Railroad Tycoon Deluxe

[Quintillus]

As a seasoned player of Railroad Tycoon II, awhile back I downloaded Railroad Tycoon Deluxe from Sid Meier's Railroads' website, and thought I'd give it a try. Well, the time has finally come, and as my first game goes on I'm finding it to be more like Railroad Tycoon II than I realized all the time. So far it's been a good game - I have a small but profitable line running from Washington to Richmond. Hopefully that won't change with the Civil War - it's 1860 right now! But I have a few questions on the economics:

* My railroad started with a $500,000 bond. I also found the option to take out more bonds, which my competitors have used quite liberally. Is the interest rate on these variable? Right now the bottom of the Stock Broker page says the Interest Rate is 6% (the economy is in a recession). Interest rate is fixed and dependent on the rate at the time you took it out and how many bonds you had out at the time.

* If my current cash is below zero, am I paying that 6% or whatever it currently is interest on howevermuch I am in the hole? Cause I noticed Interest/Fees were 60% of my expenditures, and even with that $500,000 bond that seemed a little ridiculous. But I have been in a bit of debt thanks to some possibly overzealous expansion. If cash is negative at the end of the year, the railroad pays 12% interest.

Also, Washington isn't paying for mail, while Fredericksburg and Richmond are. Does this have to do with city size, and if so, how do I measure it?

* In RT2 I got into the habit of running one train of two passengers and one mail between cities, and usually only running between cities adjacent to each other (no long-haul routes). This seems modestly profitable in RT Deluxe, but not as profitable as it was in RT2. Is RT Deluxe more dependent on long routes?

* Do industries spring up on their own in RT Deluxe like they did in RT2? I'm pretty sure I just saw two oil wells spring up north of D.C.

*Whenever I buy a new train, it starts in Fredericksburg, because that was my first station. But I'd prefer that some of them start at my freight stations outside of Richmond, and of course that becomes even more important as I expand - I don't want to have to sent a train all the way from Fredericksburg to Chicago just to start a local route. Any way to change this? Found out a station must have an engine shop to start a train.

I decided to start on Investor level just to make sure I wasn't in bankruptcy court by Year Three, and the only change from the default rules I made was to Complex Economy. I've never played with Simple Economy in a Railroad Tycoon game, so it was no time to start. And my freight lines are still doing well!

And for those of you who have played the downloadable version from the Sid Meier's website, I found a handy way to avoid the 2K Games introduction and website link at the end:

1. Open "C:\Program Files\2K Games\Sid Meier's Railroads\DOSBox 0.65\DosBox.exe" in a Run prompt
2. Type "mount c C:\" in the DOSBox window
3. Change to the Railroads directory by typing and then entering (without asterisks)
***C:
***cd Progra~1
***cd 2Kgame~1
***cd SidMei~1
4. Type RRT and hit enter. This will take you directly into the main game, bypassing both the 2K Games and original introductory videos, and skipping the website link at the end.
5. After you exit RT Deluxe, type "exit" and hit enter to exit the DOSBox.

Alternately, at step 2 type "mount c C:\Progr~1\2kgame~1\SidMei~1\" and bypass step 3. I just listed it the first way because it's more like traditional DOS; DOSBox advises the latter.

Despite the typing, it does save some time over watching all of 2K's advertisements.

Thanks for answering the questions; no wonder RT2 was so good following this game!

 

[Quintillus]

Well, I thought everything was going pretty well. I guess my investors thought otherwise.

As can be seen, I have by far the highest net worth. I also made a profit last financial term, and my stock price rose. Stock investors sure are finicky about management all right!

What's with the 1% Average Share Price Growth, though? It seems like that's been falling forever, and 14%-15% is 6.67% growth, not 1%.

Sequence of Events Leading up to Firing
1. Record-setting profit years. Got up to about $350K by 1886; hoped to repay $500k loan
2. Profits disappear; realize a lumber mill closed shop so I reassign a train to another route and destroy a good amount of capital by destroying the branch route and depot to the lumber mill (helps by reducing maintenance).
3. Profits still not great; I saw train maintenance was getting high again; spent $160k to buy new trains at start of 1888; cash down to $240k
4. Blew the rest of the dough re-designing the route to maximize efficiency. Combined with the destruction of the now-useless lumber branch, my mileage falls by 25-30%.
5. Bought 10,000 shares of Treasury stock to drive up the share price in 1890-1891 term in an effort to turn around investors' opinion.
6. Over 1890-1891 and 1892-1893 terms, I make $100,000 but that's still not good enough. Granted, two record-setting terms would've made $150k, but $100k isn't bad when there was a panic in there.

I'm guessing #4 was the critical mistake in there, but I was seemingly already in the downward spiral towards being fired when that happened. Really, ever since I first spent $160k in 1870 to replace the locomotives the investors hadn't been happy. Is this one of those expenses I have to space out or something?

In RT2 you have to be running your company into the ground to get fired - I want my position back!

 

[e350tb]

What locomotives were you using? They can have an impact on profits.

 

[Quintillus]

4-6-0 Ten Wheelers from 1870 onwards. 4-4-0 Americans before that. They had the best speed for my flat railroads.

 

[Quintillus]

Much better results this time. I found a much more profitable route - Detroit to Saginaw - and am making $100,000s per year. I got the bond payed back quite quickly, and have been buying stock back into the Treasury. Right now 60% of the stock is in the treasury. The manual states that if 50% of the stock is in the treasury, the chances of being kicked out are reduced; I'm hoping the chances are nil right now. But at least the investors are pleased.

 

[Randall_Flagg]

Much better results this time. I found a much more profitable route - Detroit to Saginaw - and am making $100,000s per year. I got the bond payed back quite quickly, and have been buying stock back into the Treasury. Right now 60% of the stock is in the treasury. The manual states that if 50% of the stock is in the treasury, the chances of being kicked out are reduced; I'm hoping the chances are nil right now. But at least the investors are pleased.

Been a very long time since i played it, but if you own 1 share over 50%, they can never toss you out. At least that how i remeber it. I wonder if the bond glitch was ever fixed? the one where you could get 4-5 bonds at beginning of game, build a realy great 4-5 city network and declare yourself bancrupt and go on to an easy win?

 

[Kwibus]

I has been a very long time since i played railroad tycoon.

I used to play it on my 4 Mhz 8088 machine from 1981 as a kid. I used to read books during play because it was so slow.



* In RT2 I got into the habit of running one train of two passengers and one mail between cities, and usually only running between cities adjacent to each other (no long-haul routes). This seems modestly profitable in RT Deluxe, but not as profitable as it was in RT2. Is RT Deluxe more dependent on long routes?

I used to have short routes as a kid as well but never managed to get up to the president ranking.

You get paid a fixed amount for delivering cargo which is low for mail and pasangers and higher for cargo (If you google it you should be able to find the formula's) further more the amount you get paid depends on the average speed and the distance. This accounts for the largest part of the payment for passengers and mail and for a smal part of the payment for cargo.

The big advantage of running long lines is not that you earn more per ton miles travelled but that you are able to make more money from each ton of cargo. Since the total amount of available goods is limited. You can get a bigger revenue by having long lines.

For passengers and mail it is therefore better to have long lines since the amount you get for just delivering is low for bulk freight it is just the other way around.

(the amount you get paid also depends on the date and the difficulty level.)



Do industries spring up on their own in RT Deluxe like they did in RT2? I'm pretty sure I just saw two oil wells spring up north of D.C.

Yes As time progresses industries and population centers are spawned randomly on the map.
Industries can also disappear from the map.
on the higher difficulty levels population centers can turn into slums which demand no cargo and supply no cargo.

about you getting fired
You are playing the eastern united states which starts in 1830 if i remember correctly you got fired in 1893 that is a total of 63 years
the stock price started at 10 $ and is 15$ now an increase of 50% that is slightly less than 1% a year.
If they would have put their money on a bank account they would have had a higher profit. So it is quite logical from them to replace you.

The track you have is in the books for a certain value if you destroy it the value of your company decreases causing you to have a big loss in the years you demolish them.

You should have a railroad network of hundreds of miles by now 66 is really to little. You could even consider taking an extra bond early on to start with a bigger network.

hope this helps