General Discussion of RT2

[Marsden]

Hello, I'm new here but have been playing RT2 for a long time.  I never upgraded to RT3.  I'd like to discuss anything about the game you are interested in.

For example, Does anybody else find the big steam locomotive (DB something) available in 1998 to be worthless?  It costs too much to run and maintain to make a profit, or am I just using it poorly. ???  The AI sure love them. 

And this leads me to something else that happened just recently, I bought up the stock to an AI company without actually running a company of my own, then I assumed the chairmanship to run it and even though the AI had 4 of those huge steamers running back and forth on a short railway they had NO water towers and NO roundhouses!  Although they did have a sanding tower at EVERY station!  How did they keep their trains watered and oiled?

Thanks, look forward to hearing from you.

[loco_motive]

There are many engines that are uneconomical to run, depending on the difficulty of the scenario, the difficulty setting you are using and how they are used.

Difficulty setting is a 2-way street, moving your and the AI cost, etc modifiers in opposite directions (and generally in much larger amounts than indicated) and the AI loves engines that could bankrupt you.

IIRC, in RT2 the AI didn't buy any servicing stations and may not have bought station improvements either. The purchase of some of these things was introduced in TSC to make things more reasonable, although the AI still gets frequent automatic sand, water and oil service.

Evenso, these items do produce exploits that some players might use from time to time.

[Marsden]

Another thing I've found is that if you lay your track on cell at a time it works out to be a little cheaper, but you don't get the auto terraforming like you do when you strech it out.

[Gwizz]

I tend to think most players don't take the time to lay track one cell at a time.

With my style of play I don't worry much about a win as I often play just for fun.  I have used the single cell placement and single cell electric over non-electric track which is free.  I place crossings over the corners of a cell to let trains run through each other as if the track was an over/underpass.  I like to stitch track to reduce grades.  This take a lot of dollars, so at times I use the cheat codes. If I run short of money I use the code: Slush fund, to gain extra money for stitching.  I may change a map 4 or 5 times in the editor to get a different play action.  I change locomotives, managers, AI companies, even changing events.

I've been thinking about making a very small very mountainous map for the Shay locomotive.  Maybe logging or mining or both as a focus. running to one port.  I seldom publish this type of map as it is hard to achieve meaningful events for such a small map. 

We are lucky to still have players like Loco_motive who has a better memory than I and has a knack for figuring out the inner workings of the game. He is able to stay focused and on top of the requirements for orchestrating a perfect game.   

Not too many players still play RRT2.  I found playing RRT3 less fun. Losing Drop shipping was a biggy for me.  Even though I made a lot of RRT3 maps which was fun, I never stopped playing RRT2.

With the changes coming to RRT3 and if my memory holds up, I may start playing more RRT3.

[Hawk]

The drop shipping issue should be fixed in the next 'Un-Official' patch. I anticipate it's release in a couple of weeks or so. Keep an eye out for it.

You can follow some of the progress at my forums.

[MagnusA]

It won't be long until RRT3 is as good as RRT2? :-)

[Hawk]

If the patch makers can get the programming to work like they want it too, you're right.  ;D

[Marsden]

Is that a user created patch?  I didn't think a video game company would bother to patch anything that's been out a while.

I never make my own maps, the amount in the game (Platnum) are enough for me, I rather play it as is.  I tried the sandbox mode once and I liked it but I felt like I didn't have anything to do.

[Hawk]

Yes, it is a user created patch.  ;D

[loco_motive]

the amount in the game (Platnum) are enough for me, I rather play it as is.

But if you do run out of things to do, don't forget that there are 460 RRT2 maps in the map download section, including some of the best ever produced and not given over to Plat. Also there are several attached to individual threads in the maps section of this forum.

Not to mention Hawk's collection from H&P, and other sources. which probably contains a few maps not on this site.

[RTPlayer]

I enjoy playing both RT3 and RT2; both have their idiosyncrasies and challenges.  When I want to use the 3-truck Shay, I often play on "Making the Grade."  This is one of the most fun maps for me to play, although I think my favorite probably still is "Interior British Columbia."  There are still many high-grade maps I haven't played on in Platinum, although I've been playing for several years, because even though I have been playing for years I still haven't had the chance to play all the maps.  Regardless of this, I did download the Alaska map that was saved over with the Tanagore Island map by one of the guys at PopTop.

[Marsden]

But if you do run out of things to do, don't forget that there are 460 RRT2 maps in the map download section, including some of the best ever produced and not given over to Plat. Also there are several attached to individual threads in the maps section of this forum.

Not to mention Hawk's collection from H&P, and other sources. which probably contains a few maps not on this site.

Wow. Thank you I will check them out.  As I said I don't make my own, but I'd be happy to try some of those maps.

[RTPlayer]

I've never played seemingly half the maps in Platinum, but I did download the Alaska map and found it to be one of the most interesting maps to play.  I never go for the scenario goals-the challenge of keeping my player and company from going bankrupt is challenging enough for me.  It takes some really outside-the-box strategies to achieve my personal goal of staying financially solvent, anyway.

[Marsden]

Here's another one I've found.  In the first map of the second century campaign you need to ship 12 cars of troops to Fairbanks, AK.  It doesn't matter where the troops come from apparently because I set a train to pick up the 1 car of troops Fairbanks generates, sent it to a waypoint outside of town and then let it return to town unloading the troops and getting credit for a cars worth being delivered.  Through this method you really don't need to worry about how nice the track to Vancouver is, just hook it up.  Also, if there is a barracks at White Horse you can deliver them as well for the credit.  On last thing, the very first year of the map is the last year of availablility of the Camelback and I suggest stockpiling a few as they are excellent on grades and cheap to run.

[loco_motive]

lol that's true Marsden, the load count function is very exploitable. Of course what they probably wanted was for all the troops to come from the Vancouver/Seattle area but although we have developed some interesting workarounds for a specific cargo from a specific place to a specific place, there is no function for it in the editor. Those 2 things were way beyond the interests of the developers.

However the scenario is easy enough that if you play it again I challenge you to make enough deliveries from Van/Sea to meet the requirements.

[MagnusA]

I played with this Alaska scenario a couple of days ago. At first I thought that the troops should only come from Seattle/Vancouver (production only one (1) troop car a year!), becaouse of the connection goal, but when reading the strategy guide that came with Platinum it became clear to me that this was not the purpose.

"Start collecting Troops as soon as possible. You can depot them at any convenient station for future delivery to Fairbanks. Additionally, these are also a good source of income if you can find a suitable collection of Barracks to service, look in cities like Fort George, White Horse and Prince George."

I think the developers meant to collect the troops from everywhere to Fairbanks (although probably not from Fairbanks itself, of course...)  Do not only serve the barracks at these places, haul troops away from them as well. :-)

Regards

/Magnus

[loco_motive]

On doing some further recollection, I agree, there's no particular indication that troops should come from a specific place . Even the first time I played this probably back in 2000, I recall building 2 stations in Fairbanks and hauling from one to the other, being unaware then about just running them to a waypoint and back over and over and getting multiple counts for the same troops. I also got troops from the prairies in that game. My memory was confusing the remarks of one player of Alaska renoun who declared it cheating if the troops didn't come from Seattle and surrounding area. Actually on my first play I was also unaware of the graded slopes to the north of Vancouver and chose an easterly route following the river out of there but don't think I went  all the way to Fairbanks from there. Think I built east out of Spokane to the prairies layout to connect to Fairbanks.

In a more recent play of the scenario I recall having troops to burn in the Seattle area and shipping the required number to Fairbanks.

[MagnusA]

I think it it easy to gett somewhat fooled by the connection goal.  In this case, you have some tracks at Seattle, one goal to connect Seattle to Fairbanks and another goal to haul x loads of a certain type to the other end of the required connection. Then the human mind automatically thinks that every load should be hauled along the entire way. :-)

Lesson learned: Read the goals carefully, they might not be as closely related as you think. You might even want to check in the event editor for the exact requirement.  ;D

regards

/Magnus

[Marsden]

I think it it easy to gett somewhat fooled by the connection goal.  In this case, you have some tracks at Seattle, one goal to connect Seattle to Fairbanks and another goal to haul x loads of a certain type to the other end of the required connection. Then the human mind automatically thinks that every load should be hauled along the entire way. :-)

Lesson learned: Read the goals carefully, they might not be as closely related as you think. You might even want to check in the event editor for the exact requirement.  ;D

regards

/Magnus

It's not just the human mind in this case, although that is a good point, but historically the US did fear invasion of Alaska by Japan and moving the same car of troops back and forth probably wouldn't add to security like actually bringing additional troops from the contiguous states to reinforce Alaska.  But, I'm reading too much into it, probably.

[loco_motive]

You might even want to check in the event editor for the exact requirement.

Checking in the editor should be done with care because you could inadvertently discover something about the scenario that the author didn't want you to know, or even that you didn't want to discover, about that or other events, especially on first play. This is especially true for player-made scenarios. For example, suppose the author had specified troops from Seattle to Fairbanks. This cannot be tested for and upon checking the editor, you might discover that troops to Fairbanks was sufficient, or troops from Seattle was sufficient, or anything from Seattle to Fairbanks was sufficient. There is at least one good author that may put several of these uncheckable requirements in a scenario, where he alters the actual test to make the actual requirement unpredictable. Believe me, he steams at the thought of anyone looking at his events in the editor, whick he clearly considers cheating.

(By the way, we have at least 2 scenarios requiring a specific cargo from A to B where the authors require the fulfulment of all 3 of the above-stated requirements. In this case it is usually just as easy as not to comply, even after discovering this in the editor)

On the other hand, I found when I started playing that far too many player-made scenarios had incorrect gold and/or other critical events, so not wanting to find this out late in the play, I started to make it a habit of carefully checking for certain things in the editor before getting too far into a new scenario. Also, when I see a scenario that contains untestable requirements I am immediately cautious about whether they know what they are doing.

At least a couple of the campaign scenarios have gold requirements that do not match the gold triggers.

[MagnusA]

I haven't played that many maps yet, I am still at the beginning of my first serious attempt of the first RT2 campaign (there you have my play level.  8) , Probably I am reading too much info and playing/practicing too little). I find the status page in the ledger each year is very handy so I usually go into the editor and add status messages for the medal requirements, and try to get them as close as possible to the medal triggers.

Also when I try to understand the various messages and choices I find it nice to have the ability to check in the editor what the author really meant. For example in the Silver Booms map (a PNW map) the City of Denver gives me a reward if they get connected by my company. Checking the editor revealed that Denver is asking for a connection to Kansas City, not just a connection to my network. :-)

But of course, "checking the source code" must be done with care. Personally I try not to check for "look into the crystal ball" (that's cheating), but to check for understanding. And bug-fixing when someting seems wrong.

Regards

/Magnus

[Marsden]

How would one get the gold for the India map, "Crumpets or Crossaints".  You need to be the only surviving railroad, but I can't figure out how to beat either of them, especially the Indian national, the chairman starts with 40% holdings!

Also, does any one notice the huge difference in the Alps between Brenner pass and When Walls Come Down?  I just noticed last time I played this, I usually built through Slovenia to avoid the Alps to get to Venice, but if you just go south of Munich through Austria and follow the "path" through the mountains, you wont have a grade in the red!  I still didn't use it actually, as I just wanted the connection to get the gold.

[loco_motive]

Well, its been 2 weeks so its probably too late to post about this, so all I'll say is that of course you have to get 51% of Indian National asap.

If you still need help on this or another specific scenario don't be hesitant about starting a new thread for each one, althought you and MagnusA appear to be the only campaign players right now.

[Marsden]

;D It's not too late, I think I've played both campaigns through about 5 or 6 times each, although not in a row.  I can't explain it, but there's something about the campaigns I enjoy more than the stand alones even though the campaign is really just a series of stand alones really.  No amount of failure or success actually affects the next map, that's why I say they're stand alones.  Now, if you needed to meet your goals by a certain date and then went to the next scenario with only the amount of your severance bonus from the last scenario, that would be a campaign.

[barney]

I place crossings over the corners of a cell to let trains run through each other as if the track was an over/underpass. 

HOW do I make overpasses? It seems that sometimes when I lay track I get overpasses, but sometimes I don't. HOW? HOW?? HOW???

Anyone?