Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!apple!szy From: szy@Apple.COM (Steven J. Szymanski) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.games Subject: Re: Railroad Tycoon Message-ID: <53400@apple.Apple.COM> Date: 28 May 91 16:21:18 GMT References: Organization: Apple Computer Inc., Cupertino, CA Lines: 85 In article pb1p+@andrew.cmu.edu (Peter Glen Berger) writes: >o At least initially, it is *infinitely* more profitable >to create several short, straight lines between cities close together >than to go for long-distance hauling. For Freight this is clearly true. Passengers and Mail do however benefit from distance traveled. I have found it u$eful to have some trains running Limited service between relatively distant terminals (but still within a year of travel and then others running local in between. >o If you have a hub, build a switching yard. This goes double if the >hub is one end of a line which is currently in a rate war. Yes! In fact, once I have money to spend, I put switching yards at any station where I transform materials. >o If you can, avoid building depots just for one commodity; try to at >least have some villages so there will be passengers and mail to >carry: When a resource runs out, that way, the line won't become a >dead weight on your system. You may be right, but the tact I take is to build them anyway early in the game, and eliminate them one they are no longer useful. This is particularly true once you hit the 32 station limit (ARRRGH!). Once that happens, I start punting my less profitable train routes, and them elimiate the stations serviced by thore routes. >o You may as well buy your stock early, since if you're successful, it >will increase your net worth, and if you're not the extra cash >probably wouldn't have helped you anyway. Yes!!!! In addition, owning at least 50% of your own stock leaves you in the position to take some more risky actions which would otherise upset the stockholders. >o In boom times, "Roll over" your bonds to decrease your interest >payments. Paying back bonds as soon as you have a steady income (say >of 2-400,000 per year) helps boost that income considerably by >eliminating interest payments altogether. Yes. I tend to pay them back once I get 500K income per year, but alternate years between growth and payback. >o Get priority shipments if you can, but if doing so will screw up >your finely balanced system, ignore them. (question: has anyone >figured out just how priority picking up and delivering works? It >seems to have very little to do with the "priority" slot on the train >scheduling chart. In my opinion, this is the weakest part of the >game.) Any train with the right kind of car moving through a city which has a priority shipment will pick up the shipment, and it will drop part of it off in any city it drops that car off in. The result is that if there is a priority shipment of passenegers, it will tend to get spead all around (once I recieved the bonus comletely by surprise, my normal schedule just happened to ship it in 3 stages). I agree however that this is unrealistic. What bothers me more is that passengers don't care where they are taken. The first game I played, I planned my routes to make sure ther was a way for passenegers to get between any pair of cities that I serviced. Now I don't bother since the people don't care. >o If you can help it, don't build near a lake, because it will reduce >the possible industries/resources/cities within the radius of your >terminal (for instance, I build a really nice route connecting Green >Bay, Milwaukee, Chicago, and another town, with Milwaukee as the hub. >It's extremely profitable, but not a good as it could be, since the >lake takes up a good portion of the Milwaukee terminal's radius). Yes. I always take my time deciding exactly where to playe terminals to maximize what gets contained in their radius. >Any other RR Tycooners out there? Let's correspond. Yes! I (szy@apple.com) would love to talk. Much to the ire of my wife (well, not really) I have become hooked on this game. .szy -- AppleLink: szy "Apple has no idea what I am Internet: szy@apple.COM saying here and should not be UUCP: {sun,voder,amdahl,decwrl}!apple!szy held responsible for my raving"