I'm new to the forums, and for about a month every weekend I've restarted playing RRT3 and so far have found it very enjoyable and nice, also very time sucking. I started on Great Britain, then moved to other maps - in the beginning it was a challenge, but now I'm constantly able to win Silver or better, and I wrote some strategy guidelines.
Of course some RRT3 veterans might come here and feel free to discuss it. I provide them just as free flowing advice.
Some Tips:
"One of the things I would like to add (since I wrote fairly extensive tips otherwise and I'm planning on publishing a brief Beginner's Guide) is that besides buying lots of industry, one of the things that helps keep profits up is train economy/cost effectiveness ratio. Using a hub and spoke system, you can connect say 1 two star city and 2 one star cities to your hub. But the thing is, and that's a fairly common rookie mistake, unless you're going to have some specialized freight trains, you don't need that many trains to do the job especially after 1850 or so when trains get minimally decent and powerful. Your main express routes can cover three or more cities, going from one main hub to the other and ignoring the spokes. And keeping the above in mind, you'll usually want to service 1 train per 2 one star cities, going up to 1 train per city if the city is bigger than two star. That's kinda like an optimum ratio I found on the hard way, thru experience, but yeah, it helps keep hauling profit high when less of your trains are hauling more, and it's also a way of making up for maps that just lack enough cargo. You can service the whole map that way, with profits not going down because of excessive freight/express supply. Britain 1829 is a breeze. One of my favourite maps, actually. In my latest playthru, I reached 50 million net worth by 1857 and didn't have more than 30 trains. I got the Gold, too. It's easy, also, with grades being relatively flat and all that."
One of the things I would like to add (since I wrote fairly extensive tips otherwise and I'm planning on publishing a brief Beginner's Guide) is that besides buying lots of industry, one of the things that helps keep profits up is train economy/cost effectiveness ratio. Using a hub and spoke system, you can connect say 1 two star city and 2 one star cities to your hub. But the thing is, and that's a fairly common rookie mistake, unless you're going to have some specialized freight trains, you don't need that many trains to do the job especially after 1850 or so when trains get minimally decent and powerful. Your main express routes can cover three or more cities, going from one main hub to the other and ignoring the spokes. And keeping the above in mind, you'll usually want to service 1 train per 2 one star cities, going up to 1 train per city if the city is bigger than two star. That's kinda like an optimum ratio I found on the hard way, thru experience, but yeah, it helps keep hauling profit high when less of your trains are hauling more, and it's also a way of making up for maps that just lack enough cargo. You can service the whole map that way, with profits not going down because of excessive freight/express supply. Britain 1829 is a breeze. One of my favourite maps, actually. In my latest playthru, I reached 50 million net worth by 1857 and didn't have more than 30 trains. I got the Gold, too. It's easy, also, with grades being relatively flat and all that.
Also, just to add one last bit. I finally beat this scenario (on 1896). Bought industry the first decade of the game, then when I got a good production chain going issued bonds and built my first railway from Huelva -> Malaga -> Seville. It was very profitable and I managed to haul mostly Alcohol, Clothing, Lumber and Furniture, besides Express. Actually that seems like a must for every game and every scenario, not just this one. Starting with industry is the best way to reap great profit and also build up a steady production chain which is gonna create all the products your trains will haul. Not doing so is illogical and uneconomical. Also, BTW, for this scenario in particular the grades were atrociously steep. That means all my locos but 1 were 0-6-6-0 Fairlies, any other engine will simply not run these grades and will suffer a lot. Fairlies are pretty cheap and reliable for their role, though.
IMHO industry works for most scenarios, not just this one. Exceptions are some fan made scenarios which I downloaded and found pretty challenging, like Britain 1830 which has a 50% industry efficiency cap for the early game (and things like abstracted transatlantic companies). BUT for most other scenarios, including dev made, Spanish Mainline, and fan made scenarios like Colonial India, industry is pretty much the way to go. If you manage to intercept the flow of raw materials towards rival buildings and industry, I found out that with two-three sources supplying you you can make a very tidy profit without even worrying about hauling anything, assuming of course that you get the price gradients right for both factory input and output. Rivers make it much easier. With two or three factories running up, you can easily make 2 million a year, which is just enough to pile up to start your own railway. The problem with Spanish Mainline scenario in general is the fact that grades tend to be highly irregular throughout much of the map no matter how well you plan your layout. It's definitely not a flat, comfy terrain like dev made Great Britain 1829. Also building tunnels and bridges is extremely expensive, and trust me, you don't want to spend all that money just to cross a mountain and the likes, or else you're gonna lose much of your profits because the railway will take much longer to give you any decent return for the money you put in there. This also applies to other scenarios, anyway, but before the Shay, in such particular cases the Fairlie really is a lifesaver because no other engine (perhaps no other than also the Consolidation besides the two I mentioned here) can haul 8 freight boxcars and still go thru +6% grades at speeds higher than 5-8 mph. This is really a lifesaver. You can cut costs on both mountain railway layout, and still be able to haul a lot of cargo at decent speeds. Finally, starting at Seville and not Madrid or elsewhere really depends on where you have your industry set up. More working factories means more things to haul, and if you can add up the Express cargo that comes from 2+ star cities it will usually make the railroad worth it. Early on, in every scenario, there's nothing to haul because most industries are starving for supplies, which is why it's important to have your own supply chain ready before you build your own railway. This will give you plenty of things to ship, and you can easily expand into multiple green price gradient areas in order to have a consistently high demand for your goods.
Just to throw in my two cents, I remember talking to you about starting with industry - well yeah, depending on the scenario goals, you'll want to leave some money to lay rails, particularly if they demand it. However I found out that using chain production (similar to another game I used to play, Industry Giant 2), you can get maximum profits you otherwise wouldn't get from freight alone or express until very late in the game. "Any" chain works, but the most profitable ones tend to be Iron & Coal Mine -> Steel Mill -> Tool & Die and simultaneously also Weapons and Munitions factory, together with the lumber chain. Buying 1-3 full chains in 15 years is feasible, and will net you a lot of profit in the four stages of hauling and production. In my latest weekend playthru I had 8500k profit from Industry alone, compared to 2-5k from Freight and Express.
[...]
I've watched the first three parts so far and I think you're being very clever and thoughtful. One of the things I found out from watching you is to be careful with bonds, now I avoid taking them too much early on and wait 'till my credit rate gets to AAA or AA, this way you can have interest rates of 5-7% only - anything more than that is just too expensive. It makes a lot of difference when you have all 20 bonds outstanding and the interest begins to suck in your revenue. With 20 bonds @ 5-7% (with one at 8% interest maximum), they just suck about 500-600k out of total revenue per year, instead of more than a million to a million and a half. If you want to profit from industry but find out there's already a very productive factory which is too expensive to buy, try intercepting their raw materials by putting your own factory just a bit up in the transport chain, and as close as possible to your own station, far closer than the rival factory. This way you're gonna suck up all their productive potential for yourself at a fraction of the cost. Later on, after starving them, you can just leave them be or bulldoze them to prioritize your own industry first.
I'm talking about this, anyway. It's woth the effort just to keep issuing stock and waiting patiently a few years. 20x bonds means 10000K at a total interest rate of only 5% per annum. Very manageable and cheap capital. https://imgur.com/a/xvji6mS
Yeah, definitely. I'm watching this step by step and now I'm almost done with part 9. You done well, very nice. Also, one thing I forgot to mention that would be probably useful is the "train economy" principle we talked about before, I mean I noticed you loaded your Cramptons with 8 cars. That might be nice and ok, and Cramptons are good locos for their time period, but I stopped doing that in my last two silver medal games. Ok, I play on Medium, but here's the catch: 19th century trains aren't really that big and powerful, and their performance tends to degrade after 1900 when rolling stock gets bulkier. They also spend more fuel for each of the cars loaded. And more cars means the potential to glut the market with products more often, which is bad for freight prices. That's why I stopped hauling 8 cars except for special express trains for much of the 19th century. The result is positive: far less breakdowns, more speed. Actually if you take the class P8 as an Euro-World reference (it's not available in most America scenarios), it can pretty much be the very first train that will haul all 8 cars when it comes online, while for America the Eight-Wheeler won't be as powerful and it will take the H10 Class (1918) to switch to an all 8-car layout. But overall, just a tip. I've been doing tests, too, about the efficiency of diesel vs electric vs late steam in terms of fuel costs, maintenance and efficiency. I dunno, but they all seem roughly on par. I really don't know when it becomes best to switch to diesel or electric, although a powerful railroad might just do that or don't do that (and perhaps stay with steam all the way to the 1970's) and continue to reap tons of profit either way.