Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
com/pc/534361-railroad-tycoon-3/faqs/49084
1 of 109
Hom e
FAQs
Cheats
Reviews
Im ages
Answers
Board
RAILROAD TYCOON 3
____
FAQ written by Scott "Zoogz" Jamison
zoogz22 (at) yahoo (dot) com
http://www.nabiki.com/mst
This FAQ is property of and copyrighted by Scott Jamison,
2007. This
FAQ is licensed to GameFAQs due to their excellent work in
archiving
FAQs for many games that I have played. Please do not post
this FAQ
in any other location without my written permission.
Additionally,
please do not alter this FAQ. I reserve the right to request
this FAQ
to be removed from any website.
____
Table of Contents
____
1.0 - Version History
2.0 - Introduction to Railroad Tycoon III FAQ
2.1 - Game Overview
3.0 3.1
3.2
3.3
3.4
3.5
3.6
3.7
12/01/2016 8:59
2 of 109
Advantage.
3.8 - Opportunity Costs and Time Value of Money
3.9 - Macroeconomics and Conditions.
4.0 4.1
4.2
4.3
5.0 - Walkthrough
5.1 - Campaign Mode
5.1.1 - Go West
5.1.2 - Germantown U.S.A.
5.1.3 - Central Pacific
5.1.4 - Texas Tea
5.1.5 - The War Effort
5.1.6 - State of Germany
5.1.7 - Flying Scotsman
5.1.8 - Crossing the Alps
5.1.9 - Third Republic
5.1.10 - The Orient Express
5.1.11 - Argentina
5.1.12 - Africa
5.1.13 - Japan Quakes!
5.1.14 - The Seeder
5.1.15 - Dutchlantis
5.1.16 - Chip Off the Old Block
5.2 - Scenarios (TBD)
6.0 - Railroad Tycoon Game Patches / Updates
7.0 - Frequently Asked Questions
8.0 - Epilogue and Author's Notes
____
1.0
Version History
____
12/01/2016 8:59
3 of 109
Many
12/01/2016 8:59
4 of 109
12/01/2016 8:59
5 of 109
coon 3 affect you far more. It's because the gameplay model
is far
more robust, and goes farther to be a truer model of economic
behaviour
than Railroad Tycoon 2.
So, by all means, don't be scared of Railroad Tycoon 3. I
realized
that a decent explanation of the economic system and gameplay
principles would be gratefully appreciated by many people...
possibly back
in 2005. It's now halfway through 2007, and I would be
highly surprised if anyone even cares about this game anymore. But I
felt I had
to at least try to publicize it and help others to enjoy it,
even if
too late really is too little.
Thank you for reading, and enjoy!
12/01/2016 8:59
6 of 109
3.0
12/01/2016 8:59
7 of 109
12/01/2016 8:59
8 of 109
3.2 - Competition
12/01/2016 8:59
9 of 109
12/01/2016 8:59
10 of 109
12/01/2016 8:59
11 of 109
12/01/2016 8:59
12 of 109
By taking the cattle at least part of the way, you will get
at least
part of the money realized from shipping the cargo, and the
Tycoonatrons may take some (or even all) of the cattle you supplied
Centreville to East Eastie because of the profit they could realize
from the
shipment.
And here's the fun part. Say you did take two loads of
cattle from
Westerham to Centreville, and you also have a train coming to
Centreville and going to East Eastie in two months. While the
Tycoonatrons
may have taken some of the cattle, there may be some cattle
left that
the Tycoonatrons couldn't ship at a profit to them still in
Centreville
that you may be able to ship for a profit. So your East
Eastie train
might pick up, say, 1.7 loads of cattle from Centreville to
sell in
East Eastie. In this case you may miss out on some of the
profit, but
in effect the game automatically caused you to flag the cargo
red so
that another train could pick it up, and you were penalized
accordingly
(though slightly) for making the cargo sit.
A visual retelling of the above may look like this:
12/01/2016 8:59
13 of 109
Westerham------Centreville---------East Eastie
Notrackville
Grain Farm
Brewery
In this example, there is a grain farm near Centreville
which provides grain to your station to ship, and a brewery (which
processes
grain into alcohol, a finished good in this game) in
Notrackville. As
Notrackville indicates, your track doesn't run all the way
there; it
stops at East Eastie. Example costs of goods:
Westerham------Centreville---------East Eastie
Notrackville
Grain: $15
Grain: $13
Grain: $34
$58)
Alcohol: $190
Alcohol: $185
Alcohol: $176
(Alcohol: $133)
(Grain:
By providing East Eastie with the grain, you still will get
a premium - $21 per 1.0 load. But because grain is far more
demanded in
Notrackville, where they can supply their brewery with it,
the Tycoonatrons will endeavor to ship some of the grain from East
Eastie to Notrackville. And that amount of grain will be fed into the
brewery,
where alcohol will be brewed. Alcohol then is far cheaper in
Notrackville, but the Tycoonatron's premium for moving alcohol from
Notrackville to East Eastie will be built right into difference
between the
East Eastie price and Notrackville's price - $43 per 1.0 load.
East Eastie will still have alcohol for loading, though not
as much
as if you connected Notrackville to begin with. By shipping
East Eastie alcohol to Centerville, you'll still realize a profit
between the
two prices - $9 per 1.0 load. But as you notice, the profit
is a
slight profit compared to connecting Notrackville.
And this is where you, the Railroad Baron, have to make
your decision. Would connecting Notrackville be worth the money
invested in
more track, another station, and more trains? Or would it be
sufficient to let the Tycoonatrons supply your station down the
line, so
that you can then supply the stations in your current
railroad network?
Now this discussion leads us to consumption. There are a
multitude
of ways that any amount of anything (goods, food, raw
materials, etc.)
12/01/2016 8:59
14 of 109
dwindles:
1. People taking raw materials and producing their own
goods (like a
cottage-industry woodworker taking 5% of a 1.0 load of logs
to plane or
sand for his own use).
2. Waste.
3. Theft.
4. Use (Consumption).
5. Purchase and transport.
1-3 above are minor, but will happen. They are provided so
that you
are aware that if numbers drop, it may be due to other
reasons rather
than your trains or the Tycoonatrons' shipping capabilities.
We covered #4 already above with the Tycoonatrons. In
Railroad Tycoon 3, towns will now use the production that factories will
provide.
In RRT2, if you have a meat packing plant in a city, taking
cattle to
the facility created food. But this food had to GO somewhere
else, it
was not demanded at all in the town where it was produced.
In this
game, towns WILL consume goods, and it is not a bad thing.
Take the
following scenario:
Centreville
Grain Farm
Grain: $13
Alcohol: $185
Notrackville
Brewery
(Grain: $58)
(Alcohol: $133)
12/01/2016 8:59
15 of 109
12/01/2016 8:59
16 of 109
12/01/2016 8:59
17 of 109
East Eastie
Meat Packaging
(Livestock:
(Meat: $195k)
Cattle Supply:
Meat Supply:
As you see, Westerham's cattle sell for $45k per 1.0 load.
East
Eastie has a meat packaging plant which needs raw materials,
the livestock, in order to process into meat. That's the new price
you see on
the list above. At this point, there's a reason that meat
costs a lot
in Westerham; they have very little, so people are willing to
pay more
for the small amounts of meat that local butchers may be able
to produce. Cattle in East Eastie are the same way, since it costs
such a
large amount for the Tycoonatrons to be able to move what
little livestock they can the long distance all the way from Westerham
to East
Eastie - some may die, some may get lost, et cetera. Still
note
though that *some* shipping may be happening due to the
Tycoonatrons.
So, your train comes to the rescue! At first, you can just
do a
short trip from Westerham to Centreville, and that will get
the cattle
12/01/2016 8:59
18 of 109
moving toward the direction of East Eastie. But you may also
notice
that profits for the cattle you pick up in Westerham are far
better in
East Eastie, and they also will hopefully have meat for you
to sell
after their meat packaging plant starts producing.
As a rule of thumb, your best profit will come from the
first few
shipments you undertake. Because since you're fulfilling a
need, then
costs will stabilize across the board:
Check out what may happen by 1894:
Westerham --------- Centreville ---------- East Eastie
Cattle Ranch
Meat Packaging
Plant
(Cattle: $72k)
(Cattle: $78k)
(Cattle: $82k)
(Meat: $230k)
(Meat: $218k)
(Meat: $205k)
Cattle Supply: 1.6
Cattle Supply: 0.7
Cattle Supply: 4.2
Meat Supply: 1.3
Meat Supply: 1.0
Meat Supply: 2.4
Your trains did this!
When you filled the need for cattle to be sent from
Westerham to
East Eastie, you caused prices to rise slightly in Westerham
- the
local butcher who can still make a profit by slaughtering his
own meat
won't be able to find as many cattle as he used to. At the
same time
the ranchers will realize that there are fewer and fewer
cattle, so
therefore they will raise prices in order to capture more
money from
their service. Cattle won't be in as great of supply as
before, so
the ranchers can be more choosy in the prices they charge!
East Eastie still needs cattle, but check out the livestock
supply
exampled above. If the meat packaging plant can only process
(about)
3.0 loads of livestock yearly, then they're supplied for more
than a
year. Where might those 4.2 train cars of cattle be? The
meat packing
plant can't just let them go free and then go find them when
they're
needed... they need to store the cattle and feed the cattle
before they
are processed. These costs now show up in the lowered price
of this
cattle.
And meat! Now that Westerham is being supplied with meat,
the rich
aren't the only ones who can afford it. If only one
Tycoonatron bought
meat at the local butcher for $254 before East Eastie's
steaks hit the
market, the butcher only got the $254. But when East
Eastie's steaks
12/01/2016 8:59
19 of 109
hit the market, why would the marketplace only sell one steak
at $254
if they can sell twenty steaks at $230? Remember, if a good
isn't
sold, it isn't worth anything; it's currency that runs
everything.
As for the one Tycoonatron who bought steak at $254? Well,
if all the
steak is the same, why buy steak at $254 if it's the same as
the $230
stuff? This allows the one Tycoonatron to keep $24 in his
pocket to
spend on something else, which then allows economies to grow.
Now would be a good time to inform you that everything in
Railroad
Tycoon 3 is treated as a commodity. This term means that the
quality
of an item is not considered in its pricing. Therefore, a
McDonald's
hamburger is the exact same meat as the steak you may buy
from an Outback Steakhouse. Obviously, in the real world this isn't the
case, but
the same 2.0 load of meat from East Eastie is worth exactly
the same as
the meat butchered by the Tycoonatron in Westerham.
So, on a microeconomic scale, your trains serve to balance
prices.
Prices will never be truly equal, as your trains do not
transport goods
instantaneously nor are they always at the station. East
Eastie's
large supply of meat isn't all getting taken out of town
unless you
have a fleet of trains just waiting for it (which would
probably cost
too much to support), so East Eastie's prices will still be
lower. As
more and more meat is taken from East Eastie, the price will
rise slowly. Please note that this will make the meat packaging plant
(as well
as the cattle farm) more and more profit as they go along,
which make
them attractive investments provided the costs were low
enough.
As a wrapup, supply prices are low and demand prices are
high. Your
company will make profit by buying at supply prices and
selling at demand prices. Obviously, the farther apart these prices are,
the more
profit you will make. But remember that once you start
supplying demand that prices will start to equalize over time, making you
less and
less profit each time you supply the same demand constantly.
This section will connect with the opportunity costs
discussion in
section 3.7 as well as the macroeconomic section at 3.8.
12/01/2016 8:59
20 of 109
12/01/2016 8:59
21 of 109
12/01/2016 8:59
22 of 109
try to maximize their small capacities just like you will try
to maximize your large capacity. Your goal in this game is to
figure out how
to make your trains profitable, and the way to do that is to
make sure
that they are hauling cargoes that can be sold for a high
premium at
another station down the line.
Remember the overhead discussion above? In most cases,
overhead is
the purchasing of capacity. Buying a medium station in
Railroad Tycoon
3 costs $100k, but it is a one-time cost. If you deliver
only 5.0
units of mail at $20/unit, you'll break even. But if you
deliver 20.0
units of mail at $10/unit, you will make a profit (20 * $10k
= $200k,
Station = $100k, total profit of $200k-100k = $100k). And
the best
part is that as far as the station goes, there is no change
in cost between offloading 5.0 units and 20.0 units; the station
doesn't change
cost.
The things that are variable in this game are your trains.
The more
trains that you run, the more cost that will be incurred
(purchase
price, fuel, and maintenance as well as lost opportunity for
other
trains that have to stop for congestion). So by all means,
maximize
the profit of each of your trains.
Capacity does also apply to factories as well. A factory
that has a
large supply of raw materials may be best served in
increasing capacity. More capacity is again an increase in overhead, as
more property
is bought, a larger facility implies more building materials,
and all
other costs. It will also be an increase in labor, as more
people are
needed to be hired in order to convert more raw materials.
Additionally, if you increase supply of your finished good, you may
see your
purchase prices drop as increased supply of the good will
result in decreased demand. But if the demand is high enough and the
facility is
profitable enough, by all means increase the capacity! As in
the above
examples, 3.0 loads of alcohol at $133k will be worth $399k,
but 5.0
loads of alcohol at $120k are worth $600k. The biggest issue
is to
make sure that the costs incurred to go from a profit of
$399k to $600k
are smaller than the increased profit.
12/01/2016 8:59
23 of 109
East
12/01/2016 8:59
24 of 109
decision to
build:
Costs: $700k
Revenue: $1.2M
Profit (Revenue minus costs): $500k after 3 years.
Good, right? Well, guess what.... you can place that $700k
of infrastructure anywhere you want, provided you have the
permission. The
majority of places you could place that $700k of track would
give you
very little revenue, which made them bad choices, but they
were choices
nonetheless.
Imagine this scenario:
Westerham
East Eastie
Centreville ------BRIDGE-----
12/01/2016 8:59
25 of 109
is lost opportunity.
Everyone in the world makes opportunity cost evaluations
constantly,
so it's not a new principle. In the world of economics in
Railroad Tycoon 3, you may notice that opportunity costs exist
everywhere - just
look at all the towns you can connect!
And here's one last concept for this section. The above
illustration
is a good way to show the time value of money. Remember
waiting one
year to build the Centreville to East Eastie connection? It
costed a
bit more to build one year later, and cut one year of revenue
stream
from the final total. All of the scenarios have a time frame
added to
it, so make sure that if you are waiting to build a
connection it is
because raising the money is either impossible or too
expensive, or
that there are no profitable connections to make at the
present time.
Making these decisions is definitely not as cut-and-dried
as I showed
above; oftentimes, you don't know how well one of your
decisions panned
out until possibly two years of game-time has elapsed, and
sometimes
even longer. But be sure that you're always thinking about
the opportunity costs of any decision you make in Railroad Tycoon 3,
including
possible missed opportunity elsewhere.
There's a depression!
Everyone's
12/01/2016 8:59
26 of 109
12/01/2016 8:59
27 of 109
12/01/2016 8:59
28 of 109
The same conditions may not exist today, but the game
attempts to be
true to the time period in which it exists by portraying
these market
forces as being a deterrant to new investments.
The rates for bonds in recessions and depressions can rise
all the
way to 8%, but will hover mostly at 7%.
In prosperous or "boom" times, fuel and labor costs go up.
Demand
goes up, as there is a lot of money, but supply costs tend to
remain
static because while more money is in the economy, most
supply facilities also increase production (demand does too if
supplied). Stocks
in the stock market will gain value because discretionary
income can be
used to speculate with, and these times are usually the times
to practice "sell high!", especially with companies which don't seem
to be
turning a large amount of profit.
The bond market in prosperous times will result in lower
prime rates.
Again, this is more likely to happen when money has to be
pegged to a
gold standard and the variable levels of money in an economy
cannot be
as easily controlled. Because more money exists in the
economy, this
money is chasing a shorter and shorter supply of investment
instruments
thereby lowering the percentages that companies have to pay
to offer
new instruments of investment.
In boom times, bond premiums will edge down from 6% and
could even
reach 5%.
As a last note to this section, much of personal net value
in this
game will always be tied up in stocks. Therefore, keep a
very close
eye on the economic indicators to know if you need to ramp up
your buying or to possibly even cash in a few stocks for short-term
use. Since
many scenarios have a personal net value restriction, my best
suggestion for these is to try to complete all the other
restrictions, wait
for economic indications to get better, and try to create as
much
wealth as possible to get up and over the NPV restrictions.
After all,
it's nothing more than a paper value regardless... and if
you're a $20
millionaire one month and a possible $4 millionaire the next,
all the
game cares is that you hit the $20M threshhold once.
12/01/2016 8:59
29 of 109
12/01/2016 8:59
30 of 109
If
12/01/2016 8:59
31 of 109
"on" to
"off", and building overpasses is more expensive than not.
Next is the bridge button. Bridges obviously allow your
train to
cross water. You have four choices here, "common",
"average", "rarely", or "never". The reason for four options is that you can
build
bridges *near* water, and will not get weird grades if you
use "common", but the cost of additional bridgework will be higher.
After this is the tunnel button, which is the exact same as
the
bridge button, offering the same four choices. Again, the
tradeoff is
higher expense for lower grades.
The last option on the right is for electic track, which is
either on
or off. Make sure you pay attention here, because there are
many cases
where electric trains may be superior to steam or diesel
trains. Since
you have to have the track electrified in order to run the
trains, make
sure you turn this option on _when needed_. Don't confuse
this with
the little button at the corner, which shows a lightning bolt
and a
track - this is to electrify all your track automatically.
Electrifying all of your track at the same time, especially
if you
have a lot of track, could be exceedingly expensive. If
you're planning on gradually introducing electric trains due to the cost
of laying
the appropriate track, then go slowly. Just lay the track
you may need
immediately, and once you expand electric routes then you can
go back
and build more.
Lastly, make sure the bridge you need is the one that's
turned on.
For occasional traffic crossings, use wood. For a higher
volume, use
steel. Finally, for an extremely high volume, stone. You
can choose
to build single or double track with the steel and stone
bridges, the
wood bridges come in only one flavor - one-track.
When laying track, the game has a good way to notify you
roughly how
expensive your track will be. You will see color-coded
numbers above
the track which will indicate the grades of the track that
you will be
building. But because a track cannot be built without making
sure that
the right-of-way is smooth, you will also see that the track
*itself*
will be color-coded, and this color may not match the colors
12/01/2016 8:59
32 of 109
of the
numbers above. This is because the track color will
correspond to the
track bed that will have to be laid. If the track bed has to
be raised
in order to run a railroad, it will cost more! Green track
is track
that does not need a bed, and yellow and red indicates more
expensive
track.
(NOTE - In track-limit scenarios, building double track
WILL take
your track limit down by two instead of one.)
Also, make sure that you're very familiar with the undo
button. The
best method I've found to playing the game is to pause every
time you
are building an important or expensive piece of track (such
as a tunnel
or bridge) and to examine it from every angle. The AI for
track building is not always perfect; I had one game where I built a
major suspension bridge, $700k worth and about two years in, and I came
to find out
that the game somehow put in a dip leading to the bridge of
15 degrees
with an incline of 16 degrees, all on one tile of track.
Therefore, if
possible, examine the track you're building from as many
angles as you
can before moving out of the track-build screen, because
track becomes
permanent if you click on ANYTHING else.
(Exception: If you don't pause, the end-of-year report will
pop up,
but you can exit out of it without exiting out of the trackbuilding
screen and therefore invalidating your undo option.)
12/01/2016 8:59
33 of 109
times as well.
____
5.0 - Campaigns/Scenarios:
____
5.1 - Campaign Mode:
With this last update, there is very little left to do
other than
minor tweaks and revisions. If anyone would like to submit
additional
information or possible strategies on any of the below
walkthroughs,
please email me at the address at the top. Additionally, I
would also
like to request for any submissions to be accompanied by the
type of
credit you would like (none, name, name/email, etc.) as well
as whether
or not I am allowed to edit any of your submission.
Thanks!
12/01/2016 8:59
34 of 109
the first
trips there-and-back, so your next stop will be Springfield.
Set up
one train from Springfield to Boston, and check inventories
at all stations to make sure that you don't have another hidden route,
such as a
possible Providence/Worcester route.
As profits start rolling in, the computer players will
probably
spring into action. One will likely connect New York City to
Edison,
and the other will likely build a track to nowhere. Just
ignore them.
By about 1845, your profits should be stable enough for you
to extend your lines to Hartford. Keep an eye on all inventories,
because
keeping a stable and profitable company is key right now.
After Hartford, connect Bridgeport. Then see about extending your
track to your
competitor's station in New York City. Don't worry about
possible profit loss connecting to your competitor; you probably won't
even give
your competitor $200k just for using his station through the
rest of
the scenario, and don't bother wasting money on a merger
either. Just
make sure you have *PLENTY* of trains, at least around ten or
so, that
all of them are making at least some profit, and that there
are enough
water towers and maintenance sheds for all the trains.
Now that you have a stable line in the East, it's time to
go north
along the Hudson River. Make sure that you try to go from
Bridgeport
across the smaller foothills along the edge of Long Island,
and then
move north along the Hudson. You may have to pause the game
in order
to find the best lines along the river, and make sure to use
the "undo"
key as much as needed. The track that is laid to
Poughkeepsie as well
as to Albany needs to be as level as you can make it WITHOUT
having to
resort to bridges over the Hudson River; those can be
expensive!
At about 1846 or so, a new train will appear -- the
Baldwin. Don't
bother upgrading the rest of your fleet of Norrises, just
start buying Baldwins for routes from Albany and Poughkeepsie to the
rest of
your tracks.
The money that can be made from the first few runs between
Albany and
the cities that previously couldn't get to Albany will be
12/01/2016 8:59
35 of 109
rather lucrative, and should give you about half the money you need for
your final
push. Remember that the ONLY GOAL is to be able to get to
Buffalo.
You don't need company value, or even to be profitable at the
end.
Therefore, build as far as you can and let bonds take you the
rest of
the way! At this point, still make sure that you can lay
track as
cheaply as possible, which means as level and as free of
bridges, but
feel free to float five or even ten bonds to connect the end
of the
line. All that has to happen is for Buffalo to be connected.
If you need any additional help, the game gives you a big
piece of
pie in 1848 - a paper will announce that the gold rush is on,
which
will bump passenger traffic by 50%. After that, you can also
choose
to invest $100k in train speed, to increase your trains by
15%. Don't
bother advertising, the 50% passenger increase should be more
than
enough to keep your trains stocked with revenue-producing
cargo. If
you need any additional revenue, these passengers will
provide it in
spades.
That's all there is to it! You should be able to make it
by 1850
or so as long as you keep making profitable trains and keep
laying
track, and as long as the economy stays relatively reasonable.
12/01/2016 8:59
36 of 109
You have
a few good areas to pick from, in my estimation:
Chicago/Milwaukee area (including Madison, Green Bay, etc.)
Davenport/Cedar Rapids/Minneapolis area.
Detroit/Toledo/Cleveland area.
Middle Indiana - Terre Haute/Indianapolis area.
You could also possibly try Cincinnati/Columbus as well,
but the
towns which carry the best stars tend to be in the north.
For this
scenario, both times I played and medalled I started in with
the third
set, Detroit/Toledo/Cleveland. The computer will usually
take the
Iowa/Minnesota region and will generally put at least one
other
railroad in Michigan -- either Kalamazoo/Holland, or
Lansing/Saginaw,
or maybe even both.
In this scenario, you do not have to worry about personal
net worth,
but I suggest that you pay attention to it anyway. In order
to force
mergers with companies, the best tactic is to own at least
half of
their company. This way, your own company can lowball the
merger price
and the remaining investors (as well as your competitor)
can't say a
thing about the merger. Of course, your railroad will grow
exponentially to begin with, so by all means invest in your
railroad as
much as possible to start and try to use your railroad to do
occasional
stock buybacks.
The best part about using the Detroit/Toledo/Cleveland
nexus is that
you have Cleveland already connected to two other profitable
cities.
Additionally, northern Ohio/northern Indiana do not have too
many
profitable towns to connect for a railroad track heading
west. Michigan does tend to have at least two one-star towns other than
Detroit
(usually Saginaw and Kalamazoo), a fun port in Holland which
tends to
demand a multitude of items, keeping prices high, and there
also tends
to be a lot of good supply buildings in Michigan, such as
iron mines
and dairy farms. As well, since the computer usually starts
at least
one railroad in Michigan and usually never expands past the
first two
connections, when you take that railroad over through merger
you will
be able to gain infrastructure while at the same time
accomplishing
gold-medal goals.
Now, another fun part that you can take advantage of if
12/01/2016 8:59
37 of 109
you'd like:
when you have a computer player setting up shop near you, do
not be
afraid to connect your track to theirs! If you are able to
get a track
that goes almost all the way to his own station (or better
yet connects
directly to the station), you will be able to then use his
station for
a pittance. When you're only using between 2% and 5% of
their "track",
that means that of a shipment of $100k, you will only have to
pay
either $2k up to $5k for that use. Just consider at that
point then
that if you needed to build a large station to accomodate
that town
just to avoid the usage fees, it would have taken you between
40-100
$100k shipments to pay for that large station.
And the SECOND fun bonus for connecting to opponent's track
is that
the computer will occasionally make the "shrewd" business
decision to
utilize this link to ship to your rail stations. At this
point now,
they're undertaking the shipment costs including fuel and
overhead and
will be giving YOU the "usage" costs. Even if you have a
short
connection of 60%, that's money that you're earning for not
even
lifting a finger. On top of that, the computer could be
shipping you
cargo that could be demanded highly by a station that's
farther down
your track. Therefore, you can take that cargo and earn even
more
profit from it! So don't be afraid to connect to your
opponents, it
will usually serve lucrative for you and may even serve
lucrative for
your opponent. Just make sure to start buying into the
company either
before or just when the link is completed with an eye towards
a merger.
For the industry profits, just identify production
buildings which
may not be profitable, and hook them up! Supply buildings are
cheapest, but unless you buy a lot of them and keep them
maintained
earning the profits will be tough. If you need to create a
new
industry vector, for instance if there are no lumber mills for
processing logs, then by all means build one! Try to make at
least
$500k profit per year within ten years' time, and shoot for
$1M per
year within the next five years after that. To illustrate,
$500k per
year would be either six to seven supply facilities (farms,
mines,
etc), two good production facilities, or one well-supplied
upgraded
12/01/2016 8:59
38 of 109
facility.
From here, micromanaging should be over. Make sure to
monitor the
supplies of materials at all of your stations though to build
as many
profitable runs as you can. Keep an eye on your profits,
issue bonds
if needed to reach larger towns or to buy/place new
facilities, and
keep heading west towards St. Louis! Of course, there's one
last issue
for a gold medal, which I will cover below.
I would like to just mention a couple words of warning
about mergers.
It is in your best interest to keep your personal net value
economically healthy in this scenario due to the above described
reason, buying
equity in other companies so that they can't resist merger
attempts.
Therefore, once the first three or so years passes, do not
margin your
personal net value heavily. Make sure that you have wiggle
room. Also,
make sure that you have a *controlled* buy-in, or that you
buy shares
in multiple lots. Holding SHIFT key while clicking on "buy"
for a
stock will let you buy 5,000 lots instead of the usual 1,000
lots. By
doing this, you will not pay as much for all 5,000 shares as
you would
have if you bought the stock 1,000 by 1,000.
When you view companies, they will have a book value and a
share
value. The book value is the price per share which
encompasses all of
their assets - track, trains, stations, facilities, even any
production
buildings they may own. The share value is a reflection on
the book
value PLUS the expectations that the company engenders; if
the company
is losing money, the share value will likely be lower than
book value.
Just because you may see a company with a book value $50 per
share and
a share value of $15, make sure you check it out before
jumping in
full-bore! The biggest issue with mergers is that any
financial liabilities that the company is dealing with are transferred to
the new
company. Therefore, you will be responsible for paying ALL
of their
bonds. If they have $2.5M in bonds, be sure you know about
it and can
absorb all of those bonds before you merge!
12/01/2016 8:59
39 of 109
12/01/2016 8:59
40 of 109
12/01/2016 8:59
41 of 109
the hill then feel free to use Shays if you'd like. Build
over to Carson shortly afterward, but make sure that you don't
unnecessarily use
track. At this point, take some time to create more train
routes,
keeping in mind that you may not want four-car loads on trips
going to
Reno or Carson due to the incline.
A single track going up the Sierra Nevada will get clogged
extremely
quickly if you start scheduling trains from California to
Reno or Carson. If you build only one length of double-track in this
game, building it up the stairway itself would probably be best.
Around 1860 or so, the Consolidation engine will come
available. It
climbs hills far better than the American, and is faster over
flat land
than the Shay. At least make sure to replace your mountain
trains with
the Consolidation, if not all of them, and use them for the
rest of the
game. Also around this time, the Civil War will break out,
and this
will result in increased costs for weapons and ammunition. I
hope you
have one of these factories about, as the bonus is extremely
nice.
After you get to Carson, make sure that your railroad is
pulling in
good money from its routes and that you haven't missed too
many other
profitable routes. From Carson, you will have to get to Salt
Lake City
and you will likely run out of track before you get there,
well before
if you had to bulldoze any track. If you want to build the
direct way,
up and down hills, it will save you track but cost a ton and
will be
impractical for finishing the gold-medal restrictions. The
best path I
found through the rolling intermountain region is to stick
towards the
south. You still may have to deal with some higher grades if
you take
the Gabbs - Tonopah corridor, but it will be rather
reasonable for the
most part. As well, this way you can connect many of the
larger towns
of Utah on your way to Salt Lake City (such as Provo,
Fillmore, Cedar
City, etc.). Remember that if you run out of track to lay to
just wait
until next year, and make sure that you're still getting as
much profit
as possible.
As long as you are able to make the connection by about
1870, you
should hopefully be able to complete the gold-medal
12/01/2016 8:59
42 of 109
restrictions. Just
build one- or two-car troop trains and make sure to send them
off as
SOON as you see more troops come available. Set all your
troop trains
to highest priority, and force them to carry not only troops
but a
caboose as well. I was able to obtain gold by 1874 after
making the
Salt Lake City connection by January 1870.
12/01/2016 8:59
43 of 109
bronze
medal requires you to ship at least fifty loads of oil to
boot.
Therefore, start! My suggestion is to start with only a
limited
amount of capitalization, enough for you to be able to
connect two
cities by rail, buy two stations, one train, and perhaps one
water
tower. You should at least keep 20% of your company in the
initial
capitalization phase. As for towns to connect, the easy
choice would
be Dallas and Fort Worth. The fun part is that you can
actually SEE
how Fort Worth pretty much becomes a Dallas suburb if you
start here;
both towns will start to grow into one another as you provide
rail
service through the course of twenty-five years. Other
options for
starting are Austin and any other smaller town, and Houston to
Beaumont.
Following your starting location, my suggestion is to start
building
to the starting location you didn't take. If you did not
connect
Dallas to begin with, try to get there even if the computer
takes it.
Feel free to connect to his track too; as your company gets
bigger, you
can swallow his railroad up in a few years. If you started
in Dallas
and Fort Worth, my suggestion is to try to get down to the
Beaumont and
Houston area; it's long, straight, flat land and the length
of the
track will allow for higher-priced loads.
Before too long, you also want to check the map for oil.
Fifty loads
in thirty years may not be too difficult, but in reality by
the time
you find and connect oil into your lines you could
conceivably have
twenty-five or even twenty years left, meaning that you
should shoot
for at least two loads of oil yearly. Whenever I've played
this map,
Nagodoches has a supply of oil and since it's in the eastern
part of
the map, by all means stay in the east for now. As well,
Shreveport
is a valuable town to connect because their warehouses demand
goods,
which will keep prices higher.
As you go along, just keep adding connections and buying
industries
which seem profitable. Don't worry about Mexico for a while,
especially since their access rights are extremely expensive
-- $10M.
Around 1894 or so, Mexico will offer you a major sweetheart
deal: you
12/01/2016 8:59
44 of 109
can obtain access rights for only $50k as long as you connect
Monterrey
to the U.S. within five years. Laugh and take the deal,
because guess
what... all you need to do is to connect Monterrey (with
whatever
station you desire) to McAllen, Texas, just across the Rio
Grande. You
don't have to build connected track, remember? Better yet,
Monterrey's
warehouse provides 4 coffee per year, and McAllen will demand
coffee at
least initially. There are zero coffee farms on the Texas
side of the
border, but you may also find one or two more coffee farms in
Mexico
near this area too. Just build any station in Monterrey, the
track, a
water tower and maintenance shed, and any station in
McAllen. It may
cost $500k to $650k after all of this, but having the coffee
connection
started and getting cheap rights to Mexico is worth it.
Don't be afraid to go north, either. In my game, I found
that all of
the dairy farms were to the north, and milk became a
sufficiently demanded cargo throughout my lines that it was worth connecting
Oklahoma
City, Lawton, and Tulsa. By all means keep in mind the
possible opportunity costs, as Monterrey also became extremely lucrative
through their
textile mill once I connected to McAllen. You can always
check prices
through both the station dialogue box by clicking on specific
commodities, and also through the globe icon. Expansion is very
necessary in
this game though, and don't forget about connecting to your
opponents'
track too!
Electric trains will be introduced in the early part of the
1900s.
Electrifying track may cost $3M or thereabouts by the time
this happens
depending on your expansionistic habits, but the train
(2-D-2) is a
definite upgrade over the majority of the trains you already
have. Its
top speed is higher, doesn't have to stop at too many water
towers, and
only costs $50k to boot. Upgrading all your trains may end
up costing
another $1M or so as well; so just make sure that you can get
a definite return on the $4M or so you may be spending for this,
especially
considering it's more than 25% of your final goal.
Later in the scenario, you will get an additional boost Beaumont
will "discover" oil, which means that there will be new oil
derricks
12/01/2016 8:59
45 of 109
12/01/2016 8:59
46 of 109
Time Frame:
(4 days)
STATION
Philadelphia
New York
Allentown
New York
Dover
New York
Balitmore
New York
Washington D.C
New York
Harrisonburg
Winchester
New York
Cumberland
Roanoke
Norfolk
CARGO
4 Any Cargo
None
4 Any Cargo
None
4 Ammo
None
6 Weapons
None
6 Ammo
None
1 Ammo
1 Ammo 6 Weapon
None
2 Clothing
2 Clothing 4 Cheese
None
CABOOSE?
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
12/01/2016 8:59
47 of 109
This train should not break down thanks to all the cabooses
you have
and its high reliability. If it does, don't worry, there is
plenty of
time for it to repair and keep on schedule.
After day 2 (12 Dec) you'll get to choose another train.
Choose the
Pacific 4-6-2 near Charlottesville. This is a powerful steam
engine
with a top speed of 95 mph.
Here's your complete routing schedule for the Pacific 4-6-2.
STOP
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
STATION
Dale City
Norfolk
Danville
Norfolk
Salisbury
Norfolk
Lynchburg
Norfolk
Roanoke
Norfolk
CARGO
4 Fuel
None
6 Fuel
None
5 Any Cargo
None
8 Clothing
None
6 Meat
None
CABOOSE?
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
N
Y
Y
Y
STATION
Altoona
Pittsburg
Norfolk
Baltimore
Norfolk
CARGO
4 Cheese
4 Cheese 4 Meat
None
2 Cheese
None
CABOOSE?
Y
N
Y
Y
Y
Every time I've played this scenario with the above routing
schedule
the GG-1 is the only train that breaks down and every time it
makes for
some nail biting suspense. However, as long as the GG-1
breaks down
only once your last load of cheese will roll into Norfolk at
around
5:00am on the final day.
Congrats, you've made it!
12/01/2016 8:59
48 of 109
12/01/2016 8:59
49 of 109
If
12/01/2016 8:59
50 of 109
12/01/2016 8:59
51 of 109
12/01/2016 8:59
52 of 109
12/01/2016 8:59
53 of 109
first
5-10 years. One can get a rough return on investment
percentage by
comparing the asking price to the last year's earnings.
it is more
than your current cost of capital, buy it.
If
The problem with running trains early in the game is that you
have to
pay for maintenance on track and stations, and so forth.
The real trick is to issue as much debt as possible in boom
times when
the capital is cheap. I always ended up maxing out my debt
long before
the end of the game.
Another trick is to issue stock in boom times, and buy it
back in busts.
I generally do about one stock buy back per year in down
turns and two
stock issues in boom times. Sell high, buy low is not
exactly a "new"
trick though.
5.1.7 -
12/01/2016 8:59
54 of 109
if you
don't get in soon enough and hard enough it may be
exceedingly difficult to perform a merger. Therefore, start using your
personal wealth
and also your dividend to start owning pieces of the other
companies
with an eye to purchasing them. Of course, it may also
happen that at
least one of the two railroads will be barely solvent too.
Don't worry if you have to start with Planets or Adlers.
The game
will offer Beuth engines after a while, and all you have to
do is just
replace the slower engines with the Beuths. You will also
have the
chance and money to double-track roads which have very high
traffic,
so by all means provide the double-track. If your Planets or
Adlers
gave you a bad speed through the first five to ten years, as
long as
your speed is at least nine you should be able to raise it
enough and
in time once the Beuths arrive.
At this time, you should be getting at least $500k to $800k
profit
yearly. Connect Ireland together from Belfast through
Dundalk to Dublin. (Mind the hill here, make a sharp turn). Go through to
Wexford
when you can afford it. Ireland is a good place to make
additional
profit without a high cost.
From here, feel free to connect the northern parts of
England.
Leeds to Kingston-upon-Hull, then north to at least
Middlesbrough.
Then connect Scotland up; Glascow to Edinburgh first, then
add Ayr and
Dundee. The northern parts can provide a decent profit, and
can be
connected to each other easily.
Following this, make sure that you can buy out the
railroad(s) which
might still be remaining. Likely, one will be Liverpool to
Manchester,
and it is highly doubtful if they expanded due to your
claiming
Birmingham almost immediately. Just buy them out, connect
the two
ends, and sit back and enjoy.
For reference, passengers are rather lucrative on this
map. There
is an event which happens early on which will be a famine.
You can
choose though to provide your food at regular cost. I think
that this
means that at (grain, corn, livestock, dairy) farms and
orchards you
own that you will charge less than if you chose no. It does
12/01/2016 8:59
55 of 109
seem to
be worth the money, because unless you make a major capital
investment
quickly in the game, you will likely not have any food
farms. I am
unaware if this also applies to meat or alcohol.
Anyway, the rate at which you choose to lower your food
costs will
be repaid back a few years later in an increase to passengers
at the
same rate. It may be a good idea for you to decide exactly
how you
are planning to make your money, but I do believe that the
passenger
bonus you receive later is more than enough reason to cut
food costs;
the infrastructure you should have set up for this increase
in passengers should be far better than the one you had to begin with
for increased food.
12/01/2016 8:59
56 of 109
worrying
about bronze. Going north from Verona will be a direct path
to Munich
but not to Zurich, but it really is the best path. Trento
and Bolzano
may be small, but they are cities nonetheless. In my games,
I found
out that they also will take weapons at an even higher demand
than
Verona. Amazingly enough, the price for weapons at Munich is
such a
high pull that the Tycoonatrons will attempt to make the rest
of the
distance.
Therefore, the next best step is to buy into Austria and
then to
Germany to finish the connection to Munich. If you are able
to wait
until March 1889, you will receive a pretty decent benefit:
tunnel
building decreases by 15% (due to invention of cordite).
Your tunnel
will still probably cost about $2.4M or so, but it is such a
nice way
to finish off the mountain track-building and it will make
getting
trains to Munich that much easier.
When you can start running trains to Munich, you will get
major profits. Your first train will likely be worth at least $750k
and may
even be worth all the way to $1.1M, so it really is in your
best interest to get it all the way to Munich as quickly as
possible. The
gold medal restrictions are the best way for you to finish
the map by
finishing your bronze medal restrictions.
By the time you transport all the weapons you'll need, you
should
have enough money to transverse the mostly flat land between
Munich
and Switzerland, and the vague small hills you'll encounter
when you
get there. It's far cheaper to build from Munich to Zurich,
and far
more lucrative to get to Munich first. The game will not
care if you
did not build a direct connection between Milan and Zurich,
after all.
Just remember to pause the game before laying track, and
the "undo"
button is definitely your best friend in this scenario.
12/01/2016 8:59
57 of 109
12/01/2016 8:59
58 of 109
to take
the offer. It will really start to shine once you get about
twenty
engines or so and you've been operating them for a couple
years.
In January of 1872, you will receive an offer to receive a
$500k
payment, essentially a letter of credit, for $700k to be paid
in three
years. As your bond market will still be rather bad, I would
suggest
obtaining this money because seed money is extremely
important in this
game. Besides, the $700k which will be taken out does not
actually
require your company have $700k for it to pay back; it will
just deduct
whatever number you have by $700k, even if it is negative
already.
About 1875 or so, France will announce a bonus for shipping
the most
freight. This includes passengers or cargo, for your
information.
The prize is $50k in *personal* net worth directly to the
chairman.
Through this method, the game will rapidly become unfair. I
have been
able to keep pace with tycoons purely with the $50k bonus
without even
having stock in the stock market to appreciate in value.
Unlike other games, do NOT bother connecting opponent's
track to
your own. This will usually help their own companies more
than it
will help your own, and since they start with an advantage
anyway you
may as well just build your own stations.
The method to your operations shouldn't be too difficult.
As you
see, you need both a good company book value as well as a
good industry profit. So the best idea is to purchase industries which
may not
be doing as well to maximize their production.
If you're getting stuck on industry profits towards the
end, there
is usually a steel mill near or at Angers that is just
lacking iron.
(Coal should come through the nearby ports.) Run a track
south
through Lyons and into Marseilles area, where you can find a
ton of
cheap iron. Before the iron gets to Angers, buy the steel
mill. The
profits that you can make from the steel mill can be
reinvested to any
tool and die shops you may be able to locate and supply.
12/01/2016 8:59
59 of 109
Vienna to Istanbul
Vienna to Istanbul, average express
You'll
I know that I'm not the only person who has had a problem
trying to
get gold in this scenario, and I have tried it so many times
and could
tell you of so many different starting positions. But I
learned more
than a few techniques which may work for you for this
scenario, and
hopefully you will be able to get a gold medal too!
The map you are given is a rather sprawling map and the
Carpathian
Mountains will be a major hurdle depending on the path you
take. Vienna is in the upper left-hand portion of the map looking
from the
south while Istanbul occupies the lower right-hand portion.
Therefore,
just to earn a medal you have to figure out a way to lay
track enough
to cross this whole map.
Additionally, when you start a company, you are given
access rights
only for Austria-Hungary. This is a rich territory, and
because of the
number of towns plus the number of larger cities it is the
best start
you can hope for. Unfortunately, you will also find out that
the remaining territories are extremely expensive with only one
trifling
exception. Romania and Bosnia carry $1M pricetags, Bulgaria
charges
$3M for access, Serbia's price is $3M, and the Ottoman Empire
requires
a whopping $5M to build track and run trains. That's some
heavy money
there!
Your personal net worth will also be a major issue if gold
is your
goal. You can engage in dirty tricks, like starting new
companies and
other things, but overall you have to make sure that your
company turns
a good profit and that the stock is well-valued because
starting slow
12/01/2016 8:59
60 of 109
12/01/2016 8:59
61 of 109
12/01/2016 8:59
62 of 109
12/01/2016 8:59
63 of 109
12/01/2016 8:59
64 of 109
12/01/2016 8:59
65 of 109
12/01/2016 8:59
66 of 109
investment,
you may not be able to dedicate these trains.
For my gold-medal game, I found that Vienna was just north
of a series of five orchards that were also east of Szombathely.
Therefore,
I bought the distillery in Vienna for $850k, floated a bond,
built a
large station in Vienna and then a medium station in the
orchards which
captured four out of the five buildings. Then I just shipped
fruit to
vienna to begin with. This provided my railroad with a
profit of about
$300k in the first year between modest freight returns on
fruit and
good returns on my new distillery. Following this, I floated
a bond
to connect to Szombathely proper and then to connect to
Bratislava and
to Zalaegerszeg.
An alternate likely strategy requires Szombathely to have a
paper
mill. In every game that I have started, Vienna had at least
one warehouse which provided 1 unit of pulpwood per year. This
pulpwood can be
shipped to Szombathely to a decent profit, and hopefully
Vienna is producing enough pulpwood to keep the mill running and hopefully
profitable. The paper mill should be around $550k to purchase.
At this point, I pursued passenger traffic, and came up
with the
this strategy:
Passengers and mail at normal difficulty in the
Vienna/Bratislava/
Zagreb/Budapest area fetch about $20k per load. Keeping a
track speed
of greater than thirty miles per hour requires you to not
only buy
Stirlings, as nothing else will possibly match the speed, but
you cannot overload them. Passenger trains also have to be
scheduled very delicately, as time spent either at the maintenance shed or at
the water
tower with passengers is time spent at zero miles per hour.
Any breakdown or crash will decimate your averages to boot.
Therefore, the rules for passenger trains are as follows:
1) ALWAYS add a caboose to any express loads for the 50%
reliability
bonus.
2) ALWAYS make sure your flags are set to "express" (green
arrow) for
any passenger trains.
3) When your Stirling either gets to twelve years old, or
12/01/2016 8:59
67 of 109
starts to
show a breakdown percentage above 40%, it is time to move
this Stirling
to either cargo duty OR to retire it.
4) Alternately, make sure that none of the rest of your
fleet of
trains has a breakdown percentage above 60%. These trains
will block
your tracks and they will stop your expresses if you have the
misfortune of having your older trains break down in front of
your expresses.
5) Therefore, also build sufficient maintenance sheds.
6) Double-track as many passenger routes as economically
possible.
7) Make sure that the track is as flat as you can make it
and as
straight as you can make it; curves can cut speed just like
mountains.
8) As mentioned above, save often.
That's a lot of hassle for passenger routes already, isn't
it? Guess
what, there's also more. The above rules will keep you to a
silvermedal level, above 20MPH comfortably. In order to achieve
gold-medal
service, you also have to learn how to schedule your trains.
Here's
my recommendation for station scheduling from vienna to
Bratislava
(short-length passenger routes):
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
On longer routes, you will have to face the fact that your
trains
will need to have stops along the way, with passengers, at
water towers. It is unavoidable. But if you can cut these stops to
the minimum
you can still keep an above-30MPH speed, especially if you
are able to
send trains with express as close to 100% watered as possible.
12/01/2016 8:59
68 of 109
12/01/2016 8:59
69 of 109
coal mine.
Additionally, there will also likely be a meat packing plant
in Zagreb
or Varazdin, or even a logging camp or two. Therefore, you
have a lot
of options as far as industry investment goes. You can
attempt to buy
into one of the profitable companies provided the cost is not
too high
(even BEFORE you get into Varazdin), you may find a supply
such as a
cattle or dairy farm that you could invest in, or you could
even build
your own facility. The prices below are for self-built
facilities,
without the 30% bonus you may have chosen:
Paper Mill: $900k
Lumber Mill: $1.5M
Meat Packaging Plant: $1.5M
Steel Mill: $2.7M
(Tool & Die: $1.5M)
Don't let the steel mill scare you off; even if you're not
quite
connected to a town which demands steel, a tool and die does
not cost
that much extra. Besides, look at the costs; one coal plus
one iron
could possibly equal $90 while TWO steel will likely equal
$340, which
means that the first step will be $250 of revenue with the
mill (and
the limit is 10 per year, which is not a small amount.) Then
if it is
transformed by the tool and die, one goes from about $190
(the demanded
cost will be greater, remember, but you will hopefully make
the profit
by hauling it in YOUR trains) to around $330. A tool and die
will only
process three steel per year without an upgrade, but it will
still make
a tidy profit. Most importantly, because the Tycoonatrons
abound in
this map in Western Austria, most prices do NOT fluctuate and
the ones
that do fluctuate only do so by a possible maximum of 5%.
Make sure that if you do buy a steel mill that there are
enough
buyers for your product. You may be looking at your mill and
seeing
that it produces 10 or 11 units of steel per year, and
therefore earning a large profit for the time being. But if the local tool
and die
facilities all fill up with enough steel, then you will have
to find
other buyers to keep your prices up. Goods, on the other
hand, have a
lot of buyers and it takes a lot of goods in order for the
market to
move even a bit due to the Tycoonatrons.
By all means though, if you can't afford the $2.7M that a
12/01/2016 8:59
70 of 109
steel mill
will cost, then either build or buy a lumber mill or a paper
mill.
Logs will also have an $80-$100 price gap to lumber, and wood
pulp may
have an even greater price gap to begin with. As far as
these two
facilities go, the lumber mill produces five units per year
while the
paper mill handles three. Check your supplies!
Don't worry if you are floating a lot of bonds at this
point as long
as your facilites are profitable. Two 10% bonds will cost
$100k in
interest, so if you are making more than $100k in profit then
the bonds
are justifiable. In the early going, floating bonds to
purchase wellsupplied facilities or well-transported supply commodities is
worth the
risk as guaranteed income will keep your stock prices high,
enable you
to set a dividend (albeit small) and keep your credit rating
high so
that the cost of your capital is cheaper.
Of course, you still need to build track to connect Vienna
to Istanbul and you need to get a net worth over $15M. Make sure
that your
character is buying into your company (and others if they
look profitable) as well as making sure that your company can buy back
when it has
the chance. Connect into a town when you know that the goods
you are
producing are demanded in the town. You can find this out by
clicking
on the station which supplies the goods and click on the good
in question. For instance, clicking on Vienna station and then
clicking on
the alcohol car will pop up prices for alcohol throughout the
map which
are in relation to Vienna's price, such as $+3 for Gyor or
$-10 for
Budapest. You will find very few $+30s, but keep your eyes
peeled for
the best next town to connect to. Just like your companies
need to be
profitable, so do your trains.
As with other games, there will be a number of special
messages popping up throughout. The first is a rather important one
about Jules
Verne, saying that you need to connect to Zagreb for further
information. When you connect to Zagreb, you will find out that
monks in
Chisinau can provide you with engineering information, and
the price
is that Chisinau has to be connected with three loads of beef
shipped
there. Put that info aside, you can't act on it yet.
12/01/2016 8:59
71 of 109
12/01/2016 8:59
72 of 109
(or orca, really) and it moves FAST. It's also cheaper than
a Stirling
as well, at only $100k per engine. It can take four cars at
120MPH as
well as take hills relatively decently. If you're under
30MPH for your
speed, changing out all of your express engines with Orcas
should raise
your speed above 30MPH without too many problems. If,
however, you are
under 25MPH for average speed, you will likely have a problem
in raissing your average, especially if you've already hauled around
50 or so
express cars. The Orca is even cheaper than your
Consolidations, so
you may find advantage in retiring your Consolidation trains
as well.
The Orca will also enable you to allow for less trains on
your track as
they are so fast that using them for cargo routes may drain
all of the
available cargoes in certain locations.
Once you have Russia finished for the time being, you can
focus on
either more of Russia (as there are more than a few towns in
the Chisinau area) or you can refocus your attention on Austria. My
suggestion
at this point is to at *least* double-track what you can and
also to
even give some thought to electrifying if given the option.
Refinance
any bonds you can as well, as 7% is far better than even 11%
and the
refinance fee is only $20k - which is made up in only one
year for refinancing for at least 4% less.
Pay attention to your net worth too! If you forget about
this, all
of the other instructions above will be useless, and getting
that $15M
in net worth is not easy on this scenario!
If you haven't built a steel mill yet, you may want to give
good
thought to doing so soon. Of course, Belgrade has a steel
mill, and
so does Chernivsti, but Chernivsti is on the wrong side of
the Carpathians. If your coal and iron sources are close why bother
spending
all the money to buy into Serbia ($3M, more expensive than
building) or
laying track all the way through the mountains in the
northeast? Zagreb is a favorable place for a steel mill, and you should be
clearing
$600k to $700k yearly on a non-upgraded steel mill if it is
fully supplied. My experience is that the steel mill may not be
immediately
supplied however, so just be patient with it as prices
realign. You
12/01/2016 8:59
73 of 109
12/01/2016 8:59
74 of 109
12/01/2016 8:59
75 of 109
12/01/2016 8:59
76 of 109
has been
shut down, but in the early going issuing stock is not worth
a lot.
You can still issue bonds, and your ability to do so is rather
important considering the industry profit instructions of the
Silver
and Gold medal requirements.
Very early in the scenario, representatives from Britain,
France,
and the U.S. will arrive. Each provides a different bonus,
and also
different trains.
British: 30% faster turnaround, fuel costs 25% cheaper
British train: Stirling - $140k, top speed at 4 cars, 0%:
63MPH
(Accel: Above Avg.)
French: Track-laying costs reduced by 20%
French trains: Crampton - $100k, top speed at 4 cars, 0%:
52MPH
(Accel: Avg.)
American: Industry purchasing costs reduced by 25%
American Train: Eight-Wheeler - $180K, top speed at 4 cars,
79MPH
(Accel: Above Avg.)
All sets get:
Consolidated - $120K, top speed at 4 cars, 0% grade: 60MPH
(Accel: Below Avg.)
Shay - $40K, top speed 24MPH
Fairlie - $15K, top speek 16MPH
The choices may remind you a bit of Railroad Tycoon 2, eh?
As far as bonuses go, the U.S. bonus is best. As far as
trains go,
the US bonus is also best. I was able to play and win this
scenario
with American assistance. Using the Crampton (France) seems
almost
useless, as it's slower and less-valuable than the
Consolidated
anyway, and the Stirling only has a better acceleration to
recommend
it. Besides, saving over and above $500k at a time buying
industries
is well worth the assist, especially since that means you can
buy
industries earlier.
To begin with, you should notice what is most important to
haul to
start. That's right, meat. The highest number of hauled
loads for
gold will be of meat, so therefore you should find the
largest twostar town with a meat packaging plant in it. Before building
though.
check the meat packaging plant to make sure that it is
turning a
profit, which means that it's already supplied by the native
transportation, and is able to produce beef for you to haul.
Most
12/01/2016 8:59
77 of 109
12/01/2016 8:59
78 of 109
12/01/2016 8:59
79 of 109
12/01/2016 8:59
80 of 109
(3-Star) City
(Beef:0.0)
12/01/2016 8:59
81 of 109
12/01/2016 8:59
82 of 109
12/01/2016 8:59
83 of 109
2-D-2. will
be your salvation. It's only $50k per train, it takes hills
well, and
makes it so that you need FAR fewer water towers (sanding
stations) to
boot.
The rest of the map is rather straightforward once the
money starts
rolling in from Tabora for raw materials. Again, make sure
you're
aware that passenger traffic is not your main source of
income. As
far as completing the requirements for gold, do two
branches. One
branch from Dodoma going east to Nairobi, and one branch
(through
Tabora) going west and north all the way to Juba. Always
remember
that you can satisfy the requirement of "connection" even by
building
an insanely stupid track between Nairobi and Juba too as long
as you
already have the $35M book value.
12/01/2016 8:59
84 of 109
12/01/2016 8:59
85 of 109
12/01/2016 8:59
86 of 109
12/01/2016 8:59
87 of 109
Okay...
I've been rather neglectful of this part of the FAQ. It's
pretty much because I've been neglectful of the FAQ as a
whole for
a while. There are many people who I need to both thank and
apologize to, and here's the list:
G4
Timo Test
JJ
Henry Lin
All of these readers stepped up with walkthroughs for this
scenario. I have not playtested any of the walkthroughs, so
I will
present them completely below. Therefore, if you have any
questions
regarding one, you may be able to look at another, 'cause the
author
of the FAQ probably won't be able to assist.
Without further ado, the hard work of the three
contributors:
***
(Scenario #14 Walkthrough 1:)
Some hints first:
- Be sure to uncheck the railroad icon after
building/removing tracks.
- Use Fast gamespeed to drive and Pause the game during other
instructions.
- Whenever the train starts driving, be sure to check whether
the
intended station it is heading to is marked with a green
arrow.
Here's a step by step approach to reach a Gold medal.
If the mentioned milestones do not match your current values,
don't
worry.
There is a total margin of about 6 hours, 1000 squares and 65
tracks.
First connect the bridge over The Western Melt, if you do it
right, you
will still have 232 Tracks available.
Add The Glacier Station 01 to the train route.
Drive to Glacier Station 01 (arrival: 11.50 PM, 3874 sq.),
then Pause.
Connect the northern bridge over the Glacier Lake,
you will then have 219 Tracks available.
12/01/2016 8:59
88 of 109
12/01/2016 8:59
89 of 109
River. Pause.
Destroy the north bridge over the Kong Christian river to
Glydenlove
Labs
(the train just drove over it).
Build a new bridge over Kong Christian, by connecting the
unconnected
track west from Glydenlove Labs to the other side of the
river.
Still available track is now 186.
Add Glydenlove Labs to the route.
Remove Bravo Maintenance Facility 3 from the route.
Remove the track behind the train, so it won't go back.
Drive until the train passed the second bridge over Kong
Frederik
bridge.
Pause (6.05 AM).
Remove track in front of the train so it will take an
alternative
route over the Kong Frederik river (one bridge south).
When at Glydenlove Labs again (9.25 AM, 17226 sq.),
add Ninnak Observatory to the train route.
Drive until the train reaches The Lower Draw (11.40 AM) and
Pause.
Remove a track at the rear of the train, so there is no route
back.
Connect the middle rail that allows the train drive back
to Glydenlove Labs (168 left).
Add Glydenlove Labs to the route, remove Ninnak Observatory.
Drive to the bridge near Glydenlove Labs (1.20 PM), Pause.
Destroy the way back by removing some tracks behind the train.
Connect the third track to Ninnak Observatory (at The Lower
Draw),
which still leaves you 150 tracks available.
Add Ninnak Observatory to the route, remove Glydenlove Labs.
Drive to Ninnak and Pause. (5.05 PM, 21022 sq.)
Now it is time to connect Ninnak Observatory to Nuuk. You
have 150
tracks
available and you can use as many tunnels and bridges as you
like.
With a tunnel, you will still have about 65 tracks remaining.
Without a tunnel you will have only 55 tracks remaining, but
you will
seed more squares.
Add Nuuk, Narsaq and Neria to the station list and let the
train drive
until you receive the Gold medal. I got Gold at 8:00 PM, near
Qassimiut.
If you still need more squares, you can connect Narsaq (using
47
tracks)
to Research Station - Charlie and make the train stop there
as well.
***
12/01/2016 8:59
90 of 109
12/01/2016 8:59
91 of 109
proceeding south on
the second path. Similarly, once it is solidly on the second
path and
heading south, cut a small section of track behind it to
prevent it from
returning north on this path.
Now remove Ninak from it's destinations and set it's new
destination
to Research Station - Bravo. The train will head south, turn
onto the
third north-south track, and head north again. It will then
head west
past (and north of) the cutoff to Glyndenlove, and onto the
set of
track that was initially a dead-end. When it is securely on
this path,
cut a small section of track behind it and repair the cut you
made up
north. Also repair the cut made on the first north-south
track between
Ninak and Glyndenlove, then change it's destination to
Glyndenlove, and
then add Research Station Bravo after Glyndenlove. The train
will
continue along the path, turn east at the bridge, and head
around to
Glyndenlove. It will then proceed south-west, and start along
a path
to Research Station Bravo.
About when it has reached the overpass by Research Station
Alpha, make
a small cut behind it and divert it back to Glyndenlove
again. When it
has turned the corner and is heading east again, make a small
cut on
the west-east track it is now on. Also, make a small cut on
the
connecting track between the loop it is currently making and
the northsouth Ninak to Glyndenlove track it came from.
Cut the north-south track on the east side of Glacier Lake
before
either bridge. Cut the north-south track just east of this
one in
between the top and second horizontal crossing and between
third and
fourth horizontal crossings; cut the north-south track two
east
between the second and third horizontal crossing. This will
cause the
train to proceed up in a somewhat zig-zag fashion. When it is
near
the top of the map, send it back to Research Station Bravo
instead,
but make a small cut just north of Bravo so the train has to
proceed
around the full loop.
From Bravo, the train should be sent onwards to Research
Station
charlie. When it reaches Charlie, make a connection between
the top
12/01/2016 8:59
92 of 109
12/01/2016 8:59
93 of 109
matches the
mini-map and this walkthrough is based on the mini-map
orientation. When
locating sites in the map, the notations Up / Down / Left /
Right are
used in place of North / South / West / East. This game is
puzzle of maze
and it is easier if you treat it so.
2) In this walkthrough, the word "site" to refer to places
where you
lay or bulldoze tracks and the word "task" refer to the
related track
laying or bulldozing work. In some of the sites, I put names
to landmark
locations so they can be easily referred to in the task. You
can just
forget the names after complete the tasks.
3) It's hard describing route in a text file, some
notations have to
be made to describe how train react to branch-in and
branch-out
junctions.
A branch-out junctions let train exit or divert from
current track
line by going right or left. A branch-in means junctions let
train enter
a track line.
Trains facing a branch-in usually pass through it but
sometimes, the
train just pass that branch-in a bit, switch direction and
use that
previous branch-in to leave the track line. After switching
direction, the
previously called branch-in instantly become branch-out.
The Left and Right notations below are always relative to
the
locomotive's current heading direction.
--L-R-vL-vR-pv-->
--*
12/01/2016 8:59
94 of 109
12/01/2016 8:59
95 of 109
12/01/2016 8:59
96 of 109
Load the game you saved before you test your train. Let's
work on
phase 2 now.
Site 8: Find Research Station Alpha. There is an immediate
horizontal
track above it with an overpass in the middle. Let's name it
AlphaOverpass. It go right, then go up and meet a very small
triangle
junction. Task: Make a cut where the triangle junction
touch track
from AlphaOverpass. You should have broken the triangle a
bit.
Site 9: Find Glacier Run (river) and you also see a
horizontal bridge.
Just below the right end of the bridge, there are two
sections of
curved tracks connecting 3 right bound tracks making a
12/01/2016 8:59
97 of 109
tracks in this
Zone looks like a letter E.
Task: Make a cut midway in upper curved band, it should not
touch any
junction though.
Site 10: Follow Kong Federik River to the top and you will
see a 1 x 4
retangular shaped track layouts. The top 3 rectangles have
looped
junctions while the bottom one has its lower edge extened
out the left
edge. Let's name them top down as Rectangles R1, R2, R3 and
R4. In the 4
tasks below, do not break any junctions when you make a cut.
Tasks:
(1) For R1, make a cut midway down its left edge.
(2) For R2, make a cut midway down its right edge.
(3) For R3, make a cut midway down its left edge.
(4) For R4, make a cut midway accross its bottom edge.
Update
12.
13.
14.
Load your last saved game. Did you see your train can visit
Glacier
Station 01 without making any changes? But you will still be
short in
mileage for Gold Medal. So let's work out the Gold Medal.
Site 11: Find the track section connecting Research Station
Bravo.
Task: Make a cut to the track slightly above the station.
12/01/2016 8:59
98 of 109
Site 12: Find Narsaq station and the track connecting it.
Task: Make a cut to that track just on left hand side of
Narsaq.
Then update your train schedule by adding the last station:
15. Glacier Station 01
If you followed the advice and consistently saved your game
before
every phase test run and reload them before continue to next
phase, your
train should still be waiting in Fiskenaesset. You can now
run your
train through Pathes from Phase 1(updated) to Phase 2 to
Phase 3 in a
single journey.
Save the game to a new filename (say Scn14-Phase3). Then
change the
game speed to SLOW and watch the train's path.
New Intended Path - Phase 1 (Update marked between {}):
Fiskenaesset --> Avigaat --> Neria --R--> Invituut Junction
-->
Qassimiut --{--L--vL--R--p--> Narsaq v--R--p--}--> Tuapaat
--> Nanortalik
--> Nuuk --> tunnel --vR--> Ninnak Observatory
v--p--R--p--R--p--L--R--L--p--R--p--> Glydenlove Labs
Intended Path - Phase 3:
-(Repeat path - Phase 1 & 2)- v--R--p--R--L--p--p--p-L--R--> Glacier
Station 01 --vL--p--*Neria--*Avigaat--> Fiskenaesset
Note: Trains always loop back to first station after
finishing all
scheduled station so you see Neria - Fiskenaesset again.
Pause the game when your train come down pass Neria again.
Press [A]
to open the Game Status Ledger. Your train should have
seeded 23102
miles of Greenland, and you get Gold Medal almost instantly,
BINGO!
Congratulation, please jump to the section Final Awards and
Conclusion.
*
Some of you might have overwritten saved games for previous
phases
(my case while trying the fisrt time), and only have a last
saved game
that your train is waiting in Research Station Bravo, you
train can still
visit modified Narsaq area. Just add 1 more station to your
train
schedule:
16. Narsaq
Save the game. Then change the game speed to SLOW and watch
the
train's path.
12/01/2016 8:59
99 of 109
This scenario does not randomize and the same track maze
appear in
Easy, Normal and Hard games and I find they run similarly.
Tell me
immediately if you find differences
Thanks for reading, Good Day!
***
12/01/2016 8:59
100 of 109
multiple
companies.
First choice is between diesel and electric trains. Either
one
should accomplish what you would like, though I lean toward
the electric trains personally.
Start at Kiel / Hamburg / Schwerin / Rostock area. Soon,
you will
get a message asking you to haul cheese; five loads yearly
will net a
$300k bonus.
The first method to making money is to connect dairy farms
to dairy
processors; buy them if you would like. Next would be to
connect
waste to a recycling plant; buy your own recycling plant for
more income. The recycling plants will provide the materials that
your tool
and dies need, buy those too if possible. The grainary to
brewery path
is another good route to take.
Next, go to Slokovia in the southeast corner. In my game,
there were
logs to connect to the lumber mill which was built; the
lumber mill
dropped in price to $900k because of no logs. Connect the
logging camp
with the lumber mill for major initial profits and steady
subsequent
profits. More lumber will come in Germania, as well as some
of the
cheapest livestock ever (if no meat packing plants exist.)
The cost to enter territories is a piddling $500k apiece.
The larger
cost is the bridge-building cost. To get to Germania, build
the bridge
from the coast to Wegvamwasser. This bridge will cost about
$3M or so.
To build the bridge to Britain, just check out the natural
staircase
north of Hemelweg. It'll get you up where you need to be.
The cost to
lay track to the coast will be about $1M, and it will cost
another $10M
to lay track to Britain. I was able to get a company which
could earn
about $5M in profit yearly, so I did not have too many
problems with the
income situation.
12/01/2016 8:59
101 of 109
12/01/2016 8:59
102 of 109
12/01/2016 8:59
103 of 109
With a price that low, this meant that the iron mine itself
was unprofitable without my railroad. After only three years, the
iron mine
disappeared. If my railroad had bought it, the mine still
would have
taken a loss, but the supply would have remained. This was
important
because while there was a second iron mine, running only two
loads of
iron to the steel mill per year meant that the steel mill
made less
than $100k of profit per year, and industries running on that
steel
(automobile factories, tool and die shops) could not obtain
the materials they needed as well.
Therefore, take a very long look at buying the raw material
facilities in this map even (or, *especially*) if they are
unprofitable if
you need them to keep producing. To my knowledge, they will
not disappear if your railroad company is subsidizing them, and
ultimately
your trains AND your production facilities will make the
profit that
the production facility is losing.
(If ANYONE finds a facility that disappears after your
railroad has
bought it, please notify me soonest. While there are still
theories
about situations like this -- exhaustion of naturallyoccuring ores,
for instance -- the game itself should never shutter a
facility you
own.)
Two postscripts for this map:
1. For the $20M personal net value, do not bother owning
every last
share of stock. My suggestion is to keep between 20% to 30%
of the
stock on the open market until the end, as when you do a
massive buy-in
of the stock it will drive the values up and it could get you
up and
over the $20M limit that you need. I kept a very close eye
on my numbers toward the end of my last game, and found that when I
had a large
amount of stock on margin (my cash value was under -$3M), I
was actually paying a percentage per month as interest for
maintaining this
debt. This is one of the two reasons that you shouldn't
bother trying
to buy all of the company stock too early.
2. There are earthquakes ALL THE TIME in this map, mostly
centered
in a couple different areas. One is Macho Grande, and you
12/01/2016 8:59
104 of 109
will have to
rebuild track in this area once every three years or so. I
have not
noticed too many other damages for other areas, thankfully,
especially
since connecting the northern parts of this map require a ton
of track.
Good luck!
____
6.0 - Railroad Tycoon 3 Game Patches / Updates
____
As of 2007, an update does exist for Railroad Tycoon 3 - a
small
expansion pack titled "Coast to Coast". It can be found at
most game
download sites, and it is free! It's also about 110MB, so by
all
means use your own high-speed connection or borrow someone
else's.
It includes five new maps, and the programmers tightened
some of the
gameplay and economic models. A longer discussion may follow
if
interest shows between the old and new versions.
____
7.0 - Frequently Asked Questions
____
Q: How can I find a specific commodity?
A: There are multiple ways to do it. The best way though is
through
the Globe icon. If you click on the Globe and choose the
cargo, it
should show you triangles pointing up and triangles pointing
down. The
upward pointing triangles indicate that a supply is present.
The Globe icon is easiest. But if you don't like that
method, look for
the buildings which supply the cargo too, which should be in
the
instruction book. At a later date, I may attempt to add them
to this
FAQ, but suffice it to say that if it's a crop it'll be on a
farm, if
it's an animal product (wool, livestock, milk) it will be on
a smaller
farm, if it's a resource (coal, iron, logs, oil, pulpwood) it
will be
on a building in the middle of nowhere, most likely, and if
it's a
finished good it will come from a building which will
*likely* be in
the city.
12/01/2016 8:59
105 of 109
12/01/2016 8:59
106 of 109
again if
you deliberately sabotaged a different company, and will
likely keep
you out of the management position unless your ownership
stake is high
enough.
12/01/2016 8:59
107 of 109
12/01/2016 8:59
108 of 109
12/01/2016 8:59
facebook.com /GFAQs
gam espot.com
giantbom b.com
109 of 109
m etacritic.com
Advertise
Help /ContactUs
Change Colors
gam erankings.com
Privacy Policy
Ad Choice
Term s ofUse
12/01/2016 8:59