Ok, this one should be the final version. I think.
(If nobody finds anything horribly wrong with it.)
It still doesn't have the eye candy finished, but I'm happy with the scripting now. Eye candy will come next.
The goals should be self-explanatory, but read to the end of the briefing because there are some notes there. These notes describe the bonuses for haulage in the early years (before 1925). The bonuses are given for
revenue (not loads) to the Latvian port territories. Revenue is used because you can't cheat it with bait and switch tactics, so if you want the bonuses you'll have to get them honestly.
Riga/Exportosta yearly revenue >$200k: bonus of $100k company cash, credit rating +1 for 6 months.
Liepaja yearly revenue >$100k: bonus of $50k company cash, credit rating +1 for 6 months.
Ventspils yearly revenue >$100k: bonus of $50k company cash.
As I said, these only apply before 1925. As soon as you get to January 1925, they will disappear from the status page. The idea is to encourage early rail, and discourage years of nothing but industry. Industry buy/build costs across the whole map are 10% higher than default, so industry starts will be trickier than usual, although you can still use an industry start if there are good opportunities. Later in the game you should be rolling in cash, so the 10% higher industry cost shouldn't be a problem.
Soviet Russia wouldn't have allowed outsiders to control its industry anyway (in Soviet Russia, industry owns you) so Russia has a further 100% increase in industry buy/build costs. However, all industry costs will reduce by 10% once you connect Panevezys to Mazeikiai and Klaipeda.
Polish industry costs reduce by 50% once the trade deal is signed in 1929,
if you wait for the deal to go through. If you wait you will also get free access to Poland. If you buy into Poland before the trade deal you will have to pay the access cost, and you will not get the reduction in Polish industry costs.
Like Juriko's original map, this one has various bonuses for connecting cities. It mostly uses the same ones, but there's a catch. On the original version you can scam a lot of them pretty fast if you know what these connection bonuses are. So, with this map you have to wait for the bonus to be offered if you want to cash in on it. If you connect the relevant cities before the bonus offer is made,
you will not be paid any bonus. This makes sense, because why would anyone offer you an incentive for something you have already done?
However, there is some good news. Three of the big connection events have the original cash bonus, but now also have 5% track cost reduction associated with them. These event are: the Riga-Parnu connection, the Daugavpils-Liepaja connection, and the Tartu-Klaipeda connection. If you wait for these to be offered, and connect them within the time limits, you will end up with track 15% cheaper than standard.
Ok, the stock market. Personally I tend to get bored with games that have a stock market that does nothing. You can buy and sell shares for something to do, but it has no effect on the game and I find it a bit of a waste of time.
This one has player cash bonuses, given when certain historical events occur. I was going to leave these as Easter eggs for people to find themselves, but that's probably being mean to less proficient players.
If you are finding the scenario too hard, you can wait for one or more of these bonuses before starting your company. This means you will have more player cash, so will be able to get more investor cash, so your company will start with more cash. The player cash bonuses are:
$30k at the end of January 1920 (Ceasefire newspaper). This will give you $120k player cash if you wait for it, meaning you will be able to start your company with $1,320k company cash.
Another $60k at the beginning of August 1920 (Peace treaty newspaper). If you wait for this one you will have $180k player cash, and will be able to start your company with $1,980k company cash.
There's another $120k at the end of January 1921 (International recognition newspaper) and another $240k at the beginning of February 1922 (Latvian constitution newspaper). If you wait for the last one you will be able to start your company with a ridiculous amount of company cash,
namely $5,940k. That should allow just about anyone to mess around on Expert level and have some hope of getting some sort of medal.
Me? I don't want to do that. I like starting with the default $990k company cash for a bit of a challenge. This is where the stock market comes in. The player cash bonuses mean I can buy a stack of stock pretty quickly. This has no effect on scenario goals, but does allow me to keep stock price up, and get more stock splits than I normally would. Naturally, this can be good for overall stock value, and can be handy when you want to do a stock issue after a split. The high level of ownership also means you can margin buy like crazy providing you aren't actually dumb about it. I was running personal debt levels of up to $25 million while owning around 90% of the stock, without needing to pay any dividend to stabilise my debt. Once the CBV goal was in the bag the stock market was getting to the point of being a bit wobbly, and my personal debt was looking a bit wobbly too, so I started paying a large dividend to keep things on an even keel. This was fine, since I was already sorted for CBV.
Edit: Map zip removed. See next post down for the latest version (with trees and everything).
