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Some tips offered by gbentley concerning playing the TT stock market
Be wise with thy first money and ye shall prosper with much haste.
Leverage greatly using thy overdraft allowed. Sow seeds into three-quarters
of companies formed anew to reap a great financial harvest. The bank
manager and several peasants did rejoice.
To make a large profit without running any vehicles or buying any property
whatsoever - invest in a start-up business. As soon as a competitor
forms a new company, pause the game, view their home base and see if
they've started to build anything. You can then decide if you should
buy or wait...
If it's a train, and it's not physically possible for them to connect
their track together (or you just don't want them to) - do not invest
at all.
If you do want them to make a new route, then wait until the track is
complete before you invest (ideally before they purchase their first
train). Their stock prices will go down as they build new track, saving
you a few thousand in the process.
If it's a bus/truck depot they've started with, then invest right away.
Same goes for airports - even if it's in a really open, badly chosen
space! The value of the plane itself will make the company shares go
up. Just be careful that the player doesn't solely rely on planes for
income (allow them to build railway lines - even if they're next to
your routes).
If they are stuck with only planes and you think they aren't going to
buy anything else, then cut your losses and sell right away.
Be warned however that I've had a game where the computer only bought
one plane and soon was reported to be going bankrupt. I thought that
was it so I immediately sold my shares, only for the computer to buy
lots of trains! This raised the overall company value by hundreds of
thousands (which turned into over a million after a few years) which
should have gone in my bank account! It's a risky game playing the stocks,
but in Transport Tycoon, you can be 95% certain of making a hefty amount
each time you use this method.
When you do buy, buy 75% (or as much as you can afford). Buying 100%
(total take-over) straight away occasionally makes the game crash for
some reason, although if you wait a couple of months you can buy the
remaining 25% without any problem.
After your investment, monitor competitor spending patterns approximately
half-yearly. Find out what new things they're buying and try to judge
(by landscape detail and subsidies) if and where they may build more.
The decision when to sell is yours, but there's usually only 3 situations
where you'll need to do this:
1. When you desperately need the cash to build and you have used
up all of your loan.
2. When computer has made such a mess that they're going to be bankrupt
soon. (I don't know if you lose your investment when it crumbles - not
tested that!)
3. You need the cash to invest in yet *another* new start-up. Even selling
25% from a 2 year old investment can sometimes enable you to buy 75%
of a new one (usually about £75,000).
It's those first years that really count and you can stacks of money
using this method alone.
So keep your investment as long as possible - never sell! It makes life
so much easier later on when you become annoyed by their property and
vehicles. Simply buy your remaining 25% for a bargain cost! Let the
computer build all the fiddly bus and lorry routes while you concentrate
on the bigger money. If you're not happy taking on bus/truck routes
then just sell them right away. Remove all old collection bays too or
it will affect your overall profit margins when you look at your graph
statistics.
Remember that a total buy-out means you also take on all profits and
debts, with the added advantage of not having to do any hard work. Pay
off the debts when you can as it eats into your profit margins. Full
buy-outs do take a lot of time as you always have to iron out the bad
AI-routes the computer has made. Make sure you adjust their railway
tracks and roads afterwards and remove competing routes to your previous
network.
Thanks, gbentley! I have never really played the
stock market, apart from occasionally buying out a serious competitor
to remove their irritating obstacles and to inherit their profitable
routes. I quite enjoy fixing the competitors' horrible routes, actually.
But please do, as gbentley mentions, check the victim's loan balance
before buying the last 25% - you have to pay all their debts!
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