RAILROAD TYCOON II FAQ/GUIDE
by Dennis L. "Fox" Doucette(rocketshow@hotmail.com)
Version 1.0
March 21, 2000
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This FAQ is Copyright 2000 by Dennis L. "Fox" Doucette. It may not be used or
transmitted in any form, electronic or otherwise, unless express consent is
obtained from its author in written or electronic format. Railroad Tycoon II
is Copyright 2000 by Take Two Interactive Software. This FAQ was created using
EditPad, which can be purchased for the low price of a postcard and a stamp at
jgsoft.com. You can contact me at rocketshow@hotmail.com.
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|=================|
|TABLE OF CONTENTS|
|=================|
1. Revision History
2. What Is RRT2?
3. The Basics---Fundamentals for Intelligent Play
A. Passengers Are Your Friends
B. Deliver The Goods
C. The Indus-Tree Bears Fruit
D. Crash Burn
E. Be the Prophet of Profit
F. Get the Urge to Merge (no, not like THAT!)
4. Who Makes What?
A. Notes on the Industrial Difficulty Model
B. Industry Input/Output Notes
C. Raw Material Producers
D. Raw Material Consumers (Require Raw Materials to Produce A Product)
E. Towns and Cities---Special Demands for the People
5. Finance For Dummies
A. Notes on the Financial Model
B. Beware of Your Opponents, No Matter How Dumb They Look
6. Enrich Your World
A. Grow Your Cities
B. Grow Your Railroad
C. Grow Your Net Worth
D. Grow Your Fun Factor (that IS why you play sims, after all!)
7. The Trains
A. Notes on Train Specs
B. List of Train Car Weights
C. Complete Train List
8. The Scenarios
A. Britain
B. California
C. Central Europe
D. China
E. Eastern USA
F. Korea
G. Scandinavia
H. South America
I. Southern USA
J. The Mediterranean
K. United States
L. Western USA
9. The Campaign
A. Notes on the Campaign Game
B. The Iron Seed
C. Handle on the Breadbasket
D. Bridging a Nation
E. Silver Booms and the Market Busts
F. Whistle Stops and Promises
G. Crossing the Great Divide
H. Birth of the Iron Horse
I. Excess on the Orient Express
J. Knitting with Iron
K. Next Stop the 20th Century
L. The Brenner Pass
M. When Walls Come Down
N. Croissants or Crumpets
O. The Samurai Rides an Iron Horse
P. Which Way to the Coast?
Q. The People's Train
R. Dilemma Down Under
S. Cape to Cairo
10. Coming Distractions/Updates
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|===================|
|1. REVISION HISTORY|
|===================|
Version 1.0 (3/21/00)---This is my first FAQ (oh goody!)...I noticed that
gamefaqs.com didn't have one, so "Here I Come To Save The Day!"
STILL TO DO: Figure out a way to flesh out the "Trains" section without
creating a 50-megabyte matrix of train speeds with all the loads and grades
(those of you who play the game often know what I mean!) I might add a
detailed walkthrough next time around for the campaign game.
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|================|
|2. WHAT IS RRT2?|
|================|
RRT2 (Railroad Tycoon II) is the latest "management sim" to come out for the
PlayStation game console, having been released in February of 2000. It is
very similar to the old "Aerobiz" series for the Super Nintendo from a few
years back in that the player takes the role of the head of a company and
through shrewd management tries to defeat his rivals in a good old-fashioned
corporate smackdown. It is NOT an action game, and if you want an action game
then go play Syphon Filter or Resident Evil...just leave us simgamers alone.
We've already taken quite enough abuse from the people who tell us that our
games are boring and nothing ever happens...but I digress...
Of course, the object of the game is not JUST to build the biggest or the most
profitable railroad. You also have to build a high personal net worth through
ruthless exploitation of the stock market. In many scenarios, you have to
connect certain cities (like St. Louis to Sacramento, for example) and haul a
certain number of carloads of cargo between them. It's not just about the
business (unlike Aerobiz)...it's a complete immersion into the world of the
rail baron. From the earliest steam locomotives to the superfast bullet
trains of today, you'll be challenged every step of the way.
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|=================================================|
|3. THE BASICS---FUNDAMENTALS FOR INTELLIGENT PLAY|
|=================================================|
There are certain things you need to know before you start any scenario in
this game. These are the most basic rules (some of them are touched on in the
manual, others require a bit of explanation, so bear with me), and if not
followed, you'll be lucky to find a job shoveling coal.
|===============================|
|3A. PASSENGERS ARE YOUR FRIENDS|
|===============================|
Prior to about 1915 (when the widespread use of the automobile totally tanks
your passenger supply), most towns produce either 0.5 or 0.6 passengers per
house per year. In addition, a carload of the little buggers only weighs ten
tons, so you could haul four carloads plus a dining car with almost any train
on almost any grade and make great time which leads to speedy bonuses which
leads to station enhancements which leads to more money which leads to higher
stock prices which leads to higher net worth and book value which leads to you
winning more gold medals than Mark Spitz, Carl Lewis, and Jesse Owens put
together. You should definitely have at least one long-distance passenger
route per scenario (like New York to Chicago in the Eastern USA scenario). In
fact, you should have as many as you can afford or your track network can
handle.
|=====================|
|3B. DELIVER THE GOODS|
|=====================|
In any scenario, but especially in the later ones like "Dilemma Down Under",
you can't rely on passengers to provide the bulk of your income. The routes
are still very lucrative, but the passenger supplies are so low that only your
long-distance routes between the ultra-major cities will even produce enough
supply to keep your trains from spending all their time empty in the stations.
You've got to go out there and build routes from the iron and coal mines to
the steel mills. You've got to get the wool and cotton to the textile mills.
You're building national economies, dammit! And national economies are not
built on tourism alone unless the nation in question is Tahiti. In order to
make your cities grow, you've got to service all of their industries and also
service their people. This means hauling stuff like food and milk and lumber
and paper into cities and hauling their industrial products to places where
they're demanded. The cities will grow, produce more resources, and add more
houses so that you can continue to build large, profitable passenger routes.
|==============================|
|3C. THE INDUS-TREE BEARS FRUIT|
|==============================|
With the Expert industry level activated, a new and interesting possibility
opens up for your railroad business to make even more money. Instead of just
hauling iron and coal over to the steel mill in the city you're trying to
develop, you can buy the steel mill and the iron ore mine and the coal mine.
Before you buy, the business will have a profitability rating from "poor" on
up to "gushing cash"...and once you purchase, a specific figure will appear.
The figure is based on whether or not you're supplying the industry with
everything it needs and delivering all of its cargo to places which demand the
cargo produced (in our "steel mill" example, the steel mill would make money
if plenty of iron and coal were delivered, and all the steel produced was
taken to cities with tool and die factories or (before about 1940) canneries.
Not only that, but if the tool and die factory's goods (made with the steel)
were all delivered to a town or city, then you could buy the tool and die
factory and control the entire goods-production line from raw materials on up.
(Remember, J.D. Rockefeller didn't just make his fortune in oil refining; he
owned the oilfields and the gas stations as well!)
A great Blues Traveler song, an even greater reason why you should keep your
eyes glued to the Train List screen (not literally unless you want to look
really stupid!) Trains have something called a "Breakdown Risk" which ties in
to factors like the train's age and its reliability rating (more on this in
"The Trains" (chapter 6). In the worst-case scenario, a train with a high
breakdown risk will crash and burn, forcing you to buy a new train and pretty
much making the government of the country in which the crash occurs totally
irate at your incompetence, which leads to lower goodwill which leads to more
expensive rights fees in places you haven't gained access to yet, and also
(so I've heard) leads to your rivals getting lucrative government contracts in
some scenarios (this has never actually happened to me but the manual strongly
implies this).
If your trains don't fall off the rails, there remains the very real chance
that your older locomotives will turn into the Little Engine That Didn't Feel
Like It. Seriously, breakdowns aren't quite as bad as train crashes, but
they're pretty close. For starters, your cargo is pretty much wasted because
can you imagine if someone delivered milk to your town from Wisconsin and it
had been out on the tracks for days? In addition, the broken train clogs up
the tracks so that other trains have trouble getting by...especially annoying
if a six-car food train breaks down near London or Chicago and none of your
million-dollar passenger trains can get by (I can't stress it enough! In the
19th century when trains have crappy acceleration, a clear track is EVERYTHING
and then some!) The bottom line? Replace your trains before they get old...
I usually use five percent breakdown risk as my personal guideline.
How do you make your trains last longer? Either add a caboose (which raises
your train's safety rating) or don't make trains haul unreasonable amounts of
cargo. Sure, that train with 3 iron cars and 3 coal cars may make your steel
mill into an Andrew Carnegie Fortress Of Cash, but the train is going to
suffer...imagine running the Iditarod with only one sled dog! The better
method would be to create two trains each carrying 150 tons of cargo, or (even
better) 3 trains carrying one coal and one iron each. Sure, they might run
into traffic near the destination city, but it's worth it in terms of the fact
that they'll get there much faster and be able to get back up to speed in a
hurry once the track clears out. Not only that, but they'll last a lot longer
(my experiments showed they last as much as 75% longer before they start to
break down regularly.)
|============================|
|3E. BE THE PROPHET OF PROFIT|
|============================|
Forget what the scenario's win condition says about your company or your
personal financial situation. Dr. Fox's blanket cure for what ails your
finances is to create a company whose profits rise each and every year. To do
this, you really need to restrain yourself in the early going, following a
planned procedure of slower growth during boom times and faster growth during
recessions. Why the complete reversal of common sense? Well, it has to do
with the way the game prices stocks. Earnings per share is EVERYTHING no
matter what the economy is doing. For that reason, when your existing routes
are providing more and more revenue, that's enough to sustain a growth cycle
during a time of rising stock prices. However, when the economy goes south,
you're going to need some cash reserves to embark on a program of aggressive
expansion to keep your earnings up. You can't cheat by buying back stock
(well, you CAN, but it's like borrowing money from the Gambino family---
eventually you're going to get taken for a ride.) You also would be very ill-
advised to try and use your personal cash reserves to float your company: this
is not just dumb, it's downright retarded, because not only will the company's
stock price remain compliant with the game-imposed "Earnings Per Share is God"
rule, you'll lose more of your own money as the price resets itself. Just
grow gradually, and don't be too terribly concerned with speed unless your
scenario's goal is running on some kind of restricted time limit (say, you
only get 11 years if you want to win gold) or your map is so large that you
can expand ad infinitum...like the "United States" scenario or anything in
the campaign game involving Australia or Central/Eastern Europe.
|=========================|
|3F. GET THE URGE TO MERGE|
|=========================|
Get your mind out of the gutter. I'm talking about mergers and acquisitions,
THE single greatest way to make sure your personal net worth remains the
highest. Not only that, but you can do an equally dandy job tanking the Hell
out of your opponents' net worth as well.
It works like this. If you've got a company that's an absolute cash cow and
can afford to pay decent enough dividends to chunk up your net worth while
maintaining a large cash growth for expansion and merger costs, then set your
dividend at as high a level as your growth goals will allow, use the proceeds
with your player to buy into the computer's companies (with prime focus on
merger targets and stock in other companies that pay good dividends), setting
up a merger. Then, with your company's own money, offer as high a merger
price as possible (because your player will have to recoup the investment in
order to make it worth your while), and take over your rival! You'll get all
your rival's track, all of his stations, all of his trains...and all of his
company's assets (which usually don't total out to as much as you pay for them
but that's not the point). Then, with your player, gradually invest that
money in your own company, or in another company for another merger...just
remember to do it gradually so you don't overinflate anyone's stock price and
cause your net worth to drop like it fell over the Titanic with a cinderblock
tied to its ankle.
Some people say you should only apply this strategy if the scenario's winning
condition dictates that you should be the sole surviving railroad. I say
balderdash. I mean, the whole point of playing business sims is to be able
to do all those really wild Gordon Gekko in "Wall Street" things that you'd
never have the money to do in real life unless your name is Ted Turner or Bill
Gates, so GO FOR IT! It's a game, it's supposed to be fun!
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|==================|
|4. WHO MAKES WHAT?|
|==================|
In later revisions, I'm going to update this section once I finish my
experiments to determine exactly when new types of industry are built or
existing industries stop accepting certain types of goods (for example, you're
not allowed to deliver iron to a tool and die factory after December of 1877--
the factories only want steel and/or aluminum, so you have to start sending
the iron to a steel mill. I'll eventually come up with a complete list.)
|============================================|
|4A. NOTES ON THE INDUSTRIAL DIFFICULTY MODEL|
|============================================|
The programmers of this game did a really nice job of creating a system of
difficulty levels that increases gradually enough that the novice gamer can
play around on the Basic level without becoming overwhelmed by the step up to
Advanced, and the veteran gamer can move up to Expert without becoming bored
with a system that's too simple. I think it was a well-orchestrated
compromise between creating a realistic sim and creating a sim that's too hard
to figure out.
In the Basic industrial model, all industries produce cargo all the time
whether or not you've supplied them with the raw materials they need. An
aluminum mill will produce aluminum whether you send it bauxite or not...a
steel mill will produce steel whether or not it has iron and coal. Of course,
sending the necessary supplies will only increase production, so in theory
you could certainly create a steel mill that's absolutely bulging at the walls
with the stuff. I don't much like the Basic industrial model, if only because
it has the unique problem of requring too many trains! Take your pick...
economic stagnation or traffic congestion? You COULD leave that cargo sitting
idle, but the same rules apply about city growth in the basic level as in the
more advanced levels, so you're not doing yourself any favors. Hard as it may
be to believe, the Advanced level is easier...read the next paragraph for an
explanation as to why this is so.
In the Advanced industrial model, industries only produce cargo if they are
supplied with the prerequisite raw materials. As the manual points out, a
steel mill will only produce steel if it is supplied with iron and coal. A
cannery will only produce cans of food if it is supplied with produce (the
food) and steel or aluminum (to make the cans out of). As for the explanation
on why this seemingly complicated process is easier?
Well, you can create the entire supply line with one train. Let's do a quick
walkthrough on how you can turn iron and coal into goods for a city (a fairly
common process). You'll need to find a place where an iron mine and a coal
mine are close enough together to be served by one station (and they tend to
appear together so this won't be a problem). The Midlands of England in the
Britain scenario are perfect for just such a station.
Start by building a station big enough to house the iron and coal mines. Put
another station in a city with a steel mill, another one in a place with a
tool and die factory, and another one in a city with more than four houses (so
it will demand goods). Ideally, the city demanding the goods will be fairly
close to the mining station so the route will form a complete lap.
Now buy a train. Good trains for this exercise are the 2-8-0 Consolidation or
2-6-0 Camelback, because they have good load hauling capacity and good grade
tolerance. Run the train with two irons and two coals from the mines (make
absolutely sure both cargos are available by setting the "traffic light" to
red, because delivering one but not the other ruins the whole thing) to the
steel mill city. Two iron plus two coal makes four steel. Run a four-car
steel train from the steel city to the tool and die factory city. Continue on
with a four-car goods train, and if you like, run the last leg of the trip
past a city near the mines, stopping to drop off some passengers or mail or
something. It's not really important that last step, just a way to make a bit
more money off the run.
It sounds complicated, but believe me, once you've done it once or twice, you
will find that the Advanced industry model is a lot more intuitive and leads
to larger and more productive cities than even the Basic model.
The Expert industry model is identical to the Advanced model in most ways with
a couple of exceptions. First, in the Expert model, you're allowed to buy the
industries (it's the only model which lets you do this, for a primer on how,
see section 3C). Also, you'll have to exercise a certain amount of restraint
in how much "flooding" (delivering all your cargo to the same place) you do.
If you send too many shipments of the same thing to the same city, the level
of demand drops and you won't make as much money off the whole enterprise. My
experiments showed, however, that this isn't really a major issue in the
largest cities because demand tends to regenerate in direct proportion to the
size of the cities and the efficiency with which you service the local
industrial base. In other words, demand for finished products tends to stay
constantly high in large cities (you'd figure, what with all those consumers),
and if all of your industrial output is being delivered (like the "goods"
example from the last discussion), then the demand for the raw materials will
stay high as the industries try to slake their thirst for customers and extra
profits. The campaign game tends to operate almost exclusively on the Expert
level...so it helps to practice your techniques in some of the easier Scenario
games.
|===============================|
|4B. INDUSTRY INPUT/OUTPUT NOTES|
|===============================|
Note that in some of these industries, I've tried to list the approximate
dates when things start to change (in the Houses "industry" this has proven
particularly nightmarish because every scenario is different)...so if you need
to know the specifics of what something demands or is producing, then move the
pointer over it and press the circle button. All the data I've compiled here
was acquired by that method.
(All numerical figures are per unit per year)
|==========================|
|4C. RAW MATERIAL SUPPLIERS|
|==========================|
|================================================================|
|MATERIAL SOURCE |MATERIAL SUPPLIED|AMT/YEAR|DEMANDS |EFFECT*|
|=================|=================|========|===========|=======|
|Bauxite Mine |Bauxite |2.0 |-----------|-------|
|Cattle Yard |Cattle |3.0 |Grain |+50% |
|Chemical Plant |Chemical |2.0 |-----------|-------|
|Coal Mine |Coal |2.0 |-----------|-------|
|Coffee Farm |Coffee |2.0 |Fertilizer |+50% |
|Cotton Farm |Cotton |2.0 |Fertilizer |+50% |
|Dairy Farm |Milk |2.0 |Grain |+50% |
|Grain Silo |Grain |2.0 |Fertilizer |+50% |
|Gravel Pit |Gravel |2.0 |-----------|-------|
|Houses |Passengers**/Mail|0.5/0.1 |-----------|-------|
|Logging Camp |Logs/Pulpwood |2.0/1.0 |-----------|-------|
|Oil Well |Oil |3.0 |-----------|-------|
|Produce Orchard |Produce |2.0 |Fertilizer |+25% |
|Rubber Farm |Rubber |2.0 |Fertilizer |+25% |
|Sheep Farm |Wool |2.0 |Grain |+50% |
|Sugar Farm |Sugar |3.0 |Fertilizer |+25% |
|Uranium Mine |Uranium |2.0 |-----------|-------|
|================================================================|
Note that Ports are also producers of raw materials, which ones is puerly a
matter of the map and the time period...it would be completely futile to list
them all, but suffice to say that if an industry demands something that can't
be found on the map, it's probably in a port somewhere (the American tire/auto
industry is a prime example...all the rubber for the tires comes from the port
cities).
*Effect: Some raw material producers demand fertilizer (to fertilize the
fields) or grain (to feed the animals). The Effect of supplying a farm with
the given product is shown as a percentage increase in production.
**Houses produce different amounts of passengers depending on the country and
the time period chosen. In Europe before the advent of the automobile, houses
produce 0.6 passengers per house per year, and in the 21st century in America,
passenger totals fall all the way down to 0.1 per house per year.
|======================================================================|
|4D. RAW MATERIAL CONSUMERS (REQUIRE RAW MATERIAL TO PRODUCE A PRODUCT)|
|======================================================================|
Note that some industries will take different kinds of goods and turn them
into the same thing (like a bakery doesn't care what you send it, it will
make food out of grain or sugar), while other industries require more than
one kind of cargo in order to produce a final product (you can't make steel
without both iron AND coal). Take note of this, as it will help determine
where you decide to run your trains.
|=======================================================================|
|INDUSTRY |DEMANDS | PRODUCES |
|--------------------------|-----------------------------|--------------|
|Aluminum Mill |Bauxite |Aluminum |
|Automotive Plant |Tires and Steel |Automobiles |
|Bakery |Grain or Sugar |Food |
|Cannery* |Produce or Coffee |Food |
| |and Steel or Aluminum | |
|Cement Plant |Gravel |Cement |
|Dairy Processor |Milk |Food |
|Electric Plant*** |Coal or Diesel |Waste |
|Fertilizer Plant |Chemicals |Fertilizer |
|Landfill |Waste |Nothing |
|Lumber Mill |Logs |Lumber |
|Meat Packing Plant |Cattle |Food |
|Nuclear Power Plant*** |Uranium |Waste |
|Oil Refinery |Oil |Diesel |
|Paper Mill |Pulpwood |Paper |
|Steel Mill |Iron and Coal |Steel |
|Textile Mill |Cotton or Wool |Goods |
|Tire Factory |Rubber |Tires |
|Tool And Die Factory** |Iron or Steel or Aluminum |Goods |
|=======================================================================|
*-After a certain date (I haven't figured out exactly when), Canneries stop
accepting steel.
**-Tool and Die Factories don't accept Iron after 1877.
***-Before a certain date (again, I haven't figured out exactly when),
Electric Plants and Nuclear Power Plants don't ship out their waste. I
presume they just dump it in the river or something...
|====================================================|
|4E. TOWNS AND CITIES: SPECIAL DEMANDS FOR THE PEOPLE|
|====================================================|
A Town is defined as four to seven houses within the operating range (the
highlighted area when you pass the pointer over it) of a station. A City is
defined as eight or more houses within the range of a station. Towns and
Cities have ever-changing demands and needs, usually becoming more basic as
time goes on.
A Town demands Passengers, Mail, Lumber, Food, Goods, and Milk. Note that
before a certain date towns demand Coffee and Produce, but after the 1879 you
have to ship these items to a cannery. In addition, starting in the early
20th century, you have to ship milk to a Dairy Processor, where you can make
it into food you can ship to a town.
A City demands everything that a town does, and also demands Automobiles,
Cement, Paper, and (before 1911 when you have to ship these items to an
Electric Plant or Oil Refinery) Coal and Oil. Cities are infamous for
becoming choked with rail traffic as you try to get all the raw materials from
your industries to the cities. However, with care and practice, you can turn
a Town into a City because they keep adding houses if their needs are met...
and thus create whole new markets for your products (to say nothing of the
extra passenger income)!
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|======================|
|5. FINANCE FOR DUMMIES|
|======================|
If you're going to be building giant railroad empires and even bigger personal
fortunes, it helps to know the workings of the game's Financial model. The
changes in this case aren't quite as sharp as in the Industrial model (upping
the level doesn't mean you're going to revolutionize your gameplay or anything
like that), and are more a matter of difficulty.
|================================|
|5A. NOTES ON THE FINANCIAL MODEL|
|================================|
In the Basic level, you can only buy stock in your own company, and, well...if
that doesn't give you an incentive to grow your company gradually to keep
stock prices high...well, I don't know what else will. The Basic model is for
idiots and children, because even the greenest of sim gamers will want
something with a little more interest. The main advantage to the Basic model
is that investors are very forgiving if the company's stock has an off year...
whereas in the more advanced settings it seems like all the investors are on
the Internet day trading...willing to dump a stock at the first sign of
trouble. For those of you who tend to fall asleep at the switch sometimes and
get hypnotized by the network you've already built, you won't lose too much of
your fortune, and what you do lose will be easily recovered.
In the Advanced level, you can start investing in other companies and attempt
mergers and the like (this might be available in the Basic level and I may
just be screwing up the procedure or something). As long as you maintain a
large enough controlling interest in your own company that the opponents can't
force you out of your seat as CEO, you can get into the other players'
companies either with the dividend income from your own operations or with an
eye towards getting a higher yield for your money after your own company has
more or less peaked (and it happens to the best of us).
I personally LOVE the Expert level, and you don't even have to be a Harvard
MBA to understand the workings of it. There are two neat features introduced
with the Expert Mode, namely you can Buy on Margin and Sell Short, essentially
using other people's money to finance your evil schemes. Buying on Margin is
the act of using your purchasing power (your cash plus one-half of the value
of your stock portfolio) to purchase additional stock on credit, with which
you hope to either make the cash back in dividend income or have the stock go
so far up in value that your net worth is well on the plus side of zero. The
pitfall in this is that if your stocks go down, your purchasing power may fall
below zero, prompting a margin call from your broker. When this happens, you
have to sell off enough stock to drive your purchasing power back ABOVE zero
or else your broker will do it for you, and in the process he WILL bankrupt
you because the stocks will plummet in value because so much is being sold in
so little time (think Wall Street in October of 1929). You can guard against
this by keeping a large cash reserve in your company's coffers and buying up
stock to keep the value high while your player sells his way out of the woods.
If you're lucky and skilled, you might duck the bullet. You can also bankrupt
your enemies by noticing when their purchasing power is approaching zero and
either issuing stock with your own company (careful, this DOES lower the stock
price and can bite you on the butt) or selling your player's interest in the
company in which your enemy owns the most stock, driving the price down and
forcing a margin call to the computer player, bankrupting him, and getting him
off your tail for the remainder of the contest.
You can also "sell short", meaning you sell stock that isn't yours, basically
borrowing those shares from your stockbroker. The idea is that the stocks are
overpriced and when they fall down, you can pick them up on the cheap and
pocket the difference between the amount of cash you IMplicitly borrowed and
the value of the stock you EXplicitly purchased. On top of that, selling an
opponent's company short can lead to merger opportunities as the price of that
stock falls. The risk, of course, is that you sell short a company which
proceeds to skyrocket and your broker demands that you buy the stock...and if
your purchasing power isn't high enough to make this happen, you may have to
sell some other stocks you own, and...well, do the math. You'll end up flat
broke...or at least end up with a sliver of your former fortune.
|==========================================================|
|5B. BEWARE OF YOUR OPPONENTS, NO MATTER HOW DUMB THEY LOOK|
|==========================================================|
Your opponents aren't quite as dumb as they initially seem. On the Expert
financial level, they tend to do quite a bit of margin buying, I guess on the
grounds that net worth is best accumulated early on when everything's in its
initial growth phase and things are on the up and up. Enemies are excellent
bargain hunters, as they tend to get in on your company fairly early on (so
don't miss your chance to get in on the ground floor with your own company),
and tend to sell your company short at exactly the time your fortunes begin to
slide a little bit. It can be freakishly difficult to bankrupt them, and (as
I learned in the "Birth of the Iron Horse" campaign scenario where the object
was to merge with every other company) they know exactly when your player is
on the ropes and choose exactly that time to push you over the edge and into
bankruptcy. Having a net worth of negative $3M when the object was to be $20M
in the black...well, that was annoying to say the least.
It gets worse. Your computer opponents have some sort of ESP or something. I
am completely convinced that the AI knows something about the orientation of
your track and which industries are in the range of your stations, and uses
the information to construct sections of track between you and what you want,
presumably so the enemy can make some money off your raw material supply or
even (ack!) passenger routes. I find that the best remedy for such puerile
treachery is to make that company a merger target and go after them with a
"Bruce Willis in Die Hard"-type zeal. Beware of your opponents, and treat the
business climate like war...because otherwise the biggest casualty will be you
and your fortune.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|====================|
|6. ENRICH YOUR WORLD|
|====================|
Following are some pointers on exactly the best way to use the Financial and
Industrial models to your maximum advantage. Some of these I've stated before
and others of these may seem obvious, but I'm putting them all in one place
for those of you who are printing this out and don't want to riffle through
all the pages looking for a specific piece of data. I've downloaded several
FAQ's and have knocked myself halfway out looking through a printed copy of a
300K text file (pages and pages of information) for what I wanted. This is
your all-purpose review, and there's some new stuff in here too.
|====================|
|6A. GROW YOUR CITIES|
|====================|
I've touched on, but never quite gone into depth on how the game decides which
cities prosper and thrive and which cities go into the boneyard. Some of it
is pretty obvious: Those cities that get all their needs met and all their
cargoes delivered will prosper and thrive and those that are neglected will
fall from prominence. That part's simple.
But how many of you actually remember to set up that route from the lumber
mill to the town? How many of you actually remember not only to set up the
food route from the town with the bakery, but also remember that the town with
the bakery itself demands food, preferably from out of town? More important
than that is that if you have a town (like Maidstone in Britain) that tends to
have a steel mill and three houses, you should include a passenger car and/or
a mail car on the steel train (odd, yes, but it does work) because the town of
Maidstone may end up adding a fourth house and becoming a full-fledged supply
house and demand center. Houses are counted by the game as an industry unto
themselves, after all.
With cities it gets even hairier, because you've got to start delivering stuff
like cars and cement and paper and coal/oil (before 1915)...some of which you
may actually have to find in the sense that if your network has included only
six-and-seven-house towns, you may have neglected to create an industry at the
paper mill in a nearby city. Once it becomes necessary to ship paper to
cities, you have to be on the ball. Furthermore, in many cases new industries
will crop up right in the middle of a scenario (in the form of "A new type of
building has been built for the first time near (city): Auto Plant") and you
are then faced with meeting the demands of all the cities that want the new
product.
If you want to grow your cities, it's an arduous process that takes patience,
and some would argue that on the larger maps it's a wild goose chase, but the
point is to create something that gives you the sense that you've done
something right.
|======================|
|6B. GROW YOUR RAILROAD|
|======================|
Now we come to the ultimate discussion of how to make the railroad you've got
bigger and badder and more powerful. For purposes of this discussion, I'm
going to entirely ignore the effects of cities. This is about trains on rails
and pure locomotive power.
For starters, in the early going, don't be afraid to go into debt in order to
finance your first couple of routes. Especially in the diesel/electric post-
WWII era, you're going to be awfully hard-pressed to start a company with the
meager amount of money you're given ($1.2M just isn't enough in 1950 and
beyond...) so a little help from the Five Hundred Thousand Dollar Tooth Fairy
will be pretty nice, especially since you can pay off said Tooth Fairy with
the proceeds from your first mega-passenger route.
If you want to expand aggressively, there's certainly a time and a place for
that. You all know my advice about growing your railroad gradually to ensure
consistent earnings growth. But later on, when barriers to hauling industrial
products become less pronounced due to the advent of engines with solid grade
capacities and load limits, you can start getting really interesting about it,
growing industries that hitherto were too far away from the markets of their
products to make their growth worthwhile (why grow a steel mill when the
nearest tool and die factory is halfway across the map?) With quality engines
like the GP18 and E111 (in later years) or even the 2-8-0 Consolidation and
2-6-0 Camelback (in the late 19th and early 20th centuries), you can get that
steel from Point A to Point B without waiting for Hell C to Freeze Over D.
That last tip also works wonders when you've connected all the major cities
and are more or less at the limit of where passenger routes are profitable.
Rather than sit at the mercy of passenger and mail prices or wait for George
Pullman to apply for a manager's job (he brings to the table a 25% higher
across-the-board passenger revenue), you can go out and haul iron and coal and
food and milk and all the other stuff that may otherwise have sat in the field
undelivered and unsold.
I talk about the industrial model. Everyone talks about the industrial model
but nobody does anything about it. Let me clarify this in one simple sentence
right here:
*BUILD A STRONG PASSENGER BASE, THEN ADD INDUSTRIES.*
This offers the best compromise between passenger needs and industry needs,
and even in later scenarios, you can borrow enough money to create at least
one good-enough passenger route to get you through lean times.
|=======================|
|6C. GROW YOUR NET WORTH|
|=======================|
I've covered most of this already, but here it is in a convenient step-by-step
format. Note that this advice is more or less null and void if having a high
personal net worth isn't a key winning condition for the scenario you're
playing, because oftentimes those scenarios come with winning conditions that
require you to build ultra-huge railroad companies, making draining your
company's cash a fool's errand. The advice is, however, a great way to
conquer scenarios like "United States" which require you to reach the absurd
net worth of $50M while maintaining a company book value of $50M...remember,
your book value will ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS take care of itself once your board
suspends the dividend once and for all. Anyway:
Start a company, using all of your personal cash and as much investor money as
the investors will put up. After you get your company out of its initial cash
crunch and get up to operating speed, accelerate your dividend growth as high
as your board of directors will allow. Do this early, because there's a
trigger in the game at a certain level of shares outstanding or time elapsed
or something where your board kills off the dividend and will NEVER again let
you raise it even to the smallest of levels. Then take the proceeds and
invest heavily in your own company, acquiring literally whatever you can grab.
If you get really lucky you'll end up owning most, if not all of the shares
outstanding. If you get really close to 100% you can use your company's cash
to pare down the number of shares out on the market (which has the nice bonus
of forcing lots of stock splits, multiplying your stake in a stock whose price
continues to climb). On higher Financial difficulty levels, use cash you
don't have to accelerate this process (just watch your purchasing power and
don't overdo it). You can also buy into other companies and when you own a
big pile of your rival's stock, you can force a merger and pocket the money
you make from the merger price (note that this can be done after the dividend
is suspended with all the extra cash your company will have). Make sure you
have more stock in the merger target than all your rivals combined so you'll
be sure to reap the most benefit from the action. I actually played out this
strategy with no variation at all in five different locales and on three
different difficulty levels, and it worked each and every time, so I stand by
the validity of this strategy.
|================================================================|
|6D. GROW YOUR FUN FACTOR (THAT IS WHY YOU PLAY SIMS, AFTER ALL!)|
|================================================================|
I've given the impression that mastering this game actually involves work. Au
contraire, mes amis! If you take the time to master the basics of this game,
you can play the Scandinavia scenario with as many as THREE computer opponents
and feel like a Viking warlord as you pillage and crush any corporate entity
they have the audacity to try and throw against you. Admittedly, it doesn't
bear the satisfaction of oh, say, Warcraft II or anything...but to look on the
map and see all those trains and look at your little interactive Lionel set
and realize you've totally mastered the art of the Rail Baron...well, this is
what makes sims so much fun to play. It's a feeling quite similar to building
a big, bustling SimCity or an Evil Empire in Civilization II. So learn what
you have to learn (reading this super-colossal FAQ is a nice start!) and go
out there and experiment. By the time you've developed your own style of play
that fits your ambitions, you'll be playing it over and over trying to get
better and better. Last night I tried a scenario that was built on the pure
premise of "how high can I crank my net worth?" With the United States map I
built a net worth of over $150M...in 1895. How delightful the life of the
successful Rail Baron must have been! All that money...and with prices where
they were in 1895, you probably couldn't spend all that in a lifetime...no
wonder the Barons were all such philanthropists. When you adjust for
inflation, you realize that Cornelius Vanderbilt was probably richer than Bill
Gates and Ted Turner combined and then some. What power. So have some fun
with this. Following, I've included train lists and notes for all the game's
scenarios and maps...use like an Appendix and enjoy.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|=============|
|7. THE TRAINS|
|=============|
Ah, yes, the ASCIItext table, the meat of any real good sim-gamer FAQ, the...
having an attack of grandiosity there. But seriously, following is a
condensed version of the little matrix that appears on the screen when you go
to buy a new train. This way, you don't have to knock yourself out looking at
that big chart and wondering where you left your calculator.
|========================|
|7A. NOTES ON TRAIN SPECS|
|========================|
As far as these train specs go, I got all of my speed data from playing the
game on Sandbox mode. In the scenario/campaign game, hiring certain managers
or choosing certain options at the start of a campaign scenario will affect
your train speed, and an older engine will not go quite as fast as a newer one
but there's no really good way to measure the effect of these changes other
than to take the manual at its word when it says an engine loses a percentage
of its top speed every year.
For the train car weights, I hooked up a car of whatever it was I was trying
to carry to an engine in Sandbox mode and let it run. Then I hooked up two
cars to see if it obeyed the laws of mathematics (it did), then I wrote down
my findings. If there is some variance here, then you can e-mail me and we
can put our heads together about any patterns that tend to develop (two heads
are better than one), but I'm pretty sure these numbers are accurate.
This is not anything even approaching a complete table, but in my next update
I'll have figured out a way to conquer that problem and will present a more
fleshed-out version. I just don't want a logjam to occur where my endless
tinkering with this section prevents me from getting a high-quality FAQ out
there for public consumption. Are we all OK with that? Good.
|=============================|
|7B. LIST OF TRAIN CAR WEIGHTS|
|=============================|
Note that some trains are only available in Europe and others are only
available in the United States...in a later version I'll note the release date
of every different type of locomotive.
FUEL TYPE (F): S-Steam, D-Diesel, E-Electric.
ACCELERATION: EP-Extremely Poor, VP-Very Poor, P-Poor, BA-Below Average,
(AC) A-Average, F-Fast, VF-Very Fast, VI-Virtually Instant, I-Instant
RELIABILITY: EP, VP, P, BA, A (same as above), plus: AA-Above Average, G-Good,
(RL) VG-Very Good, O-Outstanding.
0T/0%: no cargo, 0% grade
200T/0%: 200 tons of cargo (5 lumber cars or approx. 3 coal cars), 0% grade
0T/6%: no cargo, 6% grade
200T/6%: 200 tons cargo, 6% grade
I chose my weights and grades to illustrate load hauling and grade capacity.
I hope none of you are trying to haul massive amounts of coal up mountains.
For those of you who play this game often, I've got to ask: Have you ever
found a good use for those "bullet" trains? I find them to be nothing more
than a just-for-show type of novelty, like the Concorde or Tu144 in the
Aerobiz series. Anyone with an opinion or a good strategy, e-mail it to me
and you'll get your name in a future version of this FAQ.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|================|
|8. THE SCENARIOS|
|================|
I'm going to put these into a pretty simple chart form, so that you can look
them up easily. In addition, these are in alphabetical order and victory
conditions and such are taken from the "Briefing" screens that you get
when you start the scenarios themselves.
Note that "Start Date" refers to the complete range of possible starting years
for the scenario (usually user-determined, but some of them have restrictions)
and "Time Limit" refers to all victory conditions unless I expressly state
otherwise. A number in parentheses next to start date is the default for the
scenario...and most often the "best" time to start based on the victory
conditions.
Also note that to win a Silver, you must also achieve the victory condition
for a Bronze victory, and to win a Gold, you must achieve the victory
condition for a Silver. Example: In the Central Europe scenario, it doesn't
matter how rich you are if you haven't gotten into the hub cities, and it
doesn't matter how much your company's worth if you aren't worth $15 million!
|==================================================|
|BRITAIN---START DATE 1870 TIME LIMIT: END OF 1899|
|==================================================|
BRONZE: Build your personal net worth to $5M
SILVER: Build your personal net worth to $15M
GOLD: Build your personal net worth to $40M
NOTE: Gradual growth is the key to keeping stock values high...also, if
I could give a one word hint to this one: EMBEZZLEMENT. This holds
true in every scenario, although some scenarios are harder than others
in this regard. For Britain, you are also allowed to build separate
networks (your tracks don't have to connect in one straight line), so
consider building small networks and connecting them later on...if
anything, this allows you to spread out a little bit.
|===========================================================|
|CALIFORNIA-START DATE 1865-2100 (1900) TIME LIMIT: 25 YEARS|
|===========================================================|
BRONZE/SILVER: Reach a Net Worth of $40M
GOLD: Be the first to get to $40M
NOTE: Bubbles the Chimp could probably beat this one no prob. The key is
to establish a couple of profitable passenger lines to keep the cash
coming in. There's an earthquake or two included in here, but the worst
thing that ever happens in those cases is that you lose a train or two.
Don't worry about your company's cash reserves because there are more
than enough large cities to create VERY lucrative routes. Note that if
you want to make this scenario inordinately difficult, you can start in
the 21st century where the cities' passenger rates are reduced all the
way to 0.1 per house per year.
|===============================================================|
|CENTRAL EUROPE-START DATE 1860-1995 (1880) TIME LIMIT: 25 YEARS|
|===============================================================|
BRONZE: Gain access to all 6 Hub Cities
SILVER: Personal Net Worth of $15M
GOLD: Company Book Value of $40M
NOTE: Your Goodwill rating is the key to victory here, because it allows you
to buy in to the Hub Cities a LOT more cheaply. A $15M net worth is
not (or at least should not be) a problem to attain, and a $40M book
value tends to take care of itself as your company expands.
|=============================================|
|CHINA---START DATE 1850 TIME LIMIT: 35 YEARS|
|=============================================|
BRONZE: Personal Net Worth of $7M
SILVER: Personal Net Worth of $20M
GOLD: Personal Net Worth of $35M AND Connect Beijing to Zhanjiang.
NOTE: If it's 1850, then wouldn't Beijing be called Peking? Just a thought!
Seriously, this one's not quite as difficult as it looks. $35 million
can be embezzled off your company if you set dividends high and buy up
all of your company's available stock as soon as you can. Then, just
let the cash roll in because you've got 35 years and your dividend
income will more than cover the deadline.
|============================================================|
|EASTERN USA-START DATE 1830-2100 (1880) TIME LIMIT: 25 YEARS|
|============================================================|
BRONZE: Highest Personal Net Worth (play without any computer opponents for
an automatic win...and my contempt!)
SILVER: Haul the Most Loads and have the Highest Net Worth.
GOLD: Do that while building a company Book Value of $40M.
NOTE: This scenario is WAY too easy so use it for your first foray into the
more difficult Industrial/Financial models. If you can build a big
company (and you've got from Massachusetts Bay to Lake Michigan to
work with!), then the hapless AI should be no match for you. Remember
that to attain a high personal net worth, you can set your company's
dividend high, but remember also that your company can keep a
surprisingly high percentage of its earnings because if you build a
large enough network, your opponents won't be able to keep up either
with their companies or their own wallets.
|====================================================|
|KOREA---START DATE 1830-1995 (1950) TIME LIMIT: 1970|
|====================================================|
BRONZE: Build a company Book Value of $20M.
SILVER: Connect Pusan to Chong'jin.
GOLD: Haul 80 loads of cargo in a single year.
NOTE: Someone was drunk on the job when they designed this scenario...you
can set the start date later than 1970 for an automatic loss, or you
can set the start date in 1830 and have 140 years to build up your
company! To win the traditional way, remember the basics and this one
is a slam dunk.
|============================================================|
|SCANDINAVIA-START DATE 1830-1980 (1950) TIME LIMIT: 25 YEARS|
|============================================================|
BRONZE: Build a company Book Value of $15M.
SILVER: Connect Norway to Germany (via Russia!)
GOLD: Haul 100 loads of cargo in a single year.
NOTE: With a Start Date of 1950, this one is pretty easy because the fast
diesel engines allow you to haul passengers (few though they may be)
over tremendous distances. If this scenario looks like a carbon copy
of the Korea scenario, it's only because it is. For variety's sake,
start in 1915 or earlier and use steam engines...evolution of a rail
company is the whole allure of this game.
|==============================================================|
|SOUTH AMERICA-START DATE 1830-1995 (1875) TIME LIMIT: 30 YEARS|
|==============================================================|
BRONZE: Highest Personal Net Worth (play with at least 1 computer opponent so
this won't be utterly pointless!)
SILVER: Net Worth of $20M
GOLD: Net Worth of $50M
NOTE: This scenario actually gave me fits the first time I played it. If
you want the best primer in this entire game on how to integrate a
large rail company into a large personal fortune, then play this one
and try to win the gold. In order to build your fortune, you'll have
to set the dividend as high as your board will allow, and in order to
grow your company, you'll need cash to build track and buy trains. On
the Expert industrial or financial models, this can be an outright
nightmare. My ultimate tip would be to combine a fairly high dividend
with a strong gradual growth policy and you may very well end up with
the best of both worlds. This one is a test...one of the biggest
outside of the campaign game. Good luck.
|==================================================|
|SOUTHERN USA--START DATE 1847 TIME LIMIT: 30 YEARS|
|==================================================|
BRONZE: Highest Net Worth
SILVER: Company Book Value of $20M
GOLD: Control 70% of Track on the Map
NOTE: After I stop laughing, I'll give the advice for beating this. Build.
Build aggressively. Set your dividend at a buck or two and lay track
EVERYWHERE. Deliver industrial goods, passengers, whatever, just
BUILD! Buy your player in to your aggressively-growing company, and
eventually you'll trigger the win condition when your book value
crosses the $20M mark because your net worth will be high and your
company will own so much track.
|===================================================================|
|THE MEDITERRANEAN-START DATE: 1830-1995 (1870) TIME LIMIT: 25 YEARS|
|===================================================================|
BRONZE: Net Worth of $5M
SILVER: Most Lifetime Loads Hauled
GOLD: $55M Company Book Value
NOTE: Another case of a scenario with the win condition set too easy. If
you want to win here, set your dividend around 50 cents no matter how
many times your stock splits, and reinvest until your stock value hits
about $8M. Then kill the dividend until your company book value hits
the win condition number (give yourself about $10M worth of wiggle
room)...then restore the dividend to clean up any loose ends, and
concentrate on hauling as much cargo as possible. This one is VERY
simple...most scenarios are more of an extension of Sandbox mode I
think.
|=================================================================|
|UNITED STATES---START DATE: 1830-1995 (1900) TIME LIMIT: 35 YEARS|
|=================================================================|
BRONZE: Personal Net Worth of $10M
SILVER: Company Book Value of $30M
GOLD: Net Worth and Book Value both $50M
NOTE: At first glance, creating such massive amounts of wealth may seem like
a daunting task, like it was in South America. It isn't. You've got
from sea to shining sea, and everything east of the Mississippi has
incredible economic growth potential. The presence of large cities on
both coasts...well, you guessed it...multi-millionaire passenger
routes. Set your dividends high and, if you need a little extra push
in the net worth department, then use your player to buy up a majority
of stock in the other companies and use your company to pay a NICE
merger price. When it's all said and done, you may very well end up
wanting to click "Yes" when the game asks "Keep playing?" because this
map is just plain fun to play. Of course I'm biased because I'm from
the good ol' USA, but seriously, there's enough stuff here to keep any
sim gamer glued to this map for hours.
|===============================================================|
|WESTERN USA---START DATE: 1830-1860 (1860) TIME LIMIT: 20 YEARS|
|===============================================================|
BRONZE: Personal Net Worth $5M
SILVER: Company Book Value $40M
GOLD: Haul 120 loads of cargo in a single year.
NOTE: Can you find thirty places to haul four-car passenger trains? The
dining car and caboose don't count as cargo cars, but this shouldn't
matter as the map is large and the cities plentiful. Also, in the
Plains states, you've got amber waves of grain just waiting to be
hauled to the bakeries back east, and the bakeries will be bursting
with loaves of bread waiting to be delivered to the hungry inhabitants
of the cities both in the Midwest and in the South. Slow train speeds
will be an issue early (especially if you use an early start date) but
by 1870 or so you should be pretty much out of the woods and into the
money.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|===============|
|9. THE CAMPAIGN|
|===============|
For those of you who want a progressive series of challenges, this is the
place for you. My only complaint is that they could have done this better by
having you create a company back in 1830 and carry the same company's assets
and such over into some harder and larger scenarios...but the way they've set
it up where you make different companies in different locations is pretty good
too. Note that a comprehensive end-all-be-all walkthrough is coming with the
next edition.
|==============================|
|9A. NOTES ON THE CAMPAIGN GAME|
|==============================|
The campaign game is a complete test of your skills as a Railroad Tycoon. All
the levels require you to use the Expert industrial and financial models, and
your opponents are out for blood and play with as much skill as you're willing
to give them in the "easy/medium/hard" difficulty choices. Get through all 18
scenarios on the Hard level, and you can proudly say that you're one hell of a
good sim gamer.
In each campaign scenario, you're given a choice of three possible options for
that campaign in addition to the difficulty settings. Sometimes the choice
will involve choosing a winning condition, other scenarios will make a certain
type of locomotive available early, and others will give you extra cash or
lower costs. Most of the time, these benefits are combined somehow, like in
the "Crossing the Great Divide" scenario where you can make your credit rating
one level higher in addition to having a 10% higher station turnaround.
I've provided some notes as to which choice I think is the best for each
scenario...but it all depends on what kind of goal you want to set for how
exactly you plan to beat the campaign. Each choice will subtly alter your
strategy as you try to compensate for the changes in the game dynamic brought
on by your choice. The choices are listed as they appear on the screen with
my rank noted.
|=========================|
|THE IRON SEED (1830-1840)|
|=========================|
BRONZE: Connect Baltimore to Washington and haul a total of 4 loads.
SILVER: Add Harper's Ferry and haul a total of 8 loads.
GOLD: Add Philadelphia and haul a total of 12 loads overall.
Your choices for this scenario are:
+$50,000 (2nd best)
10% lower track building cost (3rd best)
John Bull 2-4-0 available early (HIGHLY recommended)
|=====================================|
|HANDLE ON THE BREADBASKET (1847-1870)|
|=====================================|
BRONZE: Create a continuous track from New York to Chicago and haul eight
loads between these two cities.
SILVER: Your company's book value must also exceed $4M.
GOLD: Do all this by 1858.
Your choices for this scenario:
+$80,000 (2nd best)
-15% track building cost (best)
+20% steel revenue (absolutely pointless)
|=============================|
|BRIDGING A NATION (1862-1882)|
|=============================|
BRONZE: Connect your chosen cities and haul six loads between them.
SILVER: Have a company book value of $10M.
GOLD: Also drive your net worth over $8M and do it all by 1878.
Your choices for this scenario (each is as good as any other):
St. Paul to Seattle
St. Louis to Sacramento
New Orleans to Los Angeles
|=============================================|
|SILVER BOOMS AND THE MARKET BUSTS (1875-1905)|
|=============================================|
BRONZE: Net Worth of $5M by 1905.
SILVER: Net Worth of $10M by 1900.
GOLD: Net Worth of $20M by 1895.
Your choices for this scenario:
+20% stock price and 15% lower track building cost (best)
+20% security and +10% steam speed (useful, almost as good)
2-8-0 Consolidation available early and +15% cattle revenue (3rd best)
|============================================|
|WHISTLE STOPS AND PROMISES (JAN. 1-14, 1904)|
|============================================|
BRONZE: Hit 13 Cities by Midnight 1/14
SILVER: Hit 14 Cities
GOLD: Hit 16 Cities
Your choices for this scenario:
Use 4-4-2 Atlantic (good top speed, lousy grade performance)
Use 2-6-0 Mogul (average top speed and grade performance)
Use 2-6-0 Camelback (low top speed, awesome grade performance)
NOTE: It's not the speed of your engine that matters in this scenario, it's
the way you plan your route. If you're going to hit 16 cities you're going
to be traveling all over the map anyway, so the benefits of each engine tend
to cancel each other out. Set up your entire itinerary before you even start
going anywhere, and when a city offers to improve your firebox, just insert
that city into your route (trust me, you'll have MORE than enough time to
divert your train!)
|=====================================|
|CROSSING THE GREAT DIVIDE (1868-1896)|
|=====================================|
BRONZE: Connect Halifax to Vancouver and haul 6 loads between them.
SILVER: Also have a company Book Value of $20M.
GOLD: Have a Company Book Value of $50M.
Your choices for this scenario:
Manager William Van Horne and -10% track building cost (2nd best)
2-8-0 Consolidation available early and +10% engine speed (you'll NEED it!)
1 level higher credit and 10% faster station turnaround (pointless)
|===================================|
|BIRTH OF THE IRON HORSE (1835-1855)|
|===================================|
BRONZE: Have the Highest Personal Net Worth.
SILVER: Also build your Personal Net Worth of $10M.
GOLD: Get your Personal Net Worth to $20M, be the richest, and be the sole
surviving railroad (through mergers and such).
Your choices for this scenario:
2-4-0 John Bull available early and +10% engine speed (best)
+25% coal revenue and an extra $50,000 (3rd best)
+1 Credit Rating and +30% stock price (2nd best)
|========================================|
|EXCESS ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS (1850-1889)|
|========================================|
BRONZE: Connect Paris to Constantinople and haul 24 loads between them.
SILVER: Do this by 1887.
GOLD: Do this by 1883.
Your choices for this scenario:
Manager Robert Gerwig and -25% steam fuel cost (3rd best)
+25% passenger and mail revenue (Take THIS ONE! THIS ONE!!!!)
Manager George Nagelmachers, +1 credit rating, and +20% goodwill (2nd best)
|==============================|
|KNITTING WITH IRON (1850-1876)|
|==============================|
BRONZE: Connect 8 German states by 1876.
SILVER: Connect 9 German states by 1875.
GOLD: Connect 10-11 German states including Bavaria and haul 70 loads in one
year by 1874.
Your choices for this scenario:
Manager Robert Gerwig and -20% bridge building cost (3rd best)
+$80,000 and early access to the Iron Duke (HIGHLY recommended)
+$100,000 and +10% goodwill (2nd best)
|======================================|
|NEXT STOP THE 20TH CENTURY (1860-1885)|
|======================================|
BRONZE: Have $10M in industry investments.
SILVER: Have a year of $1M industry profits.
GOLD: Do all that by 1875.
Your choices for this scenario:
Early access to the 3-Truck Shay (best)
Mgr Thomas Crampton and +15% engine speed (just as good)
+$80,000 and +25% goodwill (good but not as good as the other two)
NOTE: This scenario can be TOUGH because industries rarely generate huge
amounts of profits individually...and owning a large group of them can make
the train network awfully tough to manage. Good luck.
|============================|
|THE BRENNER PASS (1853-1878)|
|============================|
BRONZE: Connect Munich to Verona and haul 12 loads between them by 1878.
SILVER: Haul 24 loads between them by 1875.
GOLD: Haul 36 loads between them by 1872.
Your choices for this scenario:
Manager Robert Gerwig and -30% steam fuel cost (2nd best)
+25% engine speed (take it, you'll NEED it)
+$80,000 and -10% mountain track-building cost (pointless)
|================================|
|WHEN WALLS COME DOWN (1991-2020)|
|================================|
BRONZE: Personal Net Worth of $5M and connect Alborg, Denmark to Warsaw.
SILVER: Personal Net Worth of $10M and add Venice, Italy to the connection.
GOLD: Personal Net Worth of $20M and connect all the way to Istanbul.
Your choices for this scenario:
-20% track construction cost (toss-up with choice #3)
-25% station turnaround (3rd best)
+20% engine speed (toss-up with the first choice)
NOTE: When I say it's a toss-up, I mean it literally. Flip a coin because
each choice is of exactly the same value in my view.
|==================================|
|CROISSANTS OR CRUMPETS (1850-1890)|
|==================================|
BRONZE: $10M in industry investments and connect Pondichery, Panaji, and Delhi
SILVER: Add Calcutta and do it all by 1880.
GOLD: Add Kabul and be the ONLY surviving railroad.
Your choices for this scenario:
-20% track construction and early access to the 3-Truck Shay (best)
+$100,000 and +15% goodwill (2nd best)
-25% company overhead and +25% goodwill (3rd best)
|===========================================|
|THE SAMURAI RIDES AN IRON HORSE (1870-1899)|
|===========================================|
BRONZE: Connect Tokyo to Niigata, Nagoya, and Sendai.
SILVER: Also connect to Sapporo and Kyoto.
GOLD: Connect to Kagoshima and haul 50 car loads in a year.
Your choices for this scenario:
Early access to the 3-Truck Shay (best)
+$50,000 (3rd best)
+10% engine speed (2nd best)
NOTE: See a pattern developing? In mountainous terrain, the 3-Truck Shay is
your best friend. It's reliable and though it's slo...o...o...o..w on flat
land, it can haul almost anything you ask it to over almost any terrain
without a major loss of speed (very useful in the mountainous maps)
|===================================|
|WHICH WAY TO THE COAST? (1917-1958)|
|===================================|
BRONZE: Personal Net Worth of $10M by 1958.
SILVER: Do this by 1948.
GOLD: Do this by 1938.
Your choices for this scenario:
-20% station turnaround time (nearly useless)
+15% passenger and mail revenue (best)
+15% engine speed (almost as good)
NOTE: The Australia map is available only from these campaign scenarios, but
it's among the most fun of all the maps in the game...especially this "Which
Way?" map. With a relatively easy win condition, you can select "Yes" when
asked if you want to keep playing and totally go to town.
|==============================|
|THE PEOPLE'S TRAIN (1949-1972)|
|==============================|
BRONZE: Reach a Book Value of $10M by 1972.
SILVER: Reach a Book Value of $20M by 1967.
GOLD: Reach a Book Value of $40M by 1962.
Your choices for this scenario:
-20% track maintenance (3rd best)
+10% passenger and mail revenue (2nd best)
+20% station profit (best...you'd be amazed the money you can make)
|==============================|
|DILEMMA DOWN UNDER (1957-1982)|
|==============================|
BRONZE: Earn a profit of $1M for three straight years by 1982.
SILVER: Do this by 1977.
GOLD: Do this by 1972.
Your choices for this scenario:
+1 Credit Rating (pointless)
-25% engine purchase (a lifesaver...best)
-20% fuel cost (2nd best)
NOTE: That win condition isn't a misprint. Literally, one profitable
passenger route will put you over the top, and there ARE enough passengers to
create at least one, maybe even two or three that run consistently. A good
player shouldn't need more than four or five years to get this one down pat,
but luckily the map is well-organized and makes for a fun "Keep playing" time.
|=========================|
|CAPE TO CAIRO (1890-1930)|
|=========================|
BRONZE: Connect Cape Town to Cairo and haul 6 loads between them by 1930.
SILVER: Do this by 1916.
GOLD: Do this by 1902.
Your choices for this final scenario:
+$70,000 and +1 to your Credit Rating (worst)
+10% passenger revenue and -20% station turnaround time (2nd best)
+15% train speed (best)
If you make it this far, you've mastered the game! My hat is off to you, but
remember, the replay value of this game is such that I still play it a whole
lot...and I've a feeling that you will too! Happy railroading!
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|==============================================|
|10. COMING DISTRACTIONS/UPDATES/PERSONAL NOTES|
|==============================================|
Well, I've finally just about wrapped up my first ever game FAQ. So what's
coming next? Here's an incomplete sneak preview:
|===================================================|
|AEROBIZ/AEROBIZ SUPERSONIC MORE THAN COMPLETE GUIDE|
|===================================================|
Dan Simpson has written a pretty fair guide for the SNES Aerobiz series...
unfortunately, I disagree with nearly all of his strategy suggestions. For
that reason, I'm going to embark on my own analysis of these two simulation
classics...in the meantime, I commend to you Mr. Simpson's FAQ on gamefaqs.com
because it does contain a lot of useful information.
|=========================================|
|CIVILIZATION II: WORLD CONQUEST MADE EASY|
|=========================================|
This game defines "replay value", because I bought it over a year ago and I
still play it at least twice a week. Well, I thought, why not write a FAQ
sharing my accumulated wisdom with the world? Look for it as soon as I get it
written.
|=============================|
|RAILROAD TYCOON II UPDATE 1.1|
|=============================|
This FAQ will be updated with a fleshed-out Campaign game walkthrough and a
bunch of further information/analysis on trains and industry growth (I'm still
on the learning curve with this game, because it seems like every time I play
I learn something new about the engine and the interface.) Right now, I'm
just trying to get this thing done so I can get it posted in its current form.
As much as I love simulation and strategy games on all consoles and platforms,
you can bet that when one grabs my attention it's going to come under my
dissecting scalpel and I'm going to work on a FAQ for it. Stay tuned!
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