Hey, I noticed that this run popped up in my twitter feed and I have had a passive interest in this game for many years.
What is your general strategy for this run? Can you talk a bit about different things you've tried and what works and what doesn't?
I am glad to hear that someone else has an interest in Aerobiz Supersonic! Although I have played the game casually for quite a while, I am new to speedrunning the game. So keep in mind that there may be a better strategy than what I am currently using.
The most important choice in the speedrun is the home city. In 'Scenario 1' (the Dawn of the Jet Age - 1955~1975) New York is the best home city in my opinion. Not only does New York start with 1540000K, but North America is the single strongest area in the time period. Most routes opened in the region will be rather profitable, allowing you to further extend your starting cash (unless a competitor also starts in the same region). North America is also a difficult market for the AI to penetrate as South America is weak and an aggressive strategy to penetrate the Europe market will keep the AI in that region on the defensive.
Basically, we want to sprint across the world as fast as possible, set up a hub in each region and then be number one in passengers for four of them (you must also be number one in your home region). The primary focus should be on spanning the globe and assessing uncontested regions to take over with the least amount of effort. Do not attempt to focus on creating profitable routes outside your home region. The only thing that matters is siphoning passengers from your competitors, so lower the price of tickets to -50% when invading an occupied region. Do not squander open slots in hub cities. Open a route with one flight a week to connect the area and then use the remainder to either open regional routes or hop to another hub city.
I aim to win the game before or a year after the 707-120 and DC8-30 are made available in 'Scenario 1'. Once those planes are available, overpowering a competitor in certain regions can become a long, drawn out process. Also, by the time those planes are being sold you are almost certain to be running out of money. Typically I purchase twenty Lockheed L1049's in the first two turns and then purchase ten to twenty Boeing 707-120's once those are available. The Lockheed L1049 can fly the farthest distance and can carry the most passengers until the jets arrive. The Boeing 707-120 is a competition killer and can guarantee a victory in a region if you move fast enough.
Since the game is comprised entirely of menus, navigating through the menu system is another big part of the game. Even on the fastest setting, the text speed is abysmally slow. However, if you press up, left, right, or down on the d-pad then the text speed is increased significantly. Unfortunately you must be careful because if you hold the wrong direction when a screen comes up you can lose a few seconds to waiting for the cursor to move, for information to load, getting back a desired plane you passed by, and so on. I also disable the un-skippable animation that plays each time you open a new route to save time and to remove an annoyance (I am still contemplating whether or not that should be an official rule).
The overall strategy changes a bit since competitors are randomly selected, but I typically start by opening two or three routes in my home region. Unless a competitor starts in North America, I only need two or three routes to maintain first place in passengers for that region. Next, I focus on negotiating slots in Mexico, London and Tehran/India to fast-track the rapid expansion. Cairo is typically embattled (Gulf War II) for much of the game, so if I think the game is going to go fast I head into Tunis to take over Africa. I usually open a hub in Hong Kong and then for the final stop I slide into Sydney.
