RAILROAD TYCOON 3 ____ FAQ written by Scott "Zoogz" Jamison zoogz22 (at) yahoo(dot)com http://www.nabiki.com/mst This FAQ is property of and copyrighted by Scott Jamison, 2007. This FAQ is licensed to GameFAQs due to their excellent work in archiving FAQs for many games that I have played. Please do not post this FAQ in any other location without my written permission. Additionally, please do not alter this FAQ. I reserve the right to request this FAQ to be removed from any website. ____ Table of Contents ____ 1.0 - Version History 2.0 - Introduction to Railroad Tycoon III FAQ 2.1 - Game Overview 3.0 - Economics and Railroad Tycoon III 3.1 - General Overview to Economics. 3.2 - Competition. 3.3 - Purchasing and Maintaining Industries. 3.4 - Town Consumption and the Transportation Model. 3.5 - Supply and Demand - The Flow of Resources. 3.6 - Instant Manufacturing. 3.7 - Tycoontrons and the Discussion of Competitive Advantage. 3.8 - Opportunity Costs and Time Value of Money 3.9 - Macroeconomics and Conditions. 4.0 - Railroad Tycoon 3 Controls 4.1 - The Globe Button / Station Cargo Lists 4.2 - The Track Button 4.3 - The Building Button 5.0 - Walkthrough 5.1 - Campaign Mode 5.1.1 - Go West 5.1.2 - Germantown U.S.A. 5.1.3 - Central Pacific 5.1.4 - Texas Tea 5.1.5 - The War Effort 5.1.6 - State of Germany 5.1.7 - Flying Scotsman 5.1.8 - Crossing the Alps 5.1.9 - Third Republic 5.1.10 - The Orient Express 5.1.11 - Argentina 5.1.12 - Africa 5.1.13 - Japan Quakes! 5.1.14 - The Seeder 5.1.15 - Dutchlantis 5.1.16 - Chip Off the Old Block 5.2 - Scenarios (TBD) 6.0 - Railroad Tycoon Updates 7.0 - Frequently Asked Questions 8.0 - Epilogue and Author's Notes ____ 1.0 Version History ____ Version 0.4 - Begun the initial form of the FAQ. Sections added include the following: Framework, Author's Disclaimer, Table of Contents, Version History, Introduction, Economic Overview, Controls, and Walkthroughs (3/18 published) Version date: 28 June 2007 Version 0.45 - Proofread, linebreaked, and tweaked a couple sections. More walkthroughs to come in future releases. Version date: 3 July 2007 ____ 2.0 - Introduction to Railroad Tycoon 3: ____ Welcome! This is my first FAQ, so any comments about this work, please send them to the email address at the top of the page. I first started playing Railroad Tycoon 2 after having found it at a local store for $9, and enjoyed it immensely. I loved being able to build track and watch my little trains go all over the place. I was able to do pretty respectable at most of the scenarios and campaign as well. (Thanks, Dennis Doucette, for the RRT2 FAQ; lemme tell you about India someday!) I did not purchase Railroad Tycoon 3 immediately upon its release; I actually waited for a few months. I didn't hear any negative reviews though, and obtained my copy. But when I started playing it, I will admit that some of the differences in gameplay from Railroad Tycoon 2 to Railroad Tycoon 3 turned me off of the game at first. So then, Railroad Tycoon 3 sat in my "to play" pile for a long time afterward. As I was cleaning out my "to play" pile late last year, I realized how engaging this game could be. While economics will never really be a water-cooler subject, this game is based upon many economic principles, and it took me a few times playing it to realize how interesting and exciting it could be. Good and bad decisions in Railroad Tycoon 2 can affect you, to be sure, but good and bad decisions in Railroad Tycoon 3 affect you far more. It's because the gameplay model is far more robust, and goes farther to be a truer model of economic behaviour than Railroad Tycoon 2. So, by all means, don't be scared of Railroad Tycoon 3. I realized that a decent explanation of the economic system and gameplay principles would be gratefully appreciated by many people... possibly back in 2005. It's now halfway through 2007, and I would be highly surprised if anyone even cares about this game anymore. But I felt I had to at least try to publicize it and help others to enjoy it, even if too late really is too little. Thank you for reading, and enjoy! 2.1 - Game Overview The path to winning in Railroad Tycoon 3 is basically the same in every scenario and campaign game - to build a network of tracks and trains to service the transportation needs of your current region. You are usually offered an amount of money at the start of the game, and with this money you can start building tracks and trains, and connecting cities. More money can either be earned through your service, obtained through stock issues in the stock market (capitalization), or borrowed from the bank in the form of loans (liabilities). Some scenarios and campaign games may have different focuses - for instance, connecting two cities by rail, or raising your personal net wealth, or even outlasting all other companies to be the last one standing. While there are ways that some goals can be accomplished without even placing one inch of steel track, generally the easiest path to victory is to build a rail network which is profitable. In this game, your company can make a profit two different ways. You can carry cargoes and earn a profit by taking them from one location where they are supplied to another where they are demanded. Usually, carrying raw materials to a production facility is a good example of this method. Alternately, you can also purchase raw material facilities and production facilities and make money on the direct usage of goods. Some players get extremely good mileage from just transporting cargoes, and it may be best to use this strategy as well if you are a beginner. But also remember that profits can be made in many different avenues! ____ 3.0 Economics and Railroad Tycoon 3: ____ Economics is a very strange art at times, and can require much explanation. Railroad Tycoon 3 is very steeped in economics, even more so than both Railroad Tycoon 1 and 2. Therefore, the below is a bit of an essay which encompasses differences between gameplay of Railroad Tycoon 2 and 3, explains general economic models, and attempts to apply them to Railroad Tycoon 3. For those who have not played Railroad Tycoon 2, my apologies; just try to ignore parts where I bring up differences, as it may become confusing. There are a few areas that need to be introduced and explained in this discussion. They are as follows: 3.1 - General Overview to Economics. 3.2 - Competition. 3.3 - Purchasing and Maintaining Industries. 3.4 - Town Consumption and the Transportation Model. 3.5 - Supply and Demand - The Flow of Resources. 3.6 - Instant Manufacturing. 3.7 - Tycoontrons and the Discussion of Competitive Advantage. 3.8 - Opportunity Costs and Time Value of Money 3.9 - Macroeconomics and Conditions. Economics is intertwined, so if you don't find your answer in one general topic, please go on through the rest of the essay, as your answer may be related to a different topic. Additionally, please send me any questions you may have, as an FAQ section would probably be extremely useful in this game. Additionally, "Tycoontrons" is the general term I use for the invisible "people" of Railroad Tycoon 3. For those who remember the SimCity games, just think of them as Sims. For those who played "The Sims", you can't buy them a new refrigerator. Sorry. 3.1 - General Overview to Economics. Before delving into the above topics, a deeper explanation of the game may be necessary. Some people do read the documentation that comes with a game, and some don't. For those who have already read the game's documentation or are familiar with Railroad Tycoon, please skip to the next topic below. The economy in Railroad Tycoon encompasses many different items. Some are supply items, such as logs or cattle. In order for these items to be useful to most people, they need to be processed at a processing plant, such as a lumber mill or a meat packing plant. In Railroad Tycoon, you can build a transportation network made up of trains which can bring raw materials to processing plants and hopefully earn your company a profit. The processing plants will use these raw materials to produce finished goods, like lumber (cut boards for building) from logs or meat from cattle. "Houses" in Railroad Tycoon symbolize the public at large, who consumes these types of items. And the more houses a town has, the more that this town needs stuff - New York City needs far more paper than Schenectady, for instance. And just remember, one finished good may be a raw material for another process - rubber can be processed to tires, but tires are used as a raw material for automobiles. Clicking on every building and clicking the little square button will show you what every building produces and demands. Hooking up buildings which produce a certain good with buildings that demand a certain good will be supplying a demand, and this is how you get money in the game. Additionally, there are also passengers and mail in Railroad Tycoon 3. Sometimes these can be the most lucrative deliveries. Both types of "cargo" go from house to house, in essence. Most of our discussion can also be applied to passenger and mail traffic, but just remember that there's no processing of passengers - the game designers didn't make a Soylent Green factory. The key to earning money by hauling cargo is to haul it from a place which supplies cargo to a place which demands cargo. That's all there is to it. It's a bit more difficult than that? Okay, then check out a few topics below. 3.2 - Competition Everywhere, competition exists. There's more than one bank, more than one grocery store, more than one hotel. It's a fact of life, and in Railroad Tycoon 3 it's no different. Of course, you could be competing against other railroads in this game, as in Railroad Tycoon 2. But now, you're also competing against boats, trucks, and other methods of conveyance too. The game's economic model will place prices on everything, and if there is a profit to be made by shipping a material over a small amount of land or a long amount of water, then the invisible Tycoonatrons will ship it themselves. There is a benefit to this as well. Some industries may already be producing their finished goods because the Tycoonatrons are already supplying the industries. And usually finished goods provide a higher amount of profit as well. Be sure to click on all industry buildings to see a list of their profitability; they will usually have a record of "units consumed" at the top which will show you how well-supplied the industry is, and if it is near capacity then you can practically count on this industry providing finished goods if connected to your rail empire. This also provides you with additional assistance in the form of building stations. While you do still have the option of putting small stations in some areas to capture a certain raw material building, your cities can benefit from the surrounding countryside as the local farms and raw material producers will ship their goods to your station if it is close. Just be sure to understand that if you buy these industries, they may not be as profitable due to the transportation costs they have to pay in order to enter into your system. And your stations serve as an "instant transport"; if a cattle farm produces cattle, it may take a month or two to get to a nearby station by Tycoonatron, but if you build a station which captures the cattle farm (puts the cattle farm in its green highlight area), the production will instantly be inside your station. It'll just cost money to buy the station. Last note, the Tycoonatrons will follow the paths of least resistance. They will ship by rivers rather easily and also coastal parts of oceans. I watched some goods go from one side of the map all the way to the other because of coastal squares. Mountains are far more daunting though. You can compare this to your track-laying and ease in transport; laying a track parallel to a river is usually pretty easy, cheap, and results in very little grade, and therefore the trains will move quickly. Laying track over a mountain (or THROUGH a mountain) is highly expensive, and takes a long time, so you will be rewarded for your premium if you made a wise decision. To sum up, goods WILL move by themselves in some limited ways without your trains to take them. Check the globe icon and click on the specific commodity for additional information, and to find out if a certain facility is utilizing some other form of transport to get their goods to market. 3.3 - Purchasing and Maintaining Industries Another difference between RRT2 and RRT3 is the industry model. Already discussed are the facts that some industries may already be supplied without your efforts. Now, purchasing them as well as industry consumption are different as well. Firstly, purchasing industries. In RRT2, you had to depend on other people buying the property and erecting the facility before you could swoop down and purchase it from them. Now though, you can place your own *production* buildings through the (station-)building menu. Just search the list on the dots/lines button. Not only do you get some of the passenger revenue-enhancing buildings from RRT2, you also get a list of production buildings you may purchase. To be sure though, you will be paying a premium on any building that you place yourself, about 150% of the purchase price of an identical new facility (and possibly beyond two times the price of a non-profitable facility). This can be classified as the permits and property cost, I suppose. And on any map, there will be old and new industries. Most industry buildings will not disappear once they appear, and you can see some buildings that have endured $2M of loss throughout their lifetime. But now the buildings act with the economy, unlike RRT2. Now, you have to remember the maxim, "Buy low, sell high!" You already knew about it from RRT2 due to the stock market. Now it applies to EVERY building on the map! If you see a factory that is productive and profitable, then it will go for a higher cost than will an unprofitable factory. You can buy an unprofitable factory for a discount, sometimes a profoundly deep discount. This game teaches in a very profound way another business maxim, "Time equals money." Buying an unprofitable factory is cheap, but turning it into a profitable facility may take some time. Buy infrastructure to support the facility though -- tracks to hold trains which can transport goods, and stations to capture goods -- and give it some time. A small investment could turn into a cash cow. Conversely, if you find yourself needing industry profit to finish a game, buy a profitable industry at a premium. In this fashion, while you get far less of a percentage of your investment as profit, you are also spending far less time as well and obtaining a facility that gives you instant profits. Ultimately, the tradeoff between buying and supplying an unprofitable facility versus a profitable one is made up of two things. Time, as mentioned above, and the cost of infrastructure -- you WILL be laying track, building stations, and buying trains to supply your new facility, right? It will take time for the new facility to start producing once you supply it with raw materials. But by spending money on infrastructure instead of buying a more expensive (and profitable) facility, you can use that same infrastructure to move other cargoes and obtain more profits. To summarize, you can buy industries or even build them from the ground up. Some will be already profitable, and those are usually the most expensive to buy. Some may not be producing anything, and they are the cheapest to buy. It will take time and possibly more investment in track, station, and trains to turn an unprofitable facility into a profitable facility, but sometimes it uses your resources better than purchasing an already-profitable facility. 3.4 - Town Consumption and the Transportation Model Two RRT2 tycoon things have disappeared. One is the one-car unit; now, in Railroad Tycoon 3, you can ship between 50% and 100% of a carload of any material, including passengers and mail. (Note: In RRT3, you cannot choose to ship a half-carload, it is purely dependent on the cargo levels at your station.) And remember the Railroad Tycoon 2 flags? Green for "sell all cargoes", yellow for "keep cargoes on the train", and red for "keep cargoes at station, don't sell"? They don't apply here anymore, due in part to the pricing scheme and also the fill percentages from above. Every town will now have a price for everything, and the amount that is consumed will also depend on the price. For instance, you may have three towns. The one on the west supplies cattle. The one in the middle is a small consuming town. And the one to the east has a meat packaging plant. They may look like this. Westerham ----------- Centreville ------------ East Eastie Cattle Ranch Meat Packaging Plant If you have a train route between Westerham to Centreville, you may have one or more loads of cattle. This is because of the flow of goods, the Tycoontrons. The closer you get to a demanding facility, the meat packaging plant, the higher the price will be for the cattle. By taking the cattle at least part of the way, you will get at least part of the money realized from shipping the cargo, and the Tycoontrons may take some (or even all) of the cattle you supplied Centreville to East Eastie because of the profit they could realize from the shipment. And here's the fun part. Say you did take two loads of cattle from Westerham to Centreville, and you also have a train coming to Centreville and going to East Eastie in two months. While the Tycoontrons may have taken some of the cattle, there may be some cattle left that the Tycoontrons couldn't ship at a profit to them still in Centreville that you may be able to ship for a profit. So your East Eastie train might pick up, say, 1.7 loads of cattle from Centreville to sell in East Eastie. In this case you may miss out on some of the profit, but in effect the game automatically caused you to flag the cargo red so that another train could pick it up, and you were penalized accordingly (though slightly) for making the cargo sit. A visual retelling of the above may look like this: Westerham ------------- Centreville ------------- East Eastie Cattle Ranch Meat Packaging Plant (Cost for Cattle: $45k) (Cattle: $67k) (Cattle: $90k) 2.0 loads from Westerham to East Eastie - base price $90k Total profit: $90k 2.0 loads from Westerham to Centreville - base price $44k 1.7 loads from Centreville to East Eastie - base price $39k Total profit: $83k As you may notice, the Tycoontrons will skim some of the profit from the top for undertaking some shipment of cargo themselves. (Special note - the price may change slightly too, but this is purely a simplification) This is why the automatic choosing of cargo is the best way to run your trains. You may not know from one shipment to the next what cargo would be best to place on a train, especially if you consider the next scenario: Westerham------Centreville---------East Eastie Notrackville Grain Farm Brewery In this example, there is a grain farm near Centreville which provides grain to your station to ship, and a brewery (which processes grain into alcohol, a finished good in this game) in Notrackville. As Notrackville indicates, your track doesn't run all the way there; it stops at East Eastie. Example costs of goods: Westerham------Centreville---------East Eastie Notrackville Grain: $15 Grain: $13 Grain: $34 (Grain: $58) Alcohol: $190 Alcohol: $185 Alcohol: $176 (Alcohol: $133) By providing East Eastie with the grain, you still will get a premium - $21 per 1.0 load. But because grain is far more demanded in Notrackville, where they can supply their brewery with it, the Tycoontrons will endeavor to ship some of the grain from East Eastie to Notrackville. And that amount of grain will be fed into the brewery, where alcohol will be brewed. Alcohol then is far cheaper in Notrackville, but the Tycoontron's premium for moving alcohol from Notrackville to East Eastie will be built right into difference between the East Eastie price and Notrackville's price - $43 per 1.0 load. East Eastie will still have alcohol for loading, though not as much as if you connected Notrackville to begin with. By shipping East Eastie alcohol to Centerville, you'll still realize a profit between the two prices - $9 per 1.0 load. But as you notice, the profit is a slight profit compared to connecting Notrackville. And this is where you, the Railroad Baron, have to make your decision. Would connecting Notrackville be worth the money invested in more track, another station, and more trains? Or would it be sufficient to let the Tycoontrons supply your station down the line, so that you can then supply the stations in your current railroad network? Now this discussion leads us to consumption. There are a multitude of ways that any amount of anything (goods, food, raw materials, etc.) dwindles: 1. People taking raw materials and producing their own goods (like a cottage-industry woodworker taking 5% of a 1.0 load of logs to plane/sand for his own use). 2. Waste. 3. Theft. 4. Use (Consumption). 5. Purchase and transport. 1-3 above are minor, but will happen. They are provided so that you're aware that if numbers drop, it may be due to other reasons rather than your trains or the Tycoontrons' shipping capabilities. We covered #4 already above with the Tycoontrons. In Railroad Tycoon 3, towns will now use the production that factories will provide. In RRT2, if you have a meat packing plant in a city, taking cattle to the facility created food. But this food had to GO somewhere else, it was not demanded at all in the town where it was produced. In this game, towns WILL consume goods, and it is not a bad thing. Take the following scenario: Centreville Notrackville Grain Farm Brewery Grain: $13 (Grain: $58) Alcohol: $185 (Alcohol: $133) Let's introduce a new portion now: Brewery (Capacity 3 units/year) Overhead: $20k/year Labor: $15k/unit One of the two numbers fluctuates a lot - labor. Labor are the Tycoontrons running the brewery, working inside. If the brewery doesn't run, then fewer Tycoontrons are needed, and the cost will go down (but not disappear; you can't have a completely empty facility and call it "open".) One of the numbers doesn't fluctuate as much - overhead. Overhead refers to the electricity used to make the factory run, the taxes on the land and assets, and to some extent the wages of the management of the factory. Overhead will also always exist, and there's only so much you can dispense with. But with the numbers above, we can understand the following: Brewery - Consumption 2.0 Units Overhead - $20k Labor - $15k/unit Which means that you can tell completely what the costs of this brewery are: 2.0 units of grain @$58/unit=$116k + Overhead $20k + Labor $30k=$166k But alcohol sells for $133/unit in Notrackville, so therefore if they sell all the alcohol there the revenue (all money made) becomes: 2.0 units @$133 = $266 With expenses, the brewery will show a $266k-$166k = $100k profit. But imagine the Tycoontrons. One or another enterprising Tycoontron may take a .25 load of alcohol from Notrackville where it sells for $133 to Centreville, where he can realize a profit of $13k. If this is all he can haul, then it makes sense that his maximum profit is $13. If he can haul .5 loads though, why not haul more if it won't cost that much more and get $26k profit instead? And on top of that, the brewery may also notice the higher prices, and decide that they would like to enter into an agreement. A bit more labor, say $2k and some equipment for $2k may allow them to ship .15 load to Centreville... where they can obtain revenue of almost $8k. So they will end up making a bit more profit off of the same alcohol, $4k. However, Notrackville's price for alcohol is still worth the brewery in Notrackville to sell alcohol to the general public, given limited options. If you connect Notrackville to your rail network though, your trains are in essence "buying" Notrackville's alcohol for themselves at the same $133 price that the public may pay, and you are realizing the profit when you then "sell" the alcohol to Centreville at $185. But while your trains are not in station "buying" the alcohol, and if there is a surplus, remember that any Tycoontron who's thirsty can pony up his own $133 and the brewery will sell him alcohol too. Now we get into basic supply and demand, in the next section below! Just remember, consumption is JUST like production in this game in one key way: it doesn't all happen immediately! We used the numbers above to provide an "average" price. Prices can go up and down and affect the purchase price of any commodity - just look at your local petrol station for an illustration! So this is what is happening behind the scenes constantly. You have Tycoontrons trying to get ahead in life, much like you may be (unless of course, you're at university.) If you still are at university, go ask your economics professor about some of this stuff, and (s)he'll be glad to help. Alternately, send an email to the address at the top of the FAQ for any questions. 3.5 - Supply and Demand - Flow of Resources This will be a quick discourse on the basics of supply and demand, hopefully little more than a refresher course. It will focus on how the game deals with supply and demand going forward though. Let's go back to Westerham and East Eastie, and give a date of 1889: Westerham --------- Centreville ----------- East Eastie Cattle Ranch Meat Packaging Plant (Cattle: $45k) (Cattle: $67k) (Cattle: $90k) (Meat: $255k) (Meat: $235k) (Meat: $195k) Cattle Supply: 5.6 Cattle Supply: 1.2 Cattle Supply: 0.2 Meat Supply: 0.0 Meat Supply: 0.3 Meat Supply: 0.7 As you see, Westerham's cattle sell for $45k per 1.0 load. East Eastie has a meat packaging plant which needs raw materials, the cattle, in order to process into meat. That's the new price you see on the list above. At this point, there's a reason that meat costs a lot in Westerham; they have very little, so people are willing to pay more for the small amounts of meat that local butchers may be able to produce. Cattle in East Eastie are the same way, since it costs such a large amount for the Tycoontrons to be able to move what little cattle they can the long distance all the way from Westerham to East Eastie - some may die, some may get lost, et cetera. Still note though that *some* shipping may be happening due to the Tycoontrons though. So, your train comes to the rescue! At first, you can just do a short trip from Westerham to Centreville, and that will get the cattle moving toward the direction of East Eastie. But you may also notice that profits for the cattle you pick up in Westerham are far better in East Eastie, and they also will hopefully have meat for you to sell after their meat packaging plant starts producing. As a rule of thumb, your best profit will come from the first few shipments you undertake. Because since you're fulfilling a need, then costs will stabilize across the board: Check out what may happen by 1894: Westerham --------- Centreville ---------- East Eastie Cattle Ranch Meat Packaging Plant (Cattle: $72k) (Cattle: $78k) (Cattle: $82k) (Meat: $230k) (Meat: $218k) (Meat: $205k) Cattle Supply: 1.6 Cattle Supply: 0.7 Cattle Supply: 4.2 Meat Supply: 1.3 Meat Supply: 1.0 Meat Supply: 2.4 Your trains did this! When you filled the need for cattle to be sent from Westerham to East Eastie, you caused prices to rise slightly in Westerham - the local butcher who can still make a profit by slaughtering his own meat won't be able to find as many cattle as he used to. At the same time the ranchers will realize that there are fewer and fewer cattle, so therefore they will raise prices in order to capture more money from their service. Cattle won't be in as great of supply as before, so the ranchers can be more choosy in the prices they charge! East Eastie still needs cattle, but check out the cattle supply exampled above. If the meat packaging plant can only process (about) 3.0 loads of cattle yearly, then they're supplied for more than a year. And think of where those 4.2 train cars of cattle are? The meat packing plant can't just let them go free and then go find them when they're needed... they need to store the cattle and feed the cattle before they are processed. These costs now show up in the lowered price of this cattle. And meat! Now that Westerham is being supplied with meat, the rich aren't the only ones who can afford it. If only one Tycoontron bought meat at the local butcher for $254 before East Eastie's steaks hit the market, the butcher only got the $254. But when East Eastie's steaks hit the market, why would the marketplace only sell one steak at $254 if they can sell twenty steaks at $230? Remember, if a good isn't sold, it isn't worth anything; it's currency that runs everything. And the one Tycoontron who bought steak at $254? Well, if all the steak is the same, why buy steak at $254 if it's the same as the $230 stuff? This allows the one Tycoontron to keep $24 in his pocket to spend on something else, which then allows economies to grow. Now would be a good time to inform you that everything in Railroad Tycoon 3 is treated as a commodity. This term means that the "quality" of an item is not considered in its pricing. Therefore, a McDonald's hamburger is the exact same meat as the steak you may buy from an Outback Steakhouse. Obviously, in the real world this isn't the case, but the same 2.0 load of meat from East Eastie is worth exactly the same as the meat butchered by the Tycoonatron in Westerham. So, on a microeconomic scale, your trains serve to balance prices. Prices will never be truly equal, as your trains do not transport goods instantaneously nor are they always at the station. East Eastie's large supply of meat isn't all getting taken out of town unless you have a fleet of trains just waiting for it (which would probably cost too much to support), so East Eastie's prices will still be lower. But as more and more meat is taken from East Eastie, the price will rise slowly. Please note that this will make the meat packaging plant (as well as the cattle farm) more and more profit as they go along, which make them attractive investments provided the costs were low enough. As a wrapup, supply prices are low and demand prices are high. Your company will make profit by buying at supply prices and selling at demand prices. Obviously, the farther apart these prices are, the more profit you will make. But remember that once you start supplying demand that prices will start to equalize over time, making you less and less profit each time you supply the same demand constantly. This section will connect with the opportunity costs discussion in section 3.7 as well as the macroeconomic section at 3.8. 3.6 - Instant manufacturing Railroad Tycoon 2 worked on the instant manufacturing theory, which stated that if you bring two cattle cars to a meat packaging plant, they instantly turn into two food cars. Obviously, not only did you earn money with the two cattle cars, you also will earn money by hauling the food cars. In Railroad Tycoon 3, this aspect is completely neutralized. Now, each facility not only has a limit to how much they can process, they also will not process these items immediately. I do not have a complete guide to the times that it takes for materials to be processed, but if anyone has figured this information I would be glad to add it to this guide. Ultimately, for the facility to produce, it needs to be profitable to produce. 99 times out of 100, it is profitable for a facility to turn raw materials into finished goods, but if you find a facility that just does not work correctly this may be the cause. The main point here is that you can't expect to sit your train for the cargo to be processed. You have to provide ample supply to an industry in order to have any expectation that the finished goods will be available. As long as there is a year or two of constant supply, the industry in question will probably have finished goods waiting for transport. This isn't to say that "instant" production doesn't exist anymore. One of the most important parts of the game still happens instantly, which is building. Track, station, and even bought production facilities are all erected immediately, with no lag in time. If you had to wait eight years for engineers to build a bridge over a long river rather than to hear the "clink-a-clink" of them constructing it immediately, it'd certainly change the game. 3.7 The Tycoontrons and the Discussion of Competitive Advantage So you may be thinking, "The Tycoontrons can ship anything. Why should I bother even building a train?" The programmers thought of this too. It'd be an extremely boring game if the Tycoontrons did everything, wouldn't it? Remember the above examples? The Tycoontrons could ship materials over short distances themselves. But the Tycoontrons have two major problems. One is speed. The other is capacity. These issues become things that the railroad can do well; in economic terms, they are "strategic advantages". The Tycoontrons are slow for the most part. Rivers and other bodies of water will speed them up and increase their capacity, but check out your trains. In the 1800s, you routinely see speeds around 60MPH and faster. In the 1900s, you have trains that can go 150MPH and faster. Think back to history... could horses match train speeds in the 1800s? Could cars match train speeds in the 1900s and 2000s, considering the fact that trains have the right-of-way? Consider even the fact that trains can usually climb hills better than horses (even if they are slow) and can also move faster than boats on the water. Building a rail, two stations, and placing a train on it is the fastest way to get from station A to station B in this game. Your trains will effectively reduce spoilage to miniscule. The poor Tycoontrons can't compete with your speed though, and you only have to click on the globe to notice that while the little train cars of supply radiate some way, many times they don't radiate very far. You can only walk a case of beer so far before you start drinking it. Capacity is your other strategic advantage. You may notice that it's hard for a person to carry more than four cases of beer. Put it on a train though, and it's easy as pie. If you already made the investment of a train and track, putting five cases of beer on the same train changes the cost minutely. As a matter of fact, it costs pretty much the same to haul 400 cases of beer compared to 4 cases. And selling 400 cases of beer at $20 apiece is far more valuable than selling 4 cases of beer at $40 apiece. This is how the economy runs here. Tycoontrons can only take so much because their capacities are extremely limited. But they will try to maximize their small capacities just like you will try to maximize your large capacity. Your goal in this game is to figure out how to make your trains profitable, and the way to do that is to make sure that they are hauling cargoes that can be sold for a high premium at another station down the line. Remember the overhead discussion above? In most cases, overhead is the purchasing of capacity. Buying a medium station in Railroad Tycoon 3 costs $100k, but it is a one-time cost. If you deliver only 5.0 units of mail at $20/unit, you'll break even. But if you deliver 20.0 units of mail at $10/unit, you will make a profit (20 * $10k = $200k, Station = $100k, total profit of $200k-100k = $100k). And the best part is that as far as the station goes, there is no change in cost between offloading 5.0 units and 20.0 units; the station doesn't change cost. The things that are variable in this game are your trains. Of course, the more trains that you run, the more cost that will be incurred (purchase price, fuel, and maintenance as well as lost opportunity for other trains that have to stop for congestion). So by all means, maximize the profit of each of your trains. Capacity does also apply to factories as well. A factory that has a large supply of raw materials may be best served in increasing capacity. More capacity is again an increase in overhead, as more property is bought, a larger facility implies more building materials, and all other costs. It will also be an increase in labor, as more people are needed to be hired in order to convert more raw materials. Additionally, if you increase supply of your finished good, you may see your purchase prices drop as increased supply of the good will result in decreased demand. But if the demand is high enough and the facility is profitable enough, by all means increase the capacity! As in the above examples, 3.0 loads of alcohol at $133k will be worth $399k, but 5.0 loads of alcohol at $120k are worth $600k. The biggest issue is to make sure that the costs incurred to go from a profit of $399k to $600k are smaller than the increased profit. So you do have competitive advantage over almost everything else in the game as far as speed and capactiy are concerned. What do you do with that competitive advantage? In true Bill Cosby fashion, I tell you that story to tell you this one: 3.7 - Opportunity Cost The above example can be a demonstration of a principle called "opportunity cost". Opportunity cost is everywhere too! Do you want to use an extra $5 of gas to go see a friend... or did you want to use that $5 to get a bite to eat? You make decisions every day on how best to use your money, and these decisions may change on a daily basis. On Monday, you may have decided to use the $5 on food, but on Tuesday you could be regretting that decision because you really need to talk to your friend now. And then, if you have yet another $5 you can spend, you may face the same decision and then choose differently. In this game, you invest money in order to make money. Imagine you connected Westerham with Centerville, like this: Westerham ------------- Centreville East Eastie It could take $350k to build track between two cities, $200k for two stations, and another $150k for a train for a total of $700k! And the first load you transport on this track could be worth only $150k. What kind of profit is that? Costs: $700k Revenue: $150k Profit (Revenue minus costs): $550k of COSTS. That's not making money, right? But in this game, track you lay tends to stay there permanently, and the trains you place can make many shipments. (Maintenance costs exist for both, but for the sake of this conversation they are minimal) So after a while, you could make a total of ten trips between the two towns and end up making a profit of $1.2M over three years, then we can reevaluate your decision to build: Costs: $700k Revenue: $1.2M Profit (Revenue minus costs): $500k after 3 years. Good, right? Well, guess what.... you can place that $700k of infrastructure anywhere you want, provided you have the permission. The majority of places you could place that $700k of track would give you very little revenue, which made them bad choices, but they were choices nonetheless. Imagine this scenario: Westerham Centreville ------BRIDGE----- East Eastie Say that it took $950k total to connect Centreville to East Eastie, due to a bridge that had to be built unlike the Westerham-Centreville route. But in three years, you earned $1.6M. So the profit you realized from this transaction may look like this: Costs: $950k Revenue: $1.6M Profit (Revenue minus costs): $650k after 3 years. So, you would make more profit quicker if you built the connection between Centreville and East Eastie first. Keep in mind though that in our example, it did cost more as well. So, we'll do another scenario, where you do have the $700k to do the Westerham-Centreville connection, but you couldn't raise the $950k needed to create the Centreville-East Eastie connection the first year because of bad credit. If you first waited a year for your credit rating to rise to offer a bond, you might be able to then make the connection! You issue a bond one year later and gain $500k, which is more than enough to make your connection to begin with. The bond carries a 10% interest rate. And because costs have risen, it now takes $1.0M to build the same connection. So the analysis may look like this: Costs: $1.0M + $50k + $50k (two interest payments) = $1.1M Revenue: $1.6M * 2/3 of the time = $1.1M Profit (Revenue minus costs): $0 after 3 years. You didn't make a profit! But... you could have made more profit based on connecting Westerham and Centreville earlier! Whoops... that's lost opportunity. Everyone in the world makes opportunity cost evaluations constantly, so it's not a new principle. In the world of economics in Railroad Tycoon 3, you may notice that opportunity costs exist everywhere - just look at all the towns you can connect! And here's one last concept for this section. The above illustration is a good way to show the time value of money. Remember waiting one year to build the Centreville to East Eastie connection? It costed a bit more to build one year later, and cut one year of revenue stream from the final total. All of the scenarios have a time frame added to it, so make sure that if you are waiting to build a connection it is because raising the money is either impossible or too expensive, or that there are no profitable connections to make at the present time. Making these decisions is definitely not as cut-and-dried as I showed above; oftentimes, you don't know how well one of your decisions panned out until possibly two years of game-time has elapsed, and sometimes even longer. But be sure that you're always thinking about the opportunity costs of any decision you make in Railroad Tycoon 3, including possible missed opportunity elsewhere. 3.8 - Macroeconomics and conditions: The paper came! There's a depression! Everyone's panicking! In the real world, depressions and economic booms are overall conditions. These conditions are based on growth for the most part - if a economy is shrinking, then it will be in a depression. An economy shrinks when the amount of resources entering it grows smaller, in essence. And cash can certainly be one of those resources. Conversely, if an economy is expanding, it is because the available resources are increasing. In the normal world, growth rates fluctuate but generally stay positive. This is because human industry and work becomes more and more productive, plus population increases which grow the labor pool. Remember when you connected the meat packaging plant to Westerham? The Tycoonatrons didn't have to spend as much on meat, and that left them able to use their money in different ways. Being able to spend their money elsewhere allows for growth to happen. This is also the normal condition of the game - when the economy is normal, it is growing at a modest rate. From there though, increases in production or decreases in prices may trigger "prosperity", or an economic "boom". In this case, there is more production going on, all the way up to 120% to 125% of normal production levels. Additionally, because cash becomes more available in a prosperous economy, fuel costs and labor costs may rise because the demand for both items will be stretched. Raw materials costs can rise too, and as the chief officer of a railroad, you may want to pay attention when laying track in a boom time - it will cost more. A prosperous economy is an inflationary economy - ALL prices will rise. But sometimes, problems happen that interrupt production on a wide- scale basis, or prices increase too much to be explained by inflation and prosperity. At this point, people make do with less, and spend less too. And when cash doesn't flow as easily, growth rates may stagnate. This can lead to economic "slowdowns", recessions, and depressions. In this situation, labor and raw materials cost less. Stock prices also trend downward, as discretionary income isn't available to use to invest - it is needed for necessities for the majority of people. Turning a profit in a depression is not easy, but it still can happen; even if more than half of the people aren't getting by well, there are still some people who are earning a profit and able to still purchase items. Prices may decrease in these times due to the fact that the demand does not exist, and production may also go away. The economic condition in Railroad Tycoon 3 is a good indicator of what may happen in the future. Any system will attempt to reach equilibrium, including economies. A slowdown may indicate that your railroad may not be as profitable through the next while. While you may need to change your strategy a bit due to this issue, just remember the discussion on opportunity costs - make sure that you're either obtaining profit immediately or on your way to obtaining profit, and no matter what economic condition you're in you'll be able to succeed. There are advantages to both conditions of economic activity though. In depressions, the cost for new investment is lowered - you can usually lay track for less, and fuel and labor costs are lower. Supply costs usually dip lower during this time until such time that labor costs will dip to match supply costs. And of course, demand costs will also lower, probably more than the amount that the supply costs will drop. There will be less cargo available and less passengers and mail, as the money to afford more of all of these items isn't available to all people. Stocks in the stock market will go lower, as people can't spend their discretionary income on stocks when they have to purchase necessities. This is the perfect time to engage in half the maxim of "Buy low!", as long as you make sure that it is still a wise investment. Additionally, bond interest rates will dip lower as well, as it is in the interests of the market as a whole to put more money into circulation for investment purposes. A lack of money to chase resources is one of the biggest causes of an economic slowdown, and even if the money goes to taking a risk, it's being spread about and hopefully used by other people. In prosperous or "boom" times, fuel and labor costs go up. Demand goes up, as there is a lot of money, but supply costs also go up because more money means that there's less supply to go around to everyone. Stocks in the stock market will gain value because discretionary income can be used to speculate with, and these times are usually the times to practice "sell high!", especially with companies which don't seem to be turning a large amount of profit. However, the bond market will cool off and bond interest rates will rise. This is because if more and more money floods the market, inflation will continue and it could permanently damage an economy. A higher interest rate means that borrowing money carries a higher opportunity cost, so risky endeavors which do not realize profit are punished greater during this time. This concludes both the tour of economics as a whole and how they apply in the world of Railroad Tycoon 3. PLEASE contact me for any additional ways that I can clarify any of the above principles as they apply to Railroad Tycoon 3. Economics is a fuzzy area to many people, and it is now a far more key concept in Railroad Tycoon 3. Any questions I receive can be added to an actual FAQ to append to this section for any future revisions of this document, and will likely help everyone else. ____ 4.0 - The Controls of Railroad Tycoon 3: ____ Railroad Tycoon 3 has a good instruction book, so I will cover three high points that may not be understood fully: 4.1 - The Globe Button / Station Cargo Lists The globe button is an extremely important indicator of supply and demand in Railroad Tycoon 3. By clicking on the globe icon, you can find out information about the microeconomics of your map. First, click on the globe icon. From there, you will see TONS of cars all around the map. This information may not be extremely helpful, but at the very least you can see the stations that may have the highest amount of inventory. As a very general rule of thumb, more inventory is more opportunity to make money. However, your best option is to click on individual cargoes. For instance, if you click on "Grain", you will see triangles pointing down and triangles pointing up. The triangles pointing down are areas that demand grain, and the triangles pointing up are areas that supply it. You should also see black rectangles which symbolize carloads of grain. For instance, if you see a town with a brewery (downward- pointing triangle) with no railcars going toward it, you can be somewhat sure that the demand for grain is high because there is no supply. If you have any grain cars, divert them to the area. However, if you see a brewery in a town and small black rectangles going towards it, it is likely that the brewery is being supplied and you can possibly pick up cargoes of alcohol near (or if you connect the city, in) the city. Also, be sure to check out the red/green coloring on the map. It symbolizes the price for the commodity you choose. You can take cargoes toward the green areas and pick up higher profits than if you offload them to red areas. Additionally, you can check prices themselves within the station dialogue. If you click on a station in any city, you will see a list of all cargoes available in the scenario. You can find out what cities are demanding certain cargoes and the prices, as well as finding out what towns are supplying certain cargoes. This is also a good way to find where to create new passenger routes. Just make sure to notice the "supply" numbers, as a route that only has 0.8 loads at $25k per load is not as lucrative as a route that has 1.6 loads at $20k per load. Use this information in conjunction with the information you receive when clicking on buildings as well. For instance, you may see 0.3 loads of grain in a town with a brewery, so you may assume that the town demands more grain. But if you click on the facility, you may find out exactly how much production the brewery had the last three years - you may even find out that it's running at near capacity, which would make your grain shipments less lucrative than you may want. 4.2 - The Track Button Without track, you can't run any trains. Which is usually a bad thing. The track button is rather straightforward, but there are options that you should be made aware of. Firstly, you can choose whether or not to try to build overpasses, which will cost more but it will allow you to build crossing overpasses so that trains do not have to stop at certain intersections. You can turn the option from "on" to "off", and building overpasses is more expensive than not. Next is the bridge button. Bridges obviously allow your train to cross water. You have four choices here, "common", "average", "rarely", or "never". The reason for four options is that you can build bridges *near* water, and will not get weird grades if you use "common", but the cost of additional bridgework will be higher. After this is the tunnel button, which is the exact same as the bridge button, offering the same four choices. Again, the tradeoff is higher expense for lower grades. The last option on the right is for electic track, which is either on or off. Make sure you pay attention here, because there are many cases where electric trains may be superior to steam or diesel trains. Since you have to have the track electrified in order to run the trains, make sure you turn this option on _when needed_. Don't confuse this with the little button at the corner, which shows a lightning bolt and a track - this is to electrify all your track automatically. Electrifying all of your track at the same time, especially if you have a lot of track, could be exceedingly expensive. If you're planning on gradually introducing electric trains due to the cost of laying the appropriate track, then go slowly. Just lay the track you may need immediately, and once you expand electric routes then you can go back and build more. Lastly, make sure the bridge you need is the one that's turned on. For occasional traffic crossings, use wood. For a higher volume, use steel. Finally, for an extremely high volume, stone. You can choose to build single or double track with the steel and stone bridges, the wood bridges come in only one flavor - one-track. (NOTE - In track-limit scenarios, building double track WILL take your track limit down by two instead of one.) 4.3 - The Building Button Most people should be well familiar with the station building button, as without stations you cannot schedule trains. But the main issue in this dialogue box is the button within the building dialogue box which has dots and lines. Be sure to not forget it! This is where you can purchase both your passenger-revenue increasing buildings such as hotels and taverns, post offices, and production buildings. Don't ignore production in this game! A building worth $2M may seem like a heavy investment, but if it is well-supplied and maintained, it can bring in five times that amount as a long-term ten year investment. As in RRT2, production buildings can also sustain through bad economic times as well. ____ 5.0 - Campaigns/Scenarios: ____ As you may notice, this section is a bit bare right now. I have played from "Go West" through "Japan Quakes" listed below, and I have missed gold medals only twice - #5, and #10 (Orient Express). I have been playing on "normal" difficulty for the time being as well. 5.1.11 - Scenario 11 - Argentina: Bronze Medal: Haul 100 loads of meat. Silver Medal: Haul 200 loads of meat, 100 loads of wool, AND have lifetime industry profits of $10M Gold Medal: Haul 350 loads of meat, 200 loads of wool, 100 loads of grain, AND have lifetime industry profits of $25M Time Frame (Time Limit): 1880-1909 (30 years) Special Restrictions: No playing with the stock market! (No resigning, no new companies, no buying/selling stock, no changing dividend) Starting Position: No stations, $1.3M Oh, Argentina! It's a wide-open map and you can start pretty much anywhere, with the added bonus that your track doesn't have to connect! Of course, one of your two methods of gaining money has been shut down, but in the early going issuing stock is not worth a lot. You can still issue bonds, and your ability to do so is rather important considering the industry profit instructions of the Silver and Gold medal requirements. Very early in the scenario, representatives from Britain, France, and the U.S. will arrive. Each provides a different bonus, and also different trains. British: 30% faster turnaround, fuel costs 25% cheaper British train: Stirling - $140k, top speed at 4 cars, 0%: 63MPH (Accel: Above Avg.) French: Track-laying costs reduced by 20% French trains: Crampton - $100k, top speed at 4 cars, 0%: 52MPH (Accel: Avg.) American: Industry purchasing costs reduced by 25% American Train: Eight-Wheeler - $180K, top speed at 4 cars, 79MPH (Accel: Above Avg.) All sets get: Consolidated - $120K, top speed at 4 cars, 0% grade: 60MPH (Accel: Below Avg.) Shay - $40K, top speed 24MPH Fairlie - $15K, top speek 16MPH As far as bonuses go, the U.S. bonus is best. As far as trains go, the US bonus is also best. I was able to play and win this scenario with American assistance. Using the Crampton (France) seems almost useless, as it's slower and less-valuable than the Consolidated anyway, and the Stirling only has a better acceleration to recommend it. Besides, saving over and above $500k at a time buying industries is well worth the assist, especially since that means you can buy industries earlier. To begin with, you should notice what is most important to haul to start. That's right, meat. The highest number of hauled loads for gold will be of meat, so therefore you should find the largest two- star town with a meat packaging plant in it. Before building though. check the meat packaging plant to make sure that it is turning a profit, which means that it's already supplied by the native transportation, and is able to produce beef for you to haul. Most likely, this town with be Rosario, which is down the river from Buenos Aires. (left and central in the map). Having thus found the town, the next thing you should do is make it the center of your rail empire for the time being. Meat is requested by all houses, so don't skip the small towns! The best method to make sure that prices stay high is to connect two small towns to your large town and have one train service all three such as Large Town -- Small Town 1 -- Large Town -- Small Town 2. If cargo is an issue then set the slider bars so that only three loads are departing the large town. This may seem counterproductive at first, but beef usually is in high demand to begin with and you want to try to maximize your profits this early in the game. Once you get two or three of the closest (and likely small) towns hooked up to the beef-producing one, next find the closest two-star or greater city and start laying track to it. Usually, the large cities will have a greater demand for the beef, so don't skimp on the cars this time. Ideally, the large town will be somewhere possibly near a grain farm or a sheep farm too. You may want to check global prices to see that grain and/or wool is demanded, because you still need to turn a profit this early. If you can haul either grain or wool profitably, start doing so. Like the first town, use your trains to service multiple towns to make sure demand doesn't drop, and therefore profits can be maximized. You may also want to check into purchasing the grain farm or sheep farm if you have enough cash. When that is done, the best thing to do is to hook up more small towns. If your beefery is running out of supply, then check the globe for more livestock farms. Best-case would be to find unconnected livestock farms near these towns which could benefit from your transportation - just make a train from the farm station / town directly to the town with the meat packaging plant, and in that one trip you are both supplying the plant with needed material AND hopefully transporting the beef back to the town. And for maximum profit and also to satisfy requirements, buy the livestock farm and watch the money roll in. If you're unsure where cattle (for meat), grain, and wool are then check the globe. Usually the sheep farms are east and south of Buenos Aires, corresponding to the lower and right portions of the small map. Grain farms are almost everywhere, but most prevalent in the northern half of the map--the right-hand portion of the map. Cattle ranches are almost everywhere, and meat can be obtained by purchasing a meat- packaging facility for $2,500K and supplying it. At this point, you still need to make profits, but should have plenty of time left. On this map are multiple industry vectors - grain to brewery for alcohol, wool to textile mill for clothing, pulpwood to paper, logs to lumber mill for lumber which can turn into lumber to furniture factory for furniture or lumber to toy factory for toys, and the ever-popular iron and coal to steel mill for steel to tool and die for goods. Steel mills tend to be the most lucrative, but this map does a very outstanding job of invalidating steel mills - the iron deposits are usually on the left-hand side (which is bizarrely south, IIRC) of the map, and coal is shipped in to ports in the north and east (Buenos Aires and other possible coastal towns). Now also, remember that you're not limited to the buildings set by the computer. Of course, you cannot place supply buildings (though you can buy them)... but you CAN place factory-level buildings. If you cannot find a textile mill in an advantageous spot, build one yourself! The textile mill is $1,300K and the brewery is about $1,500K. You may not make a profit from either facility immediately, but you are creating demand for either wool or grain by placing either a textile mill or a brewery. Additionally, finished goods usually have a higher profit margin than raw materials. And lastly, since the game tends to encourage people to not micromanage, this means that the right cargoes (grain and wool) which usually have a low profit margin are picked up because the profit margin will be higher, so you can keep your trains on "best available" and earn a profit while still working toward the objectives. The best method I found of obtaining gold-medal wealth is to pretty much create a new industry. There are very few textile mills, breweries, distilleries, lumber mills, or paper mills operating to begin with. In order to corner a market, you should first create it. Make sure that your industry has plenty of access to the raw materials it needs, as it will take a major investment -- it will likely be higher than $1M. Give your first industry time for people to realize they need your product. Then try to buy out as many pieces of your industry as possible, such as the raw material suppliers as well as any competitors that may spring up. Within about ten years, your conglomerate should be pulling in some pretty good squance. In this map, the best thing to do is to keep adding smaller towns rather than building long lengths of track to bigger cities. Additionally, make sure to double-track as much as possible. The load restrictions will be easy to defeat if your railroad makes lots of short trips rather than a few long trips. However, you may also make more profits from your own goods by hooking up towns with your production facilities with longer runs. Five points for the end game, roughly 1895-1910: 1) If you have a facility in a town and it is oversupplied, by all means expand it if you're still seeing profit across the board. If there are no numbers above $5 for demand of your production cargo though, keep things small. More capacity will cost more and could turn it unprofitable. Additionally, more supply will equal less demand, which can also turn a company unprofitable. 2) When you buy new industries, especially if the raw materials they need are not available in town, by all means supply them immediately. After you supply them, give them about two years maximum to see if they will turn a profit. You cannot have any industries draining your profit pool. If on the other hand it's slightly profitable, keep it and explore other methods to make it more profitable. 3) If you need more income toward the end of the scenario and you have only two or less years left, it may be worth it to buy long- standing cash cow industries, such as the very first meat-packing plant you utilized. You do not have to pay off bonds at the end of the game, and while it may be extremely expensive it is also an immediate addition to overall industry profit with no costs in improving infrastructure (laying new track, building new stations, buying new trains). Just understand that buying an extremely expensive facility should be balanced against the possibility that you could either build a facility elsewhere or purchase a facility elsewhere for less--it will likely need time to be lucrative. Purchasing and selling costs will NOT apply to the end industry profit numbers. 4) Building a second facility in the same town may not be a good idea. This comes about for the same reasons as expanding above - supply increase will lower demand further, and capacity in the form of having to buy a whole-new facility is far more expensive than the upgrade. Previous experience also bears this issue out; it would not surprise me to find out that insufficient labor was the reason that I could not turn a second similar facility in the same town profitable. 5) Fulfilling the requirements of loads hauled may seem daunting. If so, just start shortening your routes. If your map looks like this: Town 1------- Town 2------ Town 3------(3-Star) City and is supplied like this: Town 1 Town 2 Town 3 (3-Star) City (Beef: 5.0) (Beef: 0.2) (Beef:1.1) (Beef:0.0) w/Meat Packing Plant then shorten your routes! The city will drive up prices for beef all the way from their location to the nearest supply, the producing town. So beef will be incrementally more expensive as you go. Bring back your trains if your industry numbers are fine, and reschedule them for super-short routes. What may be a lucrative Town 1 - City route could be three valuable Town 1 - Town 2, Town 2 - Town 3, and Town 3 - City routes. And by shipping this way, you are loading and unloading beef at every stop, which counts to the number you've hauled. This path may be worth 16 loads at the end instead of just 4. And that's why connecting all the goofy little towns is worth the effort in this scenario. ____ 5.1.12 - Scenario 12 - Africa. Bronze Medal: Connect Dodoma to Juba Silver Medal: Connect Dodoma to Juba, $10M company book value Gold Medal: Connect Dodoma to Juba and Nairobi, $35M company book value. Time Frame (Time Limit): Special Restrictions: All track must connect. Starting Position: Some track and one station in Dodoma, $700K The lands of deepest darkest Africa. I hope you remembered to turn your lamp on! In this game, profits are scarce yet laying track is king. The worst part of this game is that you have to either spend money bulldozing your whole setup, or start in Dodoma, at the extreme southern end of the map. The method I used was to start in Dodoma. Almost immediately, you will want to build toward the east. There is a small town there which will buy almost anything Dodoma produces, and is actually a decently lucrative run. Use a Camelback, and for added protection on the return trip to Dodoma use a caboose to maintain your Camelback as much as possible. If you break down in the early going, it will be a major issue and money for maintenance facilities may not arrive for a while. After you connect this first town, keep looking east. The next town is Manyoni, and will give you another place to send the Camelback. Again, use the caboose at least half of the way to keep repairs down and try to maximize whatever profits you can. And farther west will be the two-star Tabora. Before getting to Tabora, you may likely be tapped out of cash. Your profits probably won't be enough for you to keep going. This is where you have to turn to the people of Africa and tell them proudly, "I will be glad to pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today!" The stock market should at least be warmed to your profits, and be sure to tap them for a few thousand. Next, hit the bond market. Try to get to at least BBB rating, but even BB is better than suffering for years. Float the bond, find the cheapest possible way to get to Tabora, and build it! Getting to Tabora will be a revelation. Both times I played this map, Tabora's river (more African geography - the Gombé River) transported the raw materials needed by Manyoni to make their industries run. These industries will pay absolute top dollar for raw materials as well, and you'll be more than happy to cash in! It may take two or three loads, but you'll probably get your whole bond back within possibly one year. Don't pay it off though, expand! From here you have two options. You can build north to Lake Victoria along Tabora's area, or you can start building north and easterly from Dodoma. If you connect to the next town north, the Masai tribesmen will ask for tribute for using their lands. Don't get offended, and just give them cattle. They love cattle, and will give you an additional gift of $150K, which almost offsets the costs of building to this town. From here, you can connect to the east. Also early in the game, wealthy entrepreneurs will offer big bucks for you to build track to Zanzibar. Today's lesson... Zanzibar is on the island of Unguja. And it is separated from Africa by the Strait of Zanzibar. Even with that information, you can see that you're also going to pay out a large amount of money in order to not only lay track to the coast of German West Africa, you're also going to pay about the same amount of money to transverse all that water. The money that they provide may not even offset the money that you would have to lay out to build a connecting station, and remember that water towers and maintenance sheds will be needed for such a long journey. Additionally, this map just does not pay much money out for passengers, so therefore you may as well stay away from Zanzibar. (Complaint: why is Zanzibar in this game, but no Dar Es Salaam? Yeesh.) About ten years into the game, you'll find something extremely interesting. Africa, despite having little infrastructure to actually support this improvement in real life, can obtain not only electric tracks but electric trains too. And one little train will be your salvation. It's only $50k per train, it takes hills well, and makes it so that you need FAR fewer water towers (sanding stations) to boot. The rest of the map is rather straightforward once the money starts rolling in from Tabora for raw materials. Again, make sure you're aware that passenger traffic is not your main source of income. As far as completing the requirements for gold, do two branches. One branch from Dodoma going east to Nairobi, and one branch (through Tabora) going west and north all the way to Juba. Always remember that you can satisfy the requirement of "connection" even by building an insanely stupid track between Nairobi and Juba too as long as you already have the $35M book value. 5.1.13 - Scenario 13 - Japan Quakes! Bronze Medal: Supply Niigata with 25 Meat before 1985 Silver Medal: Supply Niigata with 50 Meat and 25 Clothes before 1985 Gold Medal: Supply Niigata with 100 Meat, 50 Clothes before 1985 and have no more than five years of interrupted service between Tokyo, Nagoya, Toyama, and Niigata Time Frame (Time Limit): 1965 - 1985 (21 Years) Starting Position: $2M, tons of track and infrastructure in place, two trains. Special Restrictions: Track limits - 500 to begin, and a possible 50 per year afterward. To begin with, you get a warning saying that there is a big earthquake expected in Japan, and that passengers aren't happy if you run your trains during an earthquake. But the earthquake doesn't happen for a while; schedule your trains as usual, and they should be fine. You may notice something strange in this game if you take a good look before the earthquake: there's a competitor! Wow! Haven't seen one of those in the last two scenarios now! This competitor also has Niigata covered... arrgh! But only a few months into the scenario, the earthquake will hit, and your competitor will be wiped out partially. Aftershocks will happen a month or two afterward, and these aftershocks will finish off your competitor and allow you to build into Niigata, so that you can start to fulfill your insane requirements. Firstly, turn on electric track; the electric trains are mostly best in this game, and all of the rest of your track is electric. Then make sure to build to Niigata as soon as possible, you should have enough money still. Once you do, you may notice that you get an outstanding bonus - for every year you keep the cities in the Gold Medal restriction connected, you get $200k and 50 units more track. Sweet! Even if you did have to float a bond to build the track, you get some of the money back automatically! Now, you have to figure out how to get the beef and clothes. Beef is the biggest obstacle by a 2-1 margin over clothes, so that should be your first focus. The port of Yokosura is south of Tokyo (bottom center) and has a multitude of docks. These docks will be your best friends, because they import both beef and clothes. You can get almost 5.0 units of beef per year just through these docks, so as long as a reliable transport is set up here between both beef and clothes you should hopefully go a long way. For more beef, Shizuoka should have a meat packing plant (Shizuoka is south of Mount Fuji along the coast, roughly lower-center in the map). While there may be track there, Shizuoka is probably not connected with a station. By all means, purchase a station that captures the meat packing plant, it's an easy connection. Your livestock farms are in the northern part of Honshu (the main island), and they are at the far right-hand portion of the map. You can either connect the towns and rely on the Tycoontrons to ship the livestock to your stations, or you can spend extra money and track to connect the ranches directly to your lines through rail and station. Livestock shipping is decently lucrative in this map, so it may not be a profit- killing idea. If you have additional track and Shizuoka is unable to process all of the livestock, connect Maenobashi to Tokyo by rail (Maenobashi is near the hills west of Tokyo, roughly center-center of the map). This city should also have a meat packing plant. More beef can be found in one last place - Osaka. Osaka's port will convert produce into beef, and Nagoya usually has a good supply of produce. (There will be other locations you can find fruit too if Nagoya is out). Of course, Osaka is a long distance from Niigata, so use this as a last resort, but be sure to hook it up quickly enough (about two years in advance of your needing it) if you feel that it's warranted. And for more clothes, there is one more town you should pay attention to, by the name of Mito. It is north of Tokyo and near the ocean, so it will be about halfway between the center and the left- hand side of the map lengthwise and near the bottom. The warehouses at Mito will supply about 2.0 units of clothes per year, and between this and Yokosura's supply you should be all set. At or around 1972 or so, there will be another earthquake. This earthquake will involve Toyama and its surroundings. After this earthquake, build as soon as possible back to Toyama. Losing the bonus is bad business sense and you need to keep everything connected for gold regardless. Unless this map is tied to some random number generator, this will be the last earthquake for the whole scenario. Concluding notes: 1) Make sure your railway is profitable. Despite the fact that Niigata will have a warehouse demanding 10.0 beef and 5.0 clothes per year, once you get moving Niigata's demands will go down too, to the point that shipping these cargoes may become unprofitable by themselves. I was able to keep some profit moving in my company by doing custom consists of 3.0 cars of the needed commodity (either beef or clothes) and 1.0 car of "any cargo/passengers". Recoup at least some of your fuel and other expenses this way. 2) There's also a trick toward the end as well. Some may call this a "cheat", but as far as I'm concerned it's legal because of the bad design of this scenario and the above complaint. Of course, Niigata will "consume" 10 beef and 5 clothes per year according to the warehouse. BUT, just like all other industries in this game, this consumption takes time. If you manage to get 15 loads of beef to Niigata, you may find yourself shipping beef AWAY from Niigata. And here's the kicker: the original shipment of beef to Niigata counts toward your total. And if you find that you have a train that is shipping beef away from Niigata, it will not subtract your total. So if Niigata has a surplus, just detail a train to Niigata to pick up beef. Let it go just a short way down the track, and then reassign it to go back to Niigata. Instant beef loads! If the scenario designer had set Niigata's warehouse consumption to be at least double, then not only would this possibly not happen, but it'd also make better business sense to ship beef and clothing to Niigata. I don't know if the intent was to force your railroad to not only be limited in scope (with the track limits) but also to carry a task which will turn unprofitable, but to me it's unfair that Niigata's prices for beef and clothes fall so low that I had to keep some trains at their stations for months because "shipping ______ is unprofitable". You can't have it both ways, programmers. Either raise the demand so that financing this weirdness is easier, or face the wrath that is the very accurate RRT3 economic model which says that carrying coals to Newcastle is moronic. Just so you are aware, the above scenario (Niigata's unprofitability in satisfying the conditions for Gold) will get worse and worse as the 1980s roll around. Keep an eye out for it, and enjoy the fact that it says just "Gold!" as the winning message. ____ 6.0 - Railroad Tycoon 3 Updates ____ As of 2007, an update does exist for Railroad Tycoon 3 - a small expansion pack titled "Coast to Coast". It can be found at most game download sites, and it is free! It's also about 110MB, so by all means use your own high-speed connection or borrow someone else's. It includes five new maps, and the programmers tightened some of the gameplay and economic models. A longer discussion may follow if interest shows between the old and new versions. ____ 7.0 - Frequently Asked Questions ____ I have attempted to make this FAQ/walkthrough as informative as possible, so therefore I cannot think of any FAQs that other people may have. Please email me at the address listed at the top if you have any questions, and I will be more than happy to add them to this FAQ so that there are frequently asked questions in an FAQ. (How weird.) ____ 8.0 - Epilogue and Author's Notes ____ As you may probably notice, the walkthrough is rather bare. I have placed gold on the majority of the campaign games in normal mode thus far, but the idea to write a walkthrough did not coalesce until two things happened. First, I found myself having trouble with some of the scenarios in the World collection, and thought that others may have the same troubles. Next, I found that an FAQ/strategy guide to this game existed... but that it was little more than crap. Many people expressed their displeasure with it due to the fact that it did very little to explain about the economic models contained in Railroad Tycoon 3. The only problem is that as I encountered all this information (people having problems with scenarios, and people having issues with the economic models) they were all timestamped 2005 and before. So again, I hope that by releasing an FAQ for this game that some devoted fans are still out there, and that this is useful to someone. For my money, the Railroad Tycoon games were some of the most fun business-strategy games that I've ever played, and the trains just make it plain fun for pretty much everyone. Good luck and happy railroading! (c) Scott "Zoogz" Jamison 2007.