Railroad Tycoon strategy advice needed
Ian Price
I have just bought a copy of Railraod tycoon from a friend and it looks quite
good. Can anyone give me any advise on some simple strategies to use. What
track configurations are best - circles or wheel spokes? I will start in
englans as I am familiar with the country layout. where is the best place to
start a track from?
Any advise would be helpful.
Thanks in advance.
邢 唷�
Julian
Ian Price <pri...@scm.cdtsa.dsto.gov.au> wrote:
>I have just bought a copy of Railraod tycoon from a friend and it looks quite
>good. Can anyone give me any advise on some simple strategies to use. What
>track configurations are best - circles or wheel spokes? I will start in
>englans as I am familiar with the country layout. where is the best place to
>start a track from?
G'day mate.:)
I've never set up in England before; I always play in the Western US.
(Not ethnocentricity, but rather I like the feeling of 'wide open
spaces'.) To decide where to start a track, look at the resources on the
map and the facilities available to turn them into products. I play at
the Mogul level, cutthroat, complex economy, but no dispatcher operation
(what a pain). I try to set up near some resources and with 3-4 cities
connected by 4-5 trains (I float a ton of bonds, usually 25MM worth).
Then I expand, avoiding giving poor service to any station threatened by
rate war. When the time is right, I start pirating the comp players'
stations through aggressive rate wars, often at two connected stations at
once (the capacity you remove from the further one will cripple the
nearer one for him). I carve the computer railroads into small pieces
and let them live (they just start up shop somewhere else if they go under).
Hope this helps.
--
Julian
Jeff Pieper
: In article <pricei.60...@scm.cdtsa.dsto.gov.au>,
: Ian Price <pri...@scm.cdtsa.dsto.gov.au> wrote:
: G'day mate.:)
Yes, the above strategy seems to work for me as well. Some
differences and additional points: 1. I am only allowed $5mil in
bonds by my game (as opposed to $25 in the above). Also, I
immediately spend most of this on building a railroad. Make sure
you have at least two good size cities to connect. Also it is
good to have stable resources like coal. Process this to steel
and goods on one train circuit before heading back for more coal.
2. Run the mail as fast as possible, including double tracking
where the mail runs. 3. Use the priority loads as much as
possible. 4. Make the whole rail line as "nice" as possible,
including hotels, restaurants, and especially post offices. 5.
SPend all of your money except about $400 000. Declare
bankruptcy; this reduces your debt load. Play the game and pay
beck debt as fast as possible. 6. After debpt is paid off, and if
you wish to dominate the game, be very aggressive in stock
purchases for the purposes of takeover.
--
--
------------------------------------------------------------
a...@mfltd.co.uk
> Hi,
> I have just bought a copy of Railraod tycoon from a friend and it looks quite
> good. Can anyone give me any advise on some simple strategies to use. What
> track configurations are best - circles or wheel spokes?
The big money is in long distance mail, also passengers. Wheel spoke
configuration is best, operate trains between diametrically opposite
points. Double track and use plenty of signals - mail is very time
critical. Set train type to limited to ensure nothing gets on or off
without traveling the maximum distance - and therefore paying the
maximum fee. Build post offices, restaurants and hotels.
If you have stations A,B,C,D,E,F along a straight line, run trains
A-D, B-E, C-F, then add trains between the largest towns to carry
any excess loads.
Unfortunately strange things start to happen when 16 bit numbers
overflow, so very profitable trains don't always make the money
they should.
reid....@pca.state.mn.us
> Just got Railraod Tycoon...where is the best place to start a track from?
Everytime you start a game, the map is different. London will be in the
same place, but in one game it will be a hamlet and the next it will be
a megalopolis. Therefore, there is no 'best place' to start a track from.
Look around for two large cities not too far apart. If they also have
useful commodities to produce, that is good but not vital.
- Reid Gagle Minnesota, Land of 10,000 Flakes
"'Normal' is just a cycle on your washing machine." -- John P. McAfee
Chris Smith
which unfortunately I chopped off.
=====
Railroad Tycoon (RRT) Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Compiled and Edited by David Mitton
Rev 1 Draft 5-Apr-1994
Scope & Disclaimer:
Not a complete treatis on RRT or RDX. Just an overview and pointers.
Also not a subsitute for purchased docs for pirates. Keystrokes are
documented in the Technical Supplement. Strategy discussions can be
endless. Included are basics and net contributions. Buy one of the
books for more detail.
I have edited articles culled from the net for better focused content.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contents:
- Top 10 Questions
- What is RRT and RRT Deluxe?
- Microprose information
- Game Limitations (README.DOC)
- Known Bugs
- Version info
- Hints and Strategy books
- "The Computer Cheats!"
- Mastering the Modes and Levels
- Strategies
- Basic
- Rate Wars
- Grand
- Robber Baron
- Techniques
- Details
- Getting the most out of the displays
(How to I find that?)
- Map Differences
- Deluxe Differences
- Hackery
- Acknowledgements
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Top 10 Frequently Asked Questions
- How do I double track?
Read your Tech Supplement. All keys and color keys are documented.
- Why can I only build only 32 stations or trains?
Design and memory limits.
- How can I build track/stations like the computer?
You cannot. See section 7, The computer cheats!
- What is the cheat?
Read the manual. (F1,$)
- What about the GP-30? It never becomes available.
Didn't make the cut. They couldn't fit it into the code (in RRT).
RDX has the Geep and many new European locos.
- How come my city/industry is not working?
a) You are using Basic Economy. Industries don't do anything in Basic.
b) Industries are not guaranteed to contribute to a cities demand.
You have to wait for the message saying "City now will take x"
- What are Slums?
Undocumented "feature". Caused by not servicing a industry
well enough. There is an RRT version with them patched out.
- Why do things go wrong over when a player/competitor goes over $32M?
16bit signed int bug, no fix, even in RDX
- How come there are only 9 questions?
shhsss... it's only a draft.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1) What is RRT and RRT Deluxe?
Railroad Tycoon (RRT) and Railroad Tycoon Deluxe (RDX) are exciting
strategy games of empire building, operation, and market manipulation. It
is a commercial product of MicroProse Software and is availible for
MS-DOS on an IBM PC or Apple Macintosh.
The game was authored primarily by Sid Meier, who went on to write
Civilization and other great games. Bruce Shelly also helped with the
design and is known for his previous contribution to Avalon Hill's 1830
railroad board game. The game borrows elements of 1830 and combines them
with elements of the PC Empire wargame to provide a strategy game that can
consume hours of play.
RRT pits a single player against 3 simulated players. You are given some
initial money and must build a successful railroad corporation. You spend
your money building the track and stations. Then you buy and schedule
trains that earn money by collecting cargos at resource centers and
delivering them to stations with matching demands. A changing economic
cycle and a growing population over time, keep things from becoming
static. On the financial side of RRT, allows you to raise money by
selling bonds and investing in the stock of your company and your
competitors. If you can manage to gain greater than 50% of your
competitor's stock you can also operate their railroad and take their
profits. You can also manipulate your competitor's stock values to your
advantage or their detriment. At the end of 100 years you are rated on
your financial accomplishments.
RRT was released in 1990. RDX was released in 1993. Railroad Tycoon
Deluxe plays basically the same as RRT, but has greatly enhanced graphics
and additional scenarios. Most discussions are geared to the original
game and applies to both. The differences are discussed at the end.
Game Materials:
Manual, Technical Supplement, Distribution diskettes, Economic
charts
The game is copy protected by a challenge to identify a locomotive by
sight. The locomotives are pictured and described in the Manual. A
frequent player or railfan can memorize this. The less initated can make
a crib sheet by noting the wheel arrangements (eg: 2-4-2) also given and
explained in the manual. Failure to pass the challenge results in only
being able to play with 2 trains.
2) Microprose information
MicroProse Software, 180 Lakefront Drive, Hunt Valley, MD 21030
Customer Service: 410-771-1151
MPS*BBS: 410-785-1841 (8,N,1) 8 lines, upto 14400 baud
CompuServe: Forum GamePublishersB, ID: 76004,2223
Internet: "76004,22...@Compuserve.com"
AOL,Delphi,Fidonet,GEnie,MCI Mail, PC-Link,Prodigy,Promenade,Q-Link
3) Game Limitations
README.DOC - On the distribution diskette is a file with some last minute
changes and details on the limitations of the game as implemented.
Investment: Can own only ONE extra RR if Investor or Financier,
TWO if Mogul, All THREE if Tycoon.
Trains: 32 total, (the GP30 is not availible)
Stations: 32 stations (depots,stations,terminals),
64 signal towers
Industry building: no forts or textile mills (or power plants in England)
(different in RDX)
4) Known Bugs
- $32,000,000 limit
- hangs
- hyperspace transfer
- Slums
- RDX initial bugs
<details...tbd>
5) Version info
RRT - retail version #V455.001?
Patch versions: V455.003
- RRTVER03.ZIP fixed version via MPS BBS
- SLUMFI.ZIP fixed version with Slums patched out via MPS BBS
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
RRT V.03 corrected some of the money problems, screen updates, and
a few other minor fixes. There are a few things still needing
correction such as the stock rolling over to $0.00 at the later stages
of the game.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The two files are both Version .03. The difference is Sid removed the
random generator parameter that creates slums in cities. Slums can
destroy powerplants and other industries that some players felt was
unfair due to the random method it occurred.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
RDX - original version buggy v#??
- fixed version V#?? ship date?
6) Hints and Strategy books
There are two published books on RRT:
"The Official Guide to Railroad Tycoon" by Russell Sipe
(C) 1991, Compute Books, Greensboro NC.
ISBN 0-87455-244-3 $12.95
"Railroad Tycoon, Master Strategies for Empire Builders"
Shay Addams, (C) 1991, Osborne McGraw-Hill, Berkley CA.
ISBN 0-07-881728-5 $14.95
<reviews here>
7) "The Computer Cheats!"
A frequent whine from beginners is "how can I do x like the computer
players do?" And the answer is you cannot. The computer is playing a
different game than you. It has some advantages, but it also has many
limitations as well.
Advantages:
+ multiple entrances to cities,
+ amazing terrain conquring track laying
Disavantages:
- no switches, stubs, or loops. only builds tree-like networks
- only builds to named cities, not to resources away from cities.
- only builds in straight lines, cannot round terrain corners,
- can not build ferries
- is limited to a number of stations too
8) Mastering the Modes and Levels
Difficulty Levels:
Investor
Financier
Mogul
Tycoon
Scales some of the resource settings. The easier levels have more.
Also affects how many competing RRs you can buy.
Reality Levels:
Basic vs Complex Economies
In Basic mode, all stations pay for all cargos. No conversion.
In Complex, stations pay only for industry and local demands.
No Collisions vs Dispatcher Operations
NC mode does not use the block signal system.
Dispatcher mode provides block signals which are automatic,
but can be overriden by the player. NC mode has no controls
and is totally automatic. Dispatcher is more interesting
and can provide more optimal control. Signal towers are
useful in this mode to break up blocks and provide more flow.
Friendly vs Cut-Throat Competition
In Friendly mode, your competitors will not attempt to take
over your RR, or start a Rate war with you.
Beginners should start with Investor Level. As you become more
interested in taking over competing roads, you have to move up because of
the investor limits.
I recommend that you immediately start playing with Complex Economy
and Dispatcher Mode. The lower modes are not interesting. Turn on
Cut-Throat when you have mastered the basics and are ready for a
challenge.
Starting out hints:
- Initial state, turn on Resource Display
- Learn how to use each display and report
Pointers:
F6 Train Income; watch maintenance cost, get to routing
Balance - Econ cycle
- Freeze the game when laying track or researching decisions
9) Strategies
- Beginning
Learning to play: use low difficulty level, complex econ, Dispatcher ops,
Friendly Comp.
use $ cheat if need be.
- Basic
Start small (2-3 good cities), go for best revenue route,
Keep competitors honest, Investing in them slows them down.
Buy your stock early, aim to own 50% of self soon
Roll over Bonds on first Boom
- Rate Wars
How to wage successful rate wars
- timing
- Depot staging
- analyze the demand
- Grand
Mail & Pass vs full service
Priority load service
- Robber Baron
Bankrupting and stealing from competitors
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic
From: lo...@cs.washington.edu (Michael Lounsbery)
Subject: Re: Railroad Tycoon Help
Message-ID: <1993Sep23.0...@beaver.cs.washington.edu>
Date: Thu, 23 Sep 93 01:03:32 GMT
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.
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
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: dra...@qiclab.scn.rain.com (Devin Ben-Hur)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic
Subject: Re: Fastest President or Prime Minister in RRT
Message-ID: <1993Oct14.2...@qiclab.scn.rain.com>
Date: 14 Oct 93 22:24:18 GMT
Article-I.D.: qiclab.1993Oct14.222418.16856
Lines: 140
Wilhelm Friedrich Mueller writes:
> Devin Ben-Hur (me) writes:
>>I just set my personal best in RRT by ascending to Prime Minister
>>after playing an England scenario for ten years. Anyone topped this?
>>What are your quickest times for getting the top job in each scenario?
>>
>>What are the quickest times for retiring at the top WITHOUT ever taking
>>control of an opponent?
>
>And this was without cheating?
As long as you don't consider buying control of another railroad and
milking them for cash cheating, yup, it was without cheating.
Here's the basic strategy:
1) Lose money for your first fiscal period. lay track to 2 or 3 cities
and a few resource centers, but don't make any stations. Borrow $2-3M,
enough to pay for your initial stations and track and trains and still have
enough money to buy up your first opponent.
2) Buy up the first opponent that pops up ASAP. If it's a dumb one,
he doesn't start by first buying the first 10K shares of his own stock,
so the way the turns alternate with the broker call, and the way the
stock price ratchets up as you buy, when you buy the fifth lot of stock
(50K), he doesn't have enough cash to buy his fifth lot and uses his turn
to borrow $500K. You buy the next lot and take control. You must have
at least $1.2M liquid to seize control this way, so make sure you borrowed
that money BEFORE he shows up.
If it's a smart opponent, he'll buy first, and you'll both end up holding
50% stock. In this case, don't take control until after the end of the
fiscal period, at which point the stock price will drop by 50% or more
making it much cheaper to buy out management at 2X the current stock price.
In either case, you don't want to start milking any cash until after the
first fiscal period.
3) After the first fiscal period, because you lost so much money, your own
stock will plummet to $1-3/sh. For the second period, you milk the opponent
for cash, by taking money from his treasury until he's under $100K, selling
down to 50% stock, he borrows more money, you buy up to 60%, and take the
new cash. You can repeat this until he hits his credit limit, then sell
off all your stock in his company. His credit limit is higher in Prosperity
or BOOM times, so these are quite advantageous. If you are unfortunate
enough to wind up in a recession or panic, you probably won't get enough
cash out to cover your initial stock and interest losses and should just
retire and try for a luckier start. Milk your opponents cash in preference
to re-financing your own debt, because you can shoulder the debt, but if the
boom period ends too fast you won't get enough cash out of the take-over.
After milking all this cash, buy up 80 or 90% of your own stock (it's
quite cheap). Make sure you buy up most of your stock before the end of
the fiscal period because it sky-rockets from all the money you just "made."
Buy up your own stock in preference to selling off the last few shares of your
now debt-crippled opponent.
4) In Jan. of the 3rd fiscal period (year 5), freeze time and build
your initial stations and make a bunch of trains. Be ambitious, but
don't use up all your cash. Keep at least $1.2M liquid so you can
take-over one of the the new opponents that will pop up after you've
built your first two stations. You may want to sell some of your
inflated treasury stock to make sure you have healthy cash reserves,
but be sure to buy it back before the end of the fiscal period, because
owning your own stock is the key to accelerated asset growth.
5) For the the next few years, keep taking over and milking any opponents
you can. If recession or panic limits the opponent's credit limit, take what
you can and hold on to 50% of their stock. When the economic climate
improves, they borrow some more and you immediately take 'em over and steal
it. Also, continue aggressively building your railroad. All these
take-overs should keep you flush with cash, so SPEND it. More stations,
more trains, more revenue. The higher your revenue, the higher your
profits, the less significant your interest expenses. Don't pay off
debt (well maybe the most expensive debt - 8-9% bonds are worth paying off),
just keep expanding, paying off debt is lost expansion capability. Also,
as you expand, remember that if you run a line into the station of
a controlled RR, you get a terminal (Union station) for the price of
a normal station (but forgo the first year bonus fares), so you may
want to take advantage of this with nearby opponents.
Your stock profits are a major contribution to your yearly profit
numbers, which influences your stock price even higher. By
rapidly increasing your stock price, you rapidly advance your
total assets, because YOU own 80-90% of your stock.
When you retire, your job offer is based on your retirement bonus.
You need a bonus of $10M to get Prez or Prime Minister. The bonus is
calculated as a percentage of your total assets based on length of
service (percentage gets lower with longer service), plus a "Mogul
bonus" based on how many RRs you control at retirement. You get
125% for one RR, 150% for two and 200% bonus for all three.
At ten years, the service percentage is around 33% (I forget exactly),
so if you own all three opponents, you only need total assets of $15M to get
the top job. If you have $10M in misc assets (stations, track,
improvements, industries, real-estate, other RR stock, rolling-stock),
$3M debt, and you own 80% of your own stock, you only need a stock price
around $100/sh
In the England game I mentioned way above, I was fortunate to
get a combination of good economic times (prosperity & boom) for
most of my take-overs, and to have nice prosperous cities with
decent resources not too far away. My stock price for over the
five fiscal periods looked roughly like this:
year 1 3 5 7 9
$ 10 1 67 120 220
I think I also actually started my RR in the second fiscal period,
instead of waiting for Jan of the third. At the last period, one
of the other RRs had dissolved, so I only got a 150% mogul bonus for
two RRs.
If anyone's curious, I did save the SVE & MAP files, which I could ZIP up,
UUENCODE and mail to you if you want to see what it looks like at the end
and examine the history reports.
Winning without ever taking control of an opponent is much harder.
I think my quickest time was about 55 years in Western US.
Takes much longer, for three reasons: 1) no mogul bonus,
2) no cash infusion from take-overs, 3) constantly getting cut-off
and having to expand away from opponents or conduct expensive rate-wars.
I especially hate rate-wars, because not only are they expensive,
but the computer rarely puts a station where I WANT IT; so, after
winning, I then have to throw away my station and build a new one a few
squares away.
One key to winning rate wars quickly, is to not worry about the
first fiscal period. Don't even service the station, let him get all
the business. In the second year of the first fiscal period start routing
trains to the rate-war station, so they'll make deliveries in the next fiscal
period. Make a couple of trains to arrive right at the beginning of the
second fiscal period and make them wait for full loads (8cars) of passengers,
mail, and any other resources generated at the station. Waiting for
full loads means you get most of the take-away service and that coupled
with a bunch of deliveries will almost always give you a quick one
fiscal period victory before the town council.
--
Devin Ben-Hur [dra...@qiclab.scn.rain.com]
"We're from the government; the check's in your mouth."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10) Details
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: dqu...@jarthur.claremont.edu (Daniel Quock)
Subject: Re: RailRoad Tycoon -- max number of stations?
Message-ID: <1992Oct20.2...@muddcs.claremont.edu>
Date: Tue, 20 Oct 1992 22:21:01 GMT
[The following information was from "The Official Guide to Sid Meier's
Railroad Tycoon"]
And here's some other interesting tidbits of info from the book:
Calculation of Revenues:
There is a series of four calculations that are run on each
commodity on each delivery. They must be done in the order listed
in this chart. The total revenue for the run is determined by
adding the results of the calculations below for each commodity. To
that will be addad any station-specific modifiers such as restraunt/hotel
income for passenger deliveries.
Variables:
DIST = # squares between stations (* .5 if E. USA or England)
DISTB and DISTC = Interim variables in formulas
SPEED = Mph/2.5 (i.e. 20mph = speed of 8)
CLASS = 0 for Ma, 1 for Passenger, 2 for Fast Freight, 3 for Slow Freight
and 4 for Bulk Freight)
DIFF = Difficulty level (0 for investor ... 3 for Tycoon)
REVENUEA = Interim variable in formula
FIRST YEAR = The first year of the scenario
REVENUE = Revenue for cargo
Calculation #1: Effect of Distance
DISTB = DIST*(5 - CLASS) + (40*(CLASS+1))
Calculation #2: Effect of Speed
DISTC = (DISTB/8)*(SPEED + (2*CLASS^2) / (((YEAR-1790)/10) + (2*CLASS^2))
Calculation #3: Effect of Year
REVENUEA = TONS*2*DISTC / (YEAR - (1170 + (FIRST YEAR/3)))
Calculation #4: Effect of Difficulty Level
REVENUE = REVENUEA * (7 - DIFF) / 6
I know that most of you won't use these equations, but it's neat to see how
they relate to each other and how one affects the revenue as a whole.
Weight of Cars:
These weights are used as arbitrary units to calculate the speed
of the train in each square. This is not directly related to the speed
formula used in the Revenue Calculation Chart.
Unloaded Loaded
Mail 190 290
Passenger 180 300
Fast Freight 160 320
Slow Freight 140 340
Bulk Freight 80 400
Loading and Unloading Times:
To load and unload cars takes the following amount of time:
(1 Fiscal Period = 4000 time units)
TONS*CLASS/8
The same formula is used for both unloading and loading.
Class = 0 for mail, 1 for passenger, 2 for fast freight, 3 for slow
freight and 4 for bulk freight.
Switching cars:
To switch a car it take the following amount of time units:
(again, 1 FP = 4000 time units)
16 Time units with a switching yard
64 Time units without a switching yard
Economic Trends Flow Chart
+---------+ +-----------+ +----------+ +----------+ +--------+
| PANIC |<->| Recession |<->|Moderation|-->|Prosperity|-->| BOOM |
+---------+ +-----------+ +----------+ +----------+ +--------+
^ ^ | |
| +-----------------------------+ |
+----------------------------------------------------------+
Note that at Prosperity you can only go to a boom or back to recession
and at boom you will always go into a panic.
Station Maintenance Chart
Yearly Costs
Signal Tower $1000
Depot $2000
Station $3000
Terminal $4000
Maintenance Calendar
Each January:
Stations
Track
Each July:
Locomotives
Rolling Stock
Track
Note that track maintenance is assessed twice a year.
Also, any cargoes delivered to a station in the first fiscal period it is
built in receives double rates.
There's some other interesting stuff here but I'll only post it if theere's
a demand.
Good luck!
Daniel Quock
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: dqu...@jarthur.claremont.edu (Daniel Quock)
Subject: Railroad Tycoon Info.
Message-ID: <1992Oct21.2...@muddcs.claremont.edu>
Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1992 21:33:47 GMT
There's been some requests for more RR info. and so here goes:
BTW, at the end of this article is a spoiler of some sort (mild one,
really) so here's just a warning. (I would block it out but I'm not
quite sure how. Is it Ctrl-L?)
Again, the following is from "The Official Guide to Sid Meier's Railroad
Tycoon"
Track costs:
Track costs are calculated by the half square. A track piece
(two half pieces) is laid from the center of one square to the center of
the adjoining square. The cost of that piece of track is calculated
by adding the cost of the two half squares. So, in a normal economic
environment, a piece of track that went from the center of a clear
square ($2000 per half square Right-of-Way) to the center of a city
square ($20,000 per half square ROW) would cost $22000 in right-of-way
costs. Add the $6000 for the cost of the track and it's a total of $28000.
The right-of-way costs found when clicking on the square is for a half
square of track in a normal economic climate. It is not for crossing the
whole square. So if you build through a city, you will spend $40,000
going through it, not $20,000 as suggested on the game message screen.
Right-of-Way and Track Costs in different times:
The cost listed in the game is for a straight track, half square
in Moderation times. For diagonal track you add 50%. For the
different economic times, it's:
Boom Add 33%
Prosperity Add 17%
Depression Subtract 17%
Panic Subtract 33%
For building track, it costs (per square):
Panic $4000
Depression $5000
Moderation $6000
Prosperity $7000
Boom $8000
Bridges and Tunnels:
A bridg that washes out is likely to wash out again. Stone
bridges never wash out and Iron bridges can wash out, but not frequently.
Wooden trestles wash out with some regularity.
If an iron bridge washes out, chances are that it's located in a
hot spot for washouts. You might want to consider relaying your line so
that a new iron bridge can cross a different square.
However, only one bridge can be washed out so you might want
to try to build a decoy bridge. Build a second line over the river,
parallel to the first bridge. Connect it (except for a single piece of
track) to the main line. If the main-line bridge washes out, then build
the missing piece of track to the other bridge and use that one insted.
Tunnels are expensive and can not be double tracked. If you need
a tunnel, it's best to put signaltowers at either end. In Railroad Tycoon,
it says how long the tunnel will be in miles. This translates to 2 miles
per square (three miles if the track is diagonal). If you want to figure
it out without having to build a line up to the proposed starting point,
then you can figure it out by using the F10 survey key.
Tunnel Exit Calculation:
IF HX =< HE+4 THEN EXIT
HX = Height of Potential Exit Square
HE = Height of Tunnel Entrance Square
Maintenance:
The annual maintenance cost for a steam locomotive that has
been fully maintained is equal to $500 plus $500 per fiscal period
that the engine has been in existence. The maintenance cost of a steam
locomotive that hasn't been maintained is the base $500 plus $1000 per
fiscal period. This is cululative. Each fiscal period the annual
maintenance cost of a steam engine goes up by whichever figure is
appropriate ($500 if the engine is maintained, $1000 if it isn't)
Train Maintenance Chart:
Steam Engines
$500
+ $500 for each FP maintained
+ $1000 for each FP not maintained
Disel Engines
$500
+ $250 for each FP maintained
+ $750 for each FP not maintained
Cars
$500 per car
These charges are assessed each July (i.e. twice each fiscal period)
Hotel and Restaurant Income:
Restaurants: +$2000 per full passenger car
Hotel: +$5000 per full passenger car
Both: +$7000 per full passenger car
Other Building Tips:
Borrow money in good economic times (when interest rates are low); then
hold money until bad economic times (when land and track are cheap).
Oil wells in the U.S. are big producers (5 cars per year) A cluster of
oil wells means big bucks. Oil wells tend to cluster up over the course
of the game. If you see a couple of oil wells in close proximity, you
probably have an emerging oil field. Chances are other wells will appear
there as time goes along.
If you destroy a station either by removing track or by building (upgrading)
a larger station over it, you get back half the value of the old station.
Stockholders:
After five fiscal periods in which the stockholders are outrages,
you'll be removed from office (unless you own 50 percent of your line's
tresury stock). The outrageous fiscal reports DO NOT have to be consecutive.
If you improve the return on investment significantly, you can erase some
of the ill-will you've developed with the stockholders. If, after
experiencing one or more outrageous fiscal periods, your line produces
a 10-percent-plus return on investment (that is, stockholders are either
happy for ecstatic) you'll wipe out the effects of one outrageous fiscal
period.
Buying out other competitor's rails:
There are two major ways of buying out a competitor, the shark
attack or a gradual takeover.
The shark attack is used when a competitor's financial condition
is vulnerable. Both sides are going to get beaten up badly and you need
a lot of cash. A good time to catch them is during Boom times. At that
time the competitor may "roll over his bonds" buy repaying back all his
bonds (sold at a, persumably, higher interest rate) and then selling them
again when the interest is low. If you keep an eye out for that, you can
catch him with a negative revenue and buy him out quickly.
The other way is buy gradually buying stock. At some point both
you can your competitor will own 50% of the stock and you will buy
his shares at twice market value. This will get you 100% of the stock so
you can sell off all but the required amount to keep control.
Rate Wars:
The first vote that counts is the first COMPLETE fiscal period.
For each commodity that a Rate War city wants, there are two votes.
You'll get a vote if you deliveANY amount of a commodity the city wants,
two if you're the only one that delivers the commodity. (It DOESN'T matter
if you deliver 1 passenger or 100 passengers, it's still only one (or two)
votes!) However, votes for picking up cargo is measured by tonnage. The
more tonnage you haul away, the more likely you are to get votes.
Rate War Voting:
The Number of Votes to be Cast:
Cargoes Picked Up
0-40 tons picked up = 1 vote
40-80 tons = 2 votes
80 + tons = 3 votes
Cargoes Delivered
2 votes per item in demand
Determining Who Gets the Votes:
Cargoes Delivered
You get 1 vote if you deliver any tons of a cargo in demand.
You get 2 votes if you alone deliver the cargo in demand.
Cargoes Picked Up
One Vote Available
Vote goes to the side with the most tons picked up.
Two Votes Available
Two votes go to the side that carries twice as much, otherwise each
side gets 1 vote.
Three Votes Available
Two votes to the side that carries away the most. The side gets an
additional vote if it carries away at least twice as much.
WARNING! POSSIBLE SPOILER AHAED!!!
For those of you without a disk editor or are sick and tired of
continuously going in and changing your money, there's an embezzlement key!
To add 500,000 ill-gotten dollars to your cash balance:
1. Go to the F1 Screen (Regional Display)
2. Hit the $ key
Well, that's almost all of the information in the book! Hopefully I'll post
some information on your opponents and what their strongpoints are.
Good luck!
Daniel Quock
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10a) Techniques
- Track laying
-
11) Getting the most out of the displays (How to I find that?)
- Station displays (colored bars)
- Train display (F6)
12) Map Differences
- Eastern US
- Western US
E/W vs N/S differential & Transcontental Bonus
- England
- Europe
RDX
- North America
- South America
- Africa
13) RRT Deluxe Differences
VGA support
Graphic renderings, but not animated
Slow response in F4
New maps
New time ranges and locomotives
Bandits and Sheriffs
New initial bugs
14) Hackery
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: gno...@ssiny.UUCP (Ralph Betza)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic
Subject: RRT superfast trains by editing save file
Message-ID: <2...@ssiny.UUCP>
Date: 26 Oct 93 20:31:25 GMT
I really like Europe because of the GTVs.
True, it's a little boring because nothing is worthwhile except
mail & passengers, and it only makes sense to use 3 or 4 of the
train types (Hamiltons at the start, the 70/80/90 mph trains
later, and then the GTV), and every train always has exactly two
cars. But, it's fun to watch those GTVs go....
Just the other day, I had gotten such a nice railroad built,
was struggling with a buggy game, removed a small station and
built a new one, and the game froze up. I had just built my first
GTVs and never got to use them. :-(
Disgusted, I started anew; this time, I cheated, leaned on the
dollar key, and built all 32 stations on move zero.
(Took a couple of hours; it was kinda fun!)
I played it for awhile, thought about how boring it was going to
be to wait for the GTV to be introduced, and quit.
The software technology of CIV and RRT are so similar, I had no
doubt I would find a "units description" table in the save file.
Sure enough, it starts at 0x3310, and here is the format of each
entry:
struct traintype
{
char name[20]; /* ends with null characters. */
short speed;
/* in 5mph increments. This is the "maximum"
** speed" shown on the train info screen.
** 0x0c is 60MPH.
*/
short power;
/* in 500 horsepower increments. 0x41
** displays as 32500 HP. 0x7f makes your
** train move 0 mph with 1 car and 0 grade.
** The chart that shows how fast the train
** goes with N cars at X % grade is
** calculated using these two variables.
*/
short price; /* increments of $1000. */
short intro_date;
/* What year this train becomes available. */
short expire;
/* 0xffff means the train, once introduced,
** is always available. Unsure how to
** interpret other values, but who cares?
*/
short maint;
/* 0x0000 makes the maintenance go up as
** slowly as possible; 0x7fff makes it go up
** as you watch! Negative numbers might be
** fun to try :-)
*/
char danger[2];
/* This somehow affects the picture when you
** break a speed record. Changing this can
** garble or crash.
*/
char unknown[6];
/* Looks like 3 2-byte pairs -- ?weight of car; ? time
** to load? (for different categories?) -- these are 0
** for the GTV and for 'GP' series.
*/
short something;
/* (? or 2 more bytes of unknown[] with second byte
** always 0 ?)
** (is 0 for GTV)
*/
};
You can introduce the GTV early in Europe, by editing the
intro_date field, or simply make fast grasshoppers in eastern
USA....
I tested these in a game where I cheated and built the best line
I could, from Florence to one of the German cities straight north
of it. Had a 640 MPH train whose best average trip was 277 MPH
and whose maximum speed (clicking on the train display) was 540
MPH. Made the flattest, straightest line I could (Very few
grades, but sometimes all those mountains and the approaches to
the rivers can get to you), but still never got max speed.
Gotta check with really low horsepower and high max speed to see
if "mini-grades" count for much.
You may have noticed that sometimes you can build track from
height 41 to height 36 and get no warning message, but sometimes
it says there's a grade. I suspect that internally the height is
something like 35.6 and 41.4 in these cases; and grades less
than the warning may still slow you down. I (still don't know how
to build the fastest possible tracks.)
Of course, any train that goes faster than the GTV has a
*long* green line on the train chart, that goes right out of
the chart and into the main screen. I plan to try a train with a
speed of 0x7fff (probably some intermediate calculation will
overflow, but might as well try). 160,000 MPH is several times
escape velocity, so I expect to see my train arrive at Alpha
Centauri :-) Either that, or its long green line will overwrite
something and cause a system crash.
This game can really *move* when it has fast trains to work
with. It's hard to click on a 540MPH train on the F2 screen.
Instead of running the trains slowly, it would have been
interesting to adjust the time scale: when the Norris first
becomes available, according to the way things look in 1830, its
20 MPH speed is blazing fast; but by 1890, if you have one left,
it seems to creep along so slowly, while the new trains appear
to move just as fast as the Norris used to appear to move...
By the way, a few more things are obvious in the save file,
but thanks to the money cheat, I don't find them interesting;
with infinite money, you can do anything you want except make
your trains go faster...
=====
Until you build your first train, the game is frozen even if you
didn't choose speed "frozen". If you save during this period,
there are whole areas of the save file that aren't filled in
yet. I thought if I started up, paid my bond, saved, built no
track, waited for February, and saved again, the *only*
difference between the save files would be the date. Problem is,
it stays January forever, until you start building.
Sometimes you're just getting happy, and it's over;
by futzing with the date, you could play 200 years...
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
15) Acknowledgements
- Daniel Quock for details from Official Guide.
- Ralph Betza for how to edit trains in the save file
- all the others in here whom I haven't got around to culling their
names down.