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 Once upon a time, Koei made RPGs, Strategy Games, and Simulations. This is one of them. Aerobiz Supersonic is a business sim released for the SNES and Genesis in 93/94, in which up to four players compete to build the best globe-spanning airline that money can buy. Despite the bizarre mismatch of a sim/strategy game on a 16 bit console, the game is actually fairly well made. The mechanics have some depth without being opaque. The player is given easy access to important information needed to make decisions, and figure out what makes for good and bad play. The AI is capable of working with those rules and, at the game's higher difficulties, can compete with human players without relying on behind-the-scenes cheating. The whole interface has been designed to be reasonably navigated with a d-pad and 6 buttons, so the absence of mouse control isn't too badly missed. And to top it all off, the soundtrack is composed of the most hypnotically relaxing muzak to ever crawl out of an elevator. I'll be showing the game off by taking us through each of its four scenarios. I will not fly alone. GOON-AIR IPO Through the magic of capitalism (or bureaucratic despotism) you, the stakeholders, will be making the calls that will lead our company to fortune or ruin. Stake out our territory, manage our fleet, outperform and undercut our enemies, or risk millions on buying hotels in Kazakhstan. Each update will span four turns of play, or one year of game time, after which you'll be brought up to date and given fresh opportunities to run everything into or off of the ground. Planes are well known to do both. Updates Explaining Mechanics 
A_Raving_Loon fucked around with this message at 21:26 on Sep 19, 2014 |
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Feb 13, 2014 15:59
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Explaining Mechanics Objectives  Speaks for itself, really. We need to make the right business decisions to achieve global domination within 20 years. Of Air Travel. For Peace. (That "Europe" will be replaced by whatever your home region is) Regions  Aerobiz divides the world into 7 regions. Each airline can own a single hub in each region, located in one of its major cities. All your Air-Business will consist of routes between your hubs and other cities. An airline can spread from one region into another by connecting their hub to a major city in another region, then laying down some time and a pile of cash to build a new hub in that city.  A close-up of the Euro-region. Its major cities are in green, its minor ones in white. Cities  Here is where the fun starts. Cities and their traits are core information we'll need to make it big in the aero-biz. Every city is part of a country, and has population, economy, and tourism ratings that describe how prosperous it is. Linking highly rated cities is how we get bodies in seats and bring in the stacks of air travel dollars. Up in the top right corner you can see the city's opinion of you. The more they like your airline, the easier it is to do business there. Initial relations are set based on your airline's country of origin vs the country which rules the city. This screenshot was taken from a game based in London, so all cities ruled by the UK love them. Events can cause cities to change hands, and give you chances to Centre-Right, those six icons represent notable local businesses. We can lay down money to purchase these, generating modest profits and often presenting side-bonuses to our air routes through the city. Finally, that middle bar is all about the business end of the city - their airport. A city's airport is described in terms of how many flights per week it can handle. These schedule slots can be purchased by airlines, and are then put to use by their routes. A flight requires a slot from the city on each end of its route. This means you want to buy up as many slots in your hub-cities as possible so that your airline can grow. There's a cap on what fraction of a city's slots one airline can own, preventing absolute monopolies, and whenever a city hits that cap work will begin on expanding their airport to accommodate even more business. Aircraft  The fun continues with our separate-but-equal partner in this industry, planes. Aerobiz contains Real Aero-Planes(tm) forged by Real Aero-Smiths(tm) during Real Aero-Times(tm), along with some high-tech works of Aero-Fiction(tm) from The Future!! Our assorted vendors will supply us with the tool of the trade. What's up for sale will depend on what year we're playing in, and how much it'll cost us will depend on who we are. Vendors will cut discounts for airlines from their home countries, or who already use notable numbers of their craft, and will outright refuse to sell anything to buyers from the lands of their enemies. This bites hardest in the early scenarios, where being on the wrong side of the iron curtain will cut you off from half the world's supply of aircraft for a very long time.  Aircraft stats are largely straightforward. Each plane has a range, capacity, and fuel/mechanical efficiency. They self-explain nicely. Long range planes can handle bigger routes, larger planes can swing more tickets with each flight, and higher fuel and mechanical ratings reduce the cost of keeping them flying. Those last two numbers are for planes in service and held in stock by our line. There's a 1-turn delay on buying planes, so be sure to order them in advance of when you need them. Routes  Put A and C together and you get these. Link a city to a hub, assign some number of a make of plane, tell 'em how many laps to take and slap a pricetag on it. Now you're in the Aero-Biz. Fine-tuning all the options on your routes is one of the game's main decision-making points. Do you own enough space at your airports to assign more flights? Got the planes to do the work? Are the fares worth the price of flying it? Would you still be filling every aisle if you charged a little more? Could you steal customers from those other fuckers if you charged less? The dance of air and business turns and turns again each quarter, until only one remains. All routes have a base fare determined by the distance flown. You can chose to charge +/-50% of base, as suits your needs. Agents  Your other main decision points are these clowns. Each airline has four agents which they can deploy into the world, inflicting their will upon it. We use these folks to buy airport slots, invest in businesses, set up hubs, and run ad campaigns. Each can only be in one place at a time, and will be stuck there for a span of time depending on the nature of the mission and how much the local bureaucracy despises them. Our 5th beatle on the side there is always around to do the opposite of everyone else, selling back things if you don't want them anymore. The portraits are randomly selected with each new game. A_Raving_Loon fucked around with this message at 20:08 on Jul 10, 2014 |
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Feb 13, 2014 16:00
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Getting Started The year is 1955. Air is in business, and business is good. We're getting on this in a big kind of a way, and riding it all the way to the big time. We're getting on that plane and we're doing it tonight - now and for the rest of our lives. We're taking the midnight plane going anywhere. Where are we going? Europe Easy-Mode One. Europe is home to many large and prosperous cities within fair distance of each other, in countries who are mostly on good terms. Aside from that whole "Cold War" thing. They're also in fair range to reach out to North America, Africa, and the Middle East. pre:City Pop(M) Econ Tour ---------- ------ ---- ---- London 5.6 46 42 Paris 1.8 40 55 Rome 2.2 36 45 Amsterdam 0.3 18 36 Frankfurt 0.2 14 20 Berlin 2.0 20 20 Moscow 5.0 28 12  Easy-Mode Two. Almost entirely composed of the USA, success here is won or lost based what Uncle Sam thinks of you. He takes care of his own. Limited options for branching out though, as the Pacific Ocean is quite large. pre:City Pop(M) Econ Tour ---------- ------ ---- ---- New York 5.4 50 46 Los Angeles 2.4 44 48 Chicago 2.2 48 35 Dallas 0.8 33 32 Washington 0.4 46 40 Vancouver 0.3 22 47 Atlanta 0.2 20 30  Medium-Hard Mode. Some large but sub-par cities held by countries who don't have the greatest diplomatic standings or care much for each other. pre:City Pop(M) Econ Tour ---------- ------ ---- ---- Sao Paulo 6.8 16 9 Mexico City 5.4 28 29 Havana 1.4 14 12  Hard Mode One. One decent city surrounded by miles of aeronautic wasteland. pre:City Pop(M) Econ Tour ---------- ------ ---- ---- Cairo 4.0 24 30 Tunis 0.5 10 20  Hard Mode Two. More poor cities in poor countries who all despise each other. pre:City Pop(M) Econ Tour ---------- ------ ---- ---- Tehran 4.4 22 10 New Delhi 3.6 10 16 Baghdad 3.5 20 14  A happy Medium. Plenty of options, plenty of people to move, some countries willing to cooperate with each other. pre:City Pop(M) Econ Tour ---------- ------ ---- ---- Beijing 7.5 26 22 Tokyo 5.2 30 20 Bangkok 5.0 16 33 Hong Kong 4.1 37 31 Seoul 4.0 16 8 Singapore 1.4 20 27 Manila 1.3 14 16  Another Medium. Has a handful of adequate cities that can get you started. Takes a rather long haul to get out to other regions, as it's a long way to your nearest neighbor in Asia. pre:City Pop(M) Econ Tour ---------- ------ ---- ---- Sydney 2.8 34 17 Perth 0.8 18 20 Auckland 0.1 15 29 A_Raving_Loon fucked around with this message at 21:46 on Feb 13, 2014 |
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Feb 13, 2014 16:00
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Will take the chance to note that Aerobiz considders Berlin to be 100% territory of East Germany. 
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Feb 13, 2014 20:17
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I'll be closing voting and getting things underway in another twelve hours or so. Current frontrunners are Moscow, Phoenix Travel, and Red.
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Feb 14, 2014 04:09
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And that's time! For Scenario 1, Air-Ran will be flying out of Tehran under an overwhelmingly agreed-upon red banner. I'll get things fired up and check in with the initial state of the game later today.
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Feb 14, 2014 16:06
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Pregame 1955 - Islam is the Flight Before we get started, I mentioned difficulty levels briefly in the OP. One of the things I like about this game is that difficulty mostly influences AI behavior, and the regular mechanics adjusted by it cut both ways. The higher the difficulty, the more aggressive the AI will be about choosing good starting cities, expanding its territory, and fine-tuning their routes in response to competition. This can backfire on them though, as the AI prioritizes passengers over profits and can be lured into bankrupting itself by operating at a loss to steal your customers. Speaking of, the lower the difficulty the more slowly that customers will react to changes in the market. They’ll possess a degree brand loyalty which keeps them from all jumping ship at once. This inertia makes it easier to defend your own holdings, but also slows down any attempts to break into enemy markets. We’ll be playing on Turbo for this scenario to get a nice middle ground. Anyway, on to the game.  Air-Ran won out at the polls, so we’ll be getting our start with getting feet off the ground in the Middle East. The AI’s counter-picks provided a chance to use some of the runner-ups. Every potential hub has its own default name for an airline. Tehran's was the boundlessly creative "Iranian". For some reason, Moscow’s is Siberia. Each of our rivals go before us in the turn order. This will give their agents the initiative when it comes to grabbing deals, but also lets us choose our actions in response to theirs. Though we take all our actions in order, the turn is resolved simultaneously after everyone has moved.  Air ‘Murica opens by laying some groundwork for inter-regional flights, bidding for slots in Mexico City and London, and digs into their home base by buying a Hotel in New York. The AI will often hold off on opening any routes for a few turns while they get their footing.  Air Marx plays a similar but more close-reaching opening. They bid in Athens, Zurich, and Cairo, and secure a Hotel in Moscow. Buying business in your hub cities is a common move, since it means they’ll provide their benefits to all your flights in that region. You may notice that these two started with quite different supplies of cash. An airline’s starting assets are influenced by their home city. There may also be a random factor in there as well, but I’ve never paid close enough attention to be sure.  Con-Air wastes no time launching their first route from Singapore to Fukuoka. They bid in Osaka and Sydney, and follow the trend of buying local hotels. This brings things over to us.  Every campaign begins with one of our agents greeting us and reiterating the goal of the game - dominate the industry in 20 years. They’ll also inform us of our lose condition, if we remain in the red for a full year we go bankrupt. This unskippable text helps introduce something I like about the UI - All text scrolling in Aerobiz can be sped up by holding any direction on the D-Pad. This lets you swiftly fast-forward through any message you’d like with zero risk of accidentally making any important choices. It’s a nice touch.  Can you feel the Aero-Zeal?   Let’s get to business! We begin with some modest Aero-holdings. We don’t have a lot of lot of slots, or planes to fill them with, but that’s not much of an obstacle to us. The airports out here are fairly small and demand for travel is low, so we don’t need all that much property to saturate the market. Those 820 Million dollars sitting in the company account can get us all the things we’ll need to break out of here and start growing. Time to take a look at what we have.  A fine batch of executives.   And an adequate home base. The airport is rather small, but we have enough of it to service what flights we could set up this round. We could also easily max out our share of it to provoke some construction, which should finish by the time we need any new slots. Four out of a possible 6 businesses also isn’t bad. Those are an Arts Pavillion, a Shuttle Bus, a Hotel, and a Commuter Airline. Any one of them could make a fair addition to our portfolio. So where could we fly to?    Here’s what we have already. In a turn of good fortune, Iran’s foreign relations aren’t all that bad. That blue hesitant-brofist is what I’ll call ‘neutral’. It’s only one step down from from the teal handshake of ‘friendly’ that we have in the homeland. Negotiations in friendly cities take only one turn, neutral cities need two. On the far end of the scale, outright hostile cities take a full year to settle a deal. Baghdad has stats close to Tehran’s and is practically on our doorstep. Tashkent has the best economy and tourism ratings in the whole middle east. It’s on par with midrange cities in Europe and America. Islamabad is far less impressive but still has a high tourism rating for the region. Routes to these cities could get us started on bringing in the Aero-Bucks. Here are our local options for expansion.     Karachi is a mirror of Islamabad, another map dot that may be worth a flight or two but nothing to write home about. New Delhi’s mostly unimpressive, but as a potential hub for our competitors we should keep an eye on it. Bombay and Calcutta are more of the same, potentially useful but also a ways out. On to our options for branching out.   Over in Africa Cairo is a mere 1250 miles away, closer than most of our local cities, and stands out as the best city in the region. Tunis is farther out at 2310 miles, but would be notably less expensive to set up shop in.    Our nearest link to Europe is Moscow at 1560 miles, but flying there would mean plunging face-first into the heart of Air-Marx’s territory. We’d be directly competing with them on every euro-route we make. Rome isn’t much farther out at 2120 miles, and would do more to set our routes apart from those of the Russians. Berlin is also pretty near at 2180 miles, while being closer to the middle of the Euro-region as a whole.   Going east isn’t so easy. The closest we can get is Bangkok at 3370 miles, then Beijing at 3500. Once we’re over that hump, either is a decent base of operations. Now, let’s take a look at our fleet.  Not so great. At least they have engines and wings. We’re sitting on a handful of early Russian-made passenger planes. Fortunately, our current foreign relations are good enough that we’re not refused access to any vendors right now. We’ll have free reign to scour the market for whatever suits us.   Russian planes are cheap, small, and short-range. For most purposes, they’re worse than western aircraft from a given year. The Tupolev 104 in particular, with its godawful fuel efficiency is something you only use if you have no other choice. However, as a third world airline we have a niche perfectly suited to the Ilyushin 14. Though tiny and short-range, the IL14 has the best efficiency ratings of any plane on the market right now. It’s perfect for hops between small cities who’d never generate enough customers to fill any larger planes.    Western planes are at the other end of the spectrum. American planes are huge sky-whales that can fly whole villages to any corner of the world you wish, as long as you can keep their operating costs fed. They’re great mainliners for flights between big cities and inter-regional flights where there’s enough demand to fill them. European companies like Vickers tend towards smaller economy-sized planes for when you need to run a short route and refuse to buy from communists. With all that out of the way, it’s time plan our opening moves. How shall we proceed with our first year of play? Routes With no existing connections to manage, the only question on the table is where and when we start. And what to send and how often to fly and how much to charge and what's the deal with the food... Bidding Airport-Time is Airline-Money. Where do we barge in, and where do we back off? Do we shore up local travel options or start laying foundations for new hubs? Business Everyone else bought a hotel on their first turn. Do we fall into line or break the trend? There’s not a lot of business in our home region, but buying the right ones could help make up for the low quality of our cities. Planes Our fleet is small, young, and must some mix of Vodka and Dog-Oil for how much fuel those Tupolevs burn, but we have the whole world’s market to buy from. Vote on our policies for 1955, and while you’re at it, Name our agents! A_Raving_Loon fucked around with this message at 21:20 on Feb 15, 2014 |
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Feb 15, 2014 03:02
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The Merry Marauder posted:Don't, uh, don't connect to Cairo just yet. ...or Algiers. quote:If we hurry, we can get in on the ground floor of India, and we have some time before things go ploin-shaped around there, too. A_Raving_Loon fucked around with this message at 06:21 on Feb 15, 2014 |
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Feb 15, 2014 06:17
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Going to keep collecting votes until mid-Sunday, about 24 hours from now. An opening business plan is forming up nicely, but there's plenty of room to fine tune. Since a lot can get done over four turns of play, most of what you've all proposed will get some chance to be put into action. Priority will be given to the ideas which earn the most votes. For example, with the current spread there's strong agreement that we're gunning for setting up hubs in Rome and Cairo. An agent each would be comitted to securing slots and then building the new hubs. Next up is securing our hotel in Tehran, so an agent will set to that. The rest of their work-hours for the year will be spread about making inroads in Tunis and India, and scouping up stray hotels if there's any time left to spare. The Tupolevs will be bulldozed out of the hangar, DC6s bought when needed for long/big/euro routes, and IL14s will be stockpiled to fill our short routes. Tiebreaks will be handled at my discression unless folks start proposing business rules for that sort of thing. A_Raving_Loon fucked around with this message at 22:10 on Feb 15, 2014 |
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Feb 15, 2014 18:52
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Hedera Helix posted:Do you get charged for having unused slots? If so, we should probably return Islamabad's slots immediately and focus on regional and long-term routes that people will actually use. quote:I would recommend against doing a Tehran-Islamabad route, since only ten people or so will ever ride it per week.
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Feb 15, 2014 19:15
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Killer Emcee posted:
These get bonus points. With that in mind, we can also monitor the feild agents of our rival airlines. (As far as I know, there's no way to see the portrait of their 5th man) Meet Team 'Murica:  The Great Patriotic Administrators of Air Marx:  And our friendly neighbors at ConAir:  If people want, I can keep track of what each one gets up to over the run of the scenario.
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Feb 16, 2014 02:20
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The Casualty posted:Bear in mind, for those who haven't played the game, turns are basically fiscal quarters, and actions take a certain amount of time. Aircraft orders can take several turns and you can't buy from the opposite side of the Iron Curtain if you're in a NATO country or the USSR. We can do it but we shouldn't assume that forever. Usually business deals only take 1 or 2 turns and one of your agents. Colder relations can cause them to take more time or fail outright. You have to plan ahead several turns in a row. To re-iterate how I'm going to handle this: Since there's a lot that we can do, and only so much that can get done in a year, All suggested actions will be attempted, with priority given to those with the most votes. Since a lot about our situation can change after a year, unresolved votes will clear after each update leaving a level playing field for the next year's business plan. Voting for 1955 will close at Noon EST, Feb 16, and which point I will compose the resulting business plan and get to playing out the update. Explanations about more of the fine points of the mechanics will be worked into future posts, as they will be easier to discuss when we have examples of them in motion. And on another sidenote: A_Raving_Loon posted:Meet Team 'Murica:
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Feb 16, 2014 07:32
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 Business Plan - 1955 Primary Objectives: pre:7 - Liquidate Tu104s (Replace with DC6s) 6 - Procure IL14s (Deploy on short/mid range flights) 6 - Bid in Rome and Cairo (Intent to establish hubs for Europe and Africa) And we’ll do it by showing the superpowers we don’t need to pick a side to be on the winning team. We’re taking the best of both worlds by combining a cutting edge Soviet lightweight with a battle-hardened American workhorse to bring dependable, economical air travel to the Old World. Secondary Objectives: pre:5 - Bid in India (Bombay & New Delhi) 5 - Open Local Routes (Baghdad & Tashkent) 5 - Purchase Hotel in Tehran 4 - Grow and develop Local Routes 3 - Maximize Slots in Tehran 3 - Purchase Bus Network in Tehran Stretch Goals: pre:-Hotels in Tashkent, Islamabad, and other cities we connect. -Local Bidding in Karachi, Backing off in Islamabad. -Secondary bidding in Tunis and Berlin to prepare for routes in Europe and Africa. -Inroads into SE Asia via Bangkok. Executive Names: Killer Emcee posted:
I’ll leave discussion of our rival executives open a while longer, But for 1955 the polls are closed. Next time, we’ll see what happens when this Aero-Plan hits reality as we take off into 1955.
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Feb 16, 2014 18:04
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 Surprise Emergency MeetingA special event has arisen which I feels calls for a quick flash-vote.   At the start of Q3 1955, this delightful random event fired. A government has approached our airline soliciting donations for a project of theirs. In this case, the UK is looking to make some improvements around the airport in Nigeria. Accepting this deal will give us a huge relations boost with Britain, making it much easier to do business in all cities they control. However, that $75 Million price tag is nothing to sneeze at. So, dear shareholders, I ask you - Is this worth it? Cast your votes over next For reference, here are the cities currently held by the UK: pre:City Region Pop Econ Tour -------- ------ --- ---- ---- Nairobi Africa 0.6 8 5 Lagos Africa 2.1 14 18 Manchester Europe 0.4 22 36 London* Europe 5.6 46 42 Nandi Oceania 0.1 1 8 Singapore* SE Asia 1.4 20 27 Kuala Lumpur SE Asia 0.6 21 28 Hong Kong* SE Asia 4.1 37 31 Kingston S. America 0.4 10 20 *Potential Hub A_Raving_Loon fucked around with this message at 22:17 on Feb 16, 2014 |
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Feb 16, 2014 19:00
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The Casualty posted:On one hand, we will eventually be expanding into British spheres of influence. On the other hand, "eventually" could be years from now. If we were moving in within the next few turns then this would be worth it. But how long does the good will last? Indefinitely. Relationship changes are entirely event-based. The only things that would knock it back down would be negative events like wars or regime changes on one side or the other. This is especially hilarious when the event fires for a government and airline on opposite sides of the cold war. Suddenly you'll have a Soviet Aviation Bureau who's been whitelisted by NATO and may travel freely through the USA.
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Feb 16, 2014 20:21
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Killer Emcee posted:This is Aerobiz, not Aerobitch. Do it. A compelling argument. Since this swung so decisively, I'm calling the vote early. We're taking the deal. 
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Feb 16, 2014 22:23
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Slight misconception about the scenario on my part, it actually starts in Q21955 rather than Q1. (That event was on turn 3/Q4) To bring things back in line the callendar, update 1 will be about our first 3 turns. We are business. Expect the post to be up tomorrow, then we can get to planning 1956 fresh on the heels of that deal.
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Feb 16, 2014 22:51
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1955 - The Year We Get Airborne With a plan in place, let’s take off where we left off. Q2 1955 First, we get some business in the air by opening our first routes. Starting a new route requires an open slot in a hub, a slot in the destination, and a free plane with enough enough range to make the flight.  It also carries a startup cost determined by a mix of the size of the city and the distance flown.  For this route I assign one of our IL14s. Baghdad is close enough that one plane can handle up to 7 flights per week on its own. More than enough for the slots we have, and it leaves room to grow if the route proves successful. To start, I’ll assign one flight per week at the base fare. Next turn, we’ll get to see how it performs and adjust things appropriately. Once that’s all arranged, we launch.   I set up the same test-route with Tashkent. Note how the greater distance means the IL14 can only pull 5 runs a week. Still enough for now, but we’ll need more planes, or bigger planes, if we plan to scale up the route beyond our current holdings.  Perfect. Now, on to aggression. We’re sending Igor to Rome.   Bidding is pretty straightforward. You send an agent to a city, tell them how much time to buy, and when negotiations finish you get the slots. While negotiations are underway we must pay an upkeep fee. Relations affect the cost of bidding two ways - speed and volume. Good relations make negotiations clear faster, and increase how many slots you can buy in one go. Less time spent at the table and fewer trips to hit your quota. I prefer to bid for as many slots as possible on each trip, unless I know in advance exactly how many I’ll need. If you end up with extra, giving them back is easy. If you’re left wanting more, it means more time and money.  I put Jerry in charge of the African front. He’ll spend the next 9 months in Egypt. I have every confidence that he will present our interests in a concise and professional manner.  Meanwhile, Cindy will spend just as long establishing contact in India. You’d think she’d be the one to stick around the home office instead of darting off on foreign ventures.  It is claimed.  Meanwhile, Steven goes shopping.    Our Tupolevs fetch $9 Million each on the second-hand market. May they find new life powering small villages what that coal furnace they call an engine. McDonnell Douglas is happy to fill the space they leave. And would you look at that last price tag. With the Tupolevs gone, our fleet is now nothing but Ilyushin products. This is well above the ratio needed to trigger a 10% brand loyalty discount on all their aircraft.   So ends our first turn. Let’s see the results.   We post an operating loss, but this is not a bad thing. For one, no one else brought in much revenue on their first turn either.   And for two, most of our expenses were fixed operating costs from sending out our agents. The routes themselves are doing fine, we’re just not moving enough volume yet for them to cover the rest. I played a very conservative start to test the waters in our area. Once we start expanding our services things will change. Q3 1955  One of AeroBiz’s scripted events, the olympic games will happen in all the historical times and places known when the game was made. When the games occur, their host city will get a sizable boost to tourism for that turn. These heads-ups give you the chance to make preparations to cash in. This turn, we get to go first. Turn order shuffles each quarter.   She carries on securing her domain by buying the transit company. It takes 3 months and costs $24 million.  New planes are delivered the turn after they’re purchased. They are welcome additions to our fleet. Now to check on those test routes.   Excellent. One flight per week translates to twelve per quarter, which translates to a nice pile of cash for us. The display here, and most others in the game, round to the nearest $10k. The expenses on the flight to Baghdad are so low that the bar rounds down to zero. Once a route is established, you can edit its specs at any time for no cost. Since both of these are thriving, I pump each up to use every slot we have. Next turn, we’ll find out how many people were left waiting. For comparison, here’s the route ConAir set up.  Like us, they started small with one plane and one flight. They also opted for below average fares to encourage demand. As said earlier, the AI prioritizes passengers over profits, so they’ll tend to undercharge then work their way up when setting prices. It pays off, and their DC6 feels right at home. That flight also cost them about five times what we payed to fly our two IL14s. Ten to One. That doesn’t take into account secondary costs like bidding, slot upkeep, opening fees, and difference in purchasing cost, but it gets the point across - As long as we can find homes for all our little guys, their performance will add up. The rest of our agents are still busy, so that’s our turn 2. Here’s what our opponents got up to.  ConAir orders some larger planes and-  Hello, Yang.   AirMarx remains idle. They’re negotiating in places which aren’t fond of the USSR, and probably waiting until those finish to open flights.  Once again M&M think a like. They’re waiting for London.    Things pay off. That’s a $280K operating profit. We’re outperforming ConAir Meanwhile, Air’Murica earns more than than everyone else combined from just their hotel in New York.  The cash reserve jumps around a bit because these finance sheets show you the numbers for a given Quarter's business the turn after it's happened. I then bring them back from the future to present beside their matching end of turn report. Q4 1955   I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about, Jerry. Just keep on that contract. Once again, we go first. Veronica gets back from buying busses and is reassi-   Stay out of my territory.Right. Igor returns from Rome with a closed deal for 5 slots, and we get a very special guest.  As decided in a quick emergency meeting, we accept a request from the British government to donate money to a project of theirs. It’s an expensive proposition, but brings a powerful effect.  All British cities are now friendly. See how big the deal was in Tehran? Now that’s us in London. That’s us in Hong Kong. That’s us getting up in ConAir’s business in Singapore. That is the cost of opportunity. Twelve slots in one turn is five to seven times the speed we’ve been able to expand in neutral cities. With that one bid we maxed our slots in Tehran before Danny Yang had time to hang his coat.   Our added flights all sell out. There’s even more money waiting to be made here. We should continue to grow these routes until we find their limits. Since our agents have more important work than adding slots here, I boost each route’s fare by 10%. These fine adjustments are how you squeeze the most Biz out of your Air. Barring specific orders from the shareholders, I will carry these out in the background at my own discretion.   With slots opening up and planes in the hangars, I lanuch some new routes. Rome, because connecting it to our network is the next step in establishing a Euro-hub, and Islamabad because although I expect it won’t put out much cash, we already have the slots and passengers are still worth points. May as well find out how many of those five can be put to use.  For reference, all that’s left to turn Rome into a hub is to deploy an agent to negotiate for it. This is what it would cost to do that in Rome. It can be done the same turn that you establish the connecting flight, but in light of recent events I chose to hold off for now.  To close things off, Igor pulls some strings back in the motherland to close a deal with the Uzbeks. On to the opposition.  ConAir hooks up Osaka and Sydney. They’ll be reaping the benefits of all that sports-travel when the Olympics come around. They also bid in Sapporo and Tokyo.  Someone told them they’re running an airline, right?  London to New York to San Francisco, Air’Murica now has the widest reach of any airline.  Another helpful event. Tourism booms buff the stats of a random city. They can last several turns.     We’re still growing, but slowly. ConAir and Air’Murica got more of a boost from their first inter-regionals than we did, though we’re in position to capitalize on that tourism boom in Rome and stand on the verge of breaking into richer markets. Next year, the true competition begins.  1955 Year End Review Next turn we’re going third, so we have a little preview of what our foes are up to.  Buying new L1049s and DC6s, bidding in Cairo, building up London.  Getting ready for the games.  As for us, all of our agents are home. We have our hotel in Tashkent, 5 slots each in Cairo and Bombay, and we’re maxed out in Tehran. Our core business is finding its footing and we’re ready to take our first steps out of the home region. We’re keeping some degree of pace with our opposition, only Air’Murica is decisively ahead of us and that’s largely on the quality of their home base. Once everyone starts spreading out things will get a lot more competitive. We've spent a whole lot of our starting capital, but that's normal for the early game. Our good routes will pay back their startup costs around the halfway point of the scenario, or sooner if can get them grown and optimized. And that's just from the best we've found out in the Middle East. And now, we've bought the friendship of the United Kingdom. In light of that, opening that route to Rome may prove to be a misstep. We can only have one route between a given pair of regions, and London just became really good candidate for our Euro-hub. To connect it, we’d have to cancel Tehran-Rome. On the upside, it can pay back some of the loss over the time it would take to get London ready for business. London is 2750 miles from Tehran, and opening that route would cost $39.4 Million.   Here’s how those new routes did on their first turn. Rome’s performance is a fine use of our DC6, and that’s from before the effects of the tourism boom. With a solid foundation of supporting business on either end, it could grow into a hell of a route. Islamabad is a typical poor third world route. 6 whole people ride this plane each week. If we slash prices we may be able to fill one flight of that IL14, two at best. A way to pad our score and add a little drip of income (half-price still puts us ahead if it brings in 5 times the customers) but it takes a miracle for a spot like this to become anything more. Meanwhile, Baghdad and Tashkent are still selling out. They may have enough demand to justify more slots for the IL14s, or even handing our current schedules to larger planes.  This meeting is in session, chose our plans for 1956. A_Raving_Loon fucked around with this message at 23:26 on Feb 27, 2014 |
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Feb 18, 2014 04:33
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I never pointed it out in the update, but you can see on the Finance sheets that our businesses are doing quite well. The game doesn't give you a way to check on how each individual one is performing, but we can see on a macro level that they're earning about twice their upkeep cost. That puts them on course to pay off their puchase costs in about 5-7 years just from their own operations, without counting the buffs they're giving to air routes. (Unfortunately, those are also rather hard to measure.)
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Feb 18, 2014 18:22
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Non-Aerial Business The more I learn about this game the more I come to respect its design. The Casualty posted:There is a way, actually! This LP got me back into playing again and I stumbled upon it accidentally. It's a little convoluted (as is the rest of the UI, if you ask me), but it's possible.     This is the business info screen. We can use this to check on the business holdings of any company, sorted by type and region.     And view, in detail, the current performance of each. (That's the part I didn't know about before) They're paying out nicely, if gently. Businesses run on tighter margins than air routes, but are generally less sensitive to fluctuations. A stable investment to sink extra capital into. I'll tracking this data from now on, and report any interesting findings.
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Feb 18, 2014 20:48
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Business Plan -1956 Primary Objectives: pre:5 - Confirm Rome as Euro-Hub 5 - Open Rome-London Route 4 - Establish Presence in Hong Kong, Develop into Far East Hub Secondary Objectives: pre:2 - Business in Australia, London, and Rome 2 - Connect Cairo and Bombay 2 - Bid in Berlin 2 - Set up Far East routes via Hong Kong Stretch Goals: pre:1 - Establish African hub and connect Lagos 1 - Connect Paris 1 - Buy a Boat We’re becoming a proper Megacorp.  So it is written, so it is done. The polls are closed. Next, we take off to the brave new world of 1956.
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Feb 19, 2014 16:25
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1956 - Spreading Our Wings Q1 1956 First things first, we waste no more time crying over spent millions in venture capital and send Igor to finalize negotiations with Rome. Unfortunately, our hesitation is going to cost us a little more.  The tourism boom has temporarily inflated the cost of development in the city. Waiting until the bubble bursts could save us the cost of opening another route, but would also mean turns not spent digging in and locking horns with our enemies in the Euro-Aero-Market. No more waiting. Well, the three months it takes to sort out the deal. We wait for that. Then no more.  To take advantage of that Bubble, I put our idle DC6s into action. Together, they can take up all the time we have in Rome.   Speaking of using slots we’ve already paid for, we open service to India and Egypt. From our other mideast routes we already know that cities with their stats can fill several IL14s, so I don’t hesitate to use our time.  It appears I oversold the immediate effects of friendship. There’s other factors which influence bid volume and time taken. Cindy’s effort is limited to 5 slots in 6 months. Your first step into a new city will be slow going, then it picks up speed. Veronica’s mission to Hong Kong is much the same.  Dammit, Jerry, you had one job! The whole of Australia is Unfriendly with us. This slows negotiations and drives up the cost of business. Unless we get a chance to correct that, buying in over here is simply not worth our time. Back in Rome, the tourism boom is also driving prices up. Fortunately, that’s temporary, so we’ll have a chance to nail things down after the market cools.  After all that time in Egypt, Jerry has come to appreciate that some things belong in museums.  And nothing of value is lost  The People’s Airline finally takes action. Bids in Rome, Cairo, Tehran and Madrid.    And use of Tupolevs.  Rome continues to buzz. Aside, Moscow becomes the first airport to expand. They add 26 new slots.    We continue to grow, holding on to second place in revenue and profit and taking the lead in passengers. Side business is stagnating a bit. Q2 1956  Tunis strikes out on its own. Their new regime is friendly with us.  Conair does more bidding in Japan and buys a lot of planes.  Murica fans out into LA and Mexico, and gets their hub down in London. Every enemy airline has now bid in Tehran. Our home city will become the nexus of all air travel in the middle east.  Our hub goes live. We also claim our Slots and Museum in London.  This is Tehran-Rome on Tourism. That’s 3.5 flights worth of passengers so I recall one plane, dropping the route to 3 flights, and dial up a price a smidge. That should pay out about the same, and frees up a DC6 to head for London.   Good opening quarters from our new mideast routes. Fares are adjusted and another plane assigned to use Bombay’s remaining slots.   And a lesson that some things aren’t worth flying for.  Construction is underway in Tehran. We’ll see who’s first to claim those new slots in 1958.  Now that we’ve set up shop there, the Italians are happy to shower Igor is all the finest contracts. 6 Months well spent.   Time to start paying back that bribe.  Japan doesn’t like us, putting them near the back of the line for our advance into Asia.   China is more approachable, and the local British colonies have decent stats. They’ll make fine additions to our network.  AirMarx continues its shaky start.  This harmful event befalls us. It’s hard to track down the exact effects, but appears to simply spike our expenses for the quarter. They become more common if you cut back on repair funding. Rome continues to crawl with tourists.    Revenue continues to grow, though margins are slim. Air’Murica scrapes ahead of us by few passengers. Q3 1956  ConAir arrives in our Airspace, digs into their home, and sets up their Australian hub.  The Americans settle into Europe.  Exactly what they need to counteract the financial hemorrhaging brought on by Tupolevs - Swiss Busses!  The gates of the East are open to us.       Rome underperformed vs its last turn, though it still brought in a lot of extra fares. Expecting that the tourism boom won’t last much longer, I recall a plane to send to Hong Kong. This time, we do not hesitate to lock in our claim. Note that, now that we’re in contact with hostile routes, we can compare their stats directly on when configuring our own. An extra DC6 is ordered in anticipation of future routes.   I also discover the limits of our original local routes. This is about how much we can expect them to earn until competition drives our prices down.   Planes well spent.   Great. This war will inflict some harsh penalties on Cairo and, while established air routes will continue to fly, all negotiations there are shut down until it ends.  And another of these eats into our profit margins.  The 1956 Olympics occur without us. While the plan to sneak a hotel in there was a clever idea, Australia’s hostile attitude would have made it terribly overpriced. Our agents’ time was better spent on expanding our network.    We really feel the end of Rome’s tourism boom, and are squeezed tight by that breakdown, but once you set aside that spike we’re still climbing from where we were at the start of the year. Air’Murica continues to dominate the charts, but we’re maintaining second place ahead of ConAir. Q4 1956  Blue links Athens, bids in Paris, and develops South America.  Black links into more of Japan, then bids in London and Bombay.  Rome, Tehran, and Madrid are linked to Moscow. They’ve run out of Tupolevs and been forced to deploy IL14s, so some of those routes will manage to stay in the black. They bid in Algeria, Vienna, and Lagos.  We’re starting to look respectable on the big board.  Our bid was not entirely successful. These things can happen. Still, they’re enough to max out our current space in London while leaving 4 more to dabble elsewhere. We’re not even close to maxed out here either, so another round may get results down the line.   Surprisingly, the war isn’t hurting our business in Egypt. This is quite fortunate for us, as while this war’s start date corresponds with the Suez Crisis, it does not have a scripted end date and can last for several turns. It’s nice to know they won’t let a little invasion get in the way of expanding their airport. Once the fighting stops the Aero-Battle for those time-slots can begin.  Our Mid/Far East route is outperforming ConAir’s, moving more people at higher prices on a less expensive plane. I keep pressure on them by cutting prices deeper.  And our India route breaks one million in quarterly sales.  Berlin should manage even better.   More bidding in our new hub. Three months for five slots will make us ready to connect Beijing next turn. The ones we have now open an IL14 route to Kuala Lumpur.  With the tourism bubble over, we snag the biggest hotel in Italy.   The war continues as we close out the year. Egyptian airports continue to give no fucks.  And people fall in love with New Zealand.    Days without spontaneous combustion of aircraft: 84 A much better turn. Profits exceeded the height of Roman tourism boom, confirming that we are continuing to grow. 1956 Year End Review Things this year ran pretty tight. Margins were slim, cash was drained, side-business is stagnating, and some of our plans were disrupted by our first brush with hostile territory. On the upside, we’ve staked out claims in powerful cities in Rome and Asia, put most our planes to work on profitable routes, (Islamabad :arrr:) and show ourselves capable of making money while competing with our rivals. We also have a feel for how much business a small city can handle, so less time will be wasted fishing around for the best route schedules. Our current position is a natural consequence of how Aerobiz is structured. We begin with a lot of cash, very few assets, and a system which limits how quickly we can turn one into the other. The early game is a frenzy of purchasing where everyone scrambles to assemble an income stream. That well will soon run dry, and we’ll transition to fine tuning our existing network to squeeze as much out of it as possible while carefully choosing which cities are best to expand into. Our largest expenses have always been startup costs. Compared to the price of launching a new route, adding more planes and flights to existing connections is pocket change. A major turning point will come about five to ten years into the game, when our routes finish paying back their startup costs. Our Competition Our enemies are an odd mix. ConAir is our nearest rival. Our ability to stay slightly ahead of them can likely trace back to the savings from our IL14s vs their preference for fewer flights with bigger American planes. They’re also backed into a corner geographically. Trans-pacific flights won’t be very feasible for quite a while, (The nearest possible link there is Vancouver to Tokyo at 4750 miles) so ConAir has to go through us to reach most of the world. AirMarx is a big of a joke. Handicapped by the AI’s inability to grasp that the Tupolev is not a good plane, they’ve only managed to start profitable air routes when forced to deploy their own IL14s. They have enough cash on hand to make a recovery with some good plays, but for now they are decidedly not a threat. Air’Murica will be a challenge. They’ve made good use of their starting advantages, maintaining a strong lead in earnings since they started flying. It’s a lead we’ll have a hard time contesting until we’re able to slip in and compete directly with their home markets. Our strong start in Europe will help get us there, but it will be an uphill battle. The USA itself is unfriendly to us. Every city in North America will be an unpleasant and overpriced slog to acquire assets in. We’ll need a presence there to win, but barring another government contract there’s little chance it’ll be a region we dominate. (Canada Doesn’t like us either) Supporting Assets Stagnation has set in on the business front. Our early buys are running on tight margins, often barely breaking even or even posting losses over the course of the year. Our younger ones are doing well in their first turns, but there’s no telling if the rot will settle in for them as well. We have a counter to this - Marketing.   An Ad campaign targets a region and a category of business. We take an agent, hand them a budget, and put them into action. If they succeed, the target businesses receive a boost in performance for some time. The base cost scales with the count and quality of your assets, and we can spend anywhere from half to four times that number to adjust the odds. As you can see, the stakes are quite low with our current level of business holdings, so an experiment may be in order. Networking Options With $190 million left to throw on the table, we should select our next routes carefully. Here is a selection of stats for some cities not yet in our network. At home, we have a lot of proven low-volume routes powered by our IL14s. (And one barely-solvent monument to failure) Any extensive projects here must wait until Terhan expands, but we have a few extra slots to throw around until then. We could bid for more time on the routes we already hold, or open a link to somewhere fresh. pre:City Rlt. Pop Ecn Trs ---- ---- --- --- --- New Delhi Blue 3.6 10 16 Calcutta Blue 2.4 16 16 Karachi Blue 3.7 19 8 pre:City Rlt. Pop Ecn Trs ---- ---- --- --- --- Lagos Green 2.1 14 8 Algiers Blue 1.2 26 14 A. Abaaba Blue 1.0 1 6 Nairobi Green 0.6 8 15 Tripoli Blue 0.6 19 5 Tunis Green 0.5 10 20 pre:City Rlt. Pop Ecn Trs ---- ---- --- --- --- Athens Blue 7.2 44 46 Madrid Blue 2.5 36 36 Paris Blue 1.8 40 55 Barcelona Blue 1.4 27 32 Vienna Blue 1.2 40 42 pre:City Rlt. Pop Ecn Trs ---- ---- --- --- --- Shanghai Blue 9.3 25 22 Bangkok Blue 5.0 16 33 Seoul Blue 4.0 16 8 Taipei Blue 2.0 33 18 Singapore Green 1.4 20 27 Manilla Blue 1.3 14 16 With present aircraft technology, North America is just within reach of an L1049. Washington is 4500 Miles from Rome and and has stats in the 40s. Though on the low side for population, it’s about as good as we could get until ranges get a lot better. Our only other option there is to dive into New York. We’d then be free to slog our way into business with more decent cities which despise us. pre:City Rlt. Pop Ecn Trs ---- ---- --- --- --- Washington Orange 0.4 46 40 Los Angeles Orange 2.4 44 48 Chicago Orange 2.2 48 35 Houston Orange 1.2 42 24 Philidelphia Orange 1.2 42 24 pre:City Rlt. Pop Ecn Trs ---- ---- --- --- --- Sao Paulo* Blue 6.8 16 9 Mexico City* Blue 5.4 28 29 Rio de Janeiro Blue 3.8 27 18 Santiago Blue 3.3 28 8 Lima Blue 2.4 26 8 Bueanos Aires Blue 2.0 22 15 Havana* Blue 1.4 14 12 Kingston Green 0.4 10 20 *Hub Candidate pre:City Rlt. Pop Ecn Trs ---- ---- --- --- --- Sydney* Orange 2.8 34 17 Melbourne Orange 2.4 44 17 Brisbane Orange 0.9 36 22 Perth* Orange 0.8 18 20 Adelaide Orange 0.8 28 25 Nandi Green 0.1 1 8 Papeete Blue 0.1 1 14 Noumea Blue 0.1 2 7 Auckland* Orange 0.1 15 29 *Hub Candidate A_Raving_Loon fucked around with this message at 21:17 on Mar 5, 2014 |
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Feb 20, 2014 23:46
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StandardVC10 posted:Aaaa, this is bugging me, the little pixel-art "Tu-104" is actually the later, shorter-haul Tu-134, the real life Tu-104 had two engines in the wing roots. Was it fueled with pine tar and recycled cigarettes? Edit: there's an update on the page before this, for any who missed. A_Raving_Loon fucked around with this message at 00:57 on Feb 21, 2014 |
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Feb 21, 2014 00:34
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The Casualty posted:The problem with having 1 flight and a 50% discount. You'll sometimes see the AI do this on their own routes, desperately trying to fill too-big plane for a short hop to a backwater town. In my own game one of the AI airlines is trying to get a 747-400 to be profitable on a route between LA and Phoenix. He tries to fit 550 souls onto one flight a week, and gets 40% occupancy at a 50% discount, losing $1.5 million per quarter. If he was using a 737 or A-320 he could do 5-7 flights a week and pull in $2-$3 million in profit, assuming no competition. Due to information lost to rounding, there's even odds it is or isn't even earning enough to pay the upkeep on that timeslot. I keep it around as a joke. It's getting axed the moment we need that IL14 somewhere else.
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Feb 21, 2014 14:46
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habeasdorkus posted:I also support a single route from Rome to New York City, which will be a huge money-maker for us. This would effectively mean comitting to using New York as our North American hub. America's dislike of up drives startup costs even higher than normal.
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Feb 22, 2014 16:39
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The Casualty posted:I'd also like to remind you of our victory conditions: Become #1 in SIX regions. There's seven total. We might want to think about making ourselves the very best in the rest of the world before trying to tackle North America, because there's very little chance we will overcome Air'Murica's domestic advantage. And consequently, dominating any two regions is enough to prevent someone else from winning. A strong Mideast/Europe/Asia network is enough secure us against defeat while continuing the build revenue streams.
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Feb 22, 2014 20:28
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If anything I say on the subject turns out confusing or at odds with reality, that's probably me being mistake. As far as win/lose conditions goes, keep in mind that Aerobiz does have multiplayer that goes as far as having all four airlines human controlled. The AI is generally treated like any other player, victory included. And yes, that UK Air screenshot of the objectives was taken on a different difficulty. The very bottom of it mentions "Glider." Glazius posted:So basically it doesn't matter that one airline's running away with North America, you can just ignore it and get a foothold in other regions? It's important in that uncontested control of North America bring in a lot of money that they can put to use elsewhere. Even if we have no chance to of beating them in their home region, a few stabs at their heart can help close the air travel gap. Things have settled down on the voting front so I'll formalize our business plan and get to playing later today.
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Feb 23, 2014 15:06
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Business Plan 1957 Primary Objectives: pre:5 - Paris 5 - Athens 4 - Shanghai 4 - Taipei Secondary Objectives: pre:3 - Madrid 3 - Calcutta 2 - Other Far East (China and UK) 2 - Algiers, Tripoli, Afro-Hub Stretch Goals: pre:1 - Vienna 1 - Singapore 1 - Bangkok 1 - America Time, and money, will tell which of our plans will see the light of day. A_Raving_Loon fucked around with this message at 15:31 on Mar 10, 2014 |
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Feb 23, 2014 17:45
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1957 - Building the Nest Q1 1957 Where last year was about hubs, this year is all spokes. We’re looking to put our remaining millions into drawing the best lines of income we can.   That idle DC6 is doing no good in lazing about the hangar, and neither are our unused slots in Tehran and Rome. There’s healthy demand for THR-ROM, so put assets to actions to see if it’ll pay off. Our other routes are mostly status quo. An extra slot is thrown at Kuala Lumpur, and I continue fiddling with the fares on THR-HKG.  London carries on being an excellent use of our time.    Round one of bidding is focussed on our European targets. The Greeks are unusually generous with their airport capacity, though it will take 9 months to close with them. Rome’s hesitance is just as weird, six months for five slots as if we’d just met. Nice going, Jerry.  Uh… not now. Beijing is a fine city, sure to make excellent use of our planes, but we could connect Paris and Berlin. We’ll get back to you later, China.  I pick up extra DC6s in anticipation of those new routes.  Their first short route in Australia, and a quick bid in Pakistan.  And it appears that Vickers doesn’t mind selling to the Russians. Orders of Viscounts and IL14s show a faint glimmer of hope for their choice in aircraft. They also get more busses in Spain.  Negotiations in San Francisco and Austria, and a link to the Middle East.   More fighting in Egypt, more beautiful scenery in New Zealand.    By and large a typical quarter. Slow growth from us, constant back-and-forth with ConAir, and M&M on opposite extremes of the financial spectrum. We spend a moment on top in Europe. Q2 1957  Just passing through.  Mostly quiet out west.  They’ve become quite fond of Spain.  It's getting quite lively over here. Our old bid in East Germany clears, I hold off on opening it for the moment. When you try to storm a region like this, you hub will quickly become a bottleneck. Setbacks in Rome mean setbacks for all of Europe.  Success in Rome is good for everyone.    In the case of a minor downturn, we could suspend a route temporarily to avoid losses, and would be able to resume service later without paying to reopen it. Doing that does not free up our plane. Doing this serves an example to the other lines. It also refunded us $9.4 million, a bit under half of our startup cost.  China should have no trouble living up to expectations.  Hong Kong will do its best not to slow us down, with new slots to finish early next year. War and Tourism continue as before.    ConAir slips ahead, and AirMarx finally posts a profit. Q3 1957   Boeing enters the scene. Starting next year, these fellows will be up for sale. The dawn of the jet age arrives. Jet aircraft will raise the bar for operating range and passenger capacity over the current generation’s turboprops, but consume far more fuel. The Tu104 suffered from having the drawback of a jet engine without the matching advantages. More will start to appear over the coming years.  We get out first local competition from another route to Bombay and bidding in Tashkent. ConAir is setting sights on New York, so we may see some chipping away at the great blue monopoly overseas. Bidding clears in Europe freeing Veronica to scrape up the last 3 slots we can claim in Hong Kong and Jerry to take another shot at winning over the Italians.  Quite. We open our Franco-Prussian connections for $14.5M and $16.6M. A DC6 on each offer flights at standard fares. Another extra DC6 is ordered to throw after any route which could put it to good use.  Vienna, Rostov, and the game’s first local route in Africa.    Linking Paris, bidding in London and Pakistan.  Peace at last. We can resume business in Africa.    Not nearly the boost I’d hoped for from two shiny new Euro-flights. Q4 1957  They keep quiet this round.  Another new route in Africa, a hotel in Austria, and some bidding in Cairo and Barcelona.  Russia.  So modest. Bids here and out east complete, giving us more time to our name.   We have perhaps overextended. I cut back flights on each route and apply some light discounts. They’re good cities, we just need to find the right setup. Their slots, and our new DC6, are redirected to Mega-Athens, whose gargantuan population should cause most models of business to break down like the event horizon of a great Aero-Singularity. We pay $34 Million to open service.  Our first taste of competition at home. We won’t get to gouge here anymore. Even then, we were earning more and spending less with our trusty IL14s. Gentle discounts will put us back at capacity.  Damnit, everywhere in China is expensive to open. Another IL14 is put to work on all 5 of those slots.  In accordance with the plan, I send out a final round of bidding. Madrid for 8, Calcutta for 14, and Singapore for 3. Their work will continue into next year.  They bid in New York, Athens, and Hong Kong, and link Vienna.  Great.  Great!    Adequate! Profits are at record highs, though our margins are tighter. We’re lagging a bit behind ConAir financially, but keeping a bit ahead in passengers. 1957 Year End Review Only Air’Murrica goes before us, setting up their hub in Mexico. With $59 Million left in the bank, we have the capacity to throw open a few more routes before we’re completely reliant on our own income. After that, grown will come from investing in more air-time and more planes to fly it on the routes we already hold. Let’s take a look at them. Inter-Regionals    Connecting flights like these are typically strong revenue streams. THR-CAI has been at a capacity since we launched it, and THROM came into its own this year. Either could grow by the simple application of more time and planes. THR-HKG is lagging in comparison, with income hovering around $300K-$350K while ConAir’s competing route can fill an L1049. Usage improved a little after we linked Shanghai, leaving the impression that their advantage comes mostly from their more developed eastern network feeding people in. $2.4 Million, 30% of our quarterly air-revenue, comes from these routes. Middle East    Our home roots in Iraq, India, and the Uzbek SSR remain strong. The arrival of competing flights means our inflated prices will have to pop, but also prove the existence of more demand for travel which we could tap into with some extra bids. Precedent from existing routes suggests that Karachi and New Delhi would give similar performances, backed by several AI airlines going after space in Karachi. Calcutta is just a bit outside IL14 range, so if we link them it will have to be with one of our larger planes. $1.8 Million, another 21% of our sales are from the middle east. SE Asia   Our far east connections are paying off. They hunger for more flights and Hong Kong will soon have more time to give them. Our slots in Beijing would be expensive to activate, but nigh-guarantee another successful route. $1.3 Million, 16% of sales come from just these two links. Europe     London remains a credit to our network. Underperformance in Paris and Berlin kinda baffles me. Perhaps their close proximity to Rome is muffling their demand for air travel. loving Trains. Switching them over to smaller planes could improve margins while we wait for the routes to become more desirable, and free of big planes to pile onto more successful routes. Athens demonstrates the power of a large population to overcome all odds. Their abnormal size is easily filling our initial outreach and is sure to sustain more. Despite setbacks with the French and Germans, $2.7 Million, a plurality of 33% of our air revenue, comes from Europe.  Our current fleet. 3 IL14s sit idle for want of places to go or time to fill, and two of those DC6s are being under-used on the Franco-Prussian triangle. Our increased stock of DCs is not yet enough to earn us any discounts, and hasn’t disrupted our brand-loyalty discount from Ilyushin. Slowing Growth Over the course of 1957 we brought in $20.9M in operating profits, with quarterly performance peaking at $8.2M on our last turn. Our air sales have consistently improved and expanded over time, and our businesses had more ups than downs. If those trends hold, it means we’ve hit the point where our airline can pay for a new route or a couple of planes each year. If we chose the right places to apply that money, we can begin to generate some nice positive feedback to ride into the midgame. Many of our existing routes are not even tapped out yet, and could grow substantially for the minute cost of a round of bids or a fresh set of wings. Time to make some changes for the sake of better business. Build our Plan for 1958. A_Raving_Loon fucked around with this message at 21:18 on Mar 5, 2014 |
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Feb 24, 2014 17:46
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Yes, by default it's set to max investment and tries to grow as quickly as it can. I've left it there since we started. I'd planned to introduce these later on we get deeper into the fiddly bits of the game. They can be set to improve our ratings in these areas, maintain them, or allow them to slip back.
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Feb 24, 2014 18:59
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All the other Airlines have chosen Tehran as their Mideast connection, though only ConAir has completed construction of their hub at this time. More models of plane will start bubbling over the next few years. I'd like to leave them a surprise, but if you want to peek there's a fairly complete list of what will appear in the intro by way of recognizing copyrights.
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Feb 25, 2014 02:37
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In most cases I think the game itself gives enough fair warning of what's ahead. Hearing about things the year before they happen will give the thread some time to react. I won't stop people from capitalizing on independent research, but won't go out of my way to reveal the distant future. When a warning/event arises at a time that doesn't cooperate with the update cycle, emergency meetings will be called.
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Feb 25, 2014 15:19
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Business Plan 1958 Primary Objectives: pre:5 - Connect Beijing and Bangkok 3 - Expand existing routes in Europe and Asia Secondary Objectives: pre:2 - Expand Routes in Middle East 2 - Establish Hub in Cairo Stretch Goals: pre:1 - Buy 707s for Major Routes 1 - Purchase Boats in Rome Also, someone really wants a company yacht. A_Raving_Loon fucked around with this message at 15:31 on Mar 10, 2014 |
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Feb 26, 2014 15:52
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1958 - Settling In Q1 1958  After highly their disappointing openings, our routes in France and Germany are scaled back to run IL14s. Berlin showed more enthusiasm, so they get priority for air-time over Paris. Athens is scaled up to 5 Flights per week. If they fill, the Greeks may get one of the DC6s we just freed up. London and THROM continue to thrive. They would be first in line for expansion bids this turn, but we’ve hit two bottlenecks: Rome is full, and we need more planes. One takes time, the other money that we’ve committed to building our next big links out east.  As ordered, we go into Beijing. From Athens, we’ve learned that population has a massive impact on demand, so I deploy a DC6. There’s only 2 slots free right now in Hong Kong, and no more will be open to bid on until next turn, so an IL14 wouldn’t get enough time to move much volume. I’m betting that China can fill all those seats.  Good news at home - with everyone working out of Tehran there’s lots of pressure on the airport to expand. They’ve gone straight into another building project after finishing their first. Since this is quick and easy, I send Jerry to secure our share of the new slots. It’s technically a lower priority than bidding for our link to Bangkok, but we’ll need a while to gather the opening cost anyway. We have time to spare.   Everybody wants a piece of that fresh Iranian tarmac. ConAir also opened their first transatlantic flight, becoming the first of us to advance into Air’Murica’s territory.  We'll get right on those.    Not a bad turn. We’re staying competitive on all fronts and our cashflow continues to slowly rise. Our businesses appear to be responding well to the growth of the network. The hotel in Rome alone pays out $3 million on a good turn. The others are far more modest, giving back a few hundred thousand.  Hail Satan. Q2 1958  Late to the party, Blue.  Passengers of Air Marx begin to develop an irrational sympathy for their service provider. They also open a route to Paris. At least they’re buying and using more Viscounts. They may yet recover from owning Tupolevs.  Like us, ConAir is slowing down as they start to run low on liquid assets. The AI doesn’t live as dangerously as we do.  Old bids from last year in Madrid and Singapore clear. It will be a while before we can afford to put those slots to use, but they don’t cost much to hold on to. More importantly, Jerry renews our dominance of Tehran.   China does us proud. Beijing is off to a strong start, and it looks like our increased presence out here is improving demand for THR-HKG.  With breathing room up for sale in Hong Kong, our next offensive is focussed on the east. Veronica to Bangkok, Igor to HK and Jerry into Kuala Lumpur. I chose it over yet more time China because they can handle 2 more flights without adding any new planes. We’re down to an IL14 earmarked for Bangkok, and a DC6 waiting to tag in on our best long haul.  Yeah, gently caress you too, France. Way to get upstaged by Baghdad. I cut their flights back more, reassigning them mostly to Berlin. Our good routes in Europe are making full use of their current aircraft, so I decide to send out our last DC6.  Three flights on THROM bring in more than 5 to Athens, so I assign it to the connector. It adds capacity for two more fights. I use one for now.  Space will be tight in Europe for a while. If we chose to try more hookups we can always skim time off Paris and Berlin.  Here, we see some of the AI’s exploitable behavior on display. ConAir is using rock-bottom prices to steal passengers from us in India, and it’s working. They’re moving about 180 people each week vs our 120. However, our smaller flights brings in 25% more revenue from those high-price tickets, at lower operating cost than their fatass Lockheed Constellation. A good move on the scoreboard, but a bad one on the ledger. I cut a little discount to lure some of those passengers back. No reason not to rub salt in the wound. Luring our opponents into traps like these is handy for getting ahead.  ConAir has a less than amazing start heading overseas, but London to New York is such a good route that even half-full budget flights make decent scratch. This is what they’re up against.    More popular pacific islands, and Sydney adds 26 more slots.    We hold steady through this turn, adding $750K in air sales without spending any capital. Q3 1958     The Jet Age continues to dawn. DC one-ups Boeing with a farther reaching and slightly more fuel-efficient skywhale, while newcomer Sud Aviation puts out a smaller short-range jet that’s nearly as reliable as a turboprop.  Air Marx links Tehran to Cairo, hook up Barcelona, and bid in Brussels and Calcutta.  While it may not be as patriotic, we prefer not the paint the map red.  One of those is going straight to Beijing. Any more will need more planes.  City, solved. There is a hard cap of 14 flights per week on any given route. The only reason to hold more time than that in any non-hub city is to deny it to your enemies.  Our eastern connection is maturing nicely. It’s no THROM, but we’re climbing into the same league as ConAir.  Speaking of, THROM is still amazing. I should strip more flights from Paris’ scrawny little schedule and feed them to THROM (Finally filling 3 flights for $210K per quarter) but I spare it the knife for now. They get a rate hike and a second chance to live up to the standards set by air-travel giants like Iraq, Malaysia and Uzbekistan. Belin’s doing much better, filling 5 flights for $460K.  The Greeks break a million, and hunger for more. I gouge a bit until we have more time to give them. I’ll be 18 more months before Rome grows, Q1 1960.  Tehran has all the time in the world, so bidding turns to growing routes at home. As before, I look for links that handle more traffic with their current supply of aircraft. There’s space for 2 more flights to Cairo and Bombay, 4 to Baghdad, and 1 more to Tashkent. Baghdad earns the least per flight, putting it at the back of the line. Tashkent has the least to gain from bids without more planes to fill them, so they’re out too. That leaves the very close performances of Cairo and Bombay.  Egypt is doing a little better, and will be our future hub in Africa, so it wins out. Igor’s on it. The Russians have held back here, so there’s still a good chance that we can get control here. For all that control of Africa is worth. Since Cindy’s also free, I send her back to Bombay for 6 more slots. It’s all we can expect from their tiny airport. It will take 9 months.  They fish around more in the Middle East, linking Karachi and bidding in Tehran. The real news is their bids in America. One the one hand, our largest enemy will soon have competition. On the other, it will be from our nearest rival.  More Slots, more L1049s. Standard ‘Murica turn.   Severe weather disrupts flights in New York. Papeete remains a popular tourist destination    That storm cost the Americans $15 Million and 11,184 passengers. Allah Akbar. Q4 1958  Diplomats will shop around to different airlines with their deals. The Russians don’t want this one, so they’ll be coming to us next.  The Australians want to clean up Perth. While this would mean great things for our eventual work in Oceania, they ask for far too much. We send them on their way.  Our bidding out east clears, and we have the cash on hand, so Bangkok is added to our network. All we have on hand to fly it is an IL14, but we know the 3 flights it can handle will be good ones. We also schedule two more flights to Kuala Lumpur. All of our planes are now in action, and all planes in Southeast Asia are working at full capacity.  In a bit of emergent gameplay, we’ve wound up colluding with ConAir to keep Trans-Asian ticket prices high. The AI feels comfortable charging a little more than us on their connecting flight, and every time they’ve raised their fares I’ve raised our own to keep pace. They respond by raising theirs in turn, and both routes benefit until someone new shows up to undercut us. Game theory in action!  With two agents free and no cash on hand to give them, I close out with more bids at home. Veronica to Baghdad and Jerry to Tashkent. 6 months each for 5 and 7 slots. Taken together, we’re getting close to all the slots we should ever need in the Middle East.  The results of closing the trap in Bombay. In exchange for $100K of our revenue, we’ve pinned them down in a downright Parisian quagmire. At least Paris was relatively cheap to connect to. In this state, ConAir’s flight will probably never pay back its startup costs. Since we’ll soon have even more flights to fill there, I squeeze prices even tighter. Listen closely around sunset, when the wind is right, and you will hear Danny Yang cry himself to sleep.   No one wants to clean up Perth. The Americans also link Karachi and bid in Tashkent.  The most popular island that no one is flying to. Tourists will have to try their luck with boats.    Without the wrath of god holding them down, Air’Murica pops right back to their normal place. We’re keeping slow and steady pace. 1958 Year-End Review Only the Russians go before us, connecting Sweden and doing some bidding in the motherland.  This year brought our cash reserve to an all-time low. Our startup funds are spent. (Going back and adding up the numbers, we actually went through the last of our initial capital around the end of 1957.) From here on out, we’re living on the proceeds of our own assets. We shall live or die an Aero-Biz. And we’re not doing half-bad. We’ve turned that initial $820 Million into a company that brought in $32.9 Million this year, an average of $8M per turn. That is money we can grow on. That’s a new route or two each year, or a couple midrange planes, or a nice hotel with a view of the beach. That is a return on investment that will see us double in size within 6 years. In four years we’ve been built a network spanning two continents that moves ten thousand people every month. It only goes up from here.   Our trusty Soviet workhorse is getting put out pasture. After 1959 all production of the IL14 will be discontinued. It’s last call to stuff our hangars with these tough little planes before they’re gone. The ones we have will continue to serve. We’ve had a good run with the IL14. We’ve benefitted its strengths - low costs which let us make the most of all the little things we have. This year, we ran to its weakness - time. While an IL-14 focussed strategy is highly economical when it comes to cash, their low capacity means they need a lot of airport space to really scale up service. Time that adds up quickly in your hubs. In exploring the markets, we’ve found plenty of cities that may be equipped to handle fewer flights from bigger planes. Enter the Caravelle. On the surface, this looks worse than the DC6. Same size, far less range, worse upkeep ratings and a bigger pricetag. On the surface, it is worse. However, aircraft in Aerobiz have a hidden stat - speed. Along with operating range, speed determines how many flights per week a plane can handle on a given route. In most cases, speed being hidden isn’t a problem as long as you know it exists. It’s enough to know that in general, jets are faster than props. If you comb over the numbers, you’ll find that at max range a big turboprop like the DC6 and L1049 gets around 1.5 flights per plane. Lighter props like the Viscount and our IL14s get closer to 2 flights per plane. The Tu104, for all its countless failures as commercial passenger aircraft, nearly gets up to 3. The higher speed of jet aircraft means more flights per plane - fewer planes per route. Based on that, I believe the Caravelle is a worthy successor to the IL14 on some of our proven short-range routes, leaving the Ilyushins free to seek out new low-demand lines and do what they do best. It’s time to start looking to the future. Build our Plan for 1959. A_Raving_Loon fucked around with this message at 21:19 on Mar 5, 2014 |
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Feb 27, 2014 05:12
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StandardVC10 posted:Buy Caravelles as IL-14 replacement, buy DC-8s sparingly. I suspect the Caravelle will stay viable longer. How long can you fly out-of-production airplanes? As far as I'm aware, indefinitely. For reference, here's our routes within Caravelle range: pre:City Dist Planes Flts Load Sales ---- ---- ------ ---- ---- ----- London 870 1 DC6 5/5 400 1720K Athens 680 1 DC6 5/5 400 1260K Beijing 1250 1 DC6 3/3 240 1120K Cairo 1250 2 Il14 5/7 150 660K Tashkent 1000 1 IL14 4/5 120 620K Shanghai 750 1 IL14 5/5 150 490K Berlin 750 1 IL14 5/5 150 460K Bangkok 1060 1 IL14 3/3 90 370K Paris 680 1 IL14 3/5 60 160K
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Feb 27, 2014 14:22
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Potential Intercontinental Connections:pre:From To Dist Cost ---- -------- ---- ----- Rome New York 4310 29.2M Rome Washington 4500 10.0M Rome Chicago 4810 16.9M Rome Atlanta 5060 9.2M Rome Dallas 5620 11.5M Rome Havana 5430 13.8M Rome Sao Paulo 5930 34.6M Rome Mexico 6370 29.2M H.K. Vancouver 6430 15.4M H.K. L.A. 7310 22.7M H.K. Mexico 8870 36.6M Cairo Sao Paulo 6370 41.5M Cairo Havana 6750 20.8M
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Feb 27, 2014 16:07
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I regret to remind the shareholders that there are no boats in Rome. Rome's remaining businesses are 2 Museums, a Small Hotel, a Bus Service and a Travel Agency. Cities in network possessing Boats: pre:City Type Cost ---- ------------- ------ Athens Pleasure Boat 61.2M Bombay Ferry 105.0M Hong Kong Pleasure Boat 43.7M Shanghai Pleasure Boat 52.5M Shanghai Ferry 105.0M
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Feb 27, 2014 20:11
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The main equalizer there is that no matter how much more money they're bringing in, they still only have four agents to claim time with. That, along with there only being so much world to connect and people to move across it, will slow them down. As long as we're bringing in enough to keep building our network, and eventually to push into their territory, we're in the game. Depending on how good the AIs are at invading each other, we may start to see the scales shift once ConAir gets some US routes open.
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Feb 27, 2014 21:27
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The remaining businesses in Tehran are a $7M Art Pavilion and a $112M Commuter Airline.
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Feb 28, 2014 04:41
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Business Plan 1959 Primary Objectives: pre:7 - Procure DC6s 6 - Expand existing routes, Prioritizing Asia Secondary Objectives: pre:4 - Purchase Business in Hubs, Priority Hotel in Hong Kong 4 - Procure Long-Range Aircraft for connector flights, DC8-30 Preferred Stretch Goals: pre:3 - Go for Sydney 3 - Make moves towards South America Get A Boat: pre:3 - Greek 1 - Chinese A_Raving_Loon fucked around with this message at 15:30 on Mar 10, 2014 |
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Feb 28, 2014 16:49
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