Hello from Indiana

[alcohee]

Hi, I'm probably a bit older than most of you here. (I'm 62,) but I still enjoy playing this game. I've been playing it for several years, but still have a lot to learn about it. In the past, I mostly laid track and ran trains to start off with. I was able to get gold on medium setting for several of the scenarios and a couple on hard and expert, but I've had difficulty with several others. So I went in search of helpful hints and strategies for winning the elusive ones. That's how I found this web site and I'm glad I did. After reading a few posts, I realized I was going about it all wrong and should have been buying industries from the start before laying any track. I tried it on one scenario and it worked wonderfully. By year 2 I was making far more money than I would have made if I only ran trains. I've purchased industries before, but usually only farms or mines. On the scenarios where I needed industry profit, I would use bonds to buy a farm or two and eventually I would have enough. Now that I've learned the secret, I'm anxious to retry some of the scenarios that were so difficult. I'm glad I found this website and hope to be learning much more from you.

[Blackhawk]

Welcome to the forums. Glad to hear you learned a few tricks from the forums already to help you out on some of the scenarios.

[Gumboots]

Hi. :)

Industry first is usually the way to go on the harder settings. On Hard and Expert, train profitability is decreased incrementally compared to Medium. IIRC company overheads also increase.

Some scenarios do still require trains only, but in most cases industry is very useful.

About bonds: go for it. If you're playing an average scenario that runs for 25 years you will never be required to repay bonds. This effectively makes them free capital. If playing a scenario that runs longer than 25 years you may want to be more circumspect, depending on the aims. Same goes if playing a scenario that requires no company debt for Gold.

[Hawk]

aboard!

Glad you found the forums helpful. I hope it helps enhance your enjoyment of RT3.

BTW! I'm also 62.

[Wolverine@MSU]

About bonds: go for it. If you're playing an average scenario that runs for 25 years you will never be required to repay bonds.

Sorry to burst your bubble Gummy, but, depending on the interest rate, you can wind up "paying off" the bond in as little as 7 years if the interest rate is 15% (10 years at 10%, and 20 years at 5%). So you see, even if you aren't paying back the principle, you will almost always be "paying back" the entire value of the bond, if not more. If I've got extra cash laying around, I always pay off the bonds (higher %age rate first)

[Hawk]

If I've got extra cash laying around, I always pay off the bonds (higher %age rate first)

I do the same thing. Sometimes just the interest payment can hurt if funds are tight, like in a depressed economy.

[Gumboots]

15%? Why on earth would you be holding bonds at 15%? I never go higher than 12 for individual bonds, and aim to keep the average of all I'm holding under 10 even in the early-ish stages of the game. Usually by the time the first boom hits I'm in a position to get the full 20 bonds at somewhere between 5% and 7%, and by the time the second boom hits all will be at 5%. I don't hold bonds long term at a high interest rate, only at a low rate. IOW, I am always using the bond capital to buy or build something that will make me money even after the interest is paid. That's the only reason to ever use bonds. There's no point using them to go backwards.

So, if you're using the capital to make yourself more money, that's money you can't make without the capital being available. As long as you can escalate the earnings via good use of the capital, there's no point repaying the bond. It's only worth repaying them (IMO) if you cannot expand in any profitable way.

I know you have to pay money back in interest, but the central point is having that capital available earlier to fuel expansion, then using the increased income from that expansion to fuel more expansion. The leapfrogging effect is very valuable. I've done the maths on it. It works.

ETA: Look at it this way. Say you have $10 million worth of bonds at 5%. This costs you 500k/year in interest. You have $10 million company cash lying around. Pay off the bonds and you'll save 500k/year. Use the $10 million to build $10 million worth of industry and that should make you $2 million/year. That puts you $1.5 million/year ahead of where you would be if you paid the bonds back and built no industry.

[Hawk]

ETA: Look at it this way. Say you have $10 million worth of bonds at 5%. This costs you 500k/year in interest. You have $10 million company cash lying around. Pay off the bonds and you'll save 500k/year. Use the $10 million to build $10 million worth of industry and that should make you $2 million/year. That puts you $1.5 million/year ahead of where you would be if you paid the bonds back and built no industry.

I never really looked at it like that. makes sense though.