akuenzi

Hi lcamyFC, If there are YouTube strategy videos out there, it would be nice to see them. Unfortunately, the original release of this game (when there would have been a lot of people willing/able to make such things) preceded the inception of YouTube by quite a bit... so maybe that's why not much is available. I haven't looked all that much myself; maybe someone will find some good ones out there. That then leaves us with some archived 'reading material' for strategy, either on this forum, or in past forums that have long been taken down. There's a collection of links here if you're interested. 😉

It has been SO long since I've visited this forum. Catching up on reading this thread was enjoyable. A number of people with talent appeared to have stopped by in the past couple years. I'd love to know if the idea of a new railroad tycoon game is still alive and well, though it might not be, judging from the dates on the posts. I've looked for a few games over the past couple years, trying to find one that gives a similar experience to RT2, but have come up short. There are things like Railway Empire and Railroad Corporation, and maybe some others, but none seem close to what RT2 delivered. I did come across this interesting thread on reddit. And here was an article on the best PC train games. Any guesses on which one (even after all these years) is at the top of the heap? It's evidently been very challenging for game companies to emulate the essence of what made RT2 special (in spite of its flaws), in a new game. I did enjoy reading the ideas shared above, even if I don't entirely understand much of the tech-talk behind some of them (my vocation is accounting, and not programming unfortunately). Still was some good reading. The idea of including modding capabilities, and a scripting language such as lua caught my eye, though. A few years back (around January of '15) I discovered the Farming Simulator game franchise, and that's been my primary focus since. It took untold hours of pain to do, but this accountant even managed to learn a few things about lua coding to create some mods. Would be really neat to have the ability to do that with a RT game. Alas, I'll probably stick with Farming Simulator for the foreseeable future... though I miss the railroads. Just need a good replacement for RT2, and I might be enticed back to it. Anyway, I hope everyone here has been doing well. I have no idea how many even visit here anymore, so maybe I'm just talking to the wall. Take care all.

theguyintheshed -- Wow, that looks pretty cool! I'm not even going to try to count the number of mods you made -- I'm sure it would be wrong. But I'm very much looking forward to your 'modding thread' and whatever possibilities you discover. Thanks for the teaser!

Aha -- I knew there must be a 'real' reason other than the one I gave. :) I'm going to have to try this in the game, but is there a way to control the size of a territory? Can you place multiple 'micro' territories next to one another if you want certain industries concentrated in a particular area but don't want to be impacted by this bug? Guess I'll have to give it a try...

Happy New Year, theguyintheshed... I'm sure you'll get a better answer from those on here with way more experience than I have, but here's my humble opinion: A) If a person places these on their own, I think there can be a tendency to place too many of them on the map, or to line them up too much relative to where industries are. Then when the game is played, it becomes too easy for the human player, or too predictable, and thus 'unbalanced.' At least, this is what has happened to me when I've done it. Leaving things a bit more random helps maintain the fun factor and challenge. B) No, I don't think this was specific to early game versions, nor is it something that needed to be corrected. The game is simply robust enough that it gives you more than one option. You can indeed place them on your own, or you can make the computer do it through the settings. Anyway, that's one man's opinion. Hopefully the others chime in and give you a better answer!

Wow – I sure didn't intend to upset anyone by starting this thread. My apologies, too, for asking a simple question improperly. Then again, it wasn’t exactly a ‘simple’ question to my brain, so I’m grateful for the ideas shared here. But I will take a look at my posts again to see if my request can be better stated. I’m not making any promises, though – I’m not sure my English is any better than my trigger skills in RRT2. So, I'm right there with you outofmage, though your English is vastly superior to my Mandarin, which is nonexistent. :) Loco_motive, thanks for the additional ideas. I was just thrilled when it finally worked in my map, though as you (and Jeff) pointed out, it's not the best way to accomplish it. This Board is my classroom.

Okay, I think I found another way to do it that doesn't require the use of variables: One time only event. Testing each year, at START of year. Test against multiple computer players. Trigger: GameYearsElapsedSinceStart=1 AND PlayerCash=0 Effects: PlayerCash + 100,000 This seemed to accomplish what I was after. After one year of game play, it gave $100K to the first computer player in line. In my map, I set up four triggers identical to the above, each one year further out. In giving it a test, each year that went by meant that the next computer player in line would receive $100K at the beginning of the year. Seems like a good way to make a computer player 'dormant' until he is needed later in the game at a desired time. I suppose the other trigger I used would still have worked fine (GameYearMonth=188001), but the one above will work now regardless of what is chosen for the starting date. Sure would be nice if the PlayerID feature worked as the manual said it should! Does anyone know if this doesn't work only with respect to PlayerCash? What if we wanted to give a different effect to a specific computer player, such as access rights to a particular territory?

Thanks guys! I sure wish this was as simple as the syntax I used... according to the manual, and my understanding of what 'PlayerID' means, it really SHOULD have worked. But thanks for proposing the workarounds to still get the same thing accomplished. Jeff -- is this something that could be fixed by modding the exe file? :)

Well, I can give that approach a try, though it seems like taking two steps to do it. But should my original trigger have worked?

Yes, under the 'effects' section I set Player Cash to increase by $100K.

I appeal to the smart people on this board to help me extend my map play-time. At some point, any given map usually has most AI players broke and out of money. I'm not very good at this, and even I can bury many of the AI players. So, what I would like to do is see if there are ways to get AI players started later in the game, so the game action can be extended. One way I thought of doing this was leaving certain AI 'dormant' at the beginning of the game. By 'dormant,' I mean they have NO cash and NO company. Essentially, they sit there doing nothing, except scratching themselves and watching all their other AI friends get buried by the human player. :) However, by giving them an injection of cash at a certain point in time, they could 'wake up' and hopefully then start a company. I set up an event to do this. It's supposed to give $100,000 to one of the 'dormant' computer players at a certain point in time, but it's not working. Here's what my trigger says: One time only event. Testing each year, at START of year. Test against multiple computer players. Trigger: GameYearMonth=188101 AND PlayerID=2 Effects: PlayerCash + 100,000 So... in January of 1881, the intent is to give one of the computer players (whoever happens to be in ID slot # 2) 100 grand. However, it's not working. When I try playing the map, the poor computer guys are just as penniless after January 1881 as before. Is my syntax incorrect? I also tried a different trigger, GameYearsElapsedSinceStart, but it also didn't work. How would you guys do this? Maybe the computer player is just an ungrateful so-and-so and is telling me he doesn't want the help.

Isn't there an inflation factor built into the game? Does this have anything to do with the calculation of interest? Maybe that only impacts revenues and costs... Does anyone know what the interest rate actually is, or does it fluctuate depending on the economy?

Maybe this is ultimately the only way it can be done, assuming one 'misses' the opportunity to own more than 50% of them to take control and then bury their company... then again, maybe there will be opportunity to try again once they start up a new company. How about this -- is it at least possible to 'quarantine' a competitor by laying small bits of track around his entire railroad? Is it possible to lay it in such a way that he can't go across it, and thereby never expand? I'll have to give that a try. Maybe he could still cross it, but at the very least it would force him to pay me for it...

To the great minds that post here: What are the ways to most effectively crush one's AI competition? I know there are many statements here on just how stupid the AI is, but in the games I play, sometimes they are pretty good, and stubbornly stick around when I'd like to drive them off the map. The question is how to do that. 1. Buy them on the stock market. Okay, I've done that. Once a person has control, you can do all sorts of fun things with them. However, I've been in situations where I'm not able to purchase a majority of the stock to do this. 2. Merge their railroad in with mine. I've never actually done this in gameplay, but I instinctively don't like it because it ends up giving one of my AI competitors a boatload of money in the process to buy them out. Sure, grease a palm with enough cash, and it can be done... but I'd rather leave my AI competitor penniless and begging on the street (because he's a bad guy, of course :) ). 3. Compete head-to-head where the competitor is operating. I've tried this before, and all it has accomplished is throwing my own money away. I build a separate track and network of stations as close as possible to my competitor, then try to beat him with whatever he's hauling. The theory being, take away from what he can haul, his revenue and profits should go down, right? Even with stocking this railroad with locomotives from other slave companies, I still haven't been able to defeat the AI with this tactic. Somehow they still survive and all I do is grind money. 4. Creative terra-forming. This random thought just came to mind -- I suppose with a little effort one could mess with their track slope and mess with the speed with which they deliver their cargo. Might be fun... but then again, it also costs money, potentially a lot of money and I'm not sure how much good it would do. 5. Lay rails across the competitor's rails and create blockage. Yeah -- park the locomotive right in the way of oncoming traffic and stop the whole line! Wish it was that easy. I actually tried this a time or two and couldn't ever get it to work just the way I wanted and is only of temporary impact. It also costs money, when I hoped it would break down right across his rails and make a permanent blockage. Running my trains on his rails doesn't work as his always takes priority. 6. Another thought comes to mind. Is it possible to bulldoze industry that you own? I know we can't bulldoze stuff within the AI's station area, but what if it's an industry and we buy it? Does anyone know if we can bulldoze it then? So much of the above is mere gimmickry. In actuality, I'd like to defeat them head-to-head (#3 above). In the real world, isn't that how it's done by most of us? If we want to beat the competition, we need to do it faster-better-cheaper. Sure would be nice if it could be done in here as well. Even when I've micromanaged the stuffing out of it, I still can't defeat the AI when going head-to-head against them. Does anyone else know how to do this effectively?

Amazing. And I always thought it was fun to play as a robber baron. This takes that concept to the next level! One of these days I need to learn how you merge these companies with such ease -- this is something I've never done. But I certainly see what you mean -- after discovering the 'fountain of cash,' it's hard to go back to "run an honest railroad." I'm sure it's not just my own playing style, but once I have the amount of cash I need, I never again run my own trains. I build track, and let other companies fund the trains. :) I guess that's what I like about this game; there's something in it for everyone: If you want to run trains, you can do that. If you want to play the stock market, you can do that. If you want to manipulate companies and the markets, you can do that. If you want to out-and-out steal, leaving bondholders and other investors holding the bag while you leave with all the cash, you can do that. So much 'therapy' for all of us that don't do anything remotely connected to any of this in our day jobs!