The most important thing.

Look deep inside you and ask yourself why do you want to play the game. Once you answer that question then that will determine how you play the game. 

For some people it is to be on the honours list. Just be in the top three players in the round. For others it is to be the best association. For others it would be to win the game which would be to be  and take part in the winning city. The ironic part about this is that Rail Nation does not mention the top cities or the players. This is significant because the game is over when one of the top ten cities delivers all 48 goods. 

What I have realized is that the reason I play this game is because I enjoy it. There are enough problems in life. I want this game to be a distraction. I do not want to go through the forums and see people arguing. I also don't want to see  my hardwork go down the drain. 

I will continue to preach the importance of working together as an association and a city. However sometimes it is absolutely necessary to break away from the city no matter how late. 

Leaving New Cork for Niceview is like being forced to leave a palace that you helped build to moving to a tent. However better it is to sleep in a tent where you are welcomed and served food with love than live in cold walls where even shadows are doused with poison.

I wish the associations in New Cork all the best. Indigo Rainbows have moved to Niceview. I do not know if Niceview will make it into the top 10. I hope so. It would be interesting to see where New Cork ends up. Can one association change the fate of cities? Don't be surprised if you see a post titled "A Tale of Two Cities" soon. Always remember that winning is good but happiness is what counts.

The final push

Sometimes things are just not in your control. We came pretty close to gaining a level quite a few times today. However each and every time we came just short. It is at these times you realize the extent you can do by yourself. You can boost your trains with gold. You can repair your trains to 100%. You can switch over trains to other goods. You can invest in an industry but if other people are not doing the similar thing at the same time then it will be to no avail. It is at these times you realize how inept some people are. Associations taking over industries which they have no business going near to. People supplying goods that they should not be running. Some individuals messing up the occupancy rate by running required goods too early. How hard is it to read the city or association forums? Sometimes you feel like giving people a nice shake. Ofcourse most of them are too ignorant and adamant to accept that they are wrong but at least there is hope because some people are willing to learn and change.

I do not think there is a pure perfect strategy. However once a strategy is decided then stick to it until there is a need to change things. 

On another note interesting times are coming ahead. In one server we are going for an 8 association model and on another a 3 association model. Different tactics. Will one work and the other not? If both works then was there a difference in the cities? More on that later.

New Strategy?

Rail Nation has grown as a game at a very fast rate. Now these have created some interesting problems. The maximum number of people in an association is 25. The old model depended on having four associations with each one dedicated to one resource and they would help around with other resources to either give a big push on the beginning or at times if the good is lagging behind. 

A top association can get to level 25 headquarters by era 4 or 5. Lately we have seen about 150 people in a city by era 2. Some of these people may only be connected to the city. Even with that you will need more than four associations to accommodate the people on the city.

The simplest solution would be to suggest to the developers of the game to make the number of goods to either six or eight goods or some other changes relating to associations. There is no fun in that. Rail Nation is a strategy game and the 

The magic number to remember is 48. This is the number of goods that needs to be delivered to win the game. If this is right then I believe that we need to have associations that when divided gives you a whole number. This would be two,four, six, eight, twelve, sixteen and twenty four. At this stage two and four are too small to work with. For the time being I think that six or eight is good. If it is six associations then the two strongest gets one good each. The other four associations are split into two groups and friend each other. They alternate between being the main supplier of the Required Good. The eight association system would work in a similar way. 

Theoretically this should work and be more efficient than having five associations where one association sits out one round and concentrates on either making profit or boosting goods that are low. I will see if I can convince the cities in I play in to try this out. If it does then I will have an update. If it doesn't then we can rule out two strategies that don't work.