RRT2 over RRT3

[KevinL]

I saw in another post where Gwizz said he plays RRT2 10 times as much as RRT3. I was curious what about this game holds your interest so much? I admit, I bought RRT2 platinum first as I couldnt find RRT3 in the stores, and played it for only 2-3 weeks before I found RRT3 and shelved this. I recently went back to RRT2 and tried it, but I was so spoiled by RRT3 that I found the game unplayable. What do you get about it that I dont?

[Gwizz]

It has to do with my play style. I like using the managers and manipulating the AI companies. I like stitching as a form of bulldozing to level a grade. I don't like the looks of RT3 track and told PopTop so while beta testing. The lack of drop shipping was my main reason for not playing RT3 as much. Drop shipping has always been a favorite of mine, even though it is a costly activity, as is grade stitching. I seldom play either RT2 or 3 to a win; but, since I made so many maps for both I did have to play test them. I away play on expert to have the benefits of advanced economics ,etc. But, now with a form of drop shipping in RT3, I may be playing RT3 more. I've have enjoyed the last few days of RT3 game play.

In the early days I tested RT2 as an educational tool and found I was able to mix different parts to create different effects. Mostly I exploited the bugs in the game. It could be that I was just more familiar with RT2 and found it easier to play than RT3.

[Bonneville455]

I like the fact that you directly control the cargo in RRTII. That, in my opinion, results in far superior game play. There are never ending challenges to build a track down to that iron ore mine to get your steel mill in Pittsburgh producing, to go up and get logs in Northern Minnesota to start up your lumber mill in Duluth, to build down to Springfield to get gravel for your cement plant in St. Louis, to lay track into central Illinois to get grain for your cattle ranches out West, and on and on and on…

Since the cargo flows by itself in RT3, the feeling of control and motivation, the vision that you start with after reviewing the big picture cargo map at the beginning of the game, quickly fades and the game becomes little more than connect cities and watch the trains run. Pretty soon you barely know or care where industries are because to a large degree your trains are going to haul cargo whether you do anything or not. Things pretty much take care of themselves.

A few days ago I installed RT3 and played it for the first time in probably two years. As always, I was overjoyed to once again use the 3D engine and enjoy the weather and night/day changes – lots of fun. But soon the same thing happened that always happens for me. It didn’t take me long to get bored again and to long for the gameplay of RRTII.

Though I prefer it overall, there is definitely room for improvement in RRTII. By far the best part of a RRTII game is the first 3-4 years. As the game gets more mature and you’re running 50 or more trains between 20 or 30 cities, it is so tedious to manage that it becomes more work than fun. It needs a consist manager and, of course, that is one of the nice touches added to RT3. Ideally, I’d like to see a consist manager that not only chooses types and numbers of cars, but also has the capability to reroute to a different station when market conditions make it more profitable to do so. I do that manually with most of my games. It is a lot of work, but nets much nicer profits.

So the key for me is cargo control. I know it has been argued that RT3’s may be more realistic or closer to real life, but that to me is almost irrelevant if it doesn’t result in more fun. RRTII is closer to what I look for and enjoy in a strategy game.

[Hawk]

Have you tried the 1.06 patch yet?
It brings back the drop shipment option, as well as a few other improvements.

BTW! back Bonne. Feeling better?

[Bonneville455]

Thanks, Hawk. And yes, I am feeling better. This flu bug that's been going around here is one of the nastiest ones in recent memory. For a while there I wondered if I had West Nile or something.

No, I haven't tried 1.06. Am I remembering correctly that it requires the CTC expansion to be installed first? I haven't down downloaded CTC because of its size. I have a 56k connection and I'd have to let it run all night - just haven't felt motivated to go to that extreme. Does it make a significant difference in enjoyment of the game? I know that it includes a bunch of new skins and such, but I never got the impression it would fundamentally change the game. I guess I'd love to be wrong about that and, if so, would reconsider the huge download. I would value your impression and comments.

[Hawk]

Yes it does require the CtoC and the 1.05 patch.
If you go to the Extras page at my site you can read about the 1.06 patch by clicking on the read me or the pdf. The you should be able to decide for yourself whether you want to try it or not.
I haven't played RRT3 enough to really tell you anything about the patch. I've been busy with other projects.

As for the large file size of the CtoC, are you familiar with a program called MasterSplitter? It can cut up large files into any size necessary and then put the pieces back together again. Works like a charm. It's Shareware but only costs $12.95. It will work just fine without having to buy it though.

[Hawk]

Another option could be I just burn the CtoC, 1.05, and 1.06 patch to a cd and mail it to you.

[Bonneville455]

I just previewed a reply and noticed your new post and offer.

Hawk, I don't know what to say - that would be absolutely great and far preferable to the download. What a generous offer! I have 1.05, BTW, but if you want to include it, so much the better. I'll send you a PM with my address.

[Hawk]

I see you found the beer mugs.

[Bonneville455]

I see you found the beer mugs.

Yes, indeed - tastes good...

[ostlandr]

I just started playing RRT2. So far, the only fault I can find with it is the fact that I can't dump cargo at a station and have another train pick it up. Very frustrating- I would love to drop cars of coal at the foot of the mountains and use fast locomotives to move it across the plains in longer consists, but the game forces you to send the same train all the way across the map. Oh, and what's up with no tunnels?

Will post back after I play it a bit more. So far, I really like it, especially the track construction. If RRT3 had RRT2's track construction, it would be a much more enjoyable game.

[Bonneville455]

I just started playing RRT2. So far, the only fault I can find with it is the fact that I can't dump cargo at a station and have another train pick it up. Very frustrating- I would love to drop cars of coal at the foot of the mountains and use fast locomotives to move it across the plains in longer consists, but the game forces you to send the same train all the way across the map. Oh, and what's up with no tunnels?

Will post back after I play it a bit more. So far, I really like it, especially the track construction. If RRT3 had RRT2's track construction, it would be a much more enjoyable game.

You can store cargo at a station for pick-up by another train if it is undemanded at that station. So, if your nearby city demands coal, just build another station for storage purposes at the foot of the mountains.

RRT II is a great game, isn't it? In my book it was the King for many years, but....see my new post in the SMRR section.

[Hawk]

I just started playing RRT2. So far, the only fault I can find with it is the fact that I can't dump cargo at a station and have another train pick it up. Very frustrating- I would love to drop cars of coal at the foot of the mountains and use fast locomotives to move it across the plains in longer consists, but the game forces you to send the same train all the way across the map.

I don't believe you can do it in the original version but you can from TSC on up. It's all in the flags. From the read me in the RRT main folder of the Platinum version (it works the same in every version from TSC up).

B) Cargo Depoting
The flags shown on the train detail screen at each stop in a
train's route let you change the manner in which the train
handles cargo for which there is no demand at that stop.

The flag settings do not affect the handling of demanded cargo
in any way. Cargo which is demanded at a station is always sold
upon a train's arrival there. (You can get around this if you
want by building a small station outside of town somewhere with
no nearby buildings and no demand for anything and using it as
a storage facility.)

You don't NEED to fiddle with these flags at all. The default
setting covers most situations quite well. In the original
Railroad Tycoon II, all cargo was handled what is now labeled
the default setting.

By changing the flag for a station, you're changing how the
train will handle undemanded cargo it arrives with at that
station. Since the consist it arrives with at that station
was probably set up at the previous station, this can seem a
bit tricky. The following is an example of how to use the
flags:

A Shay engine (slow, but works well in the mountains, is
running a route near Albany, picking up coal at two
different stops, Ithica and Corning, and dropping it off
just outside of Albany at Albany Depot. None of the stops
has any demand for coal.


(Stop 1)
Consist = 4 coal cars
Ithica
Depot flag = Yellow (leave undemanded on the train)

(Stop 2)
Consist = 4 coal cars
Corning
Depot flag = Yellow (leave undemanded on the train)

(Stop 3)
Consist = 1 caboose
Albany Depot
Depot flag = Red (store undemanded at the station)


The train will start at Ithica, pick up whatever coal is
there (let's say 1 load), and move on to Corning. At Corning,
there is no demand for the coal the train is carrying. The
yellow depot flag tells the train to leave that coal on the
train. The train will try to fill its remaining 3 coal cars.
Let's say there's 2 more loads at Corning, so the train loads
those and now has 3 loads. It travels to Albany Depot.
Albany Depot has no demand for coal either. The depot flag at
Albany Depot is red, so the 3 loads of coal are stored at this
station and may be picked up by any train coming into this
station. Our example train switches consist to a lone caboose
and travels to Ithica to restart its journey.

Note: If the train's consist at Albany Depot had remained as 4
coal cars, then the the loads it had stored there would have
been immediately loaded back on and would have been carried
back to Ithica. If you're storing cargos at a station, be
sure not to leave that type of car on the train, or it will
haul away what you were just trying to store.

Also note: If the consist at stop 2 had changed to a lone,
caboose, then the coal hauled from Ithica would have been sold
at Corning regardless of the yellow "leave on train" flag.
Obviously, if the train is no longer carrying the right type
of car, then the cargos cannot be left on the train.

Oh, and what's up with no tunnels?

No tunnels in RRT2.

[Bonneville455]

I just started playing RRT2. So far, the only fault I can find with it is the fact that I can't dump cargo at a station and have another train pick it up. Very frustrating- I would love to drop cars of coal at the foot of the mountains and use fast locomotives to move it across the plains in longer consists, but the game forces you to send the same train all the way across the map.

I don't believe you can do it in the original version but you can from TSC on up. It's all in the flags. From the read me in the RRT main folder of the Platinum version (it works the same in every version from TSC up).

B) Cargo Depoting
The flags shown on the train detail screen at each stop in a
train's route let you change the manner in which the train
handles cargo for which there is no demand at that stop.

The flag settings do not affect the handling of demanded cargo
in any way. Cargo which is demanded at a station is always sold
upon a train's arrival there. (You can get around this if you
want by building a small station outside of town somewhere with
no nearby buildings and no demand for anything and using it as
a storage facility.)

You don't NEED to fiddle with these flags at all. The default
setting covers most situations quite well. In the original
Railroad Tycoon II, all cargo was handled what is now labeled
the default setting.

By changing the flag for a station, you're changing how the
train will handle undemanded cargo it arrives with at that
station. Since the consist it arrives with at that station
was probably set up at the previous station, this can seem a
bit tricky. The following is an example of how to use the
flags:

A Shay engine (slow, but works well in the mountains, is
running a route near Albany, picking up coal at two
different stops, Ithica and Corning, and dropping it off
just outside of Albany at Albany Depot. None of the stops
has any demand for coal.


(Stop 1)
Consist = 4 coal cars
Ithica
Depot flag = Yellow (leave undemanded on the train)

(Stop 2)
Consist = 4 coal cars
Corning
Depot flag = Yellow (leave undemanded on the train)

(Stop 3)
Consist = 1 caboose
Albany Depot
Depot flag = Red (store undemanded at the station)


The train will start at Ithica, pick up whatever coal is
there (let's say 1 load), and move on to Corning. At Corning,
there is no demand for the coal the train is carrying. The
yellow depot flag tells the train to leave that coal on the
train. The train will try to fill its remaining 3 coal cars.
Let's say there's 2 more loads at Corning, so the train loads
those and now has 3 loads. It travels to Albany Depot.
Albany Depot has no demand for coal either. The depot flag at
Albany Depot is red, so the 3 loads of coal are stored at this
station and may be picked up by any train coming into this
station. Our example train switches consist to a lone caboose
and travels to Ithica to restart its journey.

Note: If the train's consist at Albany Depot had remained as 4
coal cars, then the the loads it had stored there would have
been immediately loaded back on and would have been carried
back to Ithica. If you're storing cargos at a station, be
sure not to leave that type of car on the train, or it will
haul away what you were just trying to store.

Also note: If the consist at stop 2 had changed to a lone,
caboose, then the coal hauled from Ithica would have been sold
at Corning regardless of the yellow "leave on train" flag.
Obviously, if the train is no longer carrying the right type
of car, then the cargos cannot be left on the train.

You're right, Hawk. I had forgotten the cargo depoting feature was added in TSC. I haven't played anything but Platinum in years.

[ostlandr]

Thanks, gang. I just figured out what those little crossed flags are for. Wow! Now I can move cargo across the map.
The stockholders kicked my tail to the street when my Denver & Rio Grande got nailed in an economic downturn. Playing in Pennsylvania right now. My Pittsburg & Shawmut is booming, with a double tracked mainline between Erie and Pittsburgh, but I can't buy out the AI companies (NYC, PRR, & Reading) since there are no more publicly held shares. I do have control of my own railroad, though.
What an awesome game. It seems like they lost some of the good stuff when they made RRT3, and completely threw the baby out with the bathwater when they made SMR. I do miss tunnels, though!!!

[Bonneville455]

What an awesome game. It seems like they lost some of the good stuff when they made RRT3, and completely threw the baby out with the bathwater when they made SMR. I do miss tunnels, though!!!

RRT II is an awesome game - far superior to RT3 for gameplay IMHO. But I'm puzzled by your SMR comment. Would you care to elaborate?

I've only been playing SMRR seriously for a couple of weeks now and, granted, there are some bugs and quirks in it that, if addressed, would improve it a lot. Train routing issues, to start with. But what I like about it is that it is so much more like RRT II than RT3 was, but with far superior graphics and all sorts of added features that really bring the game to life. When I start a new game, wild horses couldn't pull me away from it for 2 hours at least. I'm more addicted than I was even to RRT II at first and I didn't think that was possible.

[proudcanadian]

In my opinion, RRT2 definitely had a different feel to it than RRT3 does. The gameplay was definitely superior to RRT3's. When I started RRT2, I had no trouble making money at first, and I could meet the goals with relative ease. But boy was I surprised with RRT3! I had to resart several scenarios a couple times before I actually made any money.

The way I see it, if you were to take RRT3's graphics, tunnel options, and automatic consists and RRT2's gameplay, music,(much catchier than RRT3's), and flood options, you would have a virtually perfect Railroad Tycoon game.

Speaking of the flood option, that has to be my most missed option in RRT3. You could actually do "global warming" scenarios in RRT2 where you could make the water steadily rise until it destroyed everything, and that was really cool. RRT2 scenarios I also find were a lot more creative and fun than RRT3 scenarios, don't ask why I feel that way, I just do.

Well, that's my

[ostlandr]

To me, RRT2 feels very realistic. RRT3 for some reason feels to me a bit cartoonish. And SMR just plays like a children's game. I played the demo, and everything felt odd- the scale, the graphics, the way city buildings politely move out of the way of the tracks- I just didn't find it to be the kind of game I enjoy. Hey, I didn't mean to offend- one man's meat is another man's poison. I just enjoy getting "into" the game as though I were running a real railroad rather than playing a railroad game.

What an awesome game. It seems like they lost some of the good stuff when they made RRT3, and completely threw the baby out with the bathwater when they made SMR. I do miss tunnels, though!!!

RRT II is an awesome game - far superior to RT3 for gameplay IMHO. But I'm puzzled by your SMR comment. Would you care to elaborate?

I've only been playing SMRR seriously for a couple of weeks now and, granted, there are some bugs and quirks in it that, if addressed, would improve it a lot. Train routing issues, to start with. But what I like about it is that it is so much more like RRT II than RT3 was, but with far superior graphics and all sorts of added features that really bring the game to life. When I start a new game, wild horses couldn't pull me away from it for 2 hours at least. I'm more addicted than I was even to RRT II at first and I didn't think that was possible.

[Bonneville455]

To me, RRT2 feels very realistic. RRT3 for some reason feels to me a bit cartoonish. And SMR just plays like a children's game. I played the demo, and everything felt odd- the scale, the graphics, the way city buildings politely move out of the way of the tracks- I just didn't find it to be the kind of game I enjoy. Hey, I didn't mean to offend- one man's meat is another man's poison. I just enjoy getting "into" the game as though I were running a real railroad rather than playing a railroad game.

RRT II is an awesome game - far superior to RT3 for gameplay IMHO. But I'm puzzled by your SMR comment. Would you care to elaborate?

I've only been playing SMRR seriously for a couple of weeks now and, granted, there are some bugs and quirks in it that, if addressed, would improve it a lot. Train routing issues, to start with. But what I like about it is that it is so much more like RRT II than RT3 was, but with far superior graphics and all sorts of added features that really bring the game to life. When I start a new game, wild horses couldn't pull me away from it for 2 hours at least. I'm more addicted than I was even to RRT II at first and I didn't think that was possible.

No offense taken. I'm just trying to understand all this negativity about SMRR. I can well understand it from the technical issues standpoint, as I had those myself. But I still tend to think the game itself is not being given a fair shake.

I have read a lot of commentary about the trains looking like toy trains, etc. My view is that none of the trains in any of the RRT sims are photoreal, so I just don't see any significance there. In fact, I like the look of the SMRR trains more than RT3's. And, to me, SMRR's gameplay is even more realistic than RRT II's and more like real life. I just started the Northwest scenario in Boise on the Tycoon level and I get a much more vivid feel for what it must have been like back then to start up a new railroad in the wild west. It is more like you are really living it than playing a game.

But like you said, to each his own. And good to hear from another RRT II fan who really appreciates its superiority to RT3.

[nedfumpkin]

I admit that I don't have SMR, but I am thinking of picking up a copy at some point...too involved with other things right now. But, yes...I like RT2 a lot, and for a while I was just playing it when RT3 wouldn't work on my machine.

But for all the really good things about RT2, there also a lot of good things in RT3. I look at them like I would children and love them equally for different reasons. But one thing about RT3 that is far superior to RT2 is the amount of customizing you can do with it. In fact, it's quite possible to completely reprogram the game which is what WP&P, Coruscate, and I are in the process of doing.

That being said, what aspects of RT2 would you like to see in RT3? Drop-shipping is corrected in 1.06 through coding, but were are accomplishing it by creating "station buildings" that will act as a way-point for cargo. Track building can't much be changed. but I will try to make the track look better.

Other than the cargo supply-chain which is a huge effort to reconfigure now, there is still a lot of possible modifications that can be made to the game. Rather than add on to what was there as happened in 1.06, here were are taking out some old stuff and replacing it entirely with a bunch of add-ons.