PouncingAnt National Monopoly Challenge 3

[PouncingAnt]

Current Winner: Elvish Magi (Director of Nudingham Transport, with 9 vehicles in 2027)
Millionaire award held by: Commie Si (2.45m pounds max. income)
Customer service award held by: Elvish Magi (69 points*)
Fastest Runner up: VoxDissident (Director of Vox Xport Co. with 38 vehicles in October 2022)
Runners up: CommanderZ (Route Supervisor of Ceske Drahy, with 12 vehicles), Commie Si (Director of Relyon Transport, with 27 vehicles, in year 2036), SoLo (Director of SoLo Trans, with 36 vehicles, in year 2024), YuriS (Chief Executive of Nudingham Transport, with 40 vehicles, in year 2034), VoxDissident (Director of Vox Xport Co. with 24 vehicles in 2028)

Welcome to my third National Monopoly Challenge! This one is a break from the previous ones, The goal is much more interesting than simply gaining a 1000 rating.

So, I'll introduce the goals first, so that if you're interested you can get going straight away. The map to download will be at the bottom of this post.

Goals:
1)Your company must transport over 80% of the production of all industries.
2)The company who achieves this goal using the least number of vehicles is the winner
3)You must achieve these conditions before the end of the year 2050
4)Finish the game as soon and as best as you can

Rules:
1)Do not change any patch options or difficulty options without discussion and agreement on this board
2)These rules are subject to change according to discussion on this board, check here regularly and feel free to discuss changes you need.
3)All Industries capable of producing a cargo must be serviced
4)Passenger or mail vehicles do not count towards the final vehicle count

If you want to have a go, feel free to download the map attached to the bottom of the post. There is no time limit for posting your savegame, even if a winner is declared, feel free to try and better them. If you like, read on for suggestions and the back story to the map.

Suggestions:
-Try downloading the OpenGFX, and force it to work in the map. I didn't include it (for the sake of compatibility), but it makes everything much prettier, especially the rivers.
-Passengers will make for a good early income, since they are easily accessible, and are produced in far greater quantities at the start of the game.
-Hovercrafts are good for early money
-With the island's limited resources, keeping your loan low may be very helpful when saving money.

Background:
You have been hired by a small and mountainous island country to build up their transport infrastructure after severe governmental policy change bankrupted the island's transport companies.

With increasing fears over global warming, pollution, and poor resource management, the island's Democratic Green Party has taken control. However it's uninspired policy of restricting petrol use has lead to complete breakdown of the island's economy.

Massive deforestation in the West is being tackled by new renewable foresting techniques but the stubborn nation is still sensitive about protecting what forests remain, making construction all the more difficult.

The fuel restrictions have limited you to using trains and ships, the economy is failing, and the populace doesn't tolerate landscaping in good grace, the terrain mountainous, and most of the nation's wealth is buried on an island to the South. Its a complete mess. No wonder they called you. But, are you up to the challenge?

*according to my own secret recipe

[veeroo]

OK I'm in I like this scenario ;]

One question: what about passengers? It is demand to connect all the cities?

P.S. I propose to turn on the option "Vehicle never expire". What do u think about it?

[andythenorth]

Looks interesting.

I'll be having a go, but I'll need to turn on 'Forbid trains and ships to make 90 degree turns' - for reasons of good taste Is that acceptable?

[PouncingAnt]

RE: forbidding trains from doing 90 degree turns, I have no objection. Anything that generally makes the game more difficult is not something I'm going to argue with

RE: Turning off "vehicles never expire"... I'm not entirely sure to be honest. Given the start date it is somewhat more difficult to start a train system. If you are quick you can use the cheapest train to get yourself enough income to let you keep up with the cost of newer trains. I assume the limited train selection is your main concern for changing that option?
For the moment, I'm going to say leave it as it is. If a few people complain, I'd be inclined to change it.

NOTE: Connecting cities is NOT necessary. Only industries need to have their cargoes transported. However, I do urge people to think of the opportunity of gaining lots of money by utilising passangers early in the game!

one last HOWEVER! If you aren't finding the challenge fun, don't restrict yourself too much by my rules. I will still let people in the "runners up" section even if they change settings. The whole point of this challenge was for people to have fun, afterall.

Lastly, thanks for trying out the challenge, good luck!

[Sir Bob]

Can we use any version of OTTD?

[PouncingAnt]

You can use any version from 0.6.0 to the current nightlies. (I assume it works on the nightlies )
However don't use any patches not currently in the trunk (ie. passenger destinations etc is not allowed)

[YuriS]

Hi,
Nice challenge. I was frightened by the map at first anyway, it's doable
I got some questions though
1. Should all industries on the map be serviced? I got a Paper Mill constructed by the game, which is of absolutely no use to me. Not much problem to divert some trains there, but do I need to do this? Another industry not being serviced is a Bank, which is not producing anything - should it be added to the network and be serviced anyway?
2. Do all vehicles count to determine the winner? I have some vehicles transporting passengers, which are not necessary to reach victory conditions, so I might sell them if this would increase the chances to win
3. It's not entirely clear if 80% of all industries' production must be reached exactly on 31st December 2050, or at any time during the game?

Thanks! The challenge is really interesting

[PouncingAnt]

I did explicitly state that a player must fulfill the conditions before the end of 2050. So yes, any time in the game is fine.
Just to add to your urgency I will be giving special (albeit intangible) awards for those who achieve the goals fastest.

Any industry that has the capability to produce a cargo must have cargo transported from it.
Thus that annoying paper mill of yours must be dealt with. The president of the island will be very disappointed otherwise

I'm of two minds with the passenger/mail vehicles. Obviously they would contribute to the pollution problem in some way or another, but I can imagine removing them being a little tedious.
So.. I'll leave it up to the individual. But, I'm not going to be counting them.

Summary (to be added to the 1st post):
-Finish the game as soon and as best as you can
-All Industries capable of producing a cargo must be serviced
-Passenger or mail vehicles do not count towards the final vehicle count

[SoLo]

The only problem that I can find at the moment is that the map lacks a Printing Press (Think that is what it is called). If we need to get every industry over 80%, we need some place to move the paper from the Paper Mill to. Do we need to save up and build our own Printing Press or just ship it to a empty dock/station so that it looks like the industry is being serviced?

[YuriS]

I got a Printing Press constructed at about year 2020. I assume if you need it earlier it's allowed to build your own one

[YuriS]

Attaching a save game (nightly r12941) - I believe victory conditions are reached with 40 vehicles, not counting 6 passenger vehicles. The result can definitely be improved (just by renewing the vehicles in my game and selling some of them), but I like this network as it is

Cheers

[PouncingAnt]

Apologies for the delay, I was in Kagawa with my lass

Congratulations YuriS! you are our first winner. I'll fix the first post presently

RE: the lack of printing press, Yes you need to build one, or wait for one to be constructed. Dumping goods at a dock/other station is not allowed, I'm afraid. I guess there is an element of luck in this challenge. I like to think of it as a good thing, since it will give newer players a chance to win too

Just to remind everyone, we may have a winner, but the competition is always open! (you can even enter again if you are so inclined) Good luck to the rest of our competitors.

[Commie Si]

I think I am done (nightly 13016 + OpenGFX), and just in the nick of time.
46 Freight Vehicles
I got screwed by industry opening up on the island to the south...
A very challenging and fun scenario, a tip my cap and look forward to the next, now those other ones...

[PouncingAnt]

Well done, Commie Si!

That was a good effort. Not quite enough to take our top spot, but you got just about all the consolation prizes

[Commie Si]

I may have another crack at it this evening. I could cut the number of ships on my island transfer as techincally once its left the mines/farms its been taken, just means a lot of goods at the port.

[PouncingAnt]

Glad you found it fun enough to consider a second attempt

Any tips for people starting the challenge? I've not finished it myself yet, so I'm not in a very good position to offer advice!

[Commie Si]

Hovercrafts are your friend, I never thought that was going to be the case . You should be able to work out where between. Also be wily with your money when trying to save, whenever you hit £15k pay back £10k and store the loan for when you need it (saves about £2.5k a year).

My only gripe with the scenario is the TTD ships, inadequate and I could easily have had twice the ships on my transfer.

[CommanderZ]

I would never think ships can be so good. As all primary industries nave very low productions, hovercraft rule in the earlygame.

I hope that switching ship pathfinder to NPF is okay with rules. The original pathfinder sometimes behaves really insane.

[SoLo]

It's not pretty and can clog if it gets very unlucky. But you said they were run by the Green Party so I didn't want to terraform more land then was needed to make it work just well enough.

Was a real pain saving up for the Printing Press. (:


Using r13060
31 Trains
8 Ships (4 of them carrying Passengers)
35 Freight veichles total


P.S. Just curious. were your first two challenges done using the same name? I'd like to go back and give them a try and see what they were like since I throughly enjoyed playing this.

[nezzybaby]

The links are in his signature