 1940.

UPDATE: Here is the Rogaland Challenge: http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=2384.0

LeifInge

Start of 1941
As predicted 1940 were a quiet year, not much new happened, except that the company started to buy some new, quicker and more expensive busses. One bus line was closed down to streamline the travel between Malliborough and Springfield. Until now the passengers used different routes each way, causing many empty seats. With the closing of the line between Heppfield and Malliborough, the company was able to fill up the busses in both directions. By this it also became obvious that quite at lot of people is going from Malliborough to Springfield to use the railroad.


The circle of chaos, two stops both ways make the passengers move to much in a cirle.

The CEO reported in his speech that it had been a good year. Almost 60000 in profit left the company with 13420 in cash after the purchases of the new busses. 10000 more travels made the new record 115472. The population continued to grow in the region, 843 new people is not as good as last year, with only 3,23% - The monuments is major people contributors and in 1940 the villages didn't build any new one. While Malliborough by far is the largest village, Brentham were this year fastest grower, with 150 people.

In last year meeting the owners decided to use one year to decide the future strategy. This discussion did take up much of the meeting, and were quite interesting, but it became soon obvious that more railroads, trains and busses were the main focus of most of the majors. The pointed out that the growth of the villages demanded more capacity on the existing network. Both from Springfield and north towards Malliborough and east from Brenthan to Brentton the number of busses is getting quite high. The Mayors therefore decided that two new railroads should be built the next years, to move more people quicker. At the same time they hope that this would mean increased profit, by making people pay more for their tickets when the speed increased. The company was instructed by the owners to do the following the next years in the following order:


(The two planed routes, the northern to Malliborough, and the eastern - with two optional ways to build it, one is shortest, the other include Heppcross)


1)   Expand the Brentham – Springfield railroad north to Malliborough. The new line should in the start use the existing train as an three stop line. In the future it has to be decided how this line could be served best.
2)   Build a new line from Brentham to Brentton, either direct or via Heppcross.

The owners also asked the board to look into the possibility to expand the Springden line southwest, and also to Ashmouth.

Key numbers:
Proceeds: 357164,09
Operational Profit: 59244,07
Cash: 13420,17

Traveled:  115472

46 lines (43 road and 3 rail) (+4 inactive maillines)
9 RVg-KS 33 (-2)
4 RVg-KS 45 (0)
24 RVg-KS 69 (-3)
8 Gaz-4 (+8)
12 RVg-KS 4051 Post Truck (0)
3 (1 x1 and 2 x3) Kei Kiha 22 (+1)

5 Largest Cities:
Maliborough  3719 (+129)
Brentham     2443 (+150)
Appingmouth 1828 (+59)
Brentton      1795 (+59)
Oldfield        1751 (+37)


Total inhabitants: 26934 (+843)


Silver

It is of course interesting and exciting read your story development, ¡¡¡Congratulations!!! ;)

Asterix909

I've got a question:
How did you start with all cities the same(ish) small size? No matter what I set my median city size to be, I get one HUGE city in comparison to the others.
Like suppose I set the median to be 1500; I will get a lot of cities ranging in size from 500-1000, and then one huge city with over 10000 population.

LeifInge

Asterix909: Starting new maps until I'm happy with the town sizes... The only way I know!
IMO there should be some how to set max and min size of town, I like them to be fairly same sized.