Looking for some advice....

[Ace of Spades]

I've been playing quite a few RRT3 scenarios & they always end up the same way....me being broke!!

I realize the strategies for each scenario will vary depending on individual requirements, but does anyone have any general guidelines they follow in a new scenario? I remember the days of the original RRT when you could run a few all-passenger/mail trains & make tons of cash. Throw in a few long range coal or lumber runs & you were home free.

Does it pay to run spur lines with depots to individual resources or clusters of resources? Can you run all-express trains & make money? My passengers always seem to want to go cities that I can't connect to at the time. These are just a few of the things I run into problems with.

Any help would be greatly appreciated :D.

[AZ Rail Rat]

Hey Ace - If you just want to make money (and don't care about a medal for connecting this city to that in x amount of time, or taking every AI over), I have a technique. Sometime you may get lucky and win a medal, but I NEVER end up broke.

This technique does not work well with a lot of AIs and guidelines below are for scenarios with only a couple. When the world gets crowded, it takes some major adjustments to this strategy.

For sure, this is not for the "Type-A Gamer Personality" player. It takes too much patience for the average person. This is more of a rail rider's technique ONLY for those who have the patience.

1 – Your FIRST game action BEFORE TAKING OFF PAUSE should be to issue stock, NOT BONDS. Every two years, issue more to obtain cash. Plenty of time to buy back once you have cash flow. . . which leads to . . .

2 – NEVER A BORROWER NOR A LENDER BE (Shakespeare?) Usually a scenario starts out with enough cash to build between two cities, build two stations and buy a train. Run the one train until you get enough cash to expand to the next city.

3 – ALWAYS build $200K (Large) stations unless beginning cash does not let you. Advantage to this is to overcome the flaw in the game which requires you to pay FULL PRICE to upgrade a station on land you have already bought!!! Pay the $200K from the beginning and grab more cargo as it develops or passes by. Do the math! If you start small ($50K), then upgrade to medium ($100K), then again to large ($200K), your first $150K GOES TO WASTE!!! Not only that, you risk the fact that you CAN'T expand because of track or ground layout or some idiot (who is probably complaining about the train noise) built a house right next you your station. Of course, you do get the pleasure of bulldozing the SOBs house!

4 – ONLY single-track at first, EXCEPT double track ALL bridges the first time. Most trains slow down over bridges, so doubling up at the starts helps flow.

5 – AVOID (if possible) crossing rivers or building tunnels early. Look for several cities that allow you to connect without a bridge.

6 – Always select the stone bridge. Wood bridges cannot be upgraded, they have to be torn down.

7 – Watch your grade. I avoid anything over 5%. Many engines with long trains drag to a crawl on grade. KNOW YOUR LOCO!

8 - The most modern (and most expensive) engine on the board is NOT usually your best starting choice. Go for the older cheaper models at first, because you ARE low on cash which is better spent on more track and stations than having the hottest engine on the block.

9 – Have train length match loco. You should not put 8 cars on a Planet! Check the loco “glamor shot” info for what more cars do to speed. Too complicated to cover every engine here, but an example, if I use an American, I limit to four, Consolidations, five, and work up from there.

10 – This will draw argument from most, but I ALWAYS use Cabeese, more for “that’s the way it was” than for avoiding breakdowns and crashes. A true study of their value is more complicated than it is worth to prove using or not using will increase your income by .xxx%. The main advantage is, that when you take over another company, you can easily spot their inefficient trains quickly and either reroute or retire.

11 - Until line is established enough to specialize, always use the automatic ANY CARGO setting. Don't be tempted to specialize at a specific industry (coal, iron, etc.) until you are well established. Also, I set minimum full cars to “1”. No need to burn fuel for nothin’. Just keep an eye out for trains that don’t go anywhere for a couple of years. The "0" full car setting and no cabeese is what the AIs use, and it is THEM we were put on this planet to rise above, right?

12 - Trying to figure out what stations have or want what cargo will just give you ANALYSIS PARALYSIS!!! Don't worry about meeting the publics needs until you have the line to do it with.

13 - After the third station is built, expand train 1's route to it and buy train 2. Each train goes to a MAXIMUM of THREE cities. On the out trip train 1 stops at city #2, but returns as an express from #3 to #1. Train 2 starts at city #3, stops at #2, then #1 and expresses back to #3. When city #4 is connected, add train 3 between it and city #3. When city #5 is built, expand train 3's route and buy train 4. Keep building these 3-city zones until you have an empire. If you do it right, are conservative, and wait long enough, you will start seeing the cash rolling in with only about four to six trains.

14 – Make sure track between EVERY city has a water tower. First maintenance shed (which does not need to be bought for about a year) goes outside city #1. Depending on track layout, you will not need another until after city #5. You then make sure each 3-city zone has one. I always place sheds OUTSIDE the station influence. Hover cursor over the station and watch the green. Place the shed just outside the green area. This allows the city to expand rather than YOU taking up space where a house or industry could materialize.

15 – Resist the temptation to buy industry until your cash flow can stand it. Even then, I start with corn & grain farms. STAY WAY FROM MINES!!! Make sure any industry you want to buy is well established for profit. My rule of thumb is it must be in the “white” all years showing and lifetime, and one of the last two full years profit must be close to 10% of asking price.

16 – When a train gets named, that’s when I convert it into a passenger train with a dining car and reroute to a seven to ten city zone, stopping at ALL cities in BOTH directions with minimum load set to “0” - - - NO WAITING! Don’t forget to change it to express! Finally, purchase another train to replace the named train's old route.

17 – Once a named train with a big zone is established, time to double-track, but NOT the entire way. Double through and about three or four track sections on either side of every station. You can go ahead and double a few sections past the maintenance shed also. Next, double track around all water towers. These are the places of most slowdowns. Finally, if there are any hard grades which can rarely be avoided, double track those too.

18 - NEVER double track (and even avoid building track later in game) in BOOM times or PROSPERITY - - - Track laying is cheaper! I usually wait for a Recession and spend EVERY available dollar if need be on double-track.

19 – Never replace an engine less than 10 years old. Get some use out of it. Even then, make sure the engine fits the job. Pick the fastest (usually most expensive) for your named trains. Also be aware of the "Passenger Appeal" setting and pick those pretty engines for your named passenger trains. Let older, less pretty engines be your workhorses. If mountains are involved, you would be surprised how bad a Shey can beat an Eight-wheeler.

20 – Once you have a good empire with lots of cities, many with multiple stars, you can invest in hotels, restaurants, taverns and build special trains. AVOID post offices unless you just think you need them because that is the “way it was”. I build them anyway because I start running mail-only express trains between seven to ten cities, stopping at each in both directions. Now is the time to also think about long freight trains between multiple-star cities.

21 – If you take over an AI’s company - - - WAIT . . . IF you got that far, you sure ain’t broke, so - - - your on your own now kid.

Like I said, these only sometimes win a medal, but there is more to life than cyber recognition, ain’t there???

[Knave]

Thank you Rat! Very Good advice. Some I do already. A lot of what you mention I need to be doing. :D :D

[Hawk]

To add to item #15 in Rats post, the dairy farms never loose money. If you can afford them, they're well worth it.

Also, building a stub line in RRT3 is more often than not, a waste of time since freight travels on it's own in this version.
Occasionally you might want to but as a rule there's no need to.

[canis39]

Dairy farms are definitely a good idea. I usually pause the game a couple times each calendar year and search the map for the newest dairy farms - that's when they're cheapest.

If you're going to follow Rat's advice (and good advice it is), the key is picking the right two starting cities. If you pick two cities without enough cargo, your company will not make money.

[belbincolne]

Rats point 18 - does the cost of track really change when times are prosperous?

[Grandma Ruth]

14 – I always place sheds OUTSIDE the station influence. Hover cursor over the station and watch the green. Place the shed just outside the green area. This allows the city to expand rather than YOU taking up space where a house or industry could materialize.

Thanks, this was all good advice but I especially liked this, which I'd never thought of before!

[AZ Rail Rat]

I wanted (or could have) went into much more detail on several points, but it being THREE hours after quitting time and the wife calling every five minutes thinking I was out with some sweetie, I had to stop somewhere.

First, on Hawk's point about Dairy Farms: Yes, Dairy Farms and Fruit Orchards are next on my industry buy list. One has to watch orchards more than dairy farms to ensure they continue to make a profit.

Every time the ledger comes up, your last action should be go to the Industry tab and click on the PROFIT heading until it gives the one making least profit (or most loss) on top. If you have one showing a loss a few years in a row, might be time to sell and go into a new line of work.

Yes belb, just like in the real world, during a Recession, labor is cheaper because of more people out of work and land values drop, which is a built-in component of what each track section costs.

There are various ways to test this, but the easiest is to make yourself a simple map, or grab one from somewhere. My favorite (because I made it) is here: http://www.railroadtycoon.info/maps.php

About halfway down look for !Skin This! which is a small map (Island of Shrilanka) with a line already built. Once loaded, go into the editor and add events that change economy. I'd make it change about once every two or three months in the near game future until you go through all five, BOOM to PANIC.

Gong out of the editor, find yourself an open, perhaps flat piece of land for your test. When BOOM sets, lay out some track, being careful to note how much each section costs. Repeat for all economies and report back what happens.

I'm sure others could use this info determining build-or-wait strategies.

[Ace of Spades]

WOW!!

Thanks AZ! I feel like Moses coming down from the mountain....

I follow some of your points already, but there are many I do not (but need to!). The only scenario I ever kicked butt on was Florida (can't remember the designer). Most of that came from the huge amounts of weapons & ammo that I was hauling. That gave me the money to buy industries & jack up my NW.

From reading your points, it seems I'm trying to expand way too quickly & spend too much at the beginning. I usually build to three cities immediately. After stations, trains, maintenance, etc, I usually have nothing left!! Then I keep sliding into the red.

Looks like I have some experimenting to do with these "commandments"....Only an hour and a half until quittin' time :D

[AZ Rail Rat]

You got it Ace! As W.C. Fields once said, "The more haste, the less speed."

Just like in life, if you have debt, your paying money to the bank you NEVER see again. On the other hand, every year your cash is positive, bank pays YOU interest. Not having bonds out trickles into higher stock price (because of your dept ratio) which allows for more cash when you issue stock each two years. Try it.

Now . . . if I ONLY had RRT before I took out ALL THOSE CREDIT CARDS!!!!*00*!

[canis39]

Ace, the Florida map was probably Arop's. I remember that one - the price gradient for weapons and ammo was incredible...I think I made something like $1 Million per trainload from Jax to Miami (which of course ended up being less due to "cargo rot" on the long trip down, but still, definitely worth the trip!).

Since this is an advice thread and we've already mentioned dairy farms...is there an easy way to identify new dairy farms using the ledger? I do it the old fashioned way - set the cargo map to "milk" and scan for new farms. But for some reason I feel like there might be another way to do it.

[JayEff]

Since this is an advice thread and we've already mentioned dairy farms...is there an easy way to identify new dairy farms using the ledger? I do it the old fashioned way - set the cargo map to "milk" and scan for new farms. But for some reason I feel like there might be another way to do it.

Run the game at normal speed, and view the game in a not so busy cargo setting. Troops are the best. While the game runs, scroll the whole map. New buildings will appear in this view even if they are not barracks. If you see something you like, buy it. If you go out of cargo view, you won't see it any more though.

[Wolverine@MSU]

Since this is an advice thread and we've already mentioned dairy farms...is there an easy way to identify new dairy farms using the ledger? I do it the old fashioned way - set the cargo map to "milk" and scan for new farms. But for some reason I feel like there might be another way to do it.

Most new properties built during a game are placed in order at the end of the list of existing properties. A few of them sneak in to fill slots emptied by properties that disappear during the game. To keep tabs on new properties, I wait until a few years into the game and then pause. Click on a property (house, industry, farm, whatever) and note the "Date Built" entry in the Info box. Hold down the "Page Down" key to rapidly scan the list of properties, keeping your eye on the "Date Built". As you scan, the date should stay the same (a couple years before the start date of the scenario), with an occasional "blip" when you hit a new property that's filled an older one's slot. Eventually you'll get to the end of the list, and the dates will start increasing, beginning with the start date of the scenario and incrementing year by year. These are the newest properties added. The date will increase until it flips over again to the initial dates (before scenario start). At this point, press the "Page Up" key until you get back to the last property added, which should have the current year as the "Date Built". With that property on the screen, hold down the shift key and press "0" (zero) to save the map view of this property. Then start pressing the "Page Up" key to scroll backwards through the list of properties recently built. When you find one that looks attractive to purchase, save the view with <Shift>1, and continue to scroll with the "Page Up" key and save views of potential buys with <Shift>2, <Shift>3, <Shift4> etc. Don't buy any of them while you're "browsing"; if you do, the property will be placed on your list of owned properties and you'll lose your place in the "New Properties" list. Only after you've identified potential buys should you go back to each ones screen view (<1>, <2>, <3> etc.) and purchase them if you want them.

I do this at the beginning of each year. As long as you don't replace the view saved with <Shift>0, you can get back to it, use the <Page Down> key to scroll through new properties added in the previous year, and when you get to the end, save the newest propery view with <Shift>0.

Although you don't see all of the newest properties (some of them sneak in and fill empty slots in the middle of the list), you get most of them this way and can keep tabs on them to see when they are just starting to turn a profit, making them a good buy.

On the topic of overall strategy, I use a different approach from The Rat. I start every game (that allows building of industry) by buying an existing Lumber Mill or Textile Mill that's just starting to turn a profit, or building my own next to a "nest" of the raw materials. I usually try for a Lumber Mill because it will return in excess of $200K the first year if located next to a couple of Logging Camps. It usually goes to $300K or so the second and following years as long as there are 2 or 3 Logging Camps nearby. If there isn't a cluster of raw materials, I look for cargo streams converging from several raw producers and build at the confluence, or if they've already made it to a pre-built Mill, I build another right "upstream" from the existing one to intercept the logs (or Wool/Cotton).

In order to do this though, you have to take out a bond and sometimes issue stock to get the investment capital. I disagree with Rat on the usefulness of Bonds. I issue as many as I can, up to about 12% interest, as long as I can buy properties that will return more (as a percent of investment). For instance, if I build a Lumber Mill for $1500 and get $300K/year return, that's a 20% ROI (Return On Investment), easily paying for the Bond Interest, with profits to boot. With a good investment the first year, you'll probably be able to buy or build another in the second year, all the while your stock price keeps going up. Only after several years will I consider building rails and running trains. In addition, as soon as the economy improves, I refinance any bonds that I can when the differential is at least 2% between what I'm paying in interest, and what the new rate is. By the time the game rolls around to "Boom" I usually have enough CBV to give 5% interest on bonds, at which point I max them out and invest in more industries or start running trains.

[belbincolne]

Rail Building - ye gods, it is affected by economy! I shall change my strategy henceforth and build rails (on my current game without even bothering to build stations!) whilst I'm in Depression or Recession and in Prosperity and Booming shall then get things where the price is fixed - like the stations/trains and Industry :D :D :? :? You really do live and learn

Here's my costs for an identical long, straight, stretch:
Depression 543
Recession 591
Normal 663
Prosperity 746
Booming 839

I also agree that Bonds are essential. Your first bond is 500k at 11% and you should ALWAYS be able to get a better return than that. If you issue your limit of 2 stock issues you get under 100k and (if PNW is at all important) you will have a hell of a job getting it back. Repay bonds at high rate as soon as you can - the standard advice is if you gain 3% and normally it's better to repay first as this could give you another 1% off.

I also frequently use Wolves starting with Industry strategy. If you play a game and find railroading between the two biggest towns you can connect brings in no money I restart and go onto an Industry strategy. One (at least) of the campaigns can only be won by starting this way.

[Grandma Ruth]

How I wish I was at home so I could look at some of these things, stuff I never knew before! I'm in the middle of testing W P & P's Cereal Company and it's looking like a profitable industry. I'll run some comparison tests, hopefully, tonight - though I'm sure somebody will have done this before with the existing industries.

[AZ Rail Rat]

Unless you are running a time-compliant scenario, have lots of AI competition, or start a map built by a sadistic map builder who did not give you enough starting capital to get three stations going, bonds are not essential - Perhaps for the hare, but not the tortoise!

[Grandma Ruth]

I did a comparison of the different cargoes mentioned here plus the new Cereal Company. This is just running on their own without any help and without upgrading, over four years.

Lumber Mill - 250 profit right from the start
Textile Mill - starts negative, works up to 250 in four years
Dairy Farm - 150 - 200 from the start
Corn and Grain - from 30 to 50 per year slowly increasing
Fruit Orchard - steady at about 30
Coal Mine - starts about 40, decreasing over time
Cereal Company - takes four years to get into profit but see here:
viewtopic.php?p=6941#6941

Of course, running trains will increase this, upgrading where possible, ship-at-a-loss in 1.06 will bring earlier profits.

[Grandma Ruth]

in Prosperity and Booming shall then get things where the price is fixed - like the stations/trains and Industry :D :D :? :?

I think you'll find that industry is cheaper in a recession/depression as well! :D :D

[Wolverine@MSU]

I think you'll find that industry is cheaper in a recession/depression as well! :D :D

Only after a couple of years. Price is based on some sort of average profits over the past few years, so it can take a few years for the average profits to come down once the economy goes into recession or depression.

[belbincolne]

Yes - what I meant was building (say) a lumber mill which is always the same price. Buying existing farms etc is best in the boom times following a depression of over three years because (as Wolv says) the price is normally the figure that gives the average earnings in the last 3 years as a 9% return on capital and you can expect these earnings to start increasing to give you a much better return.