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Outlawing unconnected track would get rid of the skip-cells cheat.

Well, JSS, as you said earlier, the actual formulae used are probably so fuzzy that it would have been almost useless to include them in the manual. My guess would be that the fuzzyness would serve the purpose of preventing that a player can exactly predict what the stock price will be. After all, there is always a moment of speculation (in the double meaning) involved in stock deals. The price reduction at the end of the year baffled me, and I could not come up with a better explanation than that it "just happens," which is of course not an explanation. It makes a lot of sense that it would average out past performance. I took my original data, month-by-month, and indeed, the average bv/s over the past twelve months comes close to the price at the beginning of the new year. Of course, all else remaining constant, the price is still higher, the higher the dividend, even though a higher dividend means a lower book value, hence a lower bv/s. The difference between the price derived at as the average of bv/s in the past x months, and the actual price, would be a function of the dividend paid (and of a bunch of other factors, to be sure - the point of my test was mostly to prove that dividend drives up the price, which some people had doubted). I hope people will start running more tests on all these things you brought up. I might do some more when I get around to it. Its busy here, the semester has just begun.

I did some research on the relation btw dividend payment and stock price, which I posted here: http://www.railroadtycoon.info/forum/viewtopic.php?t=136 It might be interesting to try the same type of experiment to isolate the influence of trading, economic status, and cash flow.

Have you tried increasing your general screen resolution settings? I think you need to run at least 1024x768 to be able to do windowed mode. Maybe other general display setting could play a role, too?

I use the plateau tool, too. You can see the height on the info bar at the bottom of the screen, while you use that tool. That is extremely helpful in making sure that rivers run evenly from a greater to a lesser height. For junctions, I managed with the help of this site: http://www.exdx.net/RT3/index.html (click on "Surveyor") I also found that a junction looks better at the point where the river flows into the sea, than a normal river cell.

Yep, you can build wpns and ammo plants. They are actually quite helpful for providing demand sinks for steel, too, so that you never run out of places to haul it to. I have found it challenging to get the wpns and ammo plants to crank up production, but the key seems to be frequent auto-consist service from the city where they're at, to a city that has a barrack. It seems that factories (like raw material sources) produce most, when demand is high, locally. Have you found out what fouled up the connection event?

Other than a freak bug, here's what I could imagine as a reason: Some of the cars on your custom trains may have been less than 100% full. If you have a weapons train with two custom cars set to wait for a full load, it can take off with one car at 100%, and the second one at something like 10% or even less - even if it is set to wait for 2 full cars. Two trains of that sort would make for a total of 2.2 full loads, and fractions are always ignored. So even 2.9 would still mean 2 loads, as far as the game knows. Hence, if you want a train with two full loads of weapons, have it wait for three, instead. This doesn't explain the load count of 1 load, though. Could it have been station placement? You could shift-E to check they're all where they're supposed to be, though again, the hidden territories are fairly large. I agree that steel and lumber are the key, and to keep them rolling even after initiating production, so that you can always max out your annual track allotment, can be challenging. Iron is the weakest link, since it tends to disappear. Even now, replaying the map, I sometimes come short on those goods. I wish I had known when I made the map that you can make industries appear by events - I would have placed a few extra iron ore mines, to be sure.

I'm glad to hear you haven't given up on this one, and that you have been doing better! That other thing is weird. What did the status page say about the number of loads you had delivered? And did it say that the cities were connected?

I absolutely agree, Gwizz - feeder RRs, whether urban systems or NGs, were on my personal wishlist. It looks like Chris Sawyers new RR game will have streetcars. I am considering looking at that, since I liked the predecessor, transport tycoon, - you had different rail systems in that one.

Hard-coded events will still be in German. I'd just buy the English version - it doesn't cost all that much, these days

Maybe you could actually try to exchange it at the store? Some events are hard-coded, and these will always be in the local language. This would include the two events that announce passenger traffic reduction, one in 1921, one in 1957. It also may include the events that announce new station buildings, and definitely includes the ones that announce the availablity of steel and suspension bridges.

You're right that there are quarterly payouts, but I think I think I observed that they are at the beginning of the months you mention.

Hi Gwizz! I never pre-placed barracks in the beach towns, so that can't be it. But I did notice in another map I am making, that events that place industry on the map (and that is the type of event triggered by building in a beach town on this map) sometimes cause a stop error or at least ctd. That seems to be one of the many bugs, but fortunately, this one often fails to happen, i.e., more often than not, this type of event works alright.

I'm sorry to hear that the game crashed, but the instability of RT3 isn't something for which I feel strongly responsible. Since, in a normal game, one wouldn't start with a line btw two beach towns, I am not too concerned about this crash, though. It works as intended if you play it regularly (i.e., not with a view to testing a particular event).

Belbincolne, as soon as a station is placed in one of the boxes, barracks will appear nearby, given that the station is connected to Philly or Baltimore. The piece of track immediately in front of the station has to be placed within the box (This is the same piece of track that you can only buldoze, if you buldoze the station building, first). The station building, itself, does not have to be in the box. If barracks don't appear, that means that your station is not in the right location. I probably should have made the boxes larger. It is possible to connect all four beach towns with a straight rail line, even if it may be tricky. And, no, there's nothing wrong with the way the events are written.