Railroad Tycoon 3

[JohnT]

It's just about done, I need to tweak a couple of variables. I might do so tomorrow and then upload it to the French RT3 site (I don't know the URL right now). If your email can handle it, I'll be glad to send you the file (I think it's about 2.5 megs zipped) personally.

[Arrian]

Sweet, a thread on RR3. I looked a couple of days ago and it must have been buried.

I didn't even know Rails3 was coming out - I just saw it in a store recently.

JohnT - what do you think of the economic model? Personally, its the actual "building a railroad" element that I prefer. The stock market is not really me favorite feature (though I get why it's in the game).

I think I'll end up buying it, but I may wait a bit for the price to drop. I've always liked RR Tycoon, but I don't quite have the same insane addiction to it that I have for Civ. So I can wait.

-Arrian

[JohnT]

This might be a long post...

Arrian: IMHO, the economic model (or the "stock market" as some people call it) is critical to the realism of the game - you are not a railroad manager but the President of a railroad company. IRL, railroads are so upfront capital-intensive that modern financial markets are almost imperative to any railroad development. I also never lose the economic goals of a scenario (personal net worth for example) and have no problem with any scenarios that one can buy their way through (for example, one scenario needs 5,000 miles of track for the Gold - no problem as track can be bought in huge swaths).

My Pennsylvania Scenario

The basis of the scenario is the growth of US Industrial development in the state of Pennsylvania, where John Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan and a host of others made their fortunes. I have based the scenario where actual real-world events impact the game play, even going so far as to research inflation-adjusted oil prices, actual steel production figures, etc. Most of my events do have an impact on the game, btw, and are not there for show. For example, in one strike you see a newspaper that says:

Strikers run rampant! Property Destroyed!

"The Power of the Workers is as if a Medium Earthquake has hit the Capitalist Oppressors" screams one worker.

Whereupon you get hit with a medium Earthquake.

I have over 100 events for this scenario, mostly newspapers but also dialogue boxes, and choices. They deal with the Civil War, the American Labor Movement, a number of Supreme Court rulings, Presidential elections, events in the lives and business careers of the above-mentioned tycoons, and such. A number of the events are choices where a new technology occurs (say telephones) and you get the option of investing in the new tech for some benefit. I felt that the original 1.0 scenario was a bit too unbalanced in its sunny view of late 19th century Capitalism, so I made it more well-rounded.

The goals in this scenario are really high - far higher than any of the ones that came with the game:

Bronze: Haul 1,500 loads of Oil, 750 loads of Coal and Iron, and 500 loads of Steel.

Silver: Total Lifetime Corporate Revenues must exceed $1,000,000,000.00

Gold: Personal Net Worth must exceed $250,000,000.00

Note that the three goals are divided among the three major components of the game: hauling, building a strong corporation, and increasing your net worth.

To win the scenario you really have to dominate, with over 40 cities connected, 100+ trains, and a bunch of industries - this is one that plays to the way I like the game: building big, intricate companies that are worthy players on the Fortune 500. By the end of the scenario I'm usually pulling $50mil. a year in revenues, btw.

[JohnT]

I've finished the scenario and uploaded it to a couple of sites. If you want, please email me at JohnT15@knology.net and I can email you the map as well. Following is an excerpt from my OP at the gathering.com forums about this scenario (might duplicate info in the above post):

I finished the Pennsylvania Scenario that I had started a month or so ago, and there are a lot of changes from the original. After tweaking and tweaking to make sure that the victory conditions were challenging, not frustrating, I settled on the following:

Bronze: Haul 1,500 loads of Oil, 750 Loads of Iron and Coal, and 500 Loads of Steel.

Silver: Have Lifetime Company Revenues exceed $1,000,000,000.00

Gold: Your PNW must exceed $250,000,000.00

With over 100 events ranging from Supreme Court decisions to Presidential Election shenanigans to dealing with the influence of other titans of industry like Rockefeller and Carnegie, the scenario is a recreation of the period between 1855-1901 in American history. Set in the State of Pennsylvania, this scenario demands that you keep track of three very different goals: proper consist management, building a strong company, and increasing your PNW. You have to be cutthroat in this one, eliminating the AI's as quick as possible (however they can form new companies if you take them over - I didn't give y'all that "you can only control one company per game" out) while still managing your company growth to the point where you will achieve the average $22,000,000/year revenue stream needed to make the Silver. Your PNW requirements are a lot easier - it only has to increase an average of $5.5 million a year for the length of the scenario.

A couple of warnings and hints:

1. Don't freak if you don't seem to be making any progress in the first 10 years. For example, Oil doesn't even appear until 1860, 5 years after the scenario begins. Production increases brought about by external events and your choices will pick things up after 1865, definitely by 1870.

2. Don't let your personal cash go into the red too much - the stock market is jittery in this game, especially given the two major depressions that struck America in this period - one so bad that, in real life, the US government had to be bailed out by JP Morgan.

3. You might want to start in the NW part of the state (around Erie and Oil City) as that is where the oil is located. You can start in the Philadelphia area and try to get all that passenger traffic going to Baltimore/Wilmington/etc., but I advise against it - there's no oil, coal, or iron around those areas so your bronze conditions won't even begin to be completed until you get in the middle of the state.

4. I have no idea what the deal is with the color - I did not repaint the map, all I did was add events.

I'm going to email it to Hirundo so he can attach it to his site. If you have the original version on your computer replace it with this one. Please use this thread for any comments, denunciations, or (maybe?) praise.

http://www.gathering.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=17533

[The Pioneer]

Can you post a link where we can download it?

So long...

[JohnT]

I will when it gets uploaded, and I'll send you and Johnny a PM so you don't have to worry about checking this thread.

[JohnT]

Here's the link: http://www.rrt3-fr.com/fichiers/maps.php

It is a French site, but you can easily find it as it is the only map by "JohnT". The name of the zip file is "Pennsylvania 1855-1901".

[Arrian]

JohnT,

Sorry, I posted my question and forgot to check back for a response. My bad.

I was actually asking about the economic model w/respect to the new way in which cargo is generated and funneled into stations... I may be misunderstanding, but from what I read about the game, it appears to be a fundamental change from RailsI and RailsII. The stock market, well, I agree it's sorta key to being a Tycoon. I'm just not great at it, so I tend to go with an easy or intermediate setting (if available. I remember this being possible in RailsII).

-Arrian

[Urban Ranger]

One more question. Do they have named engines like RRT I?

[Az]

So, how's the economic model different from RR2?

It's the most important thing in that game.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
One more question. Do they have named engines like RRT I?

I think you can only name an engine when it breaks a speed record.

[JohnT]

Naw, you can re-name all your engines if you wish. Many people name them for their runs, ala "Houston-Dallas."

[Urban Ranger]

That's useless unless the named engines bring in extra income as per RRT I. As Osweld said, these are the ones that break speed records.

[JohnT]

The ones you name don't effect revenue, the ones that break the speed records and therefore "earn" a name do.

And renaming your trains so that you can quickly see what route they are taking is not at all useless, especially when you are playing a game with over 200 trains going.

[JohnT]

RT2's economic engine was pretty basic - in that economy the trains have no competition, and if something is going to move, you have to move it.

RT3's economic engine assumes competition from water transport and other land transport so that the cargo does move (albeit much more slowly) if you don't link up. The biggest complaint of RT3 economic engine is that you cannot haul cargo at a loss, meaning you can't push iron at a loss. Many people argue that this is unreasonable, that many companies won't mind losing $10k on an iron-to-steel mill run if moving the then-processed steel brings in, say, $100k.

RT2 is played from the viewpoint of a line and car Manager and demands far more micromanaging than RT3. RT3 is played from the viewpoint of a corporate President who is in charge of a railroad company. A lot of people don't like the switch of viewpoints, but I'm quite fine with it