Croissants or Crumpets

**Croissants or Crumpets** is the thirteenth mission in the classic campaign of Railroad Tycoon II. It is the first mission of the Rest of the World act. The premise of the scenario is the construction of Railroads in India by the colonial powers aiming to gain control of the region during the mid-1800s. The map used in this scenario is a portrayal of India and the rest of South Asia.

## Overview

### Introduction Spiel

> *The Taj Mahal and most all of India was long thought to be a British claim. France, however, has seized an opportunity to shift rail rights of way in India. You must be very cunning, though. Put your diplomatic and rail building talents to work, and give the Brits a run for their money...literally! Your efficiency and resourcefulness is sure to make India look to France for rail transport in the future. So don't slouch, sit up straight, and button your top button.*
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### Victory Conditions

* **Bronze:** Industry Investments totaling $10 million, Pondicherry and Dehli connected to Panaji by 1890.
* **Silver:** Same as above, but also connect Calcutta all by 1880.
* **Gold:** Same as above, but also connect Kabul, and be the sole-surviving railroad all by 1880.

A loss will be triggered if the player either has failed to invest $10 million in industry, and/or has not connected Pondicherry and Delhi to Panaji.

### Available Bonuses

* **Choice 1:** -20% track construction cost, Early access to the 3-Truck Shay
* **Choice 2:** +$100,000, +15% Goodwill (Platinum edition has +25% Goodwill)
* **Choice 3:** -25% company overhead, +25% Goodwill

Choice 1 looks quite nice, with lower track construction cost you can connect to far away cities and make more money right from the start. Also Bangalore is the nearest city to Panaji, but you have to get up a mountain to reach it, that's where the 3-Truck Shay is needed.

While all three options sound pretty good, choice 3 is arguably the best. In this scenario, you need to buy the rights to many territories, where the 25% Goodwill make a huge difference in the long run. Right at the start you need to buy the rights to Madras, where this already makes a big difference starting out. Choice 3 will allow you to connect to Pondicherry right away and make a lot of money from that connection.

### Starting Situation

* **Starting Year:** 1850
* **Player Name:** Napoleon III
	+ **Starting Player Cash:** $25K personal cash
	+ **Starting Player Stock:** 5,000 shares of Lignes Francaise (25% of the company)
* **Company Name:** Lignes Francaise
	+ **Starting Company Cash:** $800K

The player starts with a medium station in Panaji with a sanding tower, water tower and roundhouse. The track is single and doesn't lead anywhere. Due to restrictions being enforced in this scenario, the player must begin from this railway.

### Ending Spiel

> *India converts to French rail...I like the ring of that! Congratulations! Further east, Japan is finally looking to begin western style industrialization...starting with a modern rail system.*
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## Strategy

There are several options in this scenario. Two of them will be mentioned here, First of all the more traditional approach of building up your own railway, then another more aggressive approach to get rid of your opponents.

Traditional

Instead of going up the hill to Bangalore, lay track as straight as possible south around the hill and then upwards to Pondicherry. If Choice 3 is selected, this should be possible by the amount of money saved from buying rights to Madras. If money is short, try issuing more stocks to make that connection and buy at least one 4-2-0 Prussian for now. This flat connection is quite long range already and with 2 or 3 Prussians can generate enough money to get started.

Priority is buying stocks from the Opponent company with the better cities connected, usually the Indian company, and expanding as fast as possible to the north to Bombay/Kalyan and past. If you don't claim the cities there, the opponent will connect to them quite early! So try to win the race to the area west of Delhi. There are many cities and industries there, to go for the gold later on. For now try to connect to as many good cities as possible and cut the way of the opponents, if possible. If your area is safe, try to make new long range express passenger trains, wherever possible. For now you need to make up as much ground as you can. If your area is quite big and you connected to many cities, you can connect the wool industries and deliver goods to nearby cities. Save some money to buy the industries you connect before they get very lucrative and the opponent does so. Step by step connect more industries and buy them after. The long range passenger trains should still make loads of money, if you deliver enough to your industries, they will also make additional money.

Connecting to Delhi and Calcutta should be no problem money wise, maybe the opponents are in the way, but you just need to build a station there for bronze/silver.

Being the last surviving Railroad and going for gold is way harder. Usually the owner of the better one of the AI companies buys its stock extremely quick, so you can't keep up with the amount. Sometimes the smaller AI company bankrupts itself, or you can later try to set up a merger. That won't be too expensive as their stock price is usually quite low.

To merge with the bigger AI company, you need your railroad to be better than theirs and make more profit. Towards the end you can save money and attempt a merger using your stocks in the company plus a whole lot of money. You can try to merge once a year. If the situation is good enough for you. the merger will be successful.

Don't forget to connect to Kabul for the Gold Medal!

Aggressive

The gold requires you to be the only surviving railroad, but the
trick is that it doesn't matter which railroad survives, as long as
you're running it!

When you start, pause the game, and use all your company's cash
to buy up stock to prop up the share price. (You will want to select Choice 2 for this route, as the extra cash is useful and the Goodwill is moot.) Then sell all your stocks in
 your company, and buy everything you can in Indian Railways (the one
that is already 40% owned by the AI player). You should have over 50% in
 the company, which allows you to take over as chairman. Now, with this
company, you can start your railroad - this is made easier because this
company has by default access rights in all territories, so you can
build whenever you want (I recommend North India). Then you just need to
 build up your railroad whilst building up a 50% stake in the other
railroad (retain your shares in your own company though). When you do
get a 50% stake in the other railroad, take over as chairman and get rid
 of all their trains and track. Burn through all their cash and then re-assume control of Indian Railways. Now that the other company's
assets have been erased, you should be able to conduct a takeover very cheaply. Now you can just build up your railway and buy industry to get
the gold.

Thanks for this strategy mentioned in the comments.