RAILROAD TYCOON II FAQ/GUIDE by Dennis L. "Fox" Doucette(rocketshow@hotmail.com) Version 1.0 March 21, 2000 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 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. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |=================| |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 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |===================| |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. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |================| |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. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |=================================================| |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!) |==============| |3D. CRASH BURN| |==============| 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! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |==================| |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)! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |======================| |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| |=============================| (all weights expressed in tons) |==============================================| |CAR | WT |==|CAR | WT | |================|====|==|================|====| |ALUMINUM | 45 |==|AUTOMOBILES | 45 | |BAUXITE | 65 |==|CATTLE | 30 | |CEMENT | 30 |==|CHEMICALS | 40 | |COAL | 65 |==|COFFEE | 50 | |COTTON | 55 |==|DIESEL | 45 | |FERTILIZER | 35 |==|FOOD | 25 | |GOODS | 25 |==|GRAIN | 40 | |GRAVEL | 65 |==|IRON | 45 | |LOGS | 45 |==|LUMBER | 40 | |MAIL | 15 |==|MILK | 30 | |OIL | 30 |==|PAPER | 50 | |PASSENGERS | 10 |==|PRODUCE | 40 | |PULPWOOD | 55 |==|RUBBER | 35 | |STEEL | 45 |==|SUGAR | 55 | |TIRES | 50 |==|URANIUM | 30 | |WASTE | 45 |==|WOOL | 35 | |DINING CAR* | 10 |==|CABOOSE* | 20 | |==============================================| *I put the Dining Car and Caboose in at the end (out of alpha order) because that's where the game rather conspicuously places them. |==============| |7C. TRAIN LIST| |==============| 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. |============================================================================| |TRAIN |F|TOP |SPEED|TOP |SPEED |COST|MAINT|FUEL/YR|AC|RL| |=====================|=|0T/0%|0T/6%|200T/0%|200T/6%|====|=====|=======|==|==| |Trevithick-1 |S| 10 | 1 | 3 | 1 |$10K| $6K| $3844|EP|EP| |Stephenson Rocket |S| 15 | 1 | 4 | 1 |$16K| $6K| $5126|EP|BA| |2-4-0 John Bull |S| 25 | 3 | 6 | 1 |$23K| $7K| $8370|P |BA| |0-4-0 DeWitt Clinton |S| 20 | 6 | 9 | 1 |$18K| $5K| $7676|EP|P | |4-2-0 Prussian |S| 30 | 6 | 11 | 1 |$35K| $8K| $13296|EP|BA| |4-4-0 American-C |S| 41 | 11 | 18 | 1 |$46K| $5K| $20265|P |AA| |4-2-2 Iron Duke |S| 53 | 18 | 27 | 1 |$78K| $9K| $59914|P |BA| |4-4-0 8-Wheeler |S| 48 | 16 | 25 | 1 |$59K| $5K| $34202|BA|AA| |2-4-0 Vulcan |S| 30 | 18 | 15 | 1 |$32K| $4K| $9385|VP|BA| |2-8-0 Consolidation |S| 40 | 19 | 26 | 1 |$51K| $8K| $36525|BA|G | |3-Truck Shay |S| 15 | 13 | 13 | 6 |$43K| $17K| $21159|P |G | |4-8-0 Mastodon |S| 45 | 23 | 30 | 1 |$60K| $13K| $44770|VP|P | |4-6-0 Ten-Wheeler |S| 50 | 22 | 31 | 1 |$66K| $11K| $44482|BA|BA| |1-3 BoBo |E| 55 | 41 | 37 | 2 |$85K| $6K| $71716|P |P | |2-6-0 Mogul |S| 50 | 23 | 31 | 1 |$83K| $12K| $51958|A |A | |4-4-2 Atlantic |S| 80 | 21 | 35 | 1 |$93K| $18K| $95639|F |AA| |2-6-0 Camelback |S| 30 | 23 | 25 | 7 |$75K| $9K| $25632|P |VG| |4-6-2 Pacific |S| 95 | 35 | 51 | 1 |119K| $21K|$157983|AA|A | |0-10-0 Class G10 |S| 50 | 30 | 41 | 1 |$98K| $38K|$117747|AA|A | |2-6-2 Prairie |S| 60 | 30 | 41 | 1 |$85K| $11K| $78965|BA|G | |4-4-0 D16sb |S| 45 | 23 | 30 | 1 |$65K| $9K| $41011|P |VG| |2-10-0 Class 13-H |S| 40 | 31 | 34 | 9 |102K| $36K| $94630|AA|G | |USRA 0-6-0 |S| 40 | 28 | 34 | 2 |$90K| $13K| $64784|P |G | |2-8-2 Mikado |S| 55 | 43 | 48 | 15 |133K| $32K|$122168|AA|G | |Be 4/6 II |E| 35 | 30 | 28 | 4 |$61K| $11K| $28002|F |VG| |Ee 3/3 |E| 31 | 28 | 28 | 12 |$47K| $7K| $21520|VP|G | |4-6-0 Class B12 |S| 71 | 27 | 39 | 1 |146K| $14K| $73499|F |AA| |Class 1045 |E| 40 | 36 | 35 | 12 |$95K| $6K| $23789|F |AA| |USRA 0-8-0 |S| 45 | 33 | 37 | 7 |$98K| $18K| $67828|BA|AA| |Class A4 Mallard |S| 126 | 41 | 68 | 1 |200K| $19K|$152382|AA|BA| |GG1 |E| 100 | 85 | 79 | 15 |285K| $19K|$120246|AA|O | |Class E18 |E| 93 | 60 | 51 | 1 |$97K| $16K| $68731|F |G | |4-6-4 Hudson |S| 90 | 55 | 68 | 6 |210K| $25K|$142594|BA|A | |4-8-4 Daylight |S| 80 | 57 | 65 | 11 |230K| $30K|$166359|A |BA| |4-6-4 J3A Streamliner|S| 103 | 60 | 77 | 3 |255K| $28K|$316136|AA|P | |Ae 8/14 |E| 68 | 58 | 63 | 29 |210K| $24K|$123818|F |AA| |Class 1020 |E| 56 | 50 | 48 | 15 |119K| $18K| $49808|F |VG| |4-8-8-4 Big Boy |S| 68 | 61 | 66 | 31 |375K| $75K|$231275|AA|P | |F3A+B |D| 85 | 61 | 73 | 8 |265K| $16K|$142866|F |AA| |4-4-4-4 T-1 |S| 85 | 53 | 65 | 6 |284K| $28K|$205253|F |G | |Ako PA-1 |D| 90 | 75 | 69 | 11 |210K| $16K|$142177|A |A | |F9 |D| 110 | 92 | 85 | 13 |337K| $18K|$180940|AA|AA| |GP9 |D| 71 | 62 | 59 | 15 |165K| $11K|$123081|A |G | |E69 |E| 31 | 29 | 29 | 17 |$86K| $8K| $23789|F |BA| |GP18 |D| 83 | 76 | 73 | 27 |245K| $15K|$149146|AA|VG| |V200 |D| 86 | 74 | 71 | 15 |160K| $19K|$144286|AA|BA| |Penn. E44 |E| 70 | 63 | 60 | 18 |370K| $22K| $95492|F |A | |Class 55 Deltic |D| 100 | 83 | 79 | 13 |480K| $15K|$143432|BA|VG| |Shinkansen Bullet |E| 130 | 84 | 72 | 1 |650K| $66K|$182628|VI|A | |FP45 |D| 106 | 78 | 65 | 1 |366K| $14K|$177629|AA|AA| |SD45 |D| 65 | 58 | 55 | 18 |360K| $21K| $89679|A |A | |SDP40 |D| 103 | 86 | 82 | 14 |292K| $18K|$172150|AA|P | |E60CP |E| 85 | 73 | 69 | 14 |260K| $19K|$100947|VF|A | |Class E111 |E| 85 | 78 | 76 | 31 |390K| $17K|$103809|A |G | |E656 FS |E| 93 | 54 | 66 | 4 |226K| $17K| $98747|A |AA| |Dash-9 |D| 70 | 64 | 63 | 27 |478K| $18K|$175803|AA|G | |AMD-103 |D| 105 | 83 | 75 | 7 |425K| $25K|$237832|VF|AA| |Thalys Bullet |E| 186 | 120 | 103 | 1 | $1M| $78K|$331694|VI|BA| |Class 232 |D| 75 | 67 | 66 | 25 |492K| $35K|$191924|VF|VG| |Mag-Lev TBX-1 |E| 280 | 173 | 144 | 1 |2.5M|$200K|$845856|I |AA| |0-4-0 A3 |S| 30 | 17 | 21 | 1 |$67K| $8K| $26913|VP|G | |0-4-0 UP |S| 20 | 12 | 10 | 1 |$32K| $5K| $9478|VP|AA| |============================================================================| 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! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |==============================================| |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. |=================| |OTHER FAQS/GUIDES| |=================| 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! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------