Zeewolf: Hmm... I don't have any real experience with that scenario (that I can remember; I've been playing this game for a looong time). But I've had a look at the scenario, and I think I would have done the same thing that you're doing - concentrate on the chemical products first to get some profits and then move on to electronics.
The problem I notice is that you have to buy chemical minerals from an opponent (which is an advantage for him, and costs you a lot of money in the long run) or build a mine on a resource that has inferior quality (so it's harder for your products to compete on the market).
I'm not sure about the oil. One thing to note is that the quality of your oil is fairly unimportant (what matters is production technology - see the manufacturers guide). So building an oil well on the best available oil resource is just a waste of money in my opinion. OTOH the oil that you can buy from your opponent is quite expensive, and if you establish an oil well on the lower quality oil resource, you'll save a fair amount on the shipping as well (as it is much closer to the cities). But building an oil well is expensive, and so is maintaining it. So this might be a good idea to save for later on, when you're using a fair amount of oil yourself.
As for iron and coal, I'd buy that from the available opponents. Unless you're making cars or something you won't need much of that, and those mines are really unprofitable.
You don't have much of a choice with the silica, though the shipping costs from the one available mine are very high as most of the cities are half a continent away. Should you get the chance it might be a good idea to establish a mine yourself later on, if any resources pop up. Again, the raw material quality is fairly unimportant, so a cheaper, lower quality resource will probably work just fine.
Hmm ok, yeah I've been generally buying all supplies other than chemical minerals - I've consistently been able to find an 85 quality mine around the center of the map, so that has worked out pretty well.
What would you suggest for R&D strategy? I have been trying to run a 9-box R&D for each product, but after perusing the manual and seeing that you get diminishing returns, I guess it might make more sense to run 3 products per R&D center? If you run R&D for the same product at different centers, do they accumulate or is it just a waste?
Also what do you think about brand strategy in this scenario? I have been sticking with unique brand, but maybe the middle one (I forget the name, but the one where you would have the same for all chem products, and the same for all electronic products) would be more efficient?
Finally, does it make more sense that you should spend more on advertising when the media firms are very powerful, and not very much when they have bad ratings? I have been spending $150,000 per product in every single department store, but now I'm thinking that might be a waste :)
