Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!digibd!merlyn
From: merlyn@digibd.com (Merlyn LeRoy)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.games
Subject: Re: Railroad Tycoon
Message-ID: <1991Jun02.011833.1497@digibd.com>
Date: 2 Jun 91 01:18:33 GMT
References: <ocEKEMS00VICN5OIRK@andrew.cmu.edu> <1991May28.163346.3759@pinet.aip.org> <12188@jarthur.Claremont.EDU>
Organization: DigiBoard Incorporated, Eden Prairie, MN
Lines: 48

mblakele@jarthur.Claremont.EDU (Tad Blakeley) writes:
>...For instance, if I remove a station from a train's route, the
>train may take "Signal Tower" as its objective, giving me an "impossible
>destination" error.  I can override it with a priority destination, but
>then it'll be back.

I've seen these kinds of bugs (I have a IIci, running 4-bit color,
still 6.0.7):

The Signal Tower bug, when a train can't figure out where to
go, even after a priority destination.  I can fix it by deleting
the whole route & rebuilding it.

If I have an 8-car train and try to delete the last car, it often
turns into a mail car instead of disappearing.

Minor redrawing bugs (e.g. train roster scroll bar)

Another unrealistic aspect is a point that produces and demands
a generic cargo, like coal, or paper.  Why would it both export
and import the same stuff?  (This happens under complex economy,
it's unavoidable under simple economy).  Unique stuff, like goods,
would make sense, since it may make one kind of good and buy others.
However, towns seem happy to buy their own stuff if you just
send it out & back (for a while, anyway).

Passengers should be fussier about where they're going, but that would
also complicate the passenger & mail cars; they'd have a lot of
flavors.  It isn't that bad, though; real trains often required a lot
of train changes to get from A to B (the old-fashioned accordian-folded
train ticket, made up of a bunch of short trips).  Maybe just
northbound, southbound, eastbound, and westbound cargos...
Do you get more passengers at stations that connect to more
places?

I've only had the game about a week, but it's pretty nice in spite of
the bugs (which can be worked around).  My 7-year-old son likes it, but
he can't grok the way to play; he just wants to lay rails and send
diesel engines full of empty passenger cars all over the place :-)
I have a few games with lots of cash built up and let him run it into
the ground...

The manual says you can't double-track 90 degree turns, but I've done
it.  It would also be nice to expand stations from other than the detail
display.

---
Merlyn LeRoy