------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Industry Giant Gold Tips and Tricks Version 1.0 13th Feburary 2013 Explored and Written by 91210user ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This FAQ is free! If you paid for this FAQ, you have been ripped off! This FAQ has handcrafted bodyly alignment! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Contents ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Section A: What is Industry Giant? B: Why this guide? C: Industry Giant Contents D: Industry Giant Gold Contents E: Tips and Tricks Section Introduction F: Commerical Zones G: Railways H: Road network I: Building Transport Routes J: Retailers K: Factories L: Resources M: Career and Missions Tips N: Scenario Typo O: Technicial Y: FAQ History Z: Contact/Author Information ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A: What is Industry Giant? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Industry Giant is an business simulation game that simply focuses on you managing a tycoon specializing in producing and manufacturing key products and getting them to the retailers. Industry Giant was first released in 1996 in Germany and later was translated and expanded for the English auidences in 1998. Jowood later released an expansion pack which added additional content such as more factories and vehicles to help expands. Both titles were compiled altogether into Industry Giant Gold ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- B: Why This guide? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Writing this FAQ was hard because the game has it's flaws and tricks that only industry professionals and workers would understand and I'm here to explain why the game has such mechanics. I wrote this guide because JoWood produced Industry Gaint 2 which happens to be more worth while however it means that if it hadn't been for this game, Industry Gaint 2 wouldn't have be produced. It's also for players who bought this game and are don't right confused about what the hell is going on, hence why this FAQ was written. The game is still around even in 2012. This guide may be bizarre but it was written to help others understand it's tricks. Also the game is huge in terms of missions and it's other modes, takes alot of time to get into and learn, let alone to complete a mission. There also copies of the game still in ciruclation, so it deserve a guide to explain what this game does. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- C: Industry Giant Contents ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This section will list the buildings and sets which are found in Industry Giant. The gold version lists all the content found in that patch, if anyone is interested. Buildings Terminals Truck Depot - Trucks Train Station - Trains Production Automobile Factory Sport Equipment Factory Electronics Factory Woodshop Toy Factory Jewelry Factory Warehouse Retail Toy Store Sporting Store Furniture Store Jeweler Electronic Store Car Dealership Buildings (city) Cultural Center Tennis Course Swimming Pool Sports Stadium Race Track ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- D: Industry Giant Gold Contents ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a list for those that want to know what in Industry Giant Gold. It's a nice way to check if you have all the content or if you don't, it means you have the first edition of the game without the extra content that was introduced. Teminals Harbor - Ships Airport - Planes Production Factories and Retailers Printing Press - and it's Products Building Equipment - and it's Products Paper Factory - and it's Products Buildings (city) University Amusing Park Southern Europe tile set - Missions - Scenarios ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- E: Tips and Tricks Section Introduction ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The next few sections are some of the tips and tricks that you can do in the game in many aspects. This will help you understand what is going on, understand the in-depth game mechanics and tricks that the game have which will help you complete missions. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- F: Commerical Zones ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What are Commerical Zones? 1) Whenever you place a building like a Train station or Retailer, there a grid surrounding the building tile(s). This area tells you which industry and buildings will be accessible for the terimanal. They vary. Houses, apartments and other city buildings will react to retailer commerical zones, as retailers need a profit. 2) The problem with terminal commerical zones is that you cannot place a terminal within another terminals commerical zone. Here's what I mean, whenever you place a terminal zone, it will layout it's commerical zone. Within that zone, you cannot place any other terminals of the same type. The game will refuse it. 2a) However you can build a terminal just outside of that of the other terminal commerical zone. These commerical zones will overlap with other commerical zones and that wouldn't be a bad thing. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- G: Railways ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1) The train station terminals allow up to 4 platforms It's a Train station Platform Limitations. the game doesn't tell the you or any other player any of this, this is something they have to figure out themselves and the hard way. 2) Trains have a mind of their own. It's a shame because the game doesn't tell you and doesn't have stuff like signals on the railway even if you are a new player, which is very confusing. Depending on how the trains rails are layed out, it allows the player to have two trains at a single platform at both stations. This is cheap and effective way of transporting goods by limiting the amount of trains you have runnning. It also means you wouldn't have to bother them again and there little or no chance there would be a traffic jam of trains. Learning how to build and maintain railroads is a chore itself Building layout for two trains using a single platform at both stations. Station A Station B ========-------\ \--------========= 2a) It also means being very planful on how you lay down 3) The most effective way of building a network and to maximize profit. Firstly, a diagram of the least effective way despite it's simplicity. This is a big NO-NO! This will cause you to blow so much money as the train will have to return back without any items, you'll be just spending money on having the train to move without anything on board! Materials Factory Retailer Supplers Station A Station B Station C =========---=========---========= 3a) The quickest, simplist, effective way of producing and stocking up retailers. And it depends on building your rail network like this. Materials Factory Retailer Supplers Station A Station B =========---========= =========---========= Station C 3b) A far more effective way in some cases if the mines just happened to be next to the retailers will be layouted like this, Using one train to pick up the materials and then pick up the same load back to the retailers. Retailer Factory Station A Station B =========-------------========== Material Supplers It doesn't have the be retailers, you can use warehouses as the same thing can happen and you can use other transport means to take the stock from the warehouses and send them to retailers. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- H: Road network ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You can build any road and rails you want to help you complete your goals into furfiling the goal. 1) If you build roads around a city, as the city expands, it will entfully turn into some of the roads you build in a city road. It's fun to watch any city grow and more fun seeing the road become a city road, however it means slowing down your trucks as they deliveres to retailers or other places if vehicles plan there route though the city. Attractions or as the game lists it "Buildings (city)", helps with cities expanding. 2) Terrain slopes also effects the speed for vehicles. Uphill travels will slow down trucks whereas downhill kill speed them up. It wouldn't affect the travel coststhou as each tile represets a travel cost. This happens with both trucks and trains. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I: Building Transport Routes ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tunnels and Bridges are actually alot more easier to build then they look. However I wouldn't use them as much. 1) Building a Tunnel To build a Tunnel, click the Tunnel button and hover your mouse on a steep terrain and it will highlight, this gives you the okay to click and build. 2) Building a Bridge To build a Bridge, click the Bridge button and start from a steep terrian and drag across. The end point of the construction will different depending if you ended on another steep land or lower land. Bridge must be build on a slope, one level high. They're only useful (by the looks of it) to speed up transport as they across a valley. 3) Building Rails Varations You can choose between three different types of rails. These are Rails, Monorail and Superconductor. Each one have there own different types of vehicles to be used on the types of rails. You can also assign each type with each platform at the train station. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- J: Retailers ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1) You can use retailers has 'warehouses'! There no limit on what you can stock up on! It saves you from having spend $120,000 warehouse, where you can just spend $90,000 on a toy store, which both sells and stock goods. It not's cheating because I've witness a personal experience of this happening. Unfortunately, you would end up learning this the hard way or the natural way as you will play the game with some confusion. The natural way of building a retailer, start the process of gathering materials and production and stocking up a retailer until the demands are meet and allowing the process to continue. Click the retailer to check how much they have stocked. That's what I mean by 'stocking up'. The personal story of mine! The folks at head office asked my manager to overstock goods that weren't assigned to sell at the branch I was working at and that's because it was cheaper for them to hold the goods at where I worked until another delivery came to pick them up. My best guess is, it just happened to be cheaper for one truck to make the delivery and return home and have another truck from a different direction to pick those goods up and transport somewhere else. It makes sense and besides, the business OWNED the building I was working at. Of course, it's the same with meeting long distance friends. If my friend are living on the other side of town and we both want to meet up in the centre of the city. We both travel to the centre of the city as it's much cheaper. 1a) This mechanic is useful in missions where you have mines on the far edges of the map. There are some scenarios where you would do this in order to win, which I will explain later on. However... 2) Retailers stock up on what they are assigned to carry. They will throw anything away if they are not accepting anything other then the product that the player labels. It makes sense, because you can't just give something to a toy store because it's a toy store. You have to tell the retailers to accept goods or not. Lack of communication (both in game and real life) is bad business. This is what this mechanic demostraties. It's like going into a Microsoft store and giving them a Playstation 3 because someone will think it's sell games consoles, but the guys would say "it's a Microsoft store". 3) The game locks you to build retailers in cities, something interesting that the game does is to restrict you to place retailers in cities and no in the middle of nowhere in some forest somewhere. Compared to another game like Capitalism 2, where you can build retailers anywhere on the map and away from cities and suffer the fate of not having any cuustomers and profit. It somewhat takes the fun out of the game but that's only because the players role in Industry Giant is being a chairman working for a board of members of a business. Also for aesthetic reason. It looks like a toy store or it looks like a car dealership placed in a city or town. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- K: Factories ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1) The factories will also accept goodies which it's assigns too. It means... 2) You cannot return goods to the factories that have produced them. 3) You can hold the production of goods after a while. It's useful to building a network of other terminals to help you distrubute those goods to retailers in different locations. To a retailer | Terminal------- Terminal----------Terminal Factory Terminal------- To a retailer Terminal------- | To a retailer ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- L: Resources ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the game, there four different mill type. There a steel, lumber, plastic and mines. There some interesting tips to notice about these mills. They cannot be bought under your ownership however they can be exploited in a way that you can benefit from them. 1) Lumber Mills Output Variable Depends on the number of tree are surrounded by the mill itself. It will affect the output of production the mill would have. The more the tree, the higher the output count. This can be tested in the editor. If you place a mill and have the surrounded area with trees. The monthly output would change regarding how many trees are surrounding the area. 2) Buying it All to Maximize production After playing for a while, you will soon realize that you can pretty much buy out an entire raw materials resource to quickly manufacture and produce those items. Sometimes so fast that you'll find that you wouldn't need to run your transport routes, giving you a good reason to use 'Wait until fully loaded' checkbox. Of course, it worth noting that your computer AI competitors will benefit from mills aswell. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- M: Career and Missions Tips ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1) Each Scenario has a story to it. Each one provides clue to how to complete each scenarios I'll try and type up an FAQ on every single mission in the game. The game is HUGE despite the amount of content compared to other business simuatlions. Also some scenarios have TYPOS which mislead you into playing and you would lose. Another reason why the game really needs the FAQ of the overall thing. 2) Starting from Stratch When entering a scenario which is pretty much empty and carefree, the best way to get the income running is to start of small. This will help you make sure that you gather up the right income before expanding. It will also give you a steady income. What do I mean by this? The common problem is that anyone can jump into the game and quickly lose control of what going on. 2a) Despite the long micromanagement, it insures that you have a good base to start off with. If there ever a case that the expand isn't working. It means that a mistake was made and you can quickly reload the save to start that new expansion. The game does have difficult mechanics to work with considering that a messy transport system can lead to blowing alot of cash to making it and getting it fixed. 2b) The good base is useful to fund heavyly fund your new expansion. If you ever decide to overload your factories and retailers with goods and quickly buy out materials from mills or to quickly build a new network to transport other goods for more profit. 2c) Debt! The biggest killer. Once you are in debt, it's really hard to get out. Being in debt mean that you cannot buy new buildings and transport tools for your transport systems. This can halt your process and sometimes, wouldn't allow you to continue. The game doesn't allow you to go bankrupt and you'll know that you're stuck in a runt when this happens. It leads to my following points. 3) Pay debts as quickly as you can! It means stopping all transport to make sure you have complete control of the works to make sure that micromanagement to meet demands, thus giving your a breather after paying them. It's best to work with something you already have. 4) For existing operations with ready made networks! Explore what each factory always has! This is important when you start any scenario with an already working industry. 4) 'Annual' profit means yearly 5) When finallizing on the final year on a scenario, avoid spending money on upgrading transport. It takes money out of your final profit which is important when completing the game. Spending money on new on updating transport, will affect your final profits of that year. So it's not wise to upgrade your transports around this time. 6) You can halt transport to save costs. This is useful when you overstock a retailer (when you do or don't care) and sell the remaining stock and wait for the months to go by, making up for the rest of the profit. This is more of a game exploit then a business tactic considering new trends, products and variations in the real world gets shipped. These virtual objects will never change and they will still set. 7) Remember Names Remembering names of towns, cities, villages, whatever is important. If someone were the area manager. It's not that important to remember the distance between towns or anything. This game is plastered with names of towns and cities. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- N: Scenario Typo ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This section to correct the typo which I've discovered and may mislead players. Dolls in Crisis Difficult level: Medium Starting Money: $-300,000 Starting Date: January 1975 Objective: Take over a toy manfacturing company and no later then the end of 1994, show a year end profit $5,000,000. The main problems facing the company are its specialization in dolls, the need to restructure their transportation system and management of raw materials purchasing. Oversee the overhaul of the company and focus on continued construction of toy factories. The typo error is 1994. It's 1984. I've tested it and tired it and the missions ends at 1984. It looks like a typo from the translators. It would be a very easy mission if someone had 20 years to set up an organization to make a profit of $5,000,000 for just one year. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- O: Technicial ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ...aka the really Annoying things the games does compared to other Windows 95 titles. This section is here for a reason. As Windows 95 have their own standards in software and this game unfortunately doesn't live up to those other titles and it's an unfortunately reason 1) No Alt - Tab Switch It's a game with Full Screen mode only. If you decide to setup and wait for you to make a profit and make the game run and want to do something else, you'll have to do it all in Full Screen. Considering the game is running on something like Windows 95 which came with Multitasking, it's an abstoble pain to watch sometimes. Even thou this game was released in Europe and North America in 1998, it still makes you wonder why the developers didn't include such a feature and wish there was. 2) Entry Restrictions While Pausing You're unable to enter a retailers or factory to make desicions during the pause mode. The game allows you to view the admin board with a list of factories, stores and vehicles even when pause, but it doesn't allow access your stores on the main grid in the isometic view of the world. This makes for an workable interface. The tip is to remember the names of your factories if you ever pause and access them on from the board menu. 3) Music in the game There is music of the game. I don't know if you have to have a certain CD drive to allow the software to reconigize the music. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Y: FAQ History ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- V1.01 Added alot more tips and mechanics tips - Added Resources Section v1.00 First upload ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Z: Contact/Author Information ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Enjoy this FAQ? Want to contribute? Anything I missed? Email me at rcmotorboy@gmail.com if you want to ask me questions or submit any tips for me to include into this FAQ. I will credit you and also let me know how you want to credit me as. Comments with greatly be valued! Websites to feature this FAQ: www.gamefaqs.com www.neoseekers.com