How To Play Railroad Tycoon   by The Alternative

The Alternative Presents... How To Play R a i l r o a d T y c o o n by The Byter Written by Microprose / Cracked by Public Enemy Railroad Tycoon is another one of those fantastic games from Microprose - the kind that get you to play for 8 hours into the night (I started my first play session at 8:30 pm and played until 4:30 am - my girl almost killed me when I got to bed. It's a strategic game where you build a rail empire. This doc file is by no means comprehensive, but it should be enough to leave you with a general idea of how to play the game, and you should be able to work from there. Hopefully the group that released it (uhh.. Public Enemy, I think) will be courteous enough to release a complete documentation file in the near future to help explain some of the more obscure parts of this game. Excuse the rather chaotic and unorganized format of this file. It isn't that I'm a hopelessly unorganized person (I may be, but that ain't the reason for the screwy format here), but the game itself has so many aspects to cover, that it is quite hard to get all the info down in any kind of global organization. I suggest you print this file out and use it for reference when playing. As with many other Microprose games, the game supports a number of video cards, but just as the other microprose games are, the VGA/MCGA and EGA are indistin- guishable from one another, despite the fact that the game claims 256-color for VGA and MCGA. I don't have a Tandy, but I expect it looks the same as the 16-color VGA/MCGA/EGA graphics. On a positive note, those poor souls stuck with CGA will find the color choices of this game a bit better than the Cyan/Magenta/ White/Black of most CGA games. (it still stinks though). One big disadvantage of this game is that it doesn't get along with DesqView, which I use to write these quickdoc files. It's got nice sound support, ranging from an option for no sound (which gives quicker operation), IBM awful sound, Tandy, Adlib, Roland MT-32, and an option to add a custom sound driver (they claim they may release additional sound drivers in the future). Controlling the game requires the keyboard, but there is a nice option to use a mouse which Microprose has thoughtfully provided. The object of the game is to start small and build a profitable railroad empire with the resources you have. You start by selling a bunch of public stock to provide opening capital. When you have started the game and given it your video/sound/control options, you'll see the "nice little trains passing by" titlepage and credits. Hitting the space bar will take you to a cabin where you choose your next course of action, which will be Loading a saved game, starting a new game, or playing around with the tutorial. The tutorial can be handy to start with, because it provides you with a small railroad already in operation with three trains, and you can build from there. When you start a non-tutorial game, you will get to choose the scenario you wish to play from the four possible choices: Eastern United States - From 1830 Western United States - From 1860 Europe - From 1900 England - From 1828 Each scenario offers its own geography, cities, economy, and technology. You will probably find one you like best, but will have fun with all of them. The Displays ~~~~~~~~~~~~ There are four main geographic displays which you will need to get familiar with. They are brought up through the use of the F1-F4 keys: F1: Giant map. This shows the entire region you are playing in. Cities are shown as red/yellow dots. Train lines are shown as black lines. You can see trains as little white dots moving on the black lines. F2: Station map. This shows all of your stations within a certain range, but does not show any geographic detail. You only see the station displays, track, and trains. The station displays will show what cargo may be waiting for pick up in the form of colored cars (see the section on "Freight Class" below). If one station has a lot of cars waiting all the time, be sure to send more trains there. You can click on a station display box to bring up a detailed description of the station. F3: Area map. This shows some of your stations with display boxes, like F2 above does, but it covers a smaller area and also shows geographic area. F4: Detail map. You must use this map when laying track, building stations, and the like. There are no station boxes here, but you do see trains in detail, detailed terrain, etc. F5: Income statement. This shows all your income sources and expenses. With this, you can decide what you need to spend less on, what freight gives you the best results, and the like. F6: Train income. Take a look at this every now and then. It will show the type of train, its current composition, how much money it made this year, last year, and in its lifetime. It also shows how much you spent on maintaining it. Trains which aren't making a whole lot should be either reassigned or scrapped. Trains which are costing you a fortune to keep running (ie: high maintenence costs) should have the locomotive replaced. Balance Sheet: The balance sheet shows how your assets and liabilities are currently. Keep an eye on this from time to time. F9: Call Broker. When you call your broker, you'll be put into the stocks area. This shows you your railroad's status, and that of any competitors who are currently playing. You'll get a report of current stock values, net worth, profits, etc. Options at the top of the screen allow you to: 1: Cash. From the cash menu you may buy or sell $500,000 bonds. Sell them when interest rates are low, if possible. Pay them off when you can. If you are in considerable debt, you may also have an option to declare bankruptcy. 2: Buy stocks. You can buy treasury stock (stock in your own railroad) or stock in other people's railroads. If you get more than half of the stock in any given railroad, you will take it over. At the Investor and Financier levels, you may only hold stock in one railroad other than your own. At Mogul, you may hold stock in two other railroads. At Tycoon level, you can hold stock in all three. 3: Sell stock. Self-explanatory. 4: Operate Railroad. If you own controlling stock in another railroad, you can use this option to manipulate its finances. How to Start Playing ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ When you start the game, you will automatically sell 100,000 shares of stock, which will give you about $1,000,000 to work with. Now what you want to do is locate a large city from which to base your train operation. Hitting F1 will show you a big map with all the cities, and you can pick out one that looks larger from there. A large city will have a yellow core surrounded by red dots while a small city will only be red dots. Another consideration when choosing your city is to find one close to many resources and other cities. Decide which second city or resource area (a place where you can encompass many resources with one station) is to be your first destination, and build a track from your main city to the destination. To build a track, go to the B)uild menu and select "Build Track". Place your cursor on the center of the city you wish to start on (or at the center of the area you want your station to serve - sometimes it is better to put the station off-center from the main city, so that it can encompass a few resources as well. This may take building a few stations to get used to, but you'll pick it up). Once you've placed your cursor, you can start building track by hitting the numlock key (or shift keys work too, for small areas of track) and using your numeric keypad to design the path of the track. The directions are as follows: Up 7 8 9 Left 4 6 Right 1 2 3 Down When laying track, there are a few things to consider. The best and quickest route is USUALLY a straight line from one location to the other, but there are a few variables to consider. 1: Land value. You can lay track through just about anything, but some areas cost a lot more. Forest, desert, hills, and plain area are the cheapest. Farms cost a bit more. Producers (coal mines, lumber mills, stockyards, chemical plants, villiages, and city centers) are quite a bit more costly. Moving your cursor onto a square and pressing '?' will tell you what is in that location and how much property rights will cost. 2: Incline. Trains go slower when they're going up hills, so it's best to try to use level ground. If the incline is of a high enough grade, you will be given the option to build a tunnel. Trains pass through tunnels at full speed (instead of slowing down if you built the track over the hill), but the tracks are only one track wide (ie: train's can't pass without stopping) and are expensive to build. There is a limit to how long a tunnel can be. 3: Rivers. When you get to a river, you'll have to build a bridge over it. Bridges are costly, ranging from $50,000 to $400,000 (the more expensive the bridge, the less likely it is to collapse and the quicker trains can pass over it). Avoid crossing rivers as much as possible, as they are expensive, but it is neccessary sometimes. 4: Resource areas. If you can pass close to a bunch of coal mines or oil wells or a similiar concentration of resources, do so. You can add a small station (like a depot) later to capitalize on those resources. Once you have finished laying the track between your two desintations, you will need to build a station at each one. The first station you build will be the center of your rail empire, and it should be big. Usually of Terminal size. Even if Terminal looks a lot bigger than you'd need, cities which get a lot of commerce will grow, and the only way to make a station larger than it was when you first build it is to destroy the old one and build a brand new one - quite expensive. The second station can be between Depot and Terminal size, depending on the size of the city / resource field. Again, make sure to consider growth for a city. Resource fields rarely grow much larger, however. Once you've built your track and two stations, it's time to build a train. Get a cheap locomotive to begin with, and only give it a couple of cars. You can choose which cars to give it initially, or just choose none. You will then be presented with the route menu (discussed in "Moving Goods" below), and you can decide which cars to use from each destination. Big cities will take any resources you send to them (unless you're playing Complex Economy), and resource fields and villiages usually don't want anything. If you've got a city and a set of coal mines, you'd want to send ONLY a caboose from the city to the coal field, and a couple coal cars in return. Once you've got a train operating between the cities or resource fields, you'll start making profits and can consider expansion. Connect to other nearby cities and resource fields, and build more trains, but don't expand TOO quickly, or you won't be making enough profit to sustain your empire. I recommend buying as much Treasury Stock as you can afford as soon as possible, while the price is low ($5-$20 per share). Later, if you are successful, it will rise to $40-$70 quite quickly, and you can make a killing. Don't invest in stocks your first few games, however, as you'll probably just be wasting your money. Financial Operation ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Although the game is about running a railroad, one of the most important parts of the game is controlling your finances. There are a number of ways to get the capital you need to lay track, build new trains, connect to different towns and cities, and make your empire larger. Periodical events (Wall Street Crash, Worker Strike, Boom Times, etc.) will affect your cash and cash flow. When trains haul cargo of whatever type into a city or town which will pay for it, you'll get a nice bit of change for the delivery service. Some cargoes, such as 2 tons of mail or 3 passengers, aren't worth a whole lot, and the route which produces it should probably be altered. Cargoes like 240 tons of coal (which one train I had provided - six cars full) will net you a bundle. One other type of cargo - a priority cargo - will give you a large bonus which can be as high as $980,000 (the highest I've seen), and counts down the longer it takes you to deliver the priority cargo. The game will tell you where to pick up the supplies, and where to deliver it. I keep a fast train or two around to be used when a priority comes through. Another way to raise quick capital is to sell a 1/2 million dollar bond. This will give you that half million right away, but you'll pay interest on it until you pay it back, so it's a good idea to avoid getting too many. Yet another way of making money is to play the stock market. You can hold stock in your own railroad and in any of the other three which may be in competition with you. At the "easy" levels of play, you may only hold stock in one other railroad, and at the "harder" levels, you can hold more. If you are playing with "Cut-throat competition" (described later), you should always hold on to some of your own stock. Some good advice is to buy as much of your own stock as you can when the game has just started (even sell a bond or two to do so), as it will rise QUITE quickly as you are successful. A few years down the line, you can sell it for multiple times what you paid for it. If you own ALL of the stock in another railroad, you control its board of directors, and can do what you like with it. How to spend your money: Your money can be spent in these basic ways. 1: Paying off debts. When you have some bonds you need to repay, its a good idea to pay one off whenever you get an extra 1/2 million, to keep your interest payments down. You should avoid selling bonds when interest rates are high. 2: Buying stock. As covered above, speculation can be rewarding over the long term. Be careful in investing in tiny railroads with really low stock prices, because if they go under, you'll loose your investment. 3: Laying more track. The more track you have, the more cities and resource areas you can reach, and thus increase your profit potential. When you make single tracks into double tracks, two trains can pass side by side without crashing or stopping. Sometimes you may wish to reroute a track for more efficiency, and so you can also remove track (thus reclaiming the property values of the used land) and re-lay it elsewhere. 4: Building and improving bridges. To cross water, you've gotta build bridges to span rivers. These can be of three types: Wooden ($50,000), Iron ($200,000) and Stone ($400,000). The better the bridge, the faster a train can cross it. Bridges can become a bottleneck for your train system if you don't plan them carefully. 5: Building stations. For a train to stop, it must have a station. Build a station wherever you wish to pick up or deliver goods and supplies. You should concentrate stations in cities and areas with many resources (ie: oil wells, coal mines, lumber mills, stockyards, etc.). There are four sizes of stations, which all cover different areas: 1: Signal tower. Costing but $25,000, these stations do NOT allow a train to transfer goods, but only allow a train to change direction. In some cases you will need one of these to avoid laying lots of extra track. 2: Depot. A small station which covers about 9 blocks (3x3), these are good for small towns or areas with a few resource sources you wish to serve. They cost $50,000. 3: Station. A station covers 25 blocks (5x5) and are good for serving a wider area. Their cost is $100,000. 4: Terminal. The giants cover 49 blocks (7x7), and are great for covering a great area like a large city or a large area of great resources. The cost for a terminal is $200,000. 6: Improving stations. You can pump extra money into a station to make it better and more powerful. The options you can add include: 1: Engine shop. Allows you to build train locomotives. 2: Maintenence Shop. For doing general maintenence on locomotives. This maintenence is needed to keep the trains in good working order. A maintenence shop is a good investment. 3: Switching yard. Allows for storage of carloads of resources. Good for large rail empires. 4: Goods Storage / Cold Storage / Livestock Pens. Nonessential, these allow a station to keep resources around for a longer period of time. 5: Restaurant / Hotel. These are related to passenger comfort. 6: Post office. Allows for mail collection and delivery. 7: Building rolling stock. Build more locomotives to haul more trains, and give quicker / more frequent service. As the years pass, faster and more powerful locomotives will become available. Moving Goods ~~~~~~~~~~~~ The crux of your railroad operation will be the efficiency in which you move goods, passengers, and mail from location to location. Speed is important, but you may want to make long slow trains as well, for moving large amounts of cargo. Design your train routes with a thoughtful eye. Pay attention to the needs and resources of each location, and plan the route accordingly. You can edit a train's route by clicking on the locomotive as it steams from one city to another, or by clicking on the status box at the lower right hand side of the screen. A third way is to click on the locomotive when you are looking at the train income screen. When you do this, you will be presented with a full-page diagram showing the train's current configuration, what cargo it may be carrying, its speed and destination, and what locomotive it has. At the bottom of the screen are four "destination" areas, which can be set to whichever cities you desire. The destination area allows you to choose the configuration of the train as it leaves that station, to let you change the cars to optimize the train's efficiency. Clicking right before the station name on the destination display will place a 'W' marker there, which indicates that the train will sit and wait until it has a full load before moving on. The current destination of the train is shown in black letters, and other destinations will be grey. City A City B Station C passengers passengers coal mail mail goods steel City A and City B are large cities which produce mail and passengers, plus an extra commodity. Station C is a depot which produces a small amount of coal. Here is a route which would work nicely: Train begins at City A carrying a carload of passengers, a mail car, and one or two cars of goods, depending on production. It carries these products to City B, which gladly pays for them. At City B, the train takes on a new form, that of just a caboose (no extra cars for added speed). The new train heads to Station C, where it picks up a few cars of coal, and delivers them back to City B, which is the last destination. At City B, the train changes configuration to that of passenger, mail, and steel, which it carries back to destination #1, which is City A. Other good routes are two-station routes, such as a big city which requires many resources, and a large oilfeild. A slow train carrying loads of oil from the oilfeild to the town can be quite profitable. Another good route is a mail/passenger train which cycles between three or four cities in a circle. Reality Levels ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ There are a few variables which you can decide to use or ignore during the course of the game which can make it more difficult or easier to play. The more difficulty options you enable, the higher your score. These options are: 1: Dispatcher control. If you have this turned off, trains will never crash (except in the case of a broken bridge) and will pass each other on single track. If you turn it on, the stations will use their little lights to tell trains when the line is safe. These are automatic, but you can change them by clicking on the corner of the station where the light is located. A green light means it is safe to head for the station. A red light means that it is not safe. Yellow will allow the next train to pass, and dark red will stop all trains. 2: Complex Economy. With a basic economy, all large cities will pay for all goods, regardless of their contents. If you have the complex economy option set, cities will only pay for the goods that they require. 3: Cut-throat competition. If you have this option turned on, other companies will try to buy stock in your railroad, and eventually try to take it over. Turning it off makes everyone passive. Freight Class ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ There are five types of general freight, and a train will be placed into one of these categories, depending on what it carries. They are: Mail - Your train is primarily a mail carrier. Cars are white. Passenger - Your train carries passengers. Cars are light blue/cyan. Fast Freight - Quick-moving freight, such as livestock or food. Yellow cars. Slow Freight - Heavy stuff, such as steel or paper. Cars are red. Bulk Freight - Resources moved in great quantity, such as coal. Black cars. News and Reports ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Throughout the game, you will be given various news flashes and reports. The news can be broken down into three general areas: Local News - This is the state of your personal railroad. If there is a crash, or if one of your cities gets its first train, or if a priority shipment is announced or rescinded, you'll hear about it as local news. Wall St. News- All stock market information appears here. You will also get various messages relating to the state of the economy, and if it is improving, lagging, or whatall. Railroad News- All news about railroads will appear here. This includes any information about a new railroad starting, a railroad connecting to a new city, or a trade war. All three news types may be turned on or off from the options menu. You will also be presented with periodic reports. In the upper right hand box, you will see shipping reports from time to time, which include the train's #, the city they arrive in, and a shipping roster showing the contents of the cars and the money you receive for shipping it. The border of the report is normally grey, but sometimes it will be White (which means double income) or Red (one-half income). These are a result of a trade war or opening a new city. For one year after you take control of a city, all shipping revenue is doubled. When you are involved in a trade war, you lower your prices to one-half normal. Command Keys ~~~~~~~~~~~~ There are a number of keyboard commands which you will use. Here is a quick reference: Movement: 7 8 9 Shift or Numlock will either 4 6 lay or lift track, depending 1 2 3 on your BUILD setting. F1 : Regional display F2 : Broad area display. Station Boxes / Resource map. No geographic detail. F3 : Area display with geographic detail. Station boxes / resource map. F4 : Detail display. Resources visible. No station boxes. F5 : Income statement. F6 : Train income report. F7 : Build a new train. F8 : Build a new station. F9 : Make an appointment to see your stock broker. F10 : Enter survey mode. #D : Shift-D makes a single track into a double track. #S : Shift-S makes a double track into a single track. #? : Get information on a square. I : Also provides information. Alt-Q: Quit game. <ESC>: Abort a menu Use top-of-screen menus by pressing Alt-Letter. Conclusion ~~~~~~~~~~ Although this is by no means a comprehensive documentation file, it should serve to familiarize most people with the basics of a very complex, yet extremely addicting game. I have probably spent more time on this game in the short week I've had it than anything since Simcity. It's that good! Salutations ~~~~~~~~~~~ A big hello to the following folks out there: Public Enemy : Great job! I love this game! Congratulations on finally releasing something other than those shitty French imports. R. Bubba Mag. : Are you EVER gonna put up Celerity? The Slavelord : LSD is looking better and better. Good work. Lord Icon / Dr. Crunch / Humble Slave #7: Keep up the good work with the bug reports. Now if I can shake my Railroad Tycoon addiction, I'll start fixing some of those and implimenting new features. The Viking : Get ahold of The Hitman yet? Plus congratulations to The Humble Guys, I.N.C., N.Y.C., and The FiRM for getting the new wares out. Celerity & Board Ads ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Now a plug for Celerity, the BBS of the future. Sick of run-of-the-mill forum clones which all look alike? Tired of seeing the same old Emulex or TCS software everywhere? Ready for something new with unique features that no other BBS software has? 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Sysop definable, of course. -- Automatic ZIP commenting if desired. -- Auto-Validate allows the sysop to have all uploads automatically cleared for downloading as soon as they are uploaded. -- Easy-to-use Config program, unlike any other Forum-clone config. -- A multitude of sysop-configurable options. -- Celerity has the features you want and need. -- Full conferencing. Celerity supports up to five entirely independent message bases and transfer sections, ideal for support of multiple computer types. Celerity conferences are more than just an access flag. If you don't desire conferencing, it is a simple matter to turn it off. -- Fully configurable matrix. Matrix commands can be added and removed as the sysop desires, and each command is fully configurable. The matrix is optional, and can be disabled. -- Configurable prompts. Every Celerity system can have its own distinctive prompt if the sysop desires. -- Celerity will run on com ports 1-4, with fully configurable addresses, inturrupts, and IRQ's. -- Fully configurable file listings. Each user can choose what file list information he or she desires. -- Celerity is reserved for boards of high prestige only. Not everyone will get a copy, and it will not become run-of-the-mill like others have. -- File commission system. If the sysop desires, users will get file points every time their upload is downloaded. You can even have it set up so a user gets NO points for uploading, and only gets points when people download his file. This way, users are not rewarded for uploading crap that nobody wants, and users who upload good stuff are well rewarded for their efforts. -- Celerity supports TRUE NETWORKING, not lame "Net-Mail" like other Forum clones have. -- ONE call per day from your system transfers data to and from the entire net. -- Networked subs and email are standard features. -- Network-wide Onliner database, BBS Listings, and Network News are special features no other Network has. -- Network Update service delivers recent Celerity updates to your system. No need to call around and download them on your own time. -- Many new and unique networking features to be added in the near future. These are but a few of the awesome features of Celerity. Call one and check it out, or download a demonstration version to play with. You're sure to agree that Celerity is indeed the BBS of the future. Call some of these Celerity systems today. The Lexicon................Home of Celerity and The Alternative....714-627-0601 The Unknown Division.......Part of Binary Systems/TSAN.............805-492-7174 The Genisis Division.......Part of Binary Systems/TSAN.............818-706-9839 Instant Replay.....................................................714-544-7571 The Citadel........................................................213-271-4232 Absolute Monarchy!.........I.N.C. Courier System...................214-343-0600 The Lost Caverns...................................................404-451-0521 The Proving Grounds........TRIAD-90/TSAN...........................913-842-9828 Thanks for reading all of this... The Byter