I have played through BW many times now, and tried different types of Airline. How ever my airline is always average.
Remember : BW is far easier than normal game. Which means you're not ready yet for long games. Maybe short ones, but still, you'd be in danger.
I have tried longhaul airline (Europe to US and Asia) and Medium (737s / A320s) and now trying commuter (All ATRs). Each time the airline is earning money, and I am one of the richest CEOs (not that it matters). But the overall score is always average.
Richest CEO does not matter. It's more a competition of who can connect each game month and increase its salary. Overall score is not very important either. What counts is the capacity of facing opposition, and ultimely, to push opposition to bankrupt or irrelevance. Which means earning more money than your local opponents. Do you play in airports with opposition, and do you succeed better than your opposition?
I have tried longer game worlds, and still average score, it starts well but in the end of GWs I start losing money (Normally when D-checks kick in) meaning I am running pretty much on break even.
Many things can happen. For example, opposition can see you as weak, and attack your lines to push you to bankrupt. It's frequent. I did it quite a few times. I did not always succeed, and when you fail a price war against an opponent you can't terminate, you really lose a few teeth. When it works, you've got a brand new market for you.
Other things that can kill you in the long term are failed fleet replacement(a very common death reason for average/good players), or simply failure to update the prices according to inflation.
- Players say average LF should be around 80%, if its higher meaning you are selling tickets too cheap, but if LF falls, airline losses score...
Don't care about score. Care about making your company profitable enough to look impossible to take down. Score will (more or less) follow. I'm 7th in current GW7 in terms of company value. My 10th place in scoring just follows naturally.
- Scheduling should be done with ample turn around time to avoid "A/C Rotation delays", but then score for "fleet utilization" falls...
That's a fine tuning, and each player has its preferences. I tend to be rather generous with turnaround times, while other players prefer to tighten the schedule and make a better use of their aircraft. Both solutions have several pros and cons. I'd say be reasonable(i.e. don't always use bare minimum), and find your style. If your Company image is damaged, you'd better be more careful.
- Average fuel burn per passenger, vs, total average fuel burn are also statistics that go against each other.
Who cares? Don't worry about that, it's just indicative.
Is there a receipe for success? Where do I need to balance out here? Feel free to look at my current airline.
There are trends. But no recipe. In current GW3, the setup was slightly different than usual, plus a bug that made long haul transport easier with low route image had been corrected. As a result, many players did use their standard and usually successful "long haul start" strategy, and they all had a lot of problems. So don't look for a recipe. Look for a philosophy. I'm currently 7th in terms of airline value in GW3, despite a few strategic blunders, so my philosophy is probably not too bad.
IMHO, AWS is a 4X. eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate. I already made tutorials about the
expand and
exploit parts(though I'd need a tutorial about pricing for completing the exploit part, and one about fleet choices for the expand part). Explore is simple : map all the demand from your bases, and keep it updated from time to time(every 5-10 game years is usually enough for me, and update also when a big company bankrupts). Exterminate is the toughest part, and is impossible against a really good player, who won't fall into your price wars, and will be big enough to resist any massive override of demand.
BTW I know players recommend leasing aircraft for such short games (BWs) than buying, but I prefer buying a few to use them as collateral when taking out new loans.
BWs are rather nice, so this tactic can work in them. In a real GW, just don't. You need to grow faster than your opponents, and old leased steel allows better ROI during the first 2/3 years. Of course, after 2-3 years, they are a pain to replace, but if you've taken 50% of the market, while your opponent is stuck at 20%, and your profitability is double his, then you are having problems that are nice to have.
And it brings an excellent topic, often overlooked : transition between Expansion and Exploitation. Do it too early, and you didn't reach the critical size yet. Do it too late, and your costs are going to kill you. During the expansion phase, you can do strange things, as having more than 3 fleet groups, bizarre schedules, and so on. It works at this time because the whole market is not saturated yet, and profitability is mathematically better then. When opposition begins to fly everywhere, all lines are overflown, and profitability plumets, you'd better switch to Exploitation mode, maximize your profit, minimize your cost, optimize your prices(unless you're in a price war that can kill an opponent swiftly).
I tend to do the transition slightly too early, which is safer than too late, but yet not optimal. It leaves holes my opponents often use to get a second breath. And the extermination is immediatly far tougher. That's a point I need to improve in my style. I've got several others points of improvement, don't worry. There is always room to grow.
TL;DR :
Don't worry about score. Optimize your growth and profitability, and you'll be much stronger. And score will follow.
Topic: Always average airline... What's the receipe? (Read 954 times)
