Railroad Tycoon Help
nicholas wilhelm olsen
A while ago, I saw a post by someone who outlined a strategy in
Railroad Tycoon for gaining lots of money, by buying up control of another
railroad's stock and liquidating them. I recently lost this file, so I
was wondering if someone else out there could mail it to me or post it for
everyone else who missed it.
Also, If anyone else has any really good tips/tricks for this
game, please post them, or email them to me. Thanks alot.
--
Nick Wilhelm-Olsen nwi...@mik.uky.edu
University of Kentucky NeXTmail welcome!
Markus Kassbohrer
The trick to make a lot of money is to transport time-sensitive goods -
like passengers and mail - over long distances quickly. For geographic
and technological reasons (good engines to start with) this is quite
easy on the Europe map; My favourite beginning lines include
Leipzig-Dresden-Prag ("Elbe&Saale-Eisenbahngesellschaft" just fits the
nameline if I recall right) or Hamburg-Berlin (just out of sentiment;
and in the latter case my first named train always is the "Fliegender
Hamburger"...). Anyway, the important point is not to stop in between,
and to have two big cities at the distance that you can just finance
without interest wiping out your profits (build track first - with the
game paused, of course -, then stations and trains, you can afford to
get in the red with the latter, but not the former). Double track and
lots of signal towers are important in this strategy as you expand (say,
you have one Limited Hamburg-Dresden and one Limited Leipzig-Prag.
Leipzig-DD will be heavily frequented. Personally, I always start with a
double line as then the trains can really run).
Build your stations so that you get something out of the double revenue
in the first two years. Later on, a named mail TGV between, say, Utrecht
and Breslau can yield more than 200.000 pounds on one trip and make 1-2
of them a period.
Ah yes, build post offices. The rest isn't worth much, just look at your
maintenance. If a new engine isn't significantly better I wait until the
old one costs me some 15.000 and I have cash on hand. The first train
that gets a new engine is always an unnamed one, and the others get it
only after that has changed. It worked sometimes to first have one train
run with two cars and then another with only one (to get both named).
What more scattered tidbits can I give you? Takeovers are fun and
exciting but generally not worth the money you spend on them (in effect,
you stand to lose about half the company's market capitalisation if you
do: when you buy the share price reflects possession of 50% of the other
cpy's stock. It will no longer have them at the end of the next year, so
either you prop it up with a lot of money or you sell about 30% of it
before year's end. Usually, you get a cpy only if you force it to buy
shares and borrow money to finance it (by buying shares yourself), and
the interest drives it over the edge so that it becomes unprofitable.
Then you watch the share price fall, take it over for a reasonable
amount and prop it up again. This costs quite a lot of money. Attention,
don't let it die (recessions can be a b*^ch if you just bought two
competitors...). Difficult to get a Stephenson that way, though because
they generally don't lose money, even if in a HTO battle).
Computer-owned cpys apparently do not count price wars for their
revenues. I once tried to get one by starting price wars in all of its
key revenue stations. Its stock price went UP more than 20% during the
price war and I lost a carload of money.
You can play games with an owned cpy (like, pumping it full of money,
selling 40%, withdrawing everything, buying up again etc.). Transaction
costs hurt there, though. I have switched to buying own stock, that's
more effective (and the driven-up stock price applies to the
newly-bought shares which drives up the stock price which drives up
profits which drives up the shares etc). Liquidating the other company
doesn't even yield as much money as you spent on it in my experience-
you can't drive it much in the red and it will not take out any further
loans, nor sell assets. It can be an important source of cash flow,
however, and be very useful to block competitors, especially after you
have run out of stations.
Companys will build track if (a) you ordered them and (b) they have
enough money to pay (remember, building prices vary with economic
climate). It takes some time for them to do it, too (may be very short,
or quite long).
Ah, and DON'T LET YOURSELF BE TAKEN OVER. This can happen quite easily
or cost you A LOT of money. Either buy 20-30% own stock in the first or
second period and get the rest quickly or expand so quickly that your
stock skyrockets and splits, preferably twice, before competitors get
too big (you will still have to buy stock to screw raiders but you'll
have the cash flow to do it later on. The latter course of action can
turn very bad if you take over another company and your stock price
suddenly starts to fall...).
The Western American map is even better than Europe because you get even
more for East-West transport and money is much cheaper. Engines are
decent, too. In fact, I personally consider that map unfairly easy if
you know what to do.
East US and England is much more difficult because, owing to the engines
available, the optimum distance is much shorter and it seems speed isn't
sufficient for really big earnings in passengers and mail. Maybe goods
are worth a second look there, especially if you can get several sites
with one station.
Enjoy,
-Markus.
PS: I remember having read something about "Deluxe" RRT. What's that?
baumler alan t
There is one good way to make money off another RR. Buy it while
it is cheap (You can make it that way by forcing them to buy
stock to avoid a takeover and then promptly selling it.) When
the RR gets to about $4.00 a share take it over and loot the
treasury. Then sell stock. The minute you sell down to 40% the
computer will take control and promptly borrow money. Before they
can spend it (right away!) buy back your 10% and loot him again.
If the other guy has a high debt limit you can make a lot of $.
(note, don't try it during a depression, you'll only break even.
/s
.
T
Michael Lounsbery
holding them forever? If you can manage to get them early on, and develop
them wisely, you can really make a bundle. I can't imagine that owning only
your own RR can possibly come close in value.
Strategy: (major spoilers)
In the first part of the game, I typically devote myself solely to buying
out the opponents. Forget my own RR for a while -- 1 piece of track, no
stations at all. Its price will sag to $1 a share, at which point I buy it
up to get rid of those annoying shareholders. Meanwhile, buy up the bonds
(during a good economy, if possible), so you have enough cash to completely
buy your first competitor. A "cheating" way to get him is to surround him
with your track - with no routes, his price plummets. You can still get him
without cheating if you're lucky and careful.
Try to buy as much of him as you can now. Over the long term, his shares
will get much more expensive, so it's a very good investment. If you go
into debt, so what? Your shareholders can't kick you out, and you'll
eventually get enough cash from expanding the competitor that you can always
get back.
Once you get the competitor, rip up your single track, and forget about your
own RR. Develop the competitor RR into a booming business. Use the profits
to pay off your own huge bond debts, and keep expanding him! Eventually,
you'll get quite a profitable enterprise.
Once you get close to $2Million disposable cash, relax. Build your own RR,
with as long a delivery route as possible. Short (2-car) mail trains are
big money-makers. Lots of them. Build post offices at the stations. Lots
of switches or double track is good, tunnels (which can't be double-tracked)
are annoying. Build a very long line in 1 shot. If you're on Western US,
do something like San Francisco to Milwaukee, and collect the $1Mil bonus.
I only do short mail or passenger trains. The only time I do other kinds is
to get a factory busy enough to eliminate the slums. I don't care about
getting oil money, but I hate for those city-dwellers to stop buying postage
stamps.
Once you get your stations in, the other 2 competitors appear. You should
have no problem buying them out, but only do so if they have a good
location. If they don't, let them rot and die until one starts in a new
area.
Develop the other 2 competitors, as before. Fork over loads of cash from
your own RR and your 1st competitor to keep them on their feet. Keep
expanding them (give them enough cash to add to their lines each fiscal
period, if possible).
If you're careful and keep expanding, you'll amass a huge fortune. It
should be quite possible to get a retirement bonus of $20 million or more at
the end, double what you need for President. I got $26 million last time,
and I know if I had been more careful, I could have made more. (It's hard to
be careful at 2AM).
[By the way, save the game each pay period. The game crashes sometimes,
such as if you are running >1 RR, and in the "Choose RR to Run" menu, you
don't choose a RR.]
Besides the useful tactic of always having cash when you need it, the
benefits of buying out the competition and holding them forever are:
* If you buy them at the start, their stock will multiply many times over by
the end of the game. This monstrously increases your net worth.
* You get a multiple bonus for each additional RR you own. This multiplies
your net worth yet again.
Toot, toot!
Michael
Bronis Vidugiris
)
)Gee, am I the only one posting help who favors buying out competitors and
)holding them forever? If you can manage to get them early on, and develop
)them wisely, you can really make a bundle. I can't imagine that owning only
)your own RR can possibly come close in value.
Buying and holding onto a competitor is definitely a good idea, but I find it
worthwhile to loot a few before I try to 'keep' one.
What I do (early USA) is set up a working route between two large cities (as
large as possible), and then run one or two (*) trains between them to generate
some cash flow. I also borrow bonds, so I have at least $1.2 million in ready
cash (even though the interest rate is 'normal').
Then I sit there and wait for new, innocent, young railroads to spring up -
and buy them out. Timing is important - I've found railroads will be vulnerable
under the following circumstances:
1) They've just sprung up, I buy stock in them before they can buy their 1st
share.
2) They've just completed their first route and are low on capital.
3) They're refininacing their bonds because the economy upgraded.
They are most vulnerable at point '3', but a raid will very often work in
conditions 1 and 2. #1 will fail occasionally with a RR with a good financer,
#2 may also fail if they have too much cash on hand.
Once I buy them out, I loot everything out of their treasury, and then quickly
dump the overvalued stock. I make a profit on both looting the treasury AND the
stock market manipulations! The investors in the new RR loose their shirts, of
course, but that's life (I guess). I do get some money out of letting the other
railroad buy up their stock - actually, I delay dumping it when possible to
encourage them to buy more of their worthless stock to inflate the price even
more (and insure that they'll be so deeply in debt that they'll never be a
threat).
I find the game too easy if I do the 'sell a share, buy it back, re-loot the
treasury' bit, so I (usually) avoid doing this to make the game more interesting.
If I fail at the 'buy out', I still make some money off the stock manipulations
and hurt the other RR significantly, so it's still worthwhile.
I've been burned enough times not to try and 'keep' a RR unless it actually
establishes at least one route - or I have a *lot* of cash (enough to
pay off *all* the bonds of the target RR and reserve) AND the other RR has
a reasonably good location.
Buying and keeping other RR's is very worthwhile, but I find raiding more
profitable initally as it takes a lot of cash to keep a RR.
I may expand to a few nearby cities if conditions are favorable
but I agree that takeovers and operating other RR's is more profitable
in the long run. I do find it worthwhile to improve my stations, though
(when funds permit) - I usually get restaraunts and post offices right away,
hotels when I have some spare funds.
I usually buy about 30% of my stock the first year, when it is pretty cheap.
I try and buy up the another 20% as soon as I can.
Also, I'll refinance my bonds as soon as I can, though refinancing has a lower
priority than taking over competitive RR's (I ocassionally miss the 'boom'
rates because I'm too busy raiding :-)).
(*) Two RR's require a semi-double track.
O----------------X=====X--------------O
O station
- single track
X signal tower
= double track
--
"Stop or I'll scream" -- Black Bolt
Chris Rose
N> was wondering if someone else out there could mail it to me or post it
N> for
N> everyone else who missed it.
Just in case you haven't already had millions of replies, the command is
"ALT-$", that will give you $500000.. (pounds, sorry. :-)
You can do _anything_ you want after that. Hope it helps, enjoy!
P. Ialamanna
>
>N> was wondering if someone else out there could mail it to me or post it
>N> for
>N> everyone else who missed it.
>
> Just in case you haven't already had millions of replies, the command is
>"ALT-$", that will give you $500000.. (pounds, sorry. :-)
>
> You can do _anything_ you want after that. Hope it helps, enjoy!
Please clarify, is that <alt><shift><4> or <alt><-><$>
--
Bulls Superfan "Men will lie on their backs, talking about the
P. Ialamanna - fall of man, and never make an effort to get up"
pa5...@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu - Henry David Thoreau
Major Lee Obvious
(P. Ialamanna) writes:
>In article <crose...@realm.tdkcs.waterloo.on.ca>
cr...@realm.tdkcs.waterloo.on.ca (Chris Rose) writes:
>>
>> Just in case you haven't already had millions of replies, the command is
>>"ALT-$", that will give you $500000.. (pounds, sorry. :-)
>>
>
>
Actually, it's just a shifted 4 or $. So just hold down a
SHIFT key and press 4. Remember that you MUST be on the F1 map in
order for this to work.
This feature was left in the game intentionally for those who
are more interested in building a railroad and not interested in the
stock market.
Have fun!
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
"It never fails, get | Jim Hoxsey (jjho...@knight.ta.ford.com)
in the tub and there's a | 700C Fairlane Plaza South
rub at the lamp." | 330 Town Center Dr. (313)337-1616
-- The Genie | Dearborn, MI 48126 USA FMEAplus(R)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Christopher Owen
Microprose has released a new expanded Deluxe version; can anyone tell me
whether it's actually any good? I can buy the original RT cheap or RTD for
quite a bit more. Which would I be better off getting? I ask because I've
heard various horror stories about how unreliable and buggy RTD is
(allegedly)...
-----------------------------
Chris Owen - tr9...@ox.ac.uk
-----------------------------
Lamont Downs
> Railroad Tycoon is a great game, there's no doubt about that. I notice that
>Microprose has released a new expanded Deluxe version; can anyone tell me
>whether it's actually any good? I can buy the original RT cheap or RTD for
>quite a bit more. Which would I be better off getting? I ask because I've
>heard various horror stories about how unreliable and buggy RTD is
>(allegedly)...
>
Well, I can at least "allege" from personal experience that at times it's
locked up my machine every hour or so, with "Overlay not found" DOS
prompts (a very unstable DOS that requres a hard reboot), or just plain
screen freeze. Freeing up every last bit of possible memory (which on my
machine leaves 610K free) has reduced the crashes to maybe once every four
hours or so, which is still uncertain enough that I save the game every time
I get a financial report.
The timing is totally screwed up. The <F4> close-up screen is hopelessly
slow at any speed setting, and the other screens are too fast. The
comfortable, clearly heavily-play-tested feel of the original RRT is just
gone. Unless you run from a ramdisk (and it better be a 7MB+ ramdisk!)
your hard disk is in constant motion as virtually every single popup
screen, train build, etc. requires a hard disk access. (Which also gives
the game a rather jerking, halting feel).
As a hopeless RRT fanatic, I'll put up with the problems in order to use
the three new maps, but I'd recommend to _anyone_ coming to the game for
the first time to get the original RRT (I think a version selling under
a series label something like "MicroProse Classics" or similar title
is only about $20 some places). Buy the "upgrade" _after_ you're hoplessly
addicted...
Lamont Downs
do...@nevada.edu
Michael J. O'Connor
Not only because of the bugs in the "Deluxe" version, but because of
MPS's continuously unfulfilled promises of patches for it and Pirates
Gold.
Mike
Brock Wood
Christopher Owen wrote:
CO>Railroad Tycoon is a great game, there's no doubt about that. I notice that
CO>Microprose has released a new expanded Deluxe version; can anyone tell me
CO>whether it's actually any good? I can buy the original RT cheap or RTD for
CO>quite a bit more. Which would I be better off getting? I ask because I've
CO>heard various horror stories about how unreliable and buggy RTD is
CO>(allegedly)...
I have Railroad Tycoon Deluxe and recommend you buy it --- IF you have a
fast machine. On my 386SX-20, with four megabytes of RAM, it is a dog.
It runs too slowly to be enjoyable. I suggest you get the older version
and save some money if you have a machine slower than a 486DX-33. I
think Microprose is running a special on some of its older games. You
can probably get the orginial version for about $10 (US) if you order by
mail.
Microprose's address and telephone numer:
180 Lakefront Drive
Hunt Valley, Maryland, 21030
USA
Telephone 301-771-1151
Railroad Tycoon Deluxe plays almost exactly the same as the
original version. What has changed is the graphics (VGA), sound (far
better, more sound cards supported), and the number of engines
available. Also you can choose from a greater variety railroading
countries/continents in which to build your railroad.
Brock Wood
Internet address: Brock...@ssbbs.org
---
. SLMR 2.1a . Not tonight dear, I have a modem.
----
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| System Support BBS 303-469-9359 (USR HST) PCB15/10 (Boca & Dual 14.4)|
| Denver, Colorado SmartNet Hub and InterNet/UseNet Node |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+