From: mitton@dave.enet.dec.com (Dave Mitton)
Subject: Re: Railroad Tycoon hints?
Keywords: games, railroad tycoon
Reply-To: mitton@dave.enet.dec.com (Dave Mitton)
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation, Littleton MA
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 18:12:41 GMT


In article <2A8768E5.17036@ics.uci.edu>, davida@bonnie.ics.uci.edu (David A. Andersen) writes:
>From: davida@bonnie.ics.uci.edu (David A. Andersen)
>Subject: Re: Railroad Tycoon hints?
>Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games
>Reply-To: davida@ics.uci.edu (David A. Andersen)
>Date: 11 Aug 92 07:14:45 GMT
>
>(a) Stick with Mail & Passengers.
>      - They make the most money, use other things (goods, coal, etc.)
>        only to kick a competitor out of a city.

I've seen this suggestion in one of the books.  I have trouble reducing
the game to this level.

I tend to find (rejecting bad initial configurations) that have a good
mix of fair sized cities, clumps of raw resources, and industries.

Running conversion cargoes is a great revenue generator, because you can
get several revenues off the same initial load pickup.
You attempt to run a sequence on a train like: 
Coal->SteelMill->Steel->Factory->Goods->LargeCity/Port

Run as many trains as you need to meet the production of the initial resource.
I tend to ignore one square quantity resources.

I tend to run mixed mail & passenger trains (per prototype)
But be aware that Mail trains do not suffer a load/unload time.
(like prototype on-the-fly pickup/toss)
Builing a Switching Yard in a city greatly reduces unload/load/switching time.
(consist changes incure a switch time per car change)

>(b) Build far apart.
>      - More money on a per delivery basis.  I disagree with the idea
> ... <stuff deleted>

The Sipes book gives the exact revenue algorithm.  It tends to favor
quick delivery for the higher class cargo (mail,pass) and distance for
bulks.  Running an all Mail train can be very fast and profitable.
Having Post Offices keeps the mail from disappearing.

In fact all cargo's "age".  That is if you don't pick them up soon enough,
and you haven't built a storage building, they disappear (eg: find other
means of transport.)  The Red part of the revenue bar on the Station display
indicates how much of this is happening.

I don't tend to build storage facilities other than Post Offices for large
cities, but run conversions (which don't leave anything) or schedule trains
to match the production rate.  Restaurants are a good investement for
passenger destinations.  Hotels cost more, but pay well too.
Named trains (eg: speed records) pay extra for passenger service.

If a track section becomes rather congested, even if double tracked,
higher priority trains will always go ahead of locals at a signal.
Use plenty of signal towers to prevent hangups.  I've had local freights
fail to make it into a station for turns if things get real bad.

I think...
- the UK scenario is the worst.  The resources spread too much.
	I also have lots of problems with the symbol ambiguity.

- The Western US is the best for large trains and lots of track building.
	you start out with large locos and ultimately build Transcontinental.
Look out for the undocumented rate differential.  East/West pays more
than North/South until a Transcon line is built.  There's also a $1 Million
bonus for doing it.

- The Eastern US can be interesting but difficult.  Lots of mountains in PA
	to work around.  It's easy to get trapped into the NE area.

- The European scenario is interesting with the types of locos you run.
	Especially the very fast TGVs in the end.  I usually tend to build
	down from a Belgium start, up through the Low Countries, and down
	through France and Switzerland.

..rambling..FWIW
	Dave.