Railroad Tycoon 3
RAILROAD TYCOON 3
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FAQ written by Scott "Zoogz" Jamison
zoogz22 (at) yahoo (dot) com
http://www.nabiki.com/mst
This FAQ is property of and copyrighted by Scott Jamison, 2007. This
FAQ is licensed to GameFAQs due to their excellent work in archiving
FAQs for many games that I have played. Please do not post this FAQ
in any other location without my written permission. Additionally,
please do not alter this FAQ. I reserve the right to request this FAQ
to be removed from any website.
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Table of Contents
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1.0 - Version History
2.0 - Introduction to Railroad Tycoon III FAQ
2.1 - Game Overview
3.0 - Economics and Railroad Tycoon III
3.1 - General Overview to Economics.
3.2 - Competition.
3.3 - Purchasing and Maintaining Industries.
3.4 - Town Consumption and the Transportation Model.
3.5 - Supply and Demand - The Flow of Resources.
3.6 - Instant Manufacturing.
3.7 - Tycoonatrons and the Discussion of Competitive Advantage.
3.8 - Opportunity Costs and Time Value of Money
3.9 - Macroeconomics and Conditions.
4.0 - Railroad Tycoon 3 Controls
4.1 - The Globe Button / Station Cargo Lists
4.2 - The Track Button
4.3 - The Building Button
5.0 - Walkthrough
5.1 - Campaign Mode
5.1.1 - Go West
5.1.2 - Germantown U.S.A.
5.1.3 - Central Pacific
5.1.4 - Texas Tea
5.1.5 - The War Effort
5.1.6 - State of Germany
5.1.7 - Flying Scotsman
5.1.8 - Crossing the Alps
5.1.9 - Third Republic
5.1.10 - The Orient Express
5.1.11 - Argentina
5.1.12 - Africa
5.1.13 - Japan Quakes!
5.1.14 - The Seeder
5.1.15 - Dutchlantis
5.1.16 - Chip Off the Old Block
5.2 - Scenarios (TBD)
6.0 - Railroad Tycoon Updates
7.0 - Frequently Asked Questions
8.0 - Epilogue and Author's Notes
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1.0 Version History
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Version 0.4 - Begun the initial form of the FAQ. Sections added in-
clude the following:
Framework, Author's Disclaimer, Table of Contents, Version History,
Introduction, Economic Overview, Controls, and Walkthroughs (3/18
published)
Version date: 28 June 2007
Version 0.45 - Proofread, linebreaked, and tweaked a couple sections.
More walkthroughs to come in future releases.
Version date: 3 July 2007
Version 0.5 - Added 5.1.1, "Go West" to walkthroughs on request. Try
#8 at "Orient Express" not going too well either, so I will just com-
plete all the other walkthroughs.
Version date: 20 July 2007
Version 0.7 - Added new information to 4.2, "Track Button" in RRT3 Con-
trols. Added 5.1.2, "Germantown USA", 5.1.3 "Central Pacific", and
5.1.6 "German States" to walkthroughs. 5.1.6 was added upon request.
More walkthroughs to come. Added questions to FAQ.
Version date: 1 August 2007
Version 0.75 - Added new information to 3.4, "Town Consumption and the
Transportation Model" in the Economics overview section. Updated sec-
tions 5.1 and 5.1.6 with additional information. Added 5.1.4, "Texas
Tea" and 5.1.10 "Orient Express" to walkthroughs. Next plans include
filling in the remaining walkthroughs for the campaigns I have prev-
iously completed (7,8,9) and then being able to go on to the campaigns
that I have not started, namely 5 and 14-16.
Version date: 10 August 2007
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2.0 - Introduction to Railroad Tycoon 3:
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Welcome! This is my first FAQ, so any comments about this work,
please send them to the email address at the top of the page. I first
started playing Railroad Tycoon 2 after having found it at a local
store for $9, and enjoyed it immensely. I loved being able to build
track and watch my little trains go all over the place. I was able to
do pretty respectable at most of the scenarios and campaign as well.
(Thanks, Dennis Doucette, for the RRT2 FAQ; lemme tell you about India
someday!)
I did not purchase Railroad Tycoon 3 immediately upon its release; I
actually waited for a few months. I didn't hear any negative reviews
though, and obtained my copy. But when I started playing it, I will
admit that some of the differences in gameplay from Railroad Tycoon 2
to Railroad Tycoon 3 turned me off of the game at first. So then, Rail-
road Tycoon 3 sat in my "to play" pile for a long time afterward.
As I was cleaning out my "to play" pile late last year, I realized
how engaging this game could be. While economics will never really be
a water-cooler subject, this game is based upon many economic princi-
ples, and it took me a few times playing it to realize how interesting
and exciting it could be. Good and bad decisions in Railroad Tycoon 2
can affect you, to be sure, but good and bad decisions in Railroad Ty-
coon 3 affect you far more. It's because the gameplay model is far
more robust, and goes farther to be a truer model of economic behaviour
than Railroad Tycoon 2.
So, by all means, don't be scared of Railroad Tycoon 3. I realized
that a decent explanation of the economic system and gameplay princi-
ples would be gratefully appreciated by many people... possibly back
in 2005. It's now halfway through 2007, and I would be highly sur-
prised if anyone even cares about this game anymore. But I felt I had
to at least try to publicize it and help others to enjoy it, even if
too late really is too little.
Thank you for reading, and enjoy!
2.1 - Game Overview
The path to winning in Railroad Tycoon 3 is basically the same in
every scenario and campaign game - to build a network of tracks and
trains to service the transportation needs of your current region.
You are usually offered an amount of money at the start of the game,
and with this money you can start building tracks and trains, and con-
necting cities. More money can either be earned through your service,
obtained through stock issues in the stock market (capitalization), or
borrowed from the bank in the form of loans (liabilities).
Some scenarios and campaign games may have different focuses - for
instance, connecting two cities by rail, or raising your personal net
wealth, or even outlasting all other companies to be the last one stand-
ing. While there are ways that some goals can be accomplished without
even placing one inch of steel track, generally the easiest path to
victory is to build a rail network which is profitable.
In this game, your company can make a profit two different ways. You
can carry cargoes and earn a profit by taking them from one location
where they are supplied to another where they are demanded. Usually,
carrying raw materials to a production facility is a good example of
this method. Alternately, you can also purchase raw material facilities
and production facilities and make money on the direct usage of goods.
Some players get extremely good mileage from just transporting cargoes,
and it may be best to use this strategy as well if you are a beginner.
But also remember that profits can be made in many different avenues!
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3.0 Economics and Railroad Tycoon 3:
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Economics is a very strange art at times, and can require much ex-
planation. Railroad Tycoon 3 is very steeped in economics, even more
so than both Railroad Tycoon 1 and 2. Therefore, the below is a bit of
an essay which encompasses differences between gameplay of Railroad Ty-
coon 2 and 3, explains general economic models, and attempts to apply
them to Railroad Tycoon 3. For those who have not played Railroad Ty-
coon 2, my apologies; just try to ignore parts where I bring up differ-
ences, as it may become confusing.
There are a few areas that need to be introduced and explained in
this discussion. They are as follows:
3.1 - General Overview to Economics.
3.2 - Competition.
3.3 - Purchasing and Maintaining Industries.
3.4 - Town Consumption and the Transportation Model.
3.5 - Supply and Demand - The Flow of Resources.
3.6 - Instant Manufacturing.
3.7 - Tycoonatrons and the Discussion of Competitive Advantage.
3.8 - Opportunity Costs and Time Value of Money
3.9 - Macroeconomics and Conditions.
Economics is intertwined, so if you don't find your answer in one
general topic, please go on through the rest of the essay, as your an-
swer may be related to a different topic. Any questions you may have
will also be gratefully accepted and answered if possible, and posted
on the FAQ even if an answer does not exist so that feedback can be re-
quested and generated.
Additionally, "Tycoonatrons" is the general term I use for the in-
visible "people" of Railroad Tycoon 3. For those who remember the
SimCity games, just think of them as Sims. For those who played "The
Sims", you can't buy them a new refrigerator. Sorry.
3.1 - General Overview to Economics.
Before delving into the above topics, a deeper explanation of the
game may be necessary. Some people do read the documentation that
comes with a game, and some don't. For those who have already read the
game's documentation or are familiar with Railroad Tycoon, please skip
to the next topic below.
The economy in Railroad Tycoon encompasses many different items.
Some are supply items, such as logs or cattle. In order for these
items to be useful to most people, they need to be processed at a pro-
cessing plant, such as a lumber mill or a meat packing plant. In Rail-
road Tycoon, you can build a transportation network made up of trains
which can bring raw materials to processing plants and hopefully earn
your company a profit. The processing plants will use these raw mater-
ials to produce finished goods, like lumber (cut boards used for build-
ing) from logs or meat from cattle. "Houses" in Railroad Tycoon sym-
bolize the public at large, who consumes these types of items. And the
more houses a town has, the more that this town needs stuff - New York
City needs far more paper than Schenectady, for instance. And just re-
member, one finished good may be a raw material for another process -
rubber can be processed to tires, but tires are used as a raw material
for automobiles.
Clicking on every building and clicking the little square button
will show you what every building produces and demands. Hooking up
buildings which produce a certain good with buildings that demand a
certain good will be supplying a demand, and this is how you get money
in the game.
Additionally, there are also passengers and mail in Railroad Tycoon
3. Sometimes these can be the most lucrative deliveries. Both types
of "cargo" go from house to house, in essence. Most of our discussion
can also be applied to passenger and mail traffic, but just remember
that there's no processing of passengers - the game designers didn't
make a Soylent Green factory.
The key to earning money by hauling cargo is to haul it from a place
which supplies cargo to a place which demands cargo. That's all there
is to it.
It's a bit more difficult than that? Okay, then check out a few
topics below.
3.2 - Competition
Everywhere, competition exists. There's more than one bank, more
than one grocery store, more than one hotel. It's a fact of life, and
in Railroad Tycoon 3 it's no different.
Of course, you could be competing against other railroads in this
game, as in Railroad Tycoon 2. But now, you're also competing against
boats, trucks, and other methods of conveyance too. The game's eco-
nomic model will place prices on everything, and if there is a profit
to be made by shipping a material over a small amount of land or a long
amount of water, then the invisible Tycoonatrons will ship it them-
selves.
There is a benefit to this as well. Some industries may already be
producing their finished goods because the Tycoonatrons are already
supplying the industries. And usually finished goods provide a higher
amount of profit as well. Be sure to click on all industry buildings
to see a list of their profitability; they will usually have a record
of "units consumed" at the top which will show you how well-supplied
the industry is, and if it is near capacity then you can practically
count on this industry providing finished goods if connected to your
rail empire.
This also provides you with additional assistance in the form of
building stations. While you do still have the option of putting
small stations in some areas to capture a certain raw material build-
ing, your cities can benefit from the surrounding countryside as the
local farms and raw material producers will ship their goods to your
station if it is close. Just be sure to understand that if you buy
these industries, they may not be as profitable due to the transpor-
tation costs they have to pay in order to enter into your system. Your
stations also serve as an "instant transport"; if a cattle farm pro-
duces cattle, it may take a month or two to get to a nearby station by
Tycoonatron, but if you build a station which captures the cattle farm
(puts the cattle farm in its green highlight area), the production will
instantly be inside your station. It'll just cost money to buy the
station.
Last note, the Tycoonatrons will follow the paths of least resist-
ance. They will ship by rivers rather easily and also coastal parts of
oceans. I watched some goods go from one side of the map all the way
to the other because of coastal squares. Mountains are far more daunt-
ing though. You can compare this to your track-laying and ease in
transport; laying a track parallel to a river is usually pretty easy,
cheap, and results in very little grade, and therefore the trains will
move quickly. Laying track over a mountain (or THROUGH a mountain) is
highly expensive, and takes a long time, so you will be rewarded for
your premium if you made a wise decision.
To sum up, goods WILL move by themselves in some limited ways without
your trains to take them. Check the globe icon and click on the spe-
cific commodity for additional information, and to find out if a cer-
tain facility is utilizing some other form of transport to get their
goods to market.
3.3 - Purchasing and Maintaining Industries
Another difference between RRT2 and RRT3 is the industry model. Al-
ready discussed are the facts that some industries may already be sup-
plied without your efforts. Now, purchasing them as well as industry
consumption are different as well.
Firstly, purchasing industries. In RRT2, you had to depend on other
people buying the property and erecting the facility before you could
swoop down and purchase it from them. Now though, you can place your
own *production* buildings through the (station-)building menu. Just
search the list on the dots/lines button. Not only do you get some of
the passenger revenue-enhancing buildings from RRT2, you also get a
list of production buildings you may purchase. To be sure though, you
will be paying a premium on any building that you place yourself, a-
bout 150% of the purchase price of an identical new facility (and pos-
sibly beyond two times the price of a non-profitable facility). This
can be classified as the permits and property cost, I suppose.
And on any map, there will be old and new industries. Most industry
buildings will not disappear once they appear, and you can see some
buildings that have endured $2M of loss throughout their lifetime.
The buildings now act with the economy, unlike RRT2.
Now, you have to remember the maxim, "Buy low, sell high!" You al-
ready knew about it from RRT2 due to the stock market. Now it applies
to EVERY building on the map! If you see a factory that is productive
and profitable, then it will go for a higher cost than will an unprof-
itable factory. You can buy an unprofitable factory for a discount,
sometimes a profoundly deep discount.
This game teaches in a very profound way another business maxim,
"Time equals money." Buying an unprofitable factory is cheap, but
turning it into a profitable facility may take some time. Buy infra-
structure to support the facility though -- tracks to hold trains which
can transport goods, and stations to capture goods -- and give it some
time. A small investment could turn into a cash cow.
Conversely, if you find yourself needing industry profit to finish a
game, buy a profitable industry at a premium. In this fashion, while
you get far less of a percentage of your investment as profit, you are
also spending far less time as well and obtaining a facility that
gives you instant profits.
Ultimately, the tradeoff between buying and supplying an unprofit-
able facility versus a profitable one is made up of two things. Time,
as mentioned above, and the cost of infrastructure -- you WILL be lay-
ing track, building stations, and buying trains to supply your new fa-
cility, right? It will take time for the new facility to start produc-
ing once you supply it with raw materials. By spending money on infra-
structure instead of buying a more expensive (and profitable) facility,
you can use that same infrastructure to move other cargoes and obtain
more profits.
To summarize, you can buy industries or even build them from the
ground up. Some will be already profitable, and those are usually the
most expensive to buy. Some may not be producing anything, and they
are the cheapest to buy. It will take time and possibly more invest-
ment in track, station, and trains to turn an unprofitable facility
into a profitable facility, but sometimes it uses your resources better
than purchasing an already-profitable facility.
3.4 - Town Consumption and the Transportation Model
Two RRT2 tycoon things have disappeared. One is the one-car unit;
now, in Railroad Tycoon 3, you can ship between 50% and 100% of a car-
load of any material, including passengers and mail. (Note: In RRT3,
you cannot choose to ship a half-carload, it is purely dependent on the
cargo levels at your station.)
And remember the Railroad Tycoon 2 flags? Green for "sell all car-
goes", yellow for "keep cargoes on the train", and red for "keep car-
goes at station, don't sell"? They don't apply here anymore, due in
part to the pricing scheme and also the fill percentages from above.
Every town will now have a price for everything, and the amount that is
consumed will also depend on the price.
For instance, you may have three towns. The one on the west sup-
plies cattle. The one in the middle is a small consuming town. The
town to the east has a meat packaging plant. They may look like this:
Westerham ----------- Centreville ------------ East Eastie
Cattle Ranch Meat Packaging Plant
If you have a train route between Westerham to Centreville, you may
have one or more loads of cattle. This is because of the flow of
goods, the Tycoonatrons. The closer you get to a demanding facility,
the meat packaging plant, the higher the price will be for the cattle.
By taking the cattle at least part of the way, you will get at least
part of the money realized from shipping the cargo, and the Tycoon-
atrons may take some (or even all) of the cattle you supplied Centre-
ville to East Eastie because of the profit they could realize from the
shipment.
And here's the fun part. Say you did take two loads of cattle from
Westerham to Centreville, and you also have a train coming to Centre-
ville and going to East Eastie in two months. While the Tycoonatrons
may have taken some of the cattle, there may be some cattle left that
the Tycoonatrons couldn't ship at a profit to them still in Centreville
that you may be able to ship for a profit. So your East Eastie train
might pick up, say, 1.7 loads of cattle from Centreville to sell in
East Eastie. In this case you may miss out on some of the profit, but
in effect the game automatically caused you to flag the cargo red so
that another train could pick it up, and you were penalized accordingly
(though slightly) for making the cargo sit.
A visual retelling of the above may look like this:
Westerham ------------- Centreville ------------- East Eastie
Cattle Ranch Meat Packaging Plant
(Cost for Cattle: $45k) (Cattle: $67k) (Cattle: $90k)
2.0 loads from Westerham to East Eastie - base price $90k
Total profit: $90k
2.0 loads from Westerham to Centreville - base price $44k
1.7 loads from Centreville to East Eastie - base price $39k
Total profit: $83k
As you may notice, the Tycoonatrons will skim some of the profit from
the top for undertaking some shipment of cargo themselves.
(Special note - the price may change slightly too, but this is pure-
ly a simplification)
This is why the automatic choosing of cargo is the best way to run
your trains. You may not know from one shipment to the next what car-
go would be best to place on a train, especially if you consider the
next scenario:
Westerham------Centreville---------East Eastie Notrackville
Grain Farm Brewery
In this example, there is a grain farm near Centreville which pro-
vides grain to your station to ship, and a brewery (which processes
grain into alcohol, a finished good in this game) in Notrackville. As
Notrackville indicates, your track doesn't run all the way there; it
stops at East Eastie. Example costs of goods:
Westerham------Centreville---------East Eastie Notrackville
Grain: $15 Grain: $13 Grain: $34 (Grain: $58)
Alcohol: $190 Alcohol: $185 Alcohol: $176 (Alcohol: $133)
By providing East Eastie with the grain, you still will get a pre-
mium - $21 per 1.0 load. But because grain is far more demanded in
Notrackville, where they can supply their brewery with it, the Tycoon-
atrons will endeavor to ship some of the grain from East Eastie to No-
trackville. And that amount of grain will be fed into the brewery,
where alcohol will be brewed. Alcohol then is far cheaper in Notrack-
ville, but the Tycoonatron's premium for moving alcohol from Notrack-
ville to East Eastie will be built right into difference between the
East Eastie price and Notrackville's price - $43 per 1.0 load.
East Eastie will still have alcohol for loading, though not as much
as if you connected Notrackville to begin with. By shipping East East-
ie alcohol to Centerville, you'll still realize a profit between the
two prices - $9 per 1.0 load. But as you notice, the profit is a
slight profit compared to connecting Notrackville.
And this is where you, the Railroad Baron, have to make your deci-
sion. Would connecting Notrackville be worth the money invested in
more track, another station, and more trains? Or would it be suffi-
cient to let the Tycoonatrons supply your station down the line, so
that you can then supply the stations in your current railroad network?
Now this discussion leads us to consumption. There are a multitude
of ways that any amount of anything (goods, food, raw materials, etc.)
dwindles:
1. People taking raw materials and producing their own goods (like a
cottage-industry woodworker taking 5% of a 1.0 load of logs to plane or
sand for his own use).
2. Waste.
3. Theft.
4. Use (Consumption).
5. Purchase and transport.
1-3 above are minor, but will happen. They are provided so that you
are aware that if numbers drop, it may be due to other reasons rather
than your trains or the Tycoonatrons' shipping capabilities.
We covered #4 already above with the Tycoonatrons. In Railroad Ty-
coon 3, towns will now use the production that factories will provide.
In RRT2, if you have a meat packing plant in a city, taking cattle to
the facility created food. But this food had to GO somewhere else, it
was not demanded at all in the town where it was produced. In this
game, towns WILL consume goods, and it is not a bad thing. Take the
following scenario:
Centreville Notrackville
Grain Farm Brewery
Grain: $13 (Grain: $58)
Alcohol: $185 (Alcohol: $133)
Let's introduce a new portion now:
Brewery (Capacity 3 units/year)
Supply (the grain!): $58/unit
Labor/Overhead: $30k/year
One of the two numbers fluctuates a lot - labor. Labor are the Ty-
oonatrons running the brewery, working inside. If the brewery doesn't
run, then fewer Tycoonatrons are needed, and the cost will go down (but
not disappear; you can't have a completely empty facility and call it
"open".)
One of the numbers doesn't fluctuate as much - overhead. Overhead
refers to the electricity used to make the factory run, the taxes on
the land and assets, and to some extent the wages of the management of
the factory. Overhead will also always exist, and there's only so
much you can dispense with.
But with the numbers above, we can understand the following:
Brewery - Consumption 2.0 Units
Supply - $116k
Labor/Overhead: $30k
Which means that you can tell completely what the costs of this brew-
ery are:
2.0 units of grain @$58/unit=$116k + Labor/Overhead $30k=$146k
But alcohol sells for $133/unit in Notrackville, so therefore if
they sell all the alcohol there the revenue (all money made) becomes:
2.0 units @$133 = $266
With expenses, the brewery will show a $266k-$146k = $120k profit.
But imagine the Tycoonatrons. One or another enterprising Tycoon-
atron may take a .25 load of alcohol from Notrackville where it sells
for $133 to Centreville, where he can realize a profit of $13k. If
this is all he can haul, then it makes sense that his maximum profit is
$13. If he can haul .5 loads though, why not haul more if it won't
cost that much more and get $26k profit instead?
However, Notrackville's price for alcohol is still worth the brewery
in Notrackville to sell alcohol to the general public, given limited
options. If you connect Notrackville to your rail network though,
your trains are in essence "buying" Notrackville's alcohol for them-
selves at the same $133 price that the public may pay, and you are re-
alizing the profit when you then "sell" the alcohol to Centreville at
$185. But while your trains are not in station "buying" the alcohol,
and if there is a surplus, remember that any Tycoonatron who's thirsty
can pony up his own $133 and the brewery will sell him alcohol too.
Now we get into basic supply and demand, in the next section below!
Just remember, consumption is JUST like production in this game in
one key way: it doesn't all happen immediately! We used the numbers
above to provide an "average" price. Prices can go up and down and af-
fect the purchase price of any commodity - just look at your local pe-
trol station for an illustration!
Another note to remember in this game is to follow the train cars!
When you click on the station that your facility is served by, the list
of cargoes will appear. In this list, you can find out both if your
facility is being supplied and also if your facility is able to sell
finished goods. You can tell this both the same way. If for instance
you own a brewery, this means that you need grain as an input. The
houses serviced by your station will ALSO demand grain too. Therefore,
click on the station and click the grain car to see what is happening!
Your brewery, as long as you zoom out far enough, should have a down-
ward pointing triangle. If there is grain to be input to the brewery,
then little black railcars of grain will appear UNDER the triangle's
point. If so, you have a supply, and your factory should be outputting
alcohol at this very second.
Then, you can find out if your alcohol is being bought or not by
clicking on the alcohol car in the station list. If there are black
cars around the town but not in the station, then your alcohol is also
being bought. Congratulations, you are likely turning a profit! If
the black cars are sitting at the station though, you'd better get a
train to transport them somewhere else. All that needs to happen is
for them to be loaded on a train for them to be bought. So therefore,
if you have an alcohol factory yet prices are pretty stagnant for alco-
hol, find the nearest location that you can ship it even for a few pen-
nies extra and ship it there, as you will earn the profit through the
revenue your brewery just made in selling the alcohol to your train to
ship.
This is how I understand the revenue model for supply and production
buildings in RRT3. I was perplexed recently, as I bought a steel mill
which did extremely brisk business yet the steel seemed to be piling up
in the town; there were upwards of 10 units of steel, yet my factory
put up amazing $1.1M profits. I then realized that the two tool and
die factories were not only upgraded, but operating at maximum capacity
and likely purchasing the steel as soon as it gets turned out. As I
honestly don't know any other way that you can possibly book revenue
on a product that seems to not be getting sold, and if anyone else has
any ideas in regards to this topic I would be happy to hear them.
So this is what is happening behind the scenes constantly. You have
Tycoonatrons trying to get ahead in life, much like you may be (unless
of course, you're at university.) If you still are at university, go
ask your economics professor about some of this stuff, and (s)he'll be
glad to help. Alternately, send an email to the address at the top of
the FAQ for any questions.
3.5 - Supply and Demand - Flow of Resources
This will be a quick discourse on the basics of supply and demand,
hopefully little more than a refresher course. It will focus on how
the game deals with supply and demand going forward though.
Let's go back to Westerham and East Eastie, and give a date of 1889:
Westerham --------- Centreville ----------- East Eastie
Cattle Ranch Meat Packaging Plant
(Livestock: $45k) (Livestock: $67k) (Livestock: $90k)
(Meat: $255k) (Meat: $235k) (Meat: $195k)
Cattle Supply: 5.6 Cattle Supply: 1.2 Cattle Supply: 0.2
Meat Supply: 0.0 Meat Supply: 0.3 Meat Supply: 0.7
As you see, Westerham's cattle sell for $45k per 1.0 load. East
Eastie has a meat packaging plant which needs raw materials, the live-
stock, in order to process into meat. That's the new price you see on
the list above. At this point, there's a reason that meat costs a lot
in Westerham; they have very little, so people are willing to pay more
for the small amounts of meat that local butchers may be able to pro-
duce. Cattle in East Eastie are the same way, since it costs such a
large amount for the Tycoonatrons to be able to move what little live-
stock they can the long distance all the way from Westerham to East
Eastie - some may die, some may get lost, et cetera. Still note
though that *some* shipping may be happening due to the Tycoonatrons.
So, your train comes to the rescue! At first, you can just do a
short trip from Westerham to Centreville, and that will get the cattle
moving toward the direction of East Eastie. But you may also notice
that profits for the cattle you pick up in Westerham are far better in
East Eastie, and they also will hopefully have meat for you to sell
after their meat packaging plant starts producing.
As a rule of thumb, your best profit will come from the first few
shipments you undertake. Because since you're fulfilling a need, then
costs will stabilize across the board:
Check out what may happen by 1894:
Westerham --------- Centreville ---------- East Eastie
Cattle Ranch Meat Packaging Plant
(Cattle: $72k) (Cattle: $78k) (Cattle: $82k)
(Meat: $230k) (Meat: $218k) (Meat: $205k)
Cattle Supply: 1.6 Cattle Supply: 0.7 Cattle Supply: 4.2
Meat Supply: 1.3 Meat Supply: 1.0 Meat Supply: 2.4
Your trains did this!
When you filled the need for cattle to be sent from Westerham to
East Eastie, you caused prices to rise slightly in Westerham - the
local butcher who can still make a profit by slaughtering his own meat
won't be able to find as many cattle as he used to. At the same time
the ranchers will realize that there are fewer and fewer cattle, so
therefore they will raise prices in order to capture more money from
their service. Cattle won't be in as great of supply as before, so
the ranchers can be more choosy in the prices they charge!
East Eastie still needs cattle, but check out the livestock supply
exampled above. If the meat packaging plant can only process (about)
3.0 loads of livestock yearly, then they're supplied for more than a
year. Where might those 4.2 train cars of cattle be? The meat packing
plant can't just let them go free and then go find them when they're
needed... they need to store the cattle and feed the cattle before they
are processed. These costs now show up in the lowered price of this
cattle.
And meat! Now that Westerham is being supplied with meat, the rich
aren't the only ones who can afford it. If only one Tycoonatron bought
meat at the local butcher for $254 before East Eastie's steaks hit the
market, the butcher only got the $254. But when East Eastie's steaks
hit the market, why would the marketplace only sell one steak at $254
if they can sell twenty steaks at $230? Remember, if a good isn't
sold, it isn't worth anything; it's currency that runs everything.
As for the one Tycoonatron who bought steak at $254? Well, if all the
steak is the same, why buy steak at $254 if it's the same as the $230
stuff? This allows the one Tycoonatron to keep $24 in his pocket to
spend on something else, which then allows economies to grow.
Now would be a good time to inform you that everything in Railroad
Tycoon 3 is treated as a commodity. This term means that the quality
of an item is not considered in its pricing. Therefore, a McDonald's
hamburger is the exact same meat as the steak you may buy from an Out-
back Steakhouse. Obviously, in the real world this isn't the case, but
the same 2.0 load of meat from East Eastie is worth exactly the same as
the meat butchered by the Tycoonatron in Westerham.
So, on a microeconomic scale, your trains serve to balance prices.
Prices will never be truly equal, as your trains do not transport goods
instantaneously nor are they always at the station. East Eastie's
large supply of meat isn't all getting taken out of town unless you
have a fleet of trains just waiting for it (which would probably cost
too much to support), so East Eastie's prices will still be lower. As
more and more meat is taken from East Eastie, the price will rise slow-
ly. Please note that this will make the meat packaging plant (as well
as the cattle farm) more and more profit as they go along, which make
them attractive investments provided the costs were low enough.
As a wrapup, supply prices are low and demand prices are high. Your
company will make profit by buying at supply prices and selling at de-
mand prices. Obviously, the farther apart these prices are, the more
profit you will make. But remember that once you start supplying de-
mand that prices will start to equalize over time, making you less and
less profit each time you supply the same demand constantly.
This section will connect with the opportunity costs discussion in
section 3.7 as well as the macroeconomic section at 3.8.
3.6 - Instant manufacturing
Railroad Tycoon 2 worked on the instant manufacturing theory, which
stated that if you bring two cattle cars to a meat packaging plant,
they instantly turn into two food cars. Obviously, not only did you
earn money with the two cattle cars, you also will earn money by haul-
ing the food cars. In Railroad Tycoon 3, this aspect is completely
neutralized. Now, each facility not only has a limit to how much they
can process, they also will not process these items immediately. I do
not have a complete guide to the times that it takes for materials to
be processed, but if anyone has figured this information I would be
glad to add it to this guide.
Ultimately, for the facility to produce, it needs to be profitable
to produce. 99 times out of 100, it is profitable for a facility to
turn raw materials into finished goods, but if you find a facility
that just does not work correctly this may be the cause.
The main point here is that you can't expect to sit your train for
the cargo to be processed. You have to provide ample supply to an in-
dustry in order to have any expectation that the finished goods will
be available. As long as there is a year or two of constant supply,
the industry in question will probably have finished goods waiting for
transport.
This isn't to say that "instant" production doesn't exist anymore.
One of the most important parts of the game still happens instantly,
which is building. Track, station, and even bought production facili-
ties are all erected immediately, with no lag in time. If you had to
wait eight years for engineers to build a bridge over a long river ra-
ther than to hear the "clink-a-clink" of them constructing it immed-
iately, it'd certainly change the game.
3.7 The Tycoonatrons and the Discussion of Competitive Advantage
So you may be thinking, "The Tycoonatrons can ship anything. Why
should I bother even building a train?"
The programmers thought of this too. It'd be an extremely boring
game if the Tycoonatrons did everything, wouldn't it?
Remember the above examples? The Tycoonatrons could ship materials
over short distances themselves. But the Tycoonatrons have two major
problems. One is speed. The other is capacity. These issues become
things that the railroad can do well; in economic terms, they are
"strategic advantages".
The Tycoonatrons are slow for the most part. Rivers and other bodies
of water will speed them up and increase their capacity, but check out
your trains. In the 1800s, you routinely see speeds around 60MPH and
faster. In the 1900s, you have trains that can go 150MPH and faster.
Think back to history... could horses match train speeds in the 1800s?
Could cars match train speeds in the 1900s and 2000s, considering the
fact that trains have the right-of-way? Consider even the fact that
trains can usually climb hills better than horses (even if they are
slow) and can also move faster than boats on the water.
Building a rail, two stations, and placing a train on it is the fast
-est way to get from station A to station B in this game. Your trains
will effectively reduce spoilage to miniscule. The poor Tycoonatrons
can't compete with your speed though, and you only have to click on the
globe to notice that while the little train cars of supply radiate some
way, many times they don't radiate very far. You can only walk a case
of beer so far before you start drinking it.
Capacity is your other strategic advantage. You may notice that it's
hard for a person to carry more than four cases of beer. Put it on a
train though, and it's easy as pie. If you already made the investment
of a train and track, putting five cases of beer on the same train
changes the cost minutely. As a matter of fact, it costs pretty much
the same to haul 400 cases of beer compared to 4 cases. Selling 400
cases of beer at $20 apiece is far more valuable than selling 4 cases
of beer at $40 apiece.
This is how the economy runs here. Tycoonatrons can only take so
much because their capacities are extremely limited. But they will
try to maximize their small capacities just like you will try to maxi-
mize your large capacity. Your goal in this game is to figure out how
to make your trains profitable, and the way to do that is to make sure
that they are hauling cargoes that can be sold for a high premium at
another station down the line.
Remember the overhead discussion above? In most cases, overhead is
the purchasing of capacity. Buying a medium station in Railroad Tycoon
3 costs $100k, but it is a one-time cost. If you deliver only 5.0
units of mail at $20/unit, you'll break even. But if you deliver 20.0
units of mail at $10/unit, you will make a profit (20 * $10k = $200k,
Station = $100k, total profit of $200k-100k = $100k). And the best
part is that as far as the station goes, there is no change in cost be-
tween offloading 5.0 units and 20.0 units; the station doesn't change
cost.
The things that are variable in this game are your trains. The more
trains that you run, the more cost that will be incurred (purchase
price, fuel, and maintenance as well as lost opportunity for other
trains that have to stop for congestion). So by all means, maximize
the profit of each of your trains.
Capacity does also apply to factories as well. A factory that has a
large supply of raw materials may be best served in increasing capa-
city. More capacity is again an increase in overhead, as more property
is bought, a larger facility implies more building materials, and all
other costs. It will also be an increase in labor, as more people are
needed to be hired in order to convert more raw materials. Addition-
ally, if you increase supply of your finished good, you may see your
purchase prices drop as increased supply of the good will result in de-
creased demand. But if the demand is high enough and the facility is
profitable enough, by all means increase the capacity! As in the above
examples, 3.0 loads of alcohol at $133k will be worth $399k, but 5.0
loads of alcohol at $120k are worth $600k. The biggest issue is to
make sure that the costs incurred to go from a profit of $399k to $600k
are smaller than the increased profit.
So you do have competitive advantage over almost everything else in
the game as far as speed and capactiy are concerned. What do you do
with that competitive advantage?
In true Bill Cosby fashion, I tell you that story to tell you this
one:
3.8 - Opportunity Cost
The above example can be a demonstration of a principle called
"opportunity cost". Opportunity cost is everywhere too! Do you want
to use an extra $5 of gas to go see a friend... or did you want to use
that $5 to get a bite to eat? You make decisions every day on how best
to use your money, and these decisions may change on a daily basis.
On Monday, you may have decided to use the $5 on food, but on Tuesday
you could be regretting that decision because you really need to talk
to your friend now. And then, if you have yet another $5 you can
spend, you may face the same decision and then choose differently.
In this game, you invest money in order to make money. Imagine you
connected Westerham with Centerville, like this:
Westerham ------------- Centreville East Eastie
It could take $350k to build track between two cities, $200k for two
stations, and another $150k for a train for a total of $700k! And the
first load you transport on this track could be worth only $150k.
What kind of profit is that?
Costs: $700k
Revenue: $150k
Profit (Revenue minus costs): $550k of COSTS.
That's not making money, right? But in this game, track you lay
tends to stay there permanently, and the trains you place can make ma-
ny shipments. (Maintenance costs exist for both, but for the sake of
this conversation they are minimal) So after a while, you could make
a total of ten trips between the two towns and end up making a profit
of $1.2M over three years, then we can reevaluate your decision to
build:
Costs: $700k
Revenue: $1.2M
Profit (Revenue minus costs): $500k after 3 years.
Good, right? Well, guess what.... you can place that $700k of in-
frastructure anywhere you want, provided you have the permission. The
majority of places you could place that $700k of track would give you
very little revenue, which made them bad choices, but they were choices
nonetheless.
Imagine this scenario:
Westerham Centreville ------BRIDGE----- East Eastie
Say that it took $950k total to connect Centreville to East Eastie,
due to a bridge that had to be built unlike the Westerham-Centreville
route. But in three years, you earned $1.6M. So the profit you re-
ceived from this transaction may look like this:
Costs: $950k
Revenue: $1.6M
Profit (Revenue minus costs): $650k after 3 years.
So, you would make more profit quicker if you built the connection
between Centreville and East Eastie first. Keep in mind though that
in our example, it did cost more as well. So, we'll do another scen-
ario, where you do have the $700k to do the Westerham-Centreville con-
nection, but you couldn't raise the $950k needed to create the Centre-
ville-East Eastie connection the first year because of bad credit. If
you first waited a year for your credit rating to rise to offer a bond,
you might be able to then make the connection! You issue a bond one
year later and gain $500k, which is more than enough to make your con-
nection to begin with. The bond carries a 10% interest rate. And be-
cause costs have risen, it now takes $1.0M to build the same connec-
tion. So the analysis may look like this:
Costs: $1.0M + $50k + $50k (two interest payments) = $1.1M
Revenue: $1.6M * 2/3 of the time = $1.1M
Profit (Revenue minus costs): $0 after 3 years.
You didn't make a profit! But... you could have made more profit
based on connecting Westerham and Centreville earlier! Whoops... that
is lost opportunity.
Everyone in the world makes opportunity cost evaluations constantly,
so it's not a new principle. In the world of economics in Railroad Ty-
coon 3, you may notice that opportunity costs exist everywhere - just
look at all the towns you can connect!
And here's one last concept for this section. The above illustration
is a good way to show the time value of money. Remember waiting one
year to build the Centreville to East Eastie connection? It costed a
bit more to build one year later, and cut one year of revenue stream
from the final total. All of the scenarios have a time frame added to
it, so make sure that if you are waiting to build a connection it is
because raising the money is either impossible or too expensive, or
that there are no profitable connections to make at the present time.
Making these decisions is definitely not as cut-and-dried as I showed
above; oftentimes, you don't know how well one of your decisions panned
out until possibly two years of game-time has elapsed, and sometimes
even longer. But be sure that you're always thinking about the oppor-
tunity costs of any decision you make in Railroad Tycoon 3, including
possible missed opportunity elsewhere.
3.9 - Macroeconomics and conditions:
The paper came! There's a depression! Everyone's panicking!
In the real world, depressions and economic booms are overall condi-
tions. These conditions are based on growth for the most part - if a
economy is shrinking, then it will be in a depression. An economy
shrinks when the amount of resources entering it grows smaller, in es-
sence. And cash can certainly be one of those resources. Conversely,
if an economy is expanding, it is because the available resources are
increasing.
In the normal world, growth rates fluctuate but generally stay posi-
tive. This is because human industry and work becomes more and more
productive, plus population increases which grow the labor pool. Re-
member when you connected the meat packaging plant to Westerham? The
Tycoonatrons didn't have to spend as much on meat, and that left them
able to use their money in different ways. Being able to spend their
money elsewhere allows for growth to happen. This is also the normal
condition of the game - when the economy is normal, it is growing at a
modest rate.
From there though, increases in production or decreases in prices
may trigger "prosperity", or an economic "boom". In this case, there
is more production going on, all the way up to 120% to 125% of normal
production levels. Additionally, because cash becomes more available
in a prosperous economy, fuel costs and labor costs may rise because
the demand for both items will be stretched. Raw materials costs can
rise too, and as the chief officer of a railroad, you may want to pay
attention when laying track in a boom time - it will cost more. A
prosperous economy is an inflationary economy - ALL prices will rise.
But sometimes, problems happen that interrupt production on a wide-
scale basis, or prices increase too much to be explained by inflation
and prosperity. At this point, people make do with less, and spend
less too. And when cash doesn't flow as easily, growth rates may stag-
nate. This can lead to economic "slowdowns", recessions, and depres-
sions. In this situation, labor and raw materials cost less. Stock
prices also trend downward, as discretionary income isn't available to
use to invest - it is needed for necessities for the majority of peo-
ple. Turning a profit in a depression is not easy, but it still can
happen; even if more than half of the people aren't getting by well,
there are still some people who are earning a profit and able to still
purchase items. Prices may decrease in these times due to the fact
that the demand does not exist, and production may also go away.
The economic condition in Railroad Tycoon 3 is a good indicator of
what may happen in the future. Any system will attempt to reach equi-
librium, including economies. A slowdown may indicate that your rail-
road may not be as profitable through the next while. While you may
need to change your strategy a bit due to this issue, just remember the
discussion on opportunity costs - make sure that you're either obtain-
ing profit immediately or on your way to obtaining profit, and no mat-
ter what economic condition you're in you'll be able to succeed.
There are advantages to both conditions of economic activity though.
In depressions, the cost for new investment is lowered - you can usu-
ally lay track for less, and fuel and labor costs are lower. Supply
costs usually dip lower during this time until such time that labor
costs will dip to match supply costs. And of course, demand costs will
also lower, probably more than the amount that the supply costs will
drop. There will be less cargo available and less passengers and mail,
as the money to afford more of all of these items isn't available to
all people. Stocks in the stock market will go lower, as people can't
spend their discretionary income on stocks when they have to purchase
necessities. This is the perfect time to engage in half the maxim of
"Buy low!", as long as you make sure that it is still a wise invest-
ment. Additionally, bond interest rates will dip lower as well, as it
is in the interests of the market as a whole to put more money into
circulation for investment purposes. A lack of money to chase resources
is one of the biggest causes of an economic slowdown, and even if the
money goes to taking a risk, it's being spread about and hopefully used
by other people.
In prosperous or "boom" times, fuel and labor costs go up. Demand
goes up, as there is a lot of money, but supply costs also go up be-
cause more money means that there's less supply to go around to every-
one. Stocks in the stock market will gain value because discretionary
income can be used to speculate with, and these times are usually the
times to practice "sell high!", especially with companies which don't
seem to be turning a large amount of profit. However, the bond market
will cool off and bond interest rates will rise. This is because if
more and more money floods the market, inflation will continue and it
could permanently damage an economy. A higher interest rate means that
borrowing money carries a higher opportunity cost, so risky endeavors
which do not realize profit are punished greater during this time.
This concludes both the tour of economics as a whole and how they ap-
ply in the world of Railroad Tycoon 3. PLEASE contact me for any addi-
tional ways that I can clarify any of the above principles as they ap-
ply to Railroad Tycoon 3. Economics is a fuzzy area to many people,
and it is now a far more key concept in Railroad Tycoon 3. Any ques-
tions I receive can be added to an actual FAQ to append to this section
for any future revisions of this document, and will likely help every-
one else.
____
4.0 - The Controls of Railroad Tycoon 3:
____
Railroad Tycoon 3 has a good instruction book, so I will cover three
high points that may not be understood fully:
4.1 - The Globe Button / Station Cargo Lists
The globe button is an extremely important indicator of supply and
demand in Railroad Tycoon 3. By clicking on the globe icon, you can
find out information about the microeconomics of your map.
First, click on the globe icon. From there, you will see TONS of
cars all around the map. This information may not be extremely help-
ful, but at the very least you can see the stations that may have the
highest amount of inventory. As a very general rule of thumb, more in-
ventory is more opportunity to make money.
However, your best option is to click on individual cargoes. For in-
stance, if you click on "Grain", you will see triangles pointing down
and triangles pointing up. The triangles pointing down are areas that
demand grain, and the triangles pointing up are areas that supply it.
You should also see black rectangles which symbolize carloads of grain.
For instance, if you see a town with a brewery (downward-pointing tri-
angle) with no railcars going toward it, you can be somewhat sure that
the demand for grain is high because there is no supply. If you have
any grain cars, divert them to the area.
However, if you see a brewery in a town and small black rectangles
going towards it, it is likely that the brewery is being supplied and
you can possibly pick up cargoes of alcohol near (or if you connect the
city, in) the city.
Also, be sure to check out the red/green coloring on the map. It
symbolizes the price for the commodity you choose. You can take car-
goes toward the green areas and pick up higher profits than if you off-
load them to red areas.
Additionally, you can check prices themselves within the station dia-
logue. If you click on a station in any city, you will see a list of
all cargoes available in the scenario. You can find out what cities
are demanding certain cargoes and the prices, as well as finding out
what towns are supplying certain cargoes. This is also a good way to
find where to create new passenger routes. Just make sure to notice
the "supply" numbers, as a route that only has 0.8 loads at $25k per
load is not as lucrative as a route that has 1.6 loads at $20k per load.
Use this information in conjunction with the information you receive
when clicking on buildings as well. For instance, you may see 0.3
loads of grain in a town with a brewery, so you may assume that the
town demands more grain. But if you click on the facility, you may
find out exactly how much production the brewery had the last three
years - you may even find out that it's running at near capacity, which
would make your grain shipments less lucrative than you may want.
4.2 - The Track Button
Without track, you can't run any trains. Which is usually a bad
thing. The track button is rather straightforward, but there are op-
tions that you should be made aware of. Firstly, you can choose wheth-
er or not to try to build overpasses, which will cost more but it will
allow you to build crossing overpasses so that trains do not have to
stop at certain intersections. You can turn the option from "on" to
"off", and building overpasses is more expensive than not.
Next is the bridge button. Bridges obviously allow your train to
cross water. You have four choices here, "common", "average", "rare-
ly", or "never". The reason for four options is that you can build
bridges *near* water, and will not get weird grades if you use "com-
mon", but the cost of additional bridgework will be higher.
After this is the tunnel button, which is the exact same as the
bridge button, offering the same four choices. Again, the tradeoff is
higher expense for lower grades.
The last option on the right is for electic track, which is either on
or off. Make sure you pay attention here, because there are many cases
where electric trains may be superior to steam or diesel trains. Since
you have to have the track electrified in order to run the trains, make
sure you turn this option on _when needed_. Don't confuse this with
the little button at the corner, which shows a lightning bolt and a
track - this is to electrify all your track automatically.
Electrifying all of your track at the same time, especially if you
have a lot of track, could be exceedingly expensive. If you're plan-
ning on gradually introducing electric trains due to the cost of laying
the appropriate track, then go slowly. Just lay the track you may need
immediately, and once you expand electric routes then you can go back
and build more.
Lastly, make sure the bridge you need is the one that's turned on.
For occasional traffic crossings, use wood. For a higher volume, use
steel. Finally, for an extremely high volume, stone. You can choose
to build single or double track with the steel and stone bridges, the
wood bridges come in only one flavor - one-track.
When laying track, the game has a good way to notify you roughly how
expensive your track will be. You will see color-coded numbers above
the track which will indicate the grades of the track that you will be
building. But because a track cannot be built without making sure that
the right-of-way is smooth, you will also see that the track *itself*
will be color-coded, and this color may not match the colors of the
numbers above. This is because the track color will correspond to the
track bed that will have to be laid. If the track bed has to be raised
in order to run a railroad, it will cost more! Green track is track
that does not need a bed, and yellow and red indicates more expensive
track.
(NOTE - In track-limit scenarios, building double track WILL take
your track limit down by two instead of one.)
4.3 - The Building Button
Most people should be well familiar with the station building but-
ton, as without stations you cannot schedule trains. But the main is-
sue in this dialogue box is the button within the building dialogue box
which has dots and lines. Be sure to not forget it! This is where you
can purchase both your passenger-revenue increasing buildings such as
hotels and taverns, post offices, and production buildings. Don't ig-
nore production in this game! A building worth $2M may seem like a
heavy investment, but if it is well-supplied and maintained, it can
bring in five times that amount as a long-term ten year investment. As
in RRT2, production buildings can also sustain through bad economic
times as well.
____
5.0 - Campaigns/Scenarios:
____
5.1 - Campaign Mode:
As you may notice, this section is a bit bare right now. I can say
that I have obtained gold medals on scenarios #1 through #13 with the
exception of #5, at normal difficulty. Therefore, I am in the process
of writing up all of the scenarios that I have obtained gold medals,
which necessitates replaying a few more scenarios. When I finish wri-
ting walkthroughs for the scenarios I have obtained gold medals for, I
will then go on to play #5 and scenarios #14 through #16. For the time
being, please expect a couple more walkthroughs to be published here
shortly, and the remaining walkthroughs will be written and published
following successful conclusions.
5.1.1 - Scenario 1 - Go West!
Bronze Medal: Connect Boston to Buffalo by 1866.
Silver Medal: Connect Boston to Buffalo by 1861.
Gold Medal: Connect Boston to Buffalo by 1856.
Time Frame (Time Limit): 1840 - 1866 (Maximum 26 years)
Special Restrictions: No unconnected track, cannot resign.
Starting Position: Your character and $250k of private capital.
Welcome to Railroad Tycoon 3! This scenario is a good warmup and a
nice introduction to the world of trains and laying track. The goal
here is to get from one side of the map to the other, and it's not a
particularly hard goal.
Your character has $250k of private capital, and investors are will-
ing to bankroll your new operation to the tune of $2.5M, so let them!
With $2.75M, there's a ton of stuff you can do to start off right.
Boston is your most important city, so start there. Connect Boston to
Lowell, Worcester, and Providence to start. Buy four trains, one to
service each city to Boston. And finally, make sure to place at least
one maintenance shed and a few water towers.
Your initial return on this will be about $200-$300k for the first
trips there-and-back, so your next stop will be Springfield. Set up
one train from Springfield to Boston, and check inventories at all sta-
tions to make sure that you don't have another hidden route, such as a
possible Providence/Worcester route.
As profits start rolling in, the computer players will probably
spring into action. One will likely connect New York City to Edison,
and the other will likely build a track to nowhere. Just ignore them.
By about 1845, your profits should be stable enough for you to ex-
tend your lines to Hartford. Keep an eye on all inventories, because
keeping a stable and profitable company is key right now. After Hart-
ford, connect Bridgeport. Then see about extending your track to your
competitor's station in New York City. Don't worry about possible pro-
fit loss connecting to your competitor; you probably won't even give
your competitor $200k just for using his station through the rest of
the scenario, and don't bother wasting money on a merger either. Just
make sure you have *PLENTY* of trains, at least around ten or so, that
all of them are making at least some profit, and that there are enough
water towers and maintenance sheds for all the trains.
Now that you have a stable line in the East, it's time to go north
along the Hudson River. Make sure that you try to go from Bridgeport
across the smaller foothills along the edge of Long Island, and then
move north along the Hudson. You may have to pause the game in order
to find the best lines along the river, and make sure to use the "undo"
key as much as needed. The track that is laid to Poughkeepsie as well
as to Albany needs to be as level as you can make it WITHOUT having to
resort to bridges over the Hudson River; those can be expensive!
At about 1846 or so, a new train will appear -- the Baldwin. Don't
bother upgrading the rest of your fleet of Norrises, just start buy-
ing Baldwins for routes from Albany and Poughkeepsie to the rest of
your tracks.
The money that can be made from the first few runs between Albany and
the cities that previously couldn't get to Albany will be rather lucra-
tive, and should give you about half the money you need for your final
push. Remember that the ONLY GOAL is to be able to get to Buffalo.
You don't need company value, or even to be profitable at the end.
Therefore, build as far as you can and let bonds take you the rest of
the way! At this point, still make sure that you can lay track as
cheaply as possible, which means as level and as free of bridges, but
feel free to float five or even ten bonds to connect the end of the
line. All that has to happen is for Buffalo to be connected.
If you need any additional help, the game gives you a big piece of
pie in 1848 - a paper will announce that the gold rush is on, which
will bump passenger traffic by 50%. After that, you can also choose
to invest $100k in train speed, to increase your trains by 15%. Don't
bother advertising, the 50% passenger increase should be more than
enough to keep your trains stocked with revenue-producing cargo. If
you need any additional revenue, these passengers will provide it in
spades.
That's all there is to it! You should be able to make it by 1850
or so as long as you keep making profitable trains and keep laying
track, and as long as the economy stays relatively reasonable.
5.1.2 - Scenario 2 - Germantown, U.S.A.
Bronze Medal: Connect St. Louis to Cleveland, company book value $10M
Silver Medal: St. Louis to Cleveland, company book value $25M,
lifetime industry profits $5M.
Gold Medal: St. Louis to Cleveland, company book value $40M,
lifetime industry profits $10M, only surviving railroad.
Restrictions: Can start only one company.
Time Frame (Time Limit): Jan 1850 - Dec 1880 (31 years)
The Midwest Map returns!
In this scenario, you will be pitted against four other tycoons who
will definitely build their own companies and railroads. You have your
own options for starting points though, since you will be building your
track immediately and you can put track anywhere you choose. You have
a few good areas to pick from, in my estimation:
Chicago/Milwaukee area (including Madison, Green Bay, etc.)
Davenport/Cedar Rapids/Minneapolis area.
Detroit/Toledo/Cleveland area.
Middle Indiana - Terre Haute/Indianapolis area.
You could also possibly try Cincinnati/Columbus as well, but the
towns which carry the best stars tend to be in the north. For this
scenario, both times I played and medalled I started in with the third
set, Detroit/Toledo/Cleveland. The computer will usually take the
Iowa/Minnesota region and will generally put at least one other
railroad in Michigan -- either Kalamazoo/Holland, or Lansing/Saginaw,
or maybe even both.
In this scenario, you do not have to worry about personal net worth,
but I suggest that you pay attention to it anyway. In order to force
mergers with companies, the best tactic is to own at least half of
their company. This way, your own company can lowball the merger price
and the remaining investors (as well as your competitor) can't say a
thing about the merger. Of course, your railroad will grow
exponentially to begin with, so by all means invest in your railroad as
much as possible to start and try to use your railroad to do occasional
stock buybacks.
The best part about using the Detroit/Toledo/Cleveland nexus is that
you have Cleveland already connected to two other profitable cities.
Additionally, northern Ohio/northern Indiana do not have too many
profitable towns to connect for a railroad track heading west. Mich-
igan does tend to have at least two one-star towns other than Detroit
(usually Saginaw and Kalamazoo), a fun port in Holland which tends to
demand a multitude of items, keeping prices high, and there also tends
to be a lot of good supply buildings in Michigan, such as iron mines
and dairy farms. As well, since the computer usually starts at least
one railroad in Michigan and usually never expands past the first two
connections, when you take that railroad over through merger you will
be able to gain infrastructure while at the same time accomplishing
gold-medal goals.
Now, another fun part that you can take advantage of if you'd like:
when you have a computer player setting up shop near you, do not be
afraid to connect your track to theirs! If you are able to get a track
that goes almost all the way to his own station (or better yet connects
directly to the station), you will be able to then use his station for
a pittance. When you're only using between 2% and 5% of their "track",
that means that of a shipment of $100k, you will only have to pay
either $2k up to $5k for that use. Just consider at that point then
that if you needed to build a large station to accomodate that town
just to avoid the usage fees, it would have taken you between 40-100
$100k shipments to pay for that large station.
And the SECOND fun bonus for connecting to opponent's track is that
the computer will occasionally make the "shrewd" business decision to
utilize this link to ship to your rail stations. At this point now,
they're undertaking the shipment costs including fuel and overhead and
will be giving YOU the "usage" costs. Even if you have a short
connection of 60%, that's money that you're earning for not even
lifting a finger. On top of that, the computer could be shipping you
cargo that could be demanded highly by a station that's farther down
your track. Therefore, you can take that cargo and earn even more
profit from it! So don't be afraid to connect to your opponents, it
will usually serve lucrative for you and may even serve lucrative for
your opponent. Just make sure to start buying into the company either
before or just when the link is completed with an eye towards a merger.
For the industry profits, just identify production buildings which
may not be profitable, and hook them up! Supply buildings are
cheapest, but unless you buy a lot of them and keep them maintained
earning the profits will be tough. If you need to create a new
industry vector, for instance if there are no lumber mills for
processing logs, then by all means build one! Try to make at least
$500k profit per year within ten years' time, and shoot for $1M per
year within the next five years after that. To illustrate, $500k per
year would be either six to seven supply facilities (farms, mines,
etc), two good production facilities, or one well-supplied upgraded
facility.
From here, micromanaging should be over. Make sure to monitor the
supplies of materials at all of your stations though to build as many
profitable runs as you can. Keep an eye on your profits, issue bonds
if needed to reach larger towns or to buy/place new facilities, and
keep heading west towards St. Louis! Of course, there's one last issue
for a gold medal, which I will cover below.
I would like to just mention a couple words of warning about mergers.
It is in your best interest to keep your personal net worth economic-
ally healthy in this scenario due to the above described reason, buying
equity in other companies so that they can't resist merger attempts.
Therefore, once the first three or so years passes, do not margin your
personal net worth heavily. Make sure that you have wiggle room. Also,
make sure that you have a *controlled* buy-in, or that you buy shares
in multiple lots. Holding SHIFT key while clicking on "buy" for a
stock will let you buy 5,000 lots instead of the usual 1,000 lots. By
doing this, you will not pay as much for all 5,000 shares as you would
have if you bought the stock 1,000 by 1,000.
When you view companies, they will have a book value and a share
value. The book value is the price per share which encompasses all of
their assets - track, trains, stations, facilities, even any production
buildings they may own. The share value is a reflection on the book
value PLUS the expectations that the company engenders; if the company
is losing money, the share value will likely be lower than book value.
Just because you may see a company with a book value $50 per share and
a share value of $15, make sure you check it out before jumping in
full-bore! The biggest issue with mergers is that any financial lia-
bilities that the company is dealing with are transferred to the new
company. Therefore, you will be responsible for paying ALL of their
bonds. If they have $2.5M in bonds, be sure you know about it and can
absorb all of those bonds before you merge!
5.1.3 - Scenario 3 - Central Pacific
Bronze Medal: Connect Sacramento to Salt Lake City.
Silver Medal: Connect Sacramento to Salt Lake City, $20M company book
value.
Gold Medal: Connect Sacramento to Salt Lake City, $20M company book
value, plus ship 10 loads of troops between San Francisco
and Salt Lake City.
(Troops will not appear until cities connected.)
Restrictions: Cannot start any other companies.
Cannot build unconnected track.
800 tiles of track provided to begin, 100 additional
tiles provided per year.
--IMPORTANT--
In this scenario, you do NOT get track recredited to your account if
you bulldoze it; you only get track recredited to your limit if you
undo it. Additionally, double track will take two units of track per
tile, so use extremely sparingly.
Time Frame (Time Limit): January 1850 - December 1874 (25 years)
Welcome to sunny California, in the middle of the 1800s! In Railroad
Tycoon 2, you had to build across all of the Rockies *and* the Sierra
Nevadas, but all that you have to deal with here is the initial escarp-
ment of the Sierras and then the rolling intermountain region. Thank-
fully, the designers of this map provided assistance in a couple im-
portant ways.
My best start consists of connecting Sacramento to Stockton, and then
continuing south to Madiera. From here, build to San Jose and the San
Francisco Peninsula, where the dock and barracks exist. One of the
biggest complaints I could have is that San Francisco in this scenario
consists of *both* the north and south peninsulas (where San Francisco
and Oakland would be) and then also adds the back end of the San Fran-
cisco Bay too. There's no way to build one large station to accomodate
all three areas, so don't bother trying. Every time I've played this
scenario, I've had to use three stations to split up these three areas.
Anyway, from here make sure that freight cargoes are desired every-
where. The last game I played turned out to be rather lucky, as Stock-
ton had a weapons factory that needed to be hooked to the lumber mill
in San Jose and received iron from both Sacramento as well as the sur-
rounding Tycoonatrons. These weapons sold for a high premium in San
Francisco's barracks. Additionally, the fruit farms around you will
start paying you $150k as a bonus if you ship five cars of produce
*anywhere* per year. If you do not have a distillery hanging around,
feel free to build one, and make sure that it is *away* from the fruit
farms; this way you can make profits hauling the fruit to, the alcohol
away, and the Tycoonatrons won't be moving the freight. Also note, San
Francisco's dock demands produce. As a last touch, you can connect
Yuma City too, and if there are any missing finished goods (alcohol,
goods, lumber, meat) try to raise money for a facility.
About this time, when you have most of California humming along with
your trains, you will receive an offer of 25 more track per year for
$100k per year. The produce farmers' stipend can cover this $100k, and
it is DESPERATELY needed to win the scenario. Don't worry if you can't
pay the first $100k immediately, the game will automatically deduct
even if you're in negative numbers if you choose "yes". And your chan-
ces of getting a gold medal in this scenario become much greater if you
choose "yes".
Around late 1850s you should now turn an eye towards building up the
Sierra Nevadas. The designers provided what amounts to a staircase for
you to be able to build track up, so that your track will rarely (if
never) go over 10% grade. To find this staircase, look east of Yuma
City. Zoom out the map if needed, and you should be able to notice a
small brown line curving north and eastward through the first set of
mountains. Even better, make sure that the grid is turned on for when
you build track. Anyway, go up this natural staircase and build over
to Reno. You will need to pause the game and make sure that you have
either around $2M or the ability to issue a couple bonds in order to
make this connection.
Once the track is built, now you need trains to service Reno. Ameri-
cans don't climb hills well, and if you're building a route mostly up
the hill then feel free to use Shays if you'd like. Build over to Car-
son shortly afterward, but make sure that you don't unnecessarily use
track. At this point, take some time to create more train routes,
keeping in mind that you may not want four-car loads on trips going to
Reno or Carson due to the incline.
A single track going up the Sierra Nevada will get clogged extremely
quickly if you start scheduling trains from California to Reno or Car-
son. If you build only one length of double-track in this game, build-
ing it up the stairway itself would probably be best.
Around 1860 or so, the Consolidation engine will come available. It
climbs hills far better than the American, and is faster over flat land
than the Shay. At least make sure to replace your mountain trains with
the Consolidation, if not all of them, and use them for the rest of the
game. Also around this time, the Civil War will break out, and this
will result in increased costs for weapons and ammunition. I hope you
have one of these factories about, as the bonus is extremely nice.
After you get to Carson, make sure that your railroad is pulling in
good money from its routes and that you haven't missed too many other
profitable routes. From Carson, you will have to get to Salt Lake City
and you will likely run out of track before you get there, well before
if you had to bulldoze any track. If you want to build the direct way,
up and down hills, it will save you track but cost a ton and will be
impractical for finishing the gold-medal restrictions. The best path I
found through the rolling intermountain region is to stick towards the
south. You still may have to deal with some higher grades if you take
the Gabbs - Tonopah corridor, but it will be rather reasonable for the
most part. As well, this way you can connect many of the larger towns
of Utah on your way to Salt Lake City (such as Provo, Fillmore, Cedar
City, etc.). Remember that if you run out of track to lay to just wait
until next year, and make sure that you're still getting as much profit
as possible.
As long as you are able to make the connection by about 1870, you
should hopefully be able to complete the gold-medal restrictions. Just
build one- or two-car troop trains and make sure to send them off as
SOON as you see more troops come available. Set all your troop trains
to highest priority, and force them to carry not only troops but a
caboose as well. I was able to obtain gold by 1874 after making the
Salt Lake City connection by January 1870.
5.1.4 - Scenario 4 - Texas Tea
Bronze Medal: Obtain $15M in company cash, haul 50 loads of oil.
Silver Medal: Bronze Medal conditions plus haul 30 loads of coffee
from Mexico.
Gold Medal: Silver Medal conditions plus $15M personal net worth.
Time Frame (Time Limit) - January 1888 to December 1917 (30 years)
Restrictions: None!
Starting Position: Your personal computer character and $100k.
This map is a rather straightforward map, and you will be concerned
with cargo types as you may note in the restrictions. The best thing
to do before starting would be to pause the game and to check all of
the land to see what kinds of production you can expect. You may note
that the flat parts of eastern Texas (and Oklahoma) lend themselves
well to Tycoonatron shipping, as some production facilities have very
long supply lines. This means that you may not make as much money as
you would like in transporting raw materials, but also know that these
production facilities may already be producing finished goods, too.
Also before you start, you have to take a good look at your victory
conditions. Personal net worth victory means you have to start with a
limited budget so that you're not having to buy back all that stock and
possibly opening yourself to margin problems. And then, this new
"company cash" bit. What company cash means is that you actually have
to have $15M of *disposable cash*, the stuff that you use in order to
build rails and whatnot. Company cash does not come without some type
of infrastructure of profit though, and the other half of the bronze
medal requires you to ship at least fifty loads of oil to boot.
Therefore, start! My suggestion is to start with only a limited
amount of capitalization, enough for you to be able to connect two
cities by rail, buy two stations, one train, and perhaps one water
tower. You should at least keep 20% of your company in the initial
capitalization phase. As for towns to connect, the easy choice would
be Dallas and Fort Worth. The fun part is that you can actually SEE
how Fort Worth pretty much becomes a Dallas suburb if you start here;
both towns will start to grow into one another as you provide rail
service through the course of twenty-five years. Other options for
starting are Austin and any other smaller town, and Houston to
Beaumont.
Following your starting location, my suggestion is to start building
to the starting location you didn't take. If you did not connect
Dallas to begin with, try to get there even if the computer takes it.
Feel free to connect to his track too; as your company gets bigger, you
can swallow his railroad up in a few years. If you started in Dallas
and Fort Worth, my suggestion is to try to get down to the Beaumont and
Houston area; it's long, straight, flat land and the length of the
track will allow for higher-priced loads.
Before too long, you also want to check the map for oil. Fifty loads
in thirty years may not be too difficult, but in reality by the time
you find and connect oil into your lines you could conceivably have
twenty-five or even twenty years left, meaning that you should shoot
for at least two loads of oil yearly. Whenever I've played this map,
Nagodoches has a supply of oil and since it's in the eastern part of
the map, by all means stay in the east for now. As well, Shreveport
is a valuable town to connect because their warehouses demand goods,
which will keep prices higher.
As you go along, just keep adding connections and buying industries
which seem profitable. Don't worry about Mexico for a while,
especially since their access rights are extremely expensive -- $10M.
Around 1894 or so, Mexico will offer you a major sweetheart deal: you
can obtain access rights for only $50k as long as you connect Monterrey
to the U.S. within five years. Laugh and take the deal, because guess
what... all you need to do is to connect Monterrey (with whatever
station you desire) to McAllen, Texas, just across the Rio Grande. You
don't have to build connected track, remember? Better yet, Monterrey's
warehouse provides 4 coffee per year, and McAllen will demand coffee at
least initially. There are zero coffee farms on the Texas side of the
border, but you may also find one or two more coffee farms in Mexico
near this area too. Just build any station in Monterrey, the track, a
water tower and maintenance shed, and any station in McAllen. It may
cost $500k to $650k after all of this, but having the coffee connection
started and getting cheap rights to Mexico is worth it.
Don't be afraid to go north, either. In my game, I found that all of
the dairy farms were to the north, and milk became a sufficiently de-
manded cargo throughout my lines that it was worth connecting Oklahoma
City, Lawton, and Tulsa. By all means keep in mind the possible oppor-
tunity costs, as Monterrey also became extremely lucrative through their
textile mill once I connected to McAllen. You can always check prices
through both the station dialogue box by clicking on specific commod-
ities, and also through the globe icon. Expansion is very necessary in
this game though, and don't forget about connecting to your opponents'
track too!
Electric trains will be introduced in the early part of the 1900s.
Electrifying track may cost $3M or thereabouts by the time this happens
depending on your expansionistic habits, but the train (2-D-2) is a
definite upgrade over the majority of the trains you already have. Its
top speed is higher, doesn't have to stop at too many water towers, and
only costs $50k to boot. Upgrading all your trains may end up costing
another $1M or so as well; so just make sure that you can get a defin-
ite return on the $4M or so you may be spending for this, especially
considering it's more than 25% of your final goal.
Later in the scenario, you will get an additional boost - Beaumont
will "discover" oil, which means that there will be new oil derricks
popping up around Beaumont. They may be a good investment to buy, as
Beaumont's dock demands oil naturally. Of course, this also will help
you to be able to get the 50 loads transported if you're having
problems dealing with Nagodoches.
Unlike personal net worth, if you have all the other restrictions met
the game will award you gold the very second you obtain $15M in company
cash. $15M in personal net worth is guided by the restriction that it
has to be at the end of a month, but it is rather easy for your invest-
ments to be able to pay off that large if you invest well to begin with
and just keep monitoring the situation even briefly once a year or so.
Of course, if you're missing loads delivered, you will gain gold the
second they're delivered if all the other restrictions are met.
If you have problems with personal net worth, there are two other ty-
coons about and between them they should have at least *one* surviving
railroad. Feel free to buy in to another company as a way to earn money
on your investment! Try to set a base price that the stock is around:
for example, if it's usually at about $35 per share, try to buy it when
it is under $40 and at no other time. (If the stock is appreciating,
then it would be a good idea to buy it anyway, right?) Then, when you
have a sizable investment, use your railroad to merge with the company
and provide a healthy premium, say $50 to $55 per share. This way you
will not only get cold hard cash for your stock, you will also earn
between $10 and $15 per share. Because it's cash, it will also allow
you to buy more on margin.
5.1.6 - Scenario 6 - State of Germany
Bronze Medal: Connect 6 German states
Silver Medal: Connect 10 German states, $8M in personal net worth.
Gold Medal: Connect 13 German states, $15M in personal net worth, 25
year time limit.
Time Limit: January 1848 - Dec 1877 (30 for Silver/Bronze, 25 for gold)
Special Restrictions: Cannot build unconnected track.
Cannot start new companies.
All states marked with "G-" indicate German
states.
Starting Position: $100k personal wealth, $1.1M company wealth.
This scenario is the first of the European scenarios, and it will
actually be a decent test of your ability to create a profitable
railroad as well as to keep investing in it. You must be able to build
a profitable railroad, because you will have to deal with purchasing
access rights throughout Germany.
To provide an overview, if gold is your goal, then you need to be
able to connect every little German state possible PLUS being able to
buy in to at least one of the big three $10M states (Hannover, Prussia,
or Bavaria). You also do get your choice of starting location, which I
will attempt to run down.
Bavaria: This is southern Germany, and it does contain more than a
few large towns. Track laying may be a bit expensive here due to the
grades and trees, but there are more than enough towns to start from.
There is a penalty for choosing Bavaria, as station building costs will
be increased 15%.
Hannover: This is western Germany, along the Rhine river. The towns
are a bit closer here, and there is a hidden benefit to using Hannover:
that one of the smaller German states, Olmstead, is completely
surrounded by Hannover. On the other hand, there are a couple of choke
points in Hannover where you have to build track in a certain direction
in order to avoid Prussia or Bavaria. The other disadvantage to
Hannover is that it's a small amount of land, and while it does have a
few cities it does not have too many. There is a bonus associated with
choosing Hannover, you receive +1 credit rating.
Prussia: This is eastern Germany, and it consists of large swaths of
land and many cities. Berlin, Danzig, and a multitude of other towns
exist here, and it also has outlying lands that you have to buy to and
build through before you can utilize them. There is a penalty for
choosing Prussia to equalize, that overhead costs will be +30%.
This scenario also existed in Railroad Tycoon 2, and connecting to
the various states sometimes also unlocked small bonuses. If someone
would like to submit them, I would gladly accept, but this will remain
unfinished until I redo this scenario once again.
To start, decide which of the three states will be your home base, so
to speak. Once you do so, start hooking up cities in your home area!
Don't worry if you can only build a small amount of track, because all
that you need to do is have a few loads go over it and you'll be making
decent money. Just make sure that you're moving all the cargo that is
*profitable* to move, and that your trains are running either with
three or four cars. Locomotive power in this scenario is cheap for the
most part, you just have to make sure that you have enough maintenance
facilities to keep your engines going.
Also, IMPORTANTLY, make sure to invest in your company as soon as
possible and as heavily as is prudent. Don't be afraid to use your
company to buy back their own stock too, because dividend profits will
be important near the end of the scenario too. Getting to $15M may be
the harder goal in this scenario, and unless you start early and well
you will have a very tough time accomplishing it.
A year or so into the scenario, you will receive an offer from
bankers to make $500k in industry profit, and they will assist in
underwriting other business ventures. $500k is not a lot of money,
and can be accomplished in two years with a hooked-up production
facility (factory) or two to three well-transported supply facilities
(farms). Also, don't forget that tool-and-die factories will take
iron! The bonus isn't bad, but don't lose sight of the fact that you
need to make a large amount of profit; don't let this side-quest
detract from either your focus on investing personal wealth or
maximizing company profits by micromanaging trains.
While decent money can be made through industry, your largest amounts
of profit will be made by connecting all your towns. Make sure to
connect any town that has even four houses to your network, and by all
means if an industry is oversupplied (like wool, or lumber, etc) then
you can use the smaller towns to build facilities so that more demand
is created. Just make sure to try to connect as many towns as you can
and to make sure that they are being serviced by your trains
efficiently.
When you're at the point that you can start pulling $500-$800k per
year in profit, it's time to do three things - invest more money in
your company, set your dividend to start pulling at least $50K or so
per year in free money, and (unless there are still better
opportunities in your home state) start planning your access rights
purchases!
When you go into the access rights screen, you will see exactly how
many different places you will have to buy into. No territory will
offer access rights lesser than $600k (Olmstead) and some will be as
high as $2M (Baden, for instance). Taking a rough average of about
$1.2M per territory, that leads to needing about $14.4M just to buy
into twelve of the thirteen gold-required territories in the game.
And, you also have to buy into at least one of the two German premier
territories remaining. The premier territories are Prussia, Bavaria,
or Hannover as discussed above, and each carries a $10M price tag.
This means that your railroad has to be equipped to pay out almost
$25M in money that is a sunk cost. On the other hand, paying out $10M
to get into one of the other two premier territories will give you
access to a LOT of new cities and new revenue opportunities too.
Also of note, about five to ten years into the scenario, your
*character* is given $500k of money toward personal wealth. By all
means, use this money to invest!
Just remember, due to Olmstead's position, that you have a choice to
make. You can either choose to start in Hannover to make sure you can
buy into Olmstead, or if you start in either Bavaria or Prussia you can
either choose Hannover as the $10M territory to buy into in order to
connect Olmstead OR you have to buy into both other $10M territories if
you want to obtain a gold medal in the scenario. It's not impossible,
you can certainly obtain $10M of profit by buying into any of the
premier territories, but also keep in mind the time limits!
That's all there is to it. You can attempt a couple different
methods to getting the $15M in personal profit, but your best
opportunities to accomplishing both goals include building a railroad
company that has at least fifty to seventy trains toward the end and is
highly profitable. The gold medal requirements for $15M will trip at
the end of any month, if I remember correctly, and there are ways to
artificially pump up stock prices such as company stock buybacks,
resetting higher dividends, and even good ol' fashioned mass purchases
of stock. Don't get too fancy though, because if you're margin-called
it's really hard to get back; selling stock in your company will just
make the remainder of what you hold less valuable too, and it could
make you tumble all the way from $5M to $5.00 in a very short period of
time. (And this would make all your efforts in building a powerful
company completely moot.)
As a final addendum, I realized that I did not provide the method by
which I earned gold both times. I started in Hannover, as the cities
are a bit closer and the bonus is helpful to begin with. I connected
Hannover to Salzgitter and Gottingen and floated a bond to get up to
Bremen and Bremerhaven. At that point I had perhaps ten trains running.
I did decide to go for some industry profit and invested in a textile
mill in Hannover, which I promptly expanded due to all of the wool
supply in the area. At that point, I was making enough to expand into
Olmstead, and still took full advantage of the cheaper bond rates.
Following that, I bought into Schleswig-Holstein to be able to connect
Hamburg and Kiel, and went up through Flensburg to connect the smaller
cities to the north. I doubled back and went farther east to then
connect Lubeck and Rostock. I connected northern Germany because
access prices tended to be cheaper here and the cities were more
plentiful, and as well the grades were far lower.
Following this, I turned my attention southward and connected to
Kessel, went south to Frankfurt and west to Koblenz. After that, I
connected to Erfurt and Jena as well as to Leipzig. Following that,
I went southward to Baden and Strassberg. After connecting all the
smaller states, I made a splash and bought into Prussia so that I
could extend my northeast track into Berlin. This finished the thir-
teen territories I needed to buy into and connect.
Don't forget to buy LOTS of trains, and also to improve the track as
you go with water towers and maintenance sheds. I was able to pull a
profit around $3M per year by the end of this scenario. Also of note
is that when I finally finished with all the connections, my personal
net worth was sitting at about $8.5M. Because my company was so
profitable and had a good dividend set, I artificially boosted my stock
price by buying into my stock toward the end of a November, if I
recall. I bought in enough to raise the stock price to the point that
my holdings were worth $16.5M, and when the month turned I found that
the price did go down but still left me with $15.75M. This was more
than enough for the gold, since all of the other restrictions were met.
The lesson to take from this is twofold: if you buy in heavily to your
stock to drive up your personal net worth, it WILL work for limited
times. Also, make sure that there is an extremely healthy gap between
your final net worth and the net worth you need. If the value fell
below $15M, then I would have to hold the stock for a full month. I
may have been in trouble due to possible market recorrection. Lastly,
the cheating way is to make sure to SAVE before you do a buy-in of this
magnitude, so that way you can reload and readjust the strategy if
needed.
From contributor James Summers:
If you ever look at any farm or orchard or dairy, they are ALWAYS
profitable, so buying them gives a 100% guaranteed cash flow.
The key was to use all of your capital and simply buy farms and other
profitable businesses, and not bother building trains for the first
5-10 years. One can get a rough return on investment percentage by
comparing the asking price to the last year's earnings. If it is more
than your current cost of capital, buy it.
The problem with running trains early in the game is that you have to
pay for maintenance on track and stations, and so forth.
The real trick is to issue as much debt as possible in boom times when
the capital is cheap. I always ended up maxing out my debt long before
the end of the game.
Another trick is to issue stock in boom times, and buy it back in busts.
I generally do about one stock buy back per year in down turns and two
stock issues in boom times. Sell high, buy low is not exactly a "new"
trick though.
5.1.10 - Scenario 10 - Orient Express:
Bronze Medal: Connect Vienna to Istanbul
Silver Medal: Connect Vienna to Istanbul, average express speed of
20 MPH.
Gold Medal: Connect Vienna to Istanbul, average express speed of
30 MPH, personal net worth $15M
Time Frame (Time Limit) January 1878 - January 1913 (35 years)
Starting Position: $100k of personal wealth.
Oh, and let's not forget... difficulty: very hard. You'll see why.
I know that I'm not the only person who has had a problem trying to
get gold in this scenario, and I have tried it so many times and could
tell you of so many different starting positions. But I learned more
than a few techniques which may work for you for this scenario, and
hopefully you will be able to get a gold medal too!
The map you are given is a rather sprawling map and the Carpathian
Mountains will be a major hurdle depending on the path you take. Vi-
enna is in the upper left-hand portion of the map looking from the
south while Istanbul occupies the lower right-hand portion. Therefore,
just to earn a medal you have to figure out a way to lay track enough
to cross this whole map.
Additionally, when you start a company, you are given access rights
only for Austria-Hungary. This is a rich territory, and because of the
number of towns plus the number of larger cities it is the best start
you can hope for. Unfortunately, you will also find out that the re-
maining territories are extremely expensive with only one trifling
exception. Romania and Bosnia carry $1M pricetags, Bulgaria charges
$3M for access, Serbia's price is $3M, and the Ottoman Empire requires
a whopping $5M to build track and run trains. That's some heavy money
there!
Your personal net worth will also be a major issue if gold is your
goal. You can engage in dirty tricks, like starting new companies and
other things, but overall you have to make sure that your company turns
a good profit and that the stock is well-valued because starting slow
in this map will not be wise.
The last trick of this scenario is the insane requirement to move
express cargo at 30MPH or greater for gold. Earning a 20 is fairly
simple and something that I have done numerous times, but earning a
30 requires major planning and also more than a bit of luck; a broken-
down Stirling can KILL your average.
Therefore, my advice to you is to save often. Get into the habit of
saving at least once every twelve months or so. This scenario takes a
lot of effort to do and requires you to make many decisions correctly.
Saving will enable you to not lose all of the time you spent in trying
to get to the position you currently occupy.
It may seem to be dishonest if you restart after a train of yours en-
counters a breakdown or crash; however, I will not exaggerate when I
say that if you get more than a few breakdowns or crashes on the wrong
trains that you will lose any shot you may have at the gold due to the
scenario's extremely tough restrictions. Bad decisions will submarine
you extremely quickly too, and so will ignoring your personal net worth.
Now that the facts are laid before you, feel free to check out the
map. Actually, analyze it closely. You need to have a plan in order
to make money at the beginning, and this plan has to be more concrete
than "build track between two towns". This map is NOT lucrative for
cargo or passenger traffic in and of itself, and you have to make a
good profitable start in order to make it to the end. Besides, you al-
so need to know the lay of the land in order to take the best possible
advantage of the bonuses that you will receive, outlined below.
In practically EVERY game, Vienna will have at least one distillery
and possibly even two. Check out to see if there are any orchards near
Vienna which may create a lucrative produce cargo route and could turn
an investment into the distillery into a moneymaking venture.
Alternatively, Gyor sometimes has either a brewery or a meat-packing
plant. If this is the case, find out if they are being supplied. If
so, then you may find a good cargo route from Vienna to Gyor. You may
also find possible investment route in buying either the local supplies
of grain or livestock and supplying them even more closely, or the pro-
duction facilities after floating a bond or two.
You may also find a paper mill in Szombathely. If Vienna has two
warehouses supplying one pulpwood per year, you may be able to supply
the paper mill in Szombathely sufficiently enough to make a profit. At
the very least, the shipping route is very easy -- Vienna to Szombath-
ely, freight cars only, and should be profitable regardless.
To give an idea, the paper mill may run $550k, the distillery $850k,
and the meat packing plant $1M as well as the brewery $1.4M. These
prices represent a discount as unless the facility has been around for
a long time, it probably has not had time to build a profit. If the
facility is also not connected to another town via track, the prices
may be depressed due the local market being oversupplied. The Tycoona-
trons around here are *brutally* efficient at shipping goods for the
most part though, so just be wary and check the globe icon.
Therefore, figure out what might be the best path for you, as there
are a LOT of bonuses to choose from when you start your company. You
have to make your first choice of category right when you create your
company, so knowing which bonus you want immediately may be best.
The bonuses are:
Science and Technology:
1. Improved Locomotive Speed:
Engine Speed +25%
(Example: Stirling top speed 94MPH instead of 75MPH)
2. Improved Locomotive Load Pulling:
Load pulling capacity +30%
(Example: a Stirling with six cars at 0% = 71MPH instead of 44MPH)
Business and Finance:
1. Stocks and Bonds:
Instant AAA credit rating, $500k company cash.
(Please note that your rating will fall within two months or so)
2. New Businesses and Speculation:
Fuel costs -25%, new engine costs -20%
Industry and Construction:
1. Industry
Building and purchasing costs of industries -30%
(Example: Vienna's distillery may cost $595k instead of $850k)
2. Construction
Building track and stations -20%
Arts and Politics:
1. Artistic
"Merger premiums" are 50% less, company overhead -20%, passenger
building revenues +15% (hotels, restaurants, taverns)
2. Influential
Access rights costs -75%
That's a lot of different bonuses, and I can hopefully give you a
good idea of how they could help you in the map in specific instances.
Firstly, the speed and load-pulling bonuses should be recognizably
useful. Load-pulling would be more useful if you buy less trains and
also if you have a very hilly track, whereas speed can move less cargo
quicker. The difference is kind of like this: the average of three
cars pulled on a Stirling with +25% speed would be maybe 40 whereas
six cars pulled on a Stirling with +30% load capacity could be 35. The
only problem with load capacity is that I can't see where you could
even have that many passenger cars pulled on one train, and you can
just buy Consolidations for cargo anyway. So my opinion would be to
lean toward speed if that is your goal.
The business bonuses are also rather straightforward. The $500k/AAA
bond rating could be rather useful if you need a large infusion of cash.
This can get your railroad connected all the way from Vienna to either
Budapest or to Zagreb, which could theoretically give you a good start.
I found out though through repeated playings that just having a lot of
track even at the beginning is no guarantee of future success; if you
use the cash infusion unwisely, you will still lose the game. Make
sure that whatever you do with your cash that you will be making a good
profit. The money could also be used to buy a larger facility, such as
a steel mill or other major production, but there may be a better way
to do that listed below.
The fuel and train engine bonus would not help quite as much in the
short-term as a beginning prospect. This bonus would be best to use if
you have a good starting position; for instance, a lot of orchards just
a short way from Vienna, where you can buy a distillery and make pro-
duce shipments in order to earn money quickly. When you have thirty
to forty trains, you are essentially getting six to eight engines free
with the discount, and the fuel costs will be helped downward. This is
one of the better long-term bonuses, though there are other good ones
too.
For industry and construction, the industrial bonus is very helpful.
To put this in perspective, you can build a steel mill for $2.7M and a
tool and die shop for $1.5M. Normally, this would cost you a total of
$4.2M, and require you to offer nine total bonds if you needed the
money immediately. On the other hand, with a 30% discount, you can
purchase the same two facilities for the grand total price of $2.94M,
which is a sizable discount, and is ironically enough the EXACT amount
of money you receive from issuing six bonds.
I took this example of a steel mill and a tool and die factory be-
cause you can turn one unit of coal and one unit of iron into two units
of steel in the mill, and next produce two units of goods at your tool
and die factory. One unit of iron plus one unit of coal could cost
anywhere from $60 to $110 depending on demand. Two units of steel sell
for a rough total of $350, and two units of goods sell for roughly $700
total. So between your steel mill and your tool and die, you could be
making over $550 all the way up to $640 per every two units of iron and
coal. Not to mention that your steel mill produces 10 units of steel
per year. It's a very lucrative vector in this map and it bears very
close examination.
By the way, six bonds at an aggregate 12% would mean interest pay-
ments of $360 yearly. A well-supplied steel mill usually runs at a
profit of about $600k to $700k alone, and the tool and die can make an
extra $300k or so per year. As long as the steel is getting bought and
shipped by either you or the Tycoonatrons, it is a very worthy invest-
ment due to how cheap iron and coal are in this map.
Anyway, back to the bonuses. Construction would not be a bad idea
either, as you have to build all the way from one side of the map to
the other. Just make sure that if you choose this b 
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