NE UK Hard Universum version means: tough enough to interest Universum
. NE UK has always been one of my favourites, and it can be seen as a sequel to my Liverpool & Manchester map. The download file is based on Snoopy's SAM version, and runs like clockwork. I have replaced the unloved outlandish "canyons" with normal British rivers (check out the "before and after" screenshots!)Tips: It is almost impossible to succeed on this map as Robber Baron, but not totally impossible, if you manage your bottom line carefully. A small struggling enterprise like yours needs to avoid loss-making trains. If quite unavoidable, as in the case of Darlington-Stockton, then certainly only with minimum loss.
Manchester is a good starting position, and a real money gusher if managed properly. Your two initial towns should be close to Metropolis level by the start of the second era. Early patent auctions are a waste of scarce money. The AI will have much more money to spend on patents than you, if you have invested wisely, and you are going to buy them out soon anyway. One or two fake bids are OK, to make the patents more expensive to the AI, but you certainly don't want the winner's curse!
Once you have completed the Darlington-Stockton passenger numbers, which many people think is impossible at Robber Baron difficulty, but really only requires a bit of lateral thinking, you may want to relax. Don't. The era goal of £20 million suggests that money will soon be abundant, time is now scarce, running out as you frantically try to supply medicine for vaccine research in Edinburgh.
Happenstance, one of the AI may have built half the route to Edinburgh (or Liverpool, if you started in the North) for you already. Buy it, reach your net worth goal early and use the acquired rails to connect. Anytime an AI has sold all its shares is an excellent time to buy it cheap.
Complete the vaccine supplies and NOW, you can probably relax. Complete arms deliveries to Liverpool and cruise to victory a massive 34 or so years early on hard routing, against 3 AI, as successful Robber Baron!
Comment: Download the compressed rar file below, unpack and copy into your USERMAPS folder. Remember, this should be the only map in your UserMaps folder, and the CustomAssets folder needs to be perfectly empty.
