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User Manual - Comcast High

1. vi ng i med LI i riv 1 Wei Ty LE ri i PLA belli al n 7 ipp Ini TRE ay i MA ed silk LL i all L 1 AA ee T UANI wry ee i d User M ay i N it limer fall I Firm Lar Grsr as H Strategy First CONTENTS Foreword Introduction Getting Started Minimum System Configuration Installing Rails Across America Uninstalling Rails Across America Your First Game The Startup Screen Main Menu Single Player Area The New Game Screen Single Player Game Settings The Scenarios Screen The Resume Game Screen Multiplayer The New Game Screen Multiplayer Game Settings Chat Area Playing the Game The Main Screen Zooming Territory View Regional View Track View Train View The Switchboard The Tickertape Bar Goals Details Tooltips Building Your Network Laying Tracks Limits on Laying Track Deciding the Path of Your Track Changing Conditions After You Purchase Your Track The Track Details Screen New Track Adding Engines Using Default Engines Track Under Construction The Track Details Screen Existing Track Managers Congestion and Track Improvements Selling Engines Upgrading Engines Engine Expiration Map Money Widget The Track List Screen Cities Resources Traffic Flow Access Slots The City List Screen Finances Loans Paying Off a Loan Refinancing a Loan Line of Credit Current Report Annual Report Special Dividends B
2. The various speeds are Speed Year Minute Very Slow 0 5 Slow 1 Normal 2 Fast 4 Very Fast 6 e Options You can set the following options e Show Headlines If you turn this off you will not see the newspaper popups that tell you about scandals and such but you will still see the ticker messages Shortline Offers When you make an offer on a shortline you get a popup acknowl edging your offer If you turn this option off you do not get the popup but you will see the status of your offer in the Switchboard when you select the shortline and you will still see the popup notification when they accept or reject your offer e Messages You can turn off the following messages e Flavor Historical tidbits that do not affect gameplay e Shortline Tells you when there are any changes to shortlines built sold purchased collapsed etc e Competitor Tells you what your competitors are up to such as when they build to a major new city when they connect to another railroad initiate stock raids against one another influence actions etc No matter what the setting here bankruptcy and scandals are always reported e Economy Major Tells you when the economy changes in a major way depression recession boom etc e Economy Minor Tells you when the economy goes through minor changes inter est rate changes etc e Map Action Tells you when players increase or decrease access at a city or
3. THE City List SCREEN List screen The City List Screen displays the following information Your Revenue Shows your total revenue for each city e Competitors Revenue Shows your combined competitors total revenue for each city e Cars Picked Up Indicates the number of cars that you have picked up from each city over the last month e Late Traffic Indicates the number of carloads that arrived at their destination city late Traffic has to reach its destination before it expires otherwise you don t col lect as much money You can see the expiration time in City Details e Current Rate There are three possible states for this Monopoly Normal and War Monopoly is 150 of the normal rate Normal is 100 and War is only 70 See Politics for more information on rates e Access Rights Indicates the number of access slots for each city Access rights determine how many different companies can build routes from the city Access Rights are determined by the size of the city e Small City Two railroads e Medium City Three railroads 35 36 e Large City Four railroads You can use the radio buttons at the top of the screen to filter the cities displayed Choose from cities that you connect to cities that you do not connect to and all cities FINANCES Click the Financial button in the switchboard to access your Financial Screens From here you can get loans check on your status and that
4. e You may not make offers on shortlines while in bankruptcy e Bankruptcy has a major impact on your railroad s credit rating although this effect fades with time You can however improve existing tracks You may also sell track and buy and sell trains The good news is that while you re in bankruptcy you get a number of government mandated advantages to help you get back on your feet Not only are your debts forgiven but your expenses are significantly lower 10 of normal maintenance costs A bankrupt railroad is identified with a black line through its logo ExITING BANKRUPTCY A railroad may exit bankruptcy voluntarily if a year has passed and the railroad has positive income Of course that positive income may exist only because of the reduced maintenance charges which means that a railroad may exit bankruptcy while it is making money and then immediately start losing money when it has to pay full maintenance charges You ll also exit bankruptcy automatically after three years of consistent profitability and a positive balance FATAL BANKRUPTCY If you have turned on this option in the New Game settings bankruptcy will remove the player from the game Some of their tracks will be turned into shortlines others will be removed entirely AUCTIONS If you need money one of the most lucrative ways to raise it is to sell your track Find a piece of track that isn t vital to your strategic interests isn t making you a
5. but because there is a switching cost between two different railroads the shippers try to use as few railroads as possible Competing to provide the most efficient route is a big part of the game Here are the various route features that help determine how traffic will flow e Direct track The more direct your track the quicker your trains can get the traffic to its destination Example If your competitor has built track between New York Hartford and Boston you might be able to take away the New York Boston traffic by building a direct line between New York and Boston Traffic along your route would usually arrive sooner than traffic moving through Hartford because there is a switching time associated with the transfer at each city Engine Quality The faster your engines the sooner the traffic reaches its destina tion Continuing from the previous example if you are running American engines which run at 35 mph for passenger traffic and your opponent is running Prairie 33 34 engines which run at 45 mph passenger traffic from New York may still move through Hartford because the faster engines compensate for the indirect track and still get the passengers there quicker Passenger traffic is especially sensitive to travel time e Congestion If you have a heavily trafficked route you may have congestion prob lems that slow down traffic and may result in a backlog Until you fix those prob lems you may lose traffic to
6. mation about setting up a Multiplayer game e Encyclopedia Opens the Encyclopedia The Encyclopedia tells you all about the engines used in the game and when they were in service GameSpy Closes Rails and launches GameSpy GameSpy is a free matchmaking service on the Internet that will help you find your friends and start a game of Rails with them GameSpy is the easiest way to start a multiplayer game across the Internet About Opens the credits screen where you can learn who did what on Rails Quit Quits the game back to your Windows desktop SINGLE PLAYER AREA This area has the following elements Player Name Shows the name by which you will be known in the game Click in the box to edit your name Regular Game Opens the New Game screen where you can configure and play the standard game Scenarios Opens up the Scenarios screen where you can select a game already con figured based on an historical situation You can also choose to focus on a particu lar aspect of Rails Resume Game Opens up the Resume screen where you can continue a saved game THE New GAME SCREEN SINGLE PLAYER This is where you configure the game that you are about to play SINGLE PLATER LET bl SCENARIOS Hie tk Ga Mk Player List This area contains all the slots that can be filled with players along with all the settings that can be made on a per player basis Each slot has the following elements Player Dropdown This d
7. 1 2 3 4 5 or more Dividend 5 1 2 3 4 4 10 2 3 4 5 20 3 4 6 8 10 The table is straightforward if you maintain a specific dividend However if you change your dividend rate you will receive additional prestige points To find out how much you would make take your current prestige bonus and find the closest value rounding up to it at the higher dividend rate 4l 42 For example if you have been paying 5 dividends for the last 4 years you are now reap ing 4 points of prestige every year If you raise your dividends to 10 you would look in the 10 row for the closest number that matches 4 rounded up That number is 6 so you would now be getting 6 prestige points a year instead of 4 Plus after the next year you would go to 8 points of prestige If you decrease your rate you must start over again to reflect public disappointment For example you have been paying 20 dividends for the last four years You are now making 10 points of prestige a year If you drop your dividends down to 10 you will only get 2 points the next time you pay dividends BANKRUPTCY If you meet one of the following two conditions you can click the Enter Bankruptcy button to enter voluntary bankruptcy e Liabilities exceed 80 of assets and your railroad has below zero cash or the rail road s annual losses are such that cash will be eroded within two years e Liabilities exceed 120 of assets When you go into voluntary
8. Martin S Brown Flying Hands Music Portions of this Software Copyright 2001 Astonish Inc This game uses Miles Sound System Copyright 1991 2001 by RAD Game Tools Inc Control Panel background Copyright 2001 Jon Roma All other photos Copyright 2000 2001 Steven J Brown www photosbystevenjbrown com Certificate images from Goes Lithographing Company Box art Copyright Huntington Library Superstock Railroad fonts by Benn Coifmann used under license www railfonts com This software is based in part on the work of the Independent JPEG Group For updates and hints visit www railsacrossamerica com or www strategyfirst com 63 64 TECHNICAL SUPPORT TROUBLESHOOTING Before installing the game make sure that you do the following Make sure all other applications are closed Verify that your system meets the minimum requirements of the game Keep all documentation that came with the game If you are having troubles starting the game you should do the following e Get the latest drivers for your sound and video card Reinstall directx8 0 Install any patches available for the game if any Make sure you remove any unnecessary icons on your taskbar the area where the time is displayed since unneeded items reduce system performance Refer to the README file available with the game CUSTOMER SUPPORT For further assistance you can reach Strategy First Customer Support staff by Phone 514 844 2433 Mon to F
9. describes what the button does 22 Press the Alt key The tooltip now describes why you would Lay Track You can lay track from a city that has track connected to it as long as the track is currently under construction Since your track from New York to Hartford is cur rently being built you can lay a track from Hartford to Boston right now 23 Click on Hartford 24 Click Lay Track 25 Click on Boston 26 Click Purchase Now you have two tracks under construction and a third that will start building as soon as your track to Hartford is completed After a little while your track from New York to Philadelphia will be completed and the trains will start running Let s check to make sure that we have enough engines assigned to it 27 Click on the New York to Philadelphia track after it begins running trains Above each engine are utilization lights They tell you if you have enough engines assigned to carry the traffic Right now the light on the left side is red for both your freight and your passenger traffic We need to add more engines 28 Click on the center light for your Freight engines the top train card It immediately lights up and you ll notice that the number of engines assigned has gone up You now have enough engines to carry the traffic 29 Click on the center light for your Passenger engines the bottom card It doesn t light up but a light to the left of it does That s because there s too much con
10. in the public eye when you have completed it The Gulf to Canada requires you to have a route connecting a port city in the South to a Canadian city 39 Build tracks to the following cities Hartford to Albany Albany to Montreal Philadelphia to Washington DC Washington DC to Raleigh Raleigh to Columbia Columbia to Augusta Augusta to Montgomery and Montgomery to Mobile Once you have completed these tracks an announcement of your completion of the Gulf to Canada pops up listing the number of prestige points you have earned for com pleting this project Don t build your tracks more than two at a time or you may run out of cash and require further loans Keep in mind that you can t have more than five tracks under construction at any time While you were building your track your opponent wasn t idle If you scroll the map over to the west coast you will see his tracks Influence lets you directly interfere with your oppo nent s plans Let s try it 40 Click the Politics button From the Politics screen you can define your allies and 41 enemies You can also use Influence against them Click the Influence button next to your opponent s name You are now in the Influence screen While playing the game you may have noticed cards appearing in the top left of your screen and then going away These are Influence cards They represent special groups that you can control and use against your competitors The button
11. is a chat message from another player clicking on the button will reply to that message GoaLs Click this button to view the goals for the current game including e Any specific instructions for the scenario e Any specific settings used for this game such as difficulty level e A detailed list of the Prestige awards in the current game 20 DETAILS You can get more information on cities or tracks simply by double clicking them Double clicking one of YOUR tracks will open up the Track Details screen for that track and double clicking ANY city will open the City Details screen for that city These screens are covered in more detail below TOOLTIPS Bal To F oh Tadd Cenny ur ren Taice Derk ICEEH SHEE FOU CAH BIE mr Ae Teed RT Ts CU BiT TAKLE Perus Ermes TU amp CT YaTt Pees ALT GE ber Banc eT Tooltips are revealed by positioning your mouse over most buttons controls a map object such as a city and other areas of interest That area can be a control button list box a graphic player logo text bankruptcy description or a map object tracks and cities Position your mouse over the item until a blue box appears containing information about the item The first tooltip that pops up explains the function of the selected object Press the Alt key to view a more detailed tooltip that explains why you would use that object BUILDING Your NETWORK You can only build track from a city that you re already c
12. low on cash playing a Strike and a Financial Panic may cause them to go under which is also an excel lent way of interfering with their construction HOT KEYS NYWHERE i or New Message only available in multiplayer When New Message is up ENTER sends the message WHILE CHATTING While composing a message Send the message ET While composing a message Toggle the All None recipients button fl ims Map View fi EE Scrolls the map in the direction UNE A of the arrow E Pause Unpause fil Selects Headquarters E H or HE Speed up slow down time EI Find Shortline Find Next Shortline 57 EI Zoom in Out Select next owned track previous CNN period comma owned track I Select tracks under construction EI Select next city that you connect ICN apostrophe semi colon to previous city E Details on selected object ca Deselect current object Saves the current map position Centers the map on the saved map position if one was saved previously Follow the nearest train owned by the player again will follow any train when the original target train disappears into a city JE P Move down up through the current IN EN ticker items WITH SHORT LINE SELECTED ZS Make offer to the short line L Apply Influence WITH CITY SELECTED L Apply Influence E Initiat
13. the total number of engines that you own e All Sets the number of engines to all the engines that you own including those assigned to tracks and those in the Pool If you sell All engines you should check to see if you need to add new engines to the tracks from which engines were sold e Extra Sets the number of engines to all the engines currently in the Pool Selling engines always sells out of the Pool first e Sell Price How much you will earn from each engine that you sell Total The current total of your sale UPGRADING ENGINES It is a good idea to upgrade your engines from time to time with the intention of keeping the cost per car load as low as possible You can upgrade either the engines in a slot on a track or all the engines of that type in operation If you want to upgrade only the engines in a specific slot press the Upgrade button the up arrow on the card in that slot If you want to upgrade all engines of this type click the Upgrade button on the card in the Train Pool The Upgrade box shows the old engine on the left and Wrs Ince Au Tracer the new engine on the right The two arrows on the new engine allow you to scroll through all available engines The best replacement engine is selected by default although you can specify any upgrade The light at the bottom of the new engine card lights up to indicate the quality of your new engine A green light indicates a good replacement while a red light indi ca
14. to settle the loan The interest rate is determined by the national economy and your current credit rating In addition to determining the range of interest rates for loans the national economy will dramatically affect traffic When the economy goes down traffic slows but the Prime Rate goes down as well giving you access to cheap loans At the top of the Financial screens you ll see the current Prime Rate for the country The loan amounts that are offered to you are determined in part by your credit rating This rating is based on your current financial situation and some historical data such as refi nancing loans Credit ratings range from AAA perfect credit to X bankruptcy You can hover over to display a tooltip indicating all of the modifiers that are currently affecting your credit rating Failure to pay your loan is termed a default If possible your financial department will refinance the loan usually at a higher rate If you can t refinance the loan you will be forced into Bankruptcy Displayed at the bottom of the Loans screen is the total of your current loans and the inter est payments you make each month PAYING OFF A LOAN There are two ways in which you are informed that a loan is coming due e On the Loan page the loan is listed with its date of payoff e On the Report page a line in the middle indicates when each player must pay back his next loan To pay off a loan early click the Pay button next
15. to the loan You can only pay off loans that are within a year of coming due or are over five years old By paying off the loan you can avoid paying future interest REFINANCING A LOAN To refinance a loan click the Refinance button next to the loan You usually have the option to Refinance loans whenever you have the option of paying them off When you refinance a loan you can refinance it for less than the original loan You immediately pay the difference and the duration of the new loan is the original loan s duration plus five years The interest rate is again determined by the economy and your credit rating Finally there is a charge of 2 of the new loan balance that you must pay immediately 37 38 LINE OF CREDIT You may go into debt up to 200 000 with your current cash without getting a loan Interest is charged on this negative balance at 2 points above your 5 year loan rate Beyond this work must stop and purchases cannot be made CURRENT REPORT This screen shows you key metrics to compare your current position against your competi tors One of the most interesting items to note is the Next Loan Due In number If you see that one of your competitors has a loan coming due and doesn t have the money to pay it off you may want to use your Influence see below to cause a Financial Panic removing his ability to get a loan or refinancing which will hopefully push him into bankruptcy The Current Report contains the foll
16. Los Angeles then buying a shortline near Los Angeles would let you start building from Los Angeles back to Chicago Building from both ends can cut your time in half Shortlines are also useful in getting into a city that has no free access slots If you buy a shortline that connects to a city you get its access slot NOTE You cannot buy a shortline that duplicates a track that you own i e connects the same two cities as another track you already own When you offer to buy a shortline see Acquiring a Shortline you can change the amount of money you re offering which directly affects the percentage chance that the shortline will sell You can also bribe the board of directors of the shortline to increase your odds at some risk of a scandal If you re in the same region as the shortline you can also threaten to compete with them directly which will sometimes frighten them into selling If they refuse to sell you can offer to purchase them again but you will be unable to threaten them again In addition you have to make a better offer than you did the last time which means it may be prohibitively expensive to purchase the shortline It takes three months for the shortline to consider and respond to your offer However if another player makes an offer on the shortline within two months this time is reset to two months Once the shortline has made its decision all the players who bid on it will be noti fied The result will
17. ack Details screen If you attempt to purchase engines that are expiring you will receive a message indicating that the engine is no longer available If you still own expired engines by the specified expi ration date you will receive a message indicating that those engines have been scrapped You receive a small salvage sum for any expired engines Map Money WIDGET The Map Money widget can be found in the upper left corner on most game screens H NENE 1 SANDAL KC 3 05 min 2 Cumt Cas 4 Gate Mar 1 Shows a light that indicates the likelihood that your usage of influence will result in a public scandal which will cost you prestige The light is either green low risk yellow medium risk or red high risk 2 Shows your current cash 3 Shows the current date 4 Allows you to center the map on either the city or track that you re currently viewing in the City or Track Details screens Pressing the List button takes you to the Track List screen where you can see a summary of all your tracks THE TRACK List SCREEN The easiest way to manage all of your tracks is to open the Track List screen To do this press the Track List button in the Switchboard The Track List screen shows you a list of all your tracks and lets you add remove engines directly from this screen Each track has the following information Track The name of the track e Congestion How efficiently your trains run without overcrowd
18. age an opponent s track you should sell your Government cards to make room for Dirty Tricks or Labor cards You can only see your own cards not the cards belonging to other players TAKING ACTION You can use your cards to perform an Influence action against a competitor a competitor s track a shortline or a city The Influence screen shows you the applicable actions on the left of the screen and the cards currently in your hand on the right To perform an Influence action click on the object shortline track or city that you want to Influence and then press the Influence button on the Switchboard To perform an action against a competitor go to the Politics screen and press the appropriate Influence button Any special rules and risks associated with a particular action are described at the bottom of the screen For example Sabotage will delay construction or traffic for several weeks Each action draws from two suits and requires some minimum point value to activate Just above the card area Need Selected and Available tell you whether or not you have enough cards selected to perform the action To continue the example Sabotage draws from the Dirty Tricks and Labor suits and requires 5 points worth of cards to play When you click the action button all the cards that can be used are automatically selected If you would rather attack with fewer cards click on some cards to de select them If you don t ha
19. ankruptcy Exiting Bankruptcy Fatal Bankruptcy Auctions Influence Taking Action Paying Graft Scandal Risk Influence General Strategies Politics The Politics Screen Shortlines Acquiring a Shortline Game Controls Screen The Save Game Screen Winning the Game The End of Game Summary Screen Strategy Hot Keys Anywhere 26 D 27 29 29 30 30 31 32 33 33 34 35 36 36 37 37 38 38 38 41 41 42 43 43 43 46 46 48 48 48 49 49 50 51 92 54 54 53 59 Sih 57 While Chatting Map View With short line selected With city selected With other player s track selected With your track selected Screens Lay Track Track List City List Track Details Financial Screen Without a loan under consideration With Annual reports selected Control Screen Credits Technical Support Troubleshooting Customer Support 57 57 58 59 59 59 60 60 60 61 61 61 61 62 62 62 64 64 64 FOREWORD When we started working on Rails Across America we wanted to build a great multi player strategy game We bought everything that we could get our hands on and we played a lot of combat style tactical RTS games But with the more strategic or economic games we just didn t have time The games were so long that it would take a day just to get comfortably into the game let alone finish one All of us had jobs or family and taking that much time to play a game just wasn t in the cards So we set out to c
20. ankruptcy is Fatal Turning this option on results in any bankrupt player being put out of the game If this option is off the player can exit bankruptcy and possibly go on to win the game e Strict National Borders In order to protect domestic competition foreign railroad companies are not allowed to build from a domestic city to another domestic city although they can connect from a foreign city to a domestic city The only way that you can break into a foreign country is to buy a track that is within the foreign bor ders Turn this option On to protect against competition or Off to allow free access into a foreign country THE SCENARIOS SCREEN You can choose to play pre designed historical and alternate history scenarios from the Scenarios List e Scenario List Click on a scenario to select it e Scenario Description Briefly explains the selected scenario e Play Scenario Selecting Play Scenario takes you to the New Game screen with the settings defined by the chosen scenario e Cancel Returns you to the Main Menu 13 14 THE RESUME GAME SCREEN The Resume screen is used to play a previously saved game It contains the following elements Saved Game List This box contains all of your saved games shown with the most recently saved game at the top of the list Rails automatically saves your game every five years of game time Only the most recent of these automatically saved games are listed Automatically save
21. apacity to match your traffic so the best utilization that you can get is 100 If you run more trains than needed then you are paying more than you should for maintenance If you are running fewer trains than needed then there is traffic that is backing up that may go to a competitor If traffic backs up too much it won t even be shipped and you won t make any money from it Aco Ermura Teuna TuainF Utilization is shown as a series of lights laid out as a horizontal scale 100 is located in the middle of the scale The following table Refer to the table on the ie Ap ft next page indicates the appearance of the lights as they titi ALP reflect Utilization a Gann Condition Light 0 The light is replaced with a box that says No Service 1 74 First light on left is red 75 89 Second light is yellow 90 99 Third light yellow 100 119 Fourth light green 120 149 Fifth light green 150 199 Sixth light green 200 299 Seventh light yellow 300 999 Eighth light yellow Greater than 1000 Ninth light red One quick shortcut for adding removing trains is to click on the specific Utilization light that you want to run your track at For example if the left most light on the Utilization light is glowing and you click on the center green light enough additional engines will be assigned and purchased if necessary to get the Utilization up to that g
22. bankruptcy your creditors will sell off some of your tracks in order to make back their loans They will continue selling tracks until they make back their money or until they have sold a maximum of three tracks All tracks under construction that are less than 20 complete are abandoned as a matter of course and do not contribute to the three track limit In addition the bank will abandon Right of Ways that have been purchased but have not had any construction on them You also lose some Prestige based upon how much money you had in debt Track is auctioned off in the following order and within a category it is auctioned newest segment first 1 Track under construction that was more than 20 complete 2 Isolated track segments That is track not connected to other sections of your track 3 Branch lines That is track connected to your network at one end only and a small city at the far end 4 Remaining tracks starting with the lowest car miles carried in the last complete year If you reach negative one million dollars you ll enter involuntary bankruptcy Instead of sell ing off your tracks you ll lose much more Prestige again commensurate with your debt Other negative effects of bankruptcy are e You cannot receive loans while in bankruptcy e A bankrupt railroad cannot pay dividends e A bankrupt railroad cannot gain any Prestige Points e A bankrupt railroad cannot build new track or buy track at auction
23. be one of the following e Success The player buys the shortline e Failure The shortline rejects the player s offer holding out for more money e Auction The shortline believes it can get a better offer and places itself up for auction If any players have attempted to bribe the shortline s managers to sell there is a chance that the attempt to bribe the board is exposed costing the player prestige However this doesn t cancel the sale If the shortline accepts the offer but the player does not have the bid amount ready the purchase will be cancelled and the shortline will not accept any further offers from the player for some time You can also use Influence to force the shortline into various actions if you can overcome their resistance You can put the shortline under your control which makes it more resistant to purchase by other players and also lets you bid on it even if it s just been completed you can force it into auction or you can force it to collapse which will cause it to abandon the track Putting a shortline under your control when it occupies the last access slot into a valu able city can be a good way of blocking players who want to get into the city ACQUIRING A SHORTLINE Click the Offer button As long you do not have a directly competing line between the same two cities the Shortline Offer window opens The Offer box contains the following 5 e Offer A dollar field set originally to t
24. chematically TRACK VIEW This view shows a close up of the countryside with the trains running along the track TRAIN VIEW This view shows the countryside in greatest detail and is the best view for watching trains or looking at the various animations You can select items on the map and see details about them on the right side of the screen in the Switchboard THE SWITCHBOARD This is the main interface for Rails It includes the following information re Date Displays the current date as Month Year e g August 1822 ue e Cash Indicates how much money you currently have e Committed Indicates how much money you have committed to spending on track under construction This is not taken out of your Cash reserve until it is actually spent so it is a reminder of future capital expenses hit min 1 SKILT Faia Erna Se Income Indicates your cash flow over the last month and can be tte nl mj PR 4 JE ere arr a either a positive or negative number a negative number is dis aie hiy tet played in red Your cash flow is calculated using the E 5 i following formula Revenue from Delivered Cargo Maintenance Cost of Trains and Tracks Interest Paid for Loans Your Income is not affected by capital purchases or expenditures that is track con struction improvements and train purchases are not counted against Income e Prestige Prestige is a numeric representation of how well kn
25. control is Off only the Host can change the speed of the game CHAT AREA Players can send messages back and forth to each other while they are waiting to start the game To send a message click in the box at the bottom of the screen and type your message Press Return or Enter to send the message Players can also chat during a multiplayer game Click on the Chat button near the bottom of almost any screen or press Tab to bring up the Chat dialog In the New Game screen all messages go to all players listed in the player list During the game you can send messages to everyone or select specific players Naturally you cannot exchange messages with AI players PLAVING THE GAME THE MAIN SCREEN a r g jm P p Apa Fork Fa byste Most of the action in Rails takes place on the Main Screen The largest element of this screen is a scrollable map It shows details such as lakes oceans cities and of course railroads ZOOMING DI Al There are two zoom controls one to zoom in and one to zoom out You can also press Z to zoom in and X to zoom out or you can use the mouse wheel to move in and out There are four levels of zoom TERRITORY VIEW This view shows the broadest map area and gives you a good overview of a larger railroad showing it as a schematic outline This is the widest zoom view 17 REGIONAL VIEW This view is zoomed in closer than the Territory view but the track is still shown s
26. d for both freight and pas sengers which is why its card is blue 15 Let s make these the default engines for future track Underneath each card is a shield and the text Use this engine Click the shield for both slots Now when you build new tracks these engines will be assigned by default 16 Click Close at the top of the screen You are now back at the map You should see your first track being built If you don t press the Z key to zoom in until you see it While you are waiting for the track to be built you will start another one under construction 17 Click on New York 18 Click Lay Track 19 Click on Hartford 20 Click Purchase Since you have already set default engines you don t need to go to Track Details to assign them so you just stay in the map You should see your track start to build If you don t understand what a control does simply position your mouse over the control This displays a tooltip that describes the control Most tooltips have both What and Why information The first popup explains What the control does if you press the Alt key you ll get another tooltip that tells you Why you would use the control The tooltips contain a great deal of information and should help you learn the game without having to go to the manual all the time Let s try it with Lay Track 21 Move your mouse pointer over the Lay Track button and leave it there until the tooltip appears This first tooltip
27. d games are called AutoSaved Game Game Name When you select a game from the game list the name appears here Delete Game button Deletes the selected saved game Mini Map When you select a game a map showing the tracks constructed by all companies is displayed Player Status This panel displays each player s logo name Company Prestige and Net Worth at the time the game was saved Load button Resumes the selected game so you can continue play Cancel button Closes the screen and returns you to the Main Menu area or to the game in progress MULTIPLAYER The Multiplayer area has the following elements Connection Type Choose the method you will use to connect to other players The options are Local LAN TCP IP and Internet the Connect to button to open the dialog box that allows you to connect to a computer on the Internet You will need to know the screen when you host a Multiplayer game TCP IP The default option is Local If you select Internet then click host s IPaddress Player can find your IP address on the New Game Connect To There are two main elements to this box Previous Hosts Lists the last eight hosts that you have connected to Enter Host Machine Name or IPAddress Type the machine name or the IP address that you wish to connect to and then click OK When you exit the Connect To screen any games currently in progress are displayed e Game List Lists the vario
28. e total number of these engines that you own So if the numbers are 35 90 then you have 35 engines cur rently unassigned to any track sitting in the Pool out of a total of 90 This means that you have 55 engines currently assigned to track In general it s not a good idea to leave a lot of engines in the Pool since you do pay a small maintenance cost for them However if you don t have money to buy new engines you may want to keep a few unassigned engines around to put on new tracks under construction Cost per engine The current cost to purchase a new engine Maintenance The maintenance cost per engine per month e Efficiency This is a rating of how much time the engine spends actually pulling carloads versus how often it is in the shop being maintained refueled If one engine is twice as efficient as a second engine then running the first engine is like running two of the second engine Efficiency is why electric engines are so useful because they are much more efficient than any other engine e Carrying ability Displays the number of cars that can be pulled and the speed in miles per hour For example 45 30 mph 45 is the number of cars that can be pulled and 30 is the miles per hour There are ratings for both Freight and Passenger cars Freight cars tend to be heavier than Passenger cars and therefore slow down the train When dragging a card you can hold down the shift 5 engines Control 10 engines and Ctrl Sh
29. ect control is limited but the subtleties that arise are immense We love Rails Which is a good thing because we ve played thousands of games of it since we started We like it so much that it s even slowed us down at times because we would start a game to test a bug fix notice Vanderbilt moving towards New York head him off and suddenly an hour has passed and we haven t even tested the bug We hope you enjoy playing it as much as we ve enjoyed developing it and we thank you for purchasing Rails Across America Paul Canniff amp Russell Williams Game Designers Flying Lab Software INTRODUCTION Rails is a game of prestige not cash You want to build up your company s prestige by accomplishing goals such as building the first Transcontinental line the first Gulf to Canada line moving the most traffic in a region building the most track every year etc Although cash will certainly help you accomplish these goals it is only a means to an end Rails is a competitive game While you are trying to build up your network your opponents will be trying to build up theirs and there will be conflicts over important cities and routes In addition to developing a superior building strategy you can also use Influence to put a crimp in their plans Influence lets you marshal your various resources such as newspaper editors union bosses and congressional committees to cause a strike on your opponent s line force a financial
30. es Lay Track The same as clicking the Back JA button after you ve clicked on a most valuable connection city WITH OTHER PLAYER S TRACK SELECTED L Apply Influence WITH YOUR TRACK SELECTED Upgrade Signals Downgrade Signals Upgrade Track Downgrade Track Add remove train to freight slot If there is no train currently there nothing happens Add remove train to passenger slot ENI EN ES If there is no train currently there nothing happens 59 SCREENS Fl Goals F2 Politics F3 Track List F4 City List F5 Loans Financial Screen F6 Current Report Financial Screen F7 Annual Report Financial Screen F8 Special Financial Screen F9 Controls F10 Not Applicable F11 Engine Encyclopedia Lay TRACK Same as hitting Suggest id Confirms target city and lays track to it If no city has been selected Enter does nothing Exits the Lay Track process Bb Selects Slow Selects Medium Selects Fast TRACK LIST LH arrows Scrolls up down through the list City List L ji arrows Scrolls up down through the list TRACK DETAILS E E arrows Next Track Previous Track 5 period comma Next Track Previous Track EN VIII Upgrade Downgrade Signals I eN Upgrade Downgrade Track Add remove train to cargo slot If 2 there is no train currently there nothing ha
31. estige is awarded for achievements during the last year at the END of the last year between the last time you see your standings and the results screen This means that the prestige totals may be slightly different in the Results screen than they were just a moment before Different scenarios have different awards for prestige In one scenario the emphasis may be on building the first Transcontinental In another the emphasis might be on running an effi cient network The prestige points for each of these accomplishments can change from scenario to scenario so you should check the goals of each scenario by clicking the Goals button at the bottom of the screen It will tell you what you are expected to accomplish in the scenario and how prestige will be awarded THE END OF GAME SUMMARY SCREEN This screen displays the final Prestige Net Worth and any Awards won by each player Click the Replay button to view the game as it unfolded Use the Stop Play and Goto End buttons at the top of the screen to play back the game Click the OK button to return to the End of Game Summary screen The following buttons are also available To Financial Opens the Financial screen e Quit to Menu Returns you to the Main Menu STRATEGY Rails has many strategies that you can use to dominate your competitors Here are a few to get you started e Build profitable lines This may seem obvious but a lot of people tend to build eve
32. g able to build towards you If you do get boxed in try using Influence cards to Increase Access at a city Buy Shortlines to leapfrog across the map Buying a shortline in another region will let you immediately start building in that region If you jump to a region that no one occupies you can start making prestige points because you dominate that region s shipping If you are trying to build a transcontinental route and are build ing from Chicago then buying a track from San Francisco to Reno will let you start building in both directions simultaneously Use Influence when it counts The influence cards can be very powerful if used correctly Don t spend influence to cause a strike just because you can Use it when a strike would most hurt your competitor For example if they are building a big project and need a lot of money the strike will take that away Or if they are close to bankruptcy a strike can push them over the edge especially when coupled with a Financial Panic WATCH YOUR COMPETITORS You have to keep constant watch on your com petitors and make sure that they don t interfere with your plans For example if you are about to complete the first transcontinental route you may be surprised when one of your competitors finishes it first If you had been watching them build you may have been able to play Influence to sabotage or cause a safety inspection on their track to slow down their progress If a competitor is
33. ges tion on this track Congestion occurs when there are too many trains on the track The Congestion indicator lights are just above and to the left of your freight engines card Because there is so much traffic cersesTioH between New York and Philadelphia a lot of engines are needed to carry all that traffic Unfortunately they re getting in each other s way We need to improve the track so it can handle all these engines 30 Click on the up arrow for Signals located below the engine cards This replaces the signals with improved signals that allow you to run your trains closer together This also allows you to run more trains on the track thereby reducing congestion If both congestion lights aren t green click the up arrow for Tracks This double tracks your line After all of this track building you may be running out of cash Check your cash at the top If it s less than one million you should get a loan Let s get a loan right now 31 Click the Financial button 32 Click the Loans button You now see three loans on your left They are all for the same amount but the top one is a five year loan the middle one is a ten year loan and the bottom one is a fifteen year loan The longer the duration of the loan the higher the interest rate Loans are structured so that you pay off the interest every month but you only pay the principal at the very end so you need to make sure you have the money to pay off the loan whe
34. he Construction Cost for the piece of track that you re working on 23 THE Track DETAILS SCREEN NEW TRACK As soon as you purchase your track you are taken to the Track Details screen From here you assign trains from the Engine Pool the engine cards on the right hand side of the screen to your track There are two slots for your track the Freight slot and the Passenger slot To assign an engine type to a slot drag an engine card from the Engine Pool to one of the slots Each train is composed of an engine possibly a tender and a variable number of cars behind it The engine types are color coded There can be up to ten different classes of engine available to choose from at any one time Green Good for freight Purple Good for passengers Blue Good for either freight or passengers Yellow Electric engines Requires that the track be electrified Usually good for both freight and passengers ADDING ENGINES Each engine has the following characteristics 24 Engine Name The name of the train Engine Picture A picture of the engine Upgrade Click to replace the engine with a different engine See Upgrading Engines Number The number of engines assigned to the track Use the up down arrows to set the number When the card is in the Engine Pool on the right this is replaced with a box with two numbers The top number indicates the number of engines cur rently in the Pool The number on the bottom indicates th
35. he asking price Use the arrows to move the offer up and down If your cash ever dips below the offer amount or if you increase the nun dite arve MI H al offer beyond your total cash you receive an Insufficient Funds message and cannot complete the offer until you reduce the price or get more cash e Valuation The estimated value of the shortline e Asking Price What the shortline thinks it is worth e Odds The odds that your offer will succeed displayed as a percent Threaten To Compete Directly A checkbox that is enabled if the player has a track in the same region as the shortline This increases your chances of getting the short line to sell to you but if someone else makes a more polite offer the shortline may accept their offer out of spite Bribe Board Check to make an additional cash offer directly to the board Note that this could result in a scandal which will cost you prestige if it leaks out If you bribe the board of directors the Shortline may go with your offer even if the total offer is less than another company s e OK Click to make the offer e Cancel Click to decline GAME CONTROLS SCREEN You can open the Game Controls screen from the Main Screen CONTROLS This allows you to set the following options a e Audio Use the sliders to adjust the volume for Background Chat Alerts Music and Controls e Game Speed Use the arrows to select one of five game speeds 52
36. ift 50 engines keys to move multiple engines at once Once you have a locomotive assigned to a slot you can add more engines by using the up down arrows on the card The number of engines that you have assigned to the track is reflected in the length of the trains on the map If you have a few engines assigned the train will only consist of a few cars If you have a lot of engines assigned then the train will be much longer The most important information about each engine is available on the cards You can find out more background about each engine by clicking on the engine name which will take you to the Locomotive Encyclopedia UsinG DEFAULT ENGINES The F and P shields beneath each train slot allow you to automatically assign an engine to the Freight slot F or the Passenger slot P for new tracks This means that you do not have to open the Track Details screen to assign new engines every time you lay track Once you ve assigned your engines click the Close button If you want to implement your changes without leaving the screen click Apply Construction of the track begins and when it is complete the trains that you assigned to it will begin to run TRACK UNDER CONSTRUCTION ee g EEEE ME your tack pund construction you can doupig or triple crew it to increase the speed of construction Click on the track and then click the up arrow next to the shovel Each shovels represents a crew shift up to a maximum of three Runni
37. ing e Utilization How efficiently you have allocated your trains to carry the traffic Clicking on a light to set your engines also works from here e Cars Carried Shows how many carloads were carried over the last month e Cost per Car Mile Shows how much you are paying to move one carload one mile A good number is usually below one dollar If you re paying more than two dollars per car mile you should consider selling the track unless you are holding on to it for strategic reasons 31 32 Track Improvements Shows the current improvements for the track You can make improvements in your track here as well as assign a manager for the track e Track Details Button Opens the Track Details screen for that track You can click on the column headers to sort the list by that column Sorting by Utilization is a very useful technique to bring all the tracks that require your attention to the top of the list CITIES Cities generate traffic and for a railroad that means cash Since you can only build to exist ing cities they also represent choke points across the map that you can use to make it harder or even impossible for a player to build one of the prestigious routes such as a Transcontinental line In order to encourage development of under populated areas some city governments will offer bonuses to the first railroad to connect to their cities to help offset the cost of track construction Cities with these bonuse
38. investigation into their activities or expose some of their dirty deal ings to the public and hurt their prestige Finally Rails is a high risk game of investment If you overextend yourself and a recession comes on you could find yourself spiraling down into bankruptcy But as in the real world it s sometimes possible to emerge from bankruptcy and go on to win the game GETTING STARTED MINIMUM SYSTEM CONFIGURATION 64 megabytes of RAM e 2 megabytes or more of video memory DirectX 8 or later e Windows 95 98 ME 2000 or XP INSTALLING RAILS ACROSS AMERICA It is strongly recommended that you read the readme txt file accessible from the Start menu or the Rails CD for the most current information about the game To begin play you must install Rails onto your hard drive The installation screen opens automatically after the CD is inserted Click the Install button to begin the installation process If the Install screen does not open automatically double click on Setup exe in the root directory of the Rails CD Follow the on screen instructions to run the game UNINSTALLING RAILS ACROSS AMERICA To remove Rails from your hard drive simply click the Uninstall icon in the Rails Start Menu folder Rails will automatically be removed from your system YOUR FIRST GAME The following instructions step you through a basic game of Rails Because the computer opponents can follow many different strategies the game may not
39. isplaying the track being sold The Info tab contains the following information e Owner Logo Shows the logo of the seller e Completed in Shows the date the track was completed e Cost Remaining The cash required to finish the track e Approximately X left The required time to finish the track using one crew Track Value The estimated value of the track based upon the cost of construction and Right of Way plus traffic If the track is under construction it is labeled Incomplete If you are participating in another railroad s auction you can make your bid by pressing the Bid button You ll see your bid marker go up The highest logo indicates the current high bid The highest bid will win the auction after which the seller will get the cash that the winner paid and the winner gets the track with all of its improvements although the seller keeps the engines that were assigned to the track they re moved into the player s Engine Pool for storage When the auction is over an end of auction sound is played and a popup appears showing who won the auction and how much they paid for the track Each player is then returned to his pre auction location 45 46 INFLUENCE Influence represents how much pull you have with various powerful groups For example you may have a congressman a radio pundit a labor leader and several union groups in your camp If you re racing for the Transcontinental with a competito
40. ll follow The default path chosen for you by the computer is generally fine However you can also use the Cheap Medium and Fast buttons to change the track route Cheap will build the track as cheaply as possible but it may be longer or have severe gradi ent changes that will slow down your trains Fast will build the shortest track with the fewest gradient changes so that your trains will run as fast as possible Unlike Cheap Fast will not avoid expensive squares such as tunnels and bridges always taking the most direct route The differences between Cheap and Fast are more dramatic when you build through moun tainous areas Clicking a different option immediately redraws the track according to the new setting To force the track to build through a specific area click anywhere on the dotted line track and while still holding down the mouse button drag the cursor to the area that you want to build through This creates a key square which is an area that the track must build through You can also click on the track the Add Key Square button and then click in the map You can add up to 9 key squares to make the track go exactly where you want Whenever a new Key Square is created the track is automatically drawn to accommodate all the Key Squares To delete a Key Square simply click on the Key Square at which point the Add Key Square button becomes the Remove Key Square button If the Key Square is removed the track is immediately red
41. lly proportional to the size of the two cities involved Resources represent major natural or industrial resources which require rail transport These appear near cities and are served by connecting to that city If you re not sure which city the resource is associated with position your mouse over the resource and read the tooltip Resources generate fairly large amounts of cargo even when located near a small city The cargo will most often need to be delivered to larger distant cities or ports Resources appear over the course of the game If you are starting in a later year you may find many resources already on the map You can also use Influence on a city to Add A Resource which will immediately contribute to the traffic at that city TRAFFIC FLow Each city has traffic intended for a specific destination Once a connection is made between two cities the traffic starts flowing between the cities For example Cincinnati has traffic for Augusta Columbus Detroit New Orleans Louisville and St Louis Connecting it to Columbus will enable you to start moving traffic and collecting money Connecting it to Charleston will result in a track that doesn t make you any money assuming that Charleston doesn t have any traffic for Cincinnati Traffic is automatically routed by a third party shipper which tries to find the quickest and most direct route for its shipments The shipper will route traffic over multiple railroads if necessary
42. lor coded to the player Clicking Influence opens up the Influence screen e Player Attitude This area allows you to change your attitude towards other players and displays their attitude towards you 49 50 e Changing Attitudes The attitudes are OK Ally and War The default is OK No changes are saved until you click Close This screen updates if any of the other players changes their attitude towards you while you are in this screen e Mini Map Shows the different lines that have been built SHORTLINES Shortlines crop up throughout the game especially where there s a lucrative route that none of the players have built The easiest way to find a shortline is to use the Find Shortline button on the Switchboard Pressing it a second time will find the next shortline and so on until it returns to the first shortline Shortlines are small independent railroad companies that focus solely on their one track Although each one of them is independent of the others they all collectively use the color white for their tracks Shortlines compete with the other railroads that carry cargo between the two cities that they service but shortlines never gain prestige or use influence except to defend themselves Buying a distant shortline is a good way to get into a new area of the map since you can now build from the cities that the shortline connects to For example if you were building a transcontinental railroad from Chicago to
43. lot of money and won t give your competitor a great strategic advantage Click on it and press the Sell button on the 43 Switchboard The Sell Track window displays the initial bid for your track You can specify that in the event no one bids on your track it will be abandoned The only reason you would want to abandon a track Is if it costs more to maintain it than you make from its traffic Auctions can occur under the following three conditions A Shortline is being sold either because of a failed takeover offer or an Influence Action A player wishes to sell their track A player has gone voluntarily bankrupt and their creditors are auctioning off select ed assets in order to recoup some of their losses When your track is being sold or you are bankrupt you cannot bid on track being auctioned A countdown will start to let the player know that an auction is about to happen All play ers go to the auction The Auction Screen contains the following Time Left The time remaining in the auction If there are less than 5 seconds left in the auction and a player bids the time is reset to 5 seconds Track Name e Player Bids Shows visually and numerically where each player stands in the bidding The amount bid is shown in black text just above each player s logo Bid Amount The current solicited bid Initially this is set to the reserve price for the asset and will show the current amo
44. n electric engines which are much more efficient than normal engines Electrification is extremely expensive to purchase and maintain but it s cost effective for extremely high volume tracks e Upgrade your trains Upgrading to more powerful trains if available will allow you to pull more carloads with each train which again reduces congestion Upgrade your engines by clicking the up arrow on the engine card More powerful engines will often pull your trains faster which makes your route more desirable to shippers The cost of any improvement is automatically reflected in the Cost column The Maintenance column indicates the long term cost of ownership e Cost Per Car Mile Shows how much you are paying to move one carload one mile Agood number is usually below one dollar If you re paying more than two dollars per car mile you should consider selling the track unless you are holding on to it for strategic reasons e Cars Carried Shows how many carloads were carried over the last month e Miles of Track Indicates the length of your track SELLING ENGINES You can only sell engines from within the Pool Click the Sell button A popup appears with the following Sell controls e Number of engines This is initially set to the number of engines in the Pool If you click All engines it will include both the engines in the Pool and engines currently assigned to track You cannot sell a number that is above the pool number but below
45. n it comes due 33 Click on the 10 year loan 34 Click Accept in the Loan Offer popup 35 Click Close Soon your tracks will be completed We should make sure that they have the right number of engines assigned to them Rather than click each one let s do all of them at once 36 Click the Track List button This takes you to the Track List screen which shows all of your tracks The utilization lights for two of your tracks New York to Hartford and Hartford to Boston are red because they don t have enough engines assigned to them 37 Click on the middle light for freight and passengers for both tracks If congestion for these tracks increases too much you can improve your signaling and double track from this screen using the controls on the right 38 Click Close Now that you have your tracks in the green you should be making quite a bit of money Your Income at the top right of the screen shows how much you are making after you pay your maintenance costs Maintenance costs go up when you improve your track so only make improvements when you have to You now know how to purchase tracks assign engines to them balance those engines and take out a loan The next two things you need to learn are building toward goals and using Influence Since you have started in the Fast and your only opponent is in the West you should be able to build the Gulf to Canada This is a major project and will earn you much prestige
46. ng two crew shifts will increase construction speed to 150 of normal and three crews will work at 200 of normal but the costs are double and triple Double and triple crewing costs a lot of money so use this option wisely 25 26 If you run out of money while you re building a track you ll be ial Sue get a warning alert and construction on the track will stop al ke shied 49 You can see the status of a track under construction by click LETTET E sing on it and then noting the Track Status button in the Tie mme ELS bil bottom right of the Switchboard If it says Working then 7 E i I work ME construction is proceeding normally If it says Stopped then the workers are halted As soon as you get some cash the work will start again If you re low on money you may want to halt work on less impor tant tracks to save cash for the important ones To do this click on the Track Status button so that it says Stopped It will remain stopped until you click the button again Track construction may also stop if your rail line is hit with a Safety Inspect or Sabotage instigated by a competitor THE TRACK DETAILS SCREEN EXISTING TRACK Freight and Passenger slots each have their own utilization indicator Utilization indicates how well the potential of the track is being exploited and is indicated for both passengers and cargo Utilization is your Capacity divided by your Traffic You want your c
47. nual Report is the Prestige Page It contains the following information Regional Dominance Amount of prestige gained by dominating the flow of traffic in a region Dividends Amount of prestige made by giving Dividends to the stockholders Track Building Amount awarded for building the most track Major Awards Amount made from the big awards Bankruptcy Amount of prestige lost due to Bankruptcy Influence Attacks Amount lost due to Influence Attacks Scandals Amount lost due to Scandals Prestige This Year The total Prestige change this year Prestige Total The Prestige Total at the end of the year The third page of the Annual Report is the Traffic Page It contains the following information Cars Carried Number of passenger and freight carloads moved across any piece of track even if it originated from or is bound to cities outside of your network Late Shipments The number of carloads picked up at their origin but which expired on their way to the destination 39 40 Freight Miles Carried Total number of miles that freight cars you carried moved This only counts the number of miles that the freight moved over your own net work Passenger Miles Carried Total number of miles that passenger cars you carried moved This only counts the number of miles that passengers moved over your own network Track Miles in Service Total mileage of tracks that have trains currently assigned to them If there are no train
48. o the effect of the action The sabotage would stop work for 8 4 months or 12 months in total If you had only gotten through with a 1 point card it would have been 1 4 or 5 months Click the Replay button to view the Influence attack again The major disadvantage of attacking is that if you use up your cards attacking you may not have any left for defense AT 48 PAYING GRAFT You can also purchase Influence which involves exchanging money for cards Click on the Graft tab on an Influence screen and use the slider to indicate the point value of the cards that you wish to purchase The cost of buying cards is double the sell cost Use the dropdown to specify what suit you want the cards to be SCANDAL RISK Every time you use an Influence attack bribe the board of directors of a shortline or pay Graft you run the risk of an enterprising reporter getting wind of your illicit doings and doing a front page story on you costing you prestige This risk of scandal is represented by the Scandal oer Tz EG Cas a light You can see it on the Switchboard at the top wil nm Bos viTTED on the money widget at the top left of some of the ee mae ay screens and on the Influence screen The light is either green low risk yellow medium risk or red high risk Over time if you don t use Influence the likelihood of a scandal is reduced Using Influence to defend yourself or cashing in your cards do not add
49. of your competitors give dividends to your shareholders and manage bankruptcy The screen has four tabs e Loans e Current Report e Annual Report e Special Clicking each tab changes the information displayed below LOANS Building track is expensive so it will be neces sary for the growth of your company to take out loans The left side of the Loans screen displays the set of currently available loans You can choose which loan amount you would like to start with the interest rate of the loan and the duration 5 10 or 15 years Click on the loan you re interested in You ll be presented with the terms of the loan which you may either accept or reject The amount of the loan may be reduced at this point by clicking on the down arrow Once you accept a loan the loan amount is immediately added to your cash and you start making monthly interest payments The loans are structured so that you pay off the interest of the loan each month but you leave the principal intact The entire principal is due at the end of the loan You can only pay off a loan after you ve had it for 5 years or when it s within a year of coming due Example You take out a five year loan in April of 1880 for 2 5 million at 6 Each month you ll pay 12 500 in interest In April of 1884 you ll have the option of paying off the loan or refinancing it In April of 1885 you ll pay back the entire 2 5 million
50. onnected to At the beginning of the game this means you need to start from your Home city the one with the waving flag If you re having trouble finding your home city press H and the map will center on your home city and select it LAYING TRACK 3 With your home city selected press the Lay Track button Next LAV Crack _ select the city that you d like to connect to or press the Suggest button to automatically select the most desirable city based on traf fic Press Suggest again to cycle through all of the recommended cities Selecting a city displays the potential traffic waiting to move that would now be deliverable by connecting the two cities and how much revenue you will earn if you carry it Depending on your goals it may be wise to consider the cities Lat Track 1 marked in yellow The green cities recommended by the game Pron Ma FSR Toan rer you are in a hurry to reach a specific destination city secur are the best economic choices but may not be the best choice if m Generally it is best to complete profitable lines to key locations mama ase i early in the game This will generate income which is necessary wed kaa fils m tL GLT EM an raser mads gt that have something to offer Keep in mind that towns change for the continued operation of your railroad Once you have established your major routes build feeder lines to local towns with time and may generate mo
51. other routes that don t have congestion problems e Switching Cost Traffic that has to be dropped off by one railroad and then picked up by another suffers a delay during the transfer process For this reason a single railroad with a less efficient route may be able to compete with a more efficient route composed of multiple competitors There is a big advantage to being the only railroad at a city The railroad that picks up freight or passengers from the starting city will deliver them itself if possible There are exceptions if that railroad has a very circuitous route or if the railroad is allied with other railroads If one railroad has the only connection to a city all that city s outbound traffic will run on that one railroad as close to the destination as the railroad can carry it before being handed over to a competitor Thus the original railroad gets the bulk of the revenue from that city e Player attitudes can have a strong impact upon routing If you are at war with another player you are very unlikely to hand off traffic no matter how much better their route is unless there is no other route possible If you ally with someone you will treat their rails as nearly the same as your own and hand off traffic willingly to make more efficient deliveries When one route is better than another it will get more of the traffic from a city than the infe rior route If one route is twice as good as another route it will tend to get more
52. owing data Prestige e Credit Rating e Next Loan Due Amount e Next Loan Due In The time until the next loan is due e Total Debt e Monthly Income e Cash e Cash Committed ANNUAL REPORT This screen shows you details about your company and your competitors in terms of both finances and shipping Use the page controls to move through the various screens You can also use the year control in the top left to move back through the years and see how you were doing at that time The default display is the last completed year which should not be confused with the current year The first page of the Annual Report the Summary contains the following information Prestige Total e Prestige This Year The amount of prestige you gained or lost this year e Revenue This is how much money you make before paying your maintenance costs Total Expenses Combines maintenance with new building and train purchases Income Revenue minus Total Expenses Operating Ratio Cost divided by Revenue Net Worth Estimated Value of Tracks Trains Money Debt Cash Your total cash at the end of the year Credit Your total credit at the end of the year Position your mouse over your cred it to view a tooltip listing all of the modifiers currently affecting your credit rating Bankruptcies The number of times you went bankrupt in a year Since you stay in bankruptcy a minimum of one year this will be either 0 or 1 The second page of the An
53. own respected and feared a company is It is the basis by which victory is determined For more information see Winning the Game Track List Displays the Track List screen where you can manage all of your tracks at once e City List Displays the City List screen where you can examine all cities e Financial Displays the Financial screen where you can manage your loans analyze trends pay dividends and manage bankruptcy e Politics Displays the Politics screen which allows you to determine your friends and foes and use your influence against them e Shortlines If there are any shortlines in the game Find Shortline moves the map to center on the most lucrative shortline and selects it Pressing the button again goes to the next most lucrative shortline If there are no shortlines currently in the game the button is disabled For more information see Shortlines e Controls Displays the Control Panel where you can set game speed sound volume save the current game etc THE TICKERTAPE BAR The tickertape bar at the bottom of the screen reports all news chat in multiplayer games only and alerts The Up Down buttons allow you to move through the last 50 lines of messages Messages may have a Goto button that appears in front of them This Goto button lets you take the appropriate action for each message For example if the message is about a city clicking on the button will take you to that city If the message
54. play out exactly as described here but it should be very close After you start Rails av SON S Press Single Player Press Regular Game In the Name column set all but one computer opponent slot to None You should have your name listed and one computer opponent AI Random or a specific computer opponent Set your starting city to New York and the computer opponent s city to San Francisco Set your start year to 1870 and your end year to 1890 Set your initial cash to 10 million Set Attacks to Never Press Start After the game starts you will see the map with New York centered in the middle A flag of your player color will be flapping in the breeze 10 11 12 13 14 Click on New York Click the Lay Track button br Click Suggest Philadelphia should be suggested as the destination city If it isn t click Suggest again until Philadelphia is indicated Click Purchase The Track Details screen is displayed Click OK to accept the suggested name for your Railroad or type in a different name and click OK You must now assign engines to your track There are two slots the one on the left is for Freight and the one on the right is for Passengers Drag the Consolidation engine card to the Freight slot on the left and then drag the Prairie engine card to the Passenger slot on the right The Consolidation is a good choice for carrying freight as indicated by the green card The Prairie is goo
55. ppens E E Add remove train to passenger slot 3 If there is no train currently there nothing happens FE Closes the screen escape does nothing here FINANCIAL SCREEN WITHOUT A LOAN UNDER CONSIDERATION re Closes the financial screen WITH ANNUAL REPORTS SELECTED EE Arrow keys CONTROL SCREEN i Moves you through the various pages of Annual reports Continue CREDITS FLYING LAB SOFTWARE TEAM Game D esign Paul Canniff amp Russell Williams Programmers Paul Canniff Joe Ludwig Eric Rane Rick Saada Randy Walker Lead Artist Art Director Connie Br at Artists Taylor Daynes Kyle Wilson Ashley Long Marcus Ghaly Box Layout amp Design Connie Br at Lead Tester Michelle Williams Sound Russell Williams Vic Williams Beta Administrator Amy Sutton Producers Paul Canniff Russell Williams STRATEGY FIRST TEAM Producer PR M anager 62 Jamie McNeely Christina Ginger Product M anager M arketing M anager Packaging President VPProduction VPBusiness Development VPSystems D eveloped by Published by M anual by Graphics System by Studio Photography Additional Photography M usic By Adam Phillips Steve Milburn Kenneth Green Phillipe Brindamour Don McFatridge Richard Therrien Steve Wall Dave Hill Flying Lab Software Seattle USA Strategy First Montreal Canada Calvin Campbell Kenneth Green Astonish Inc Hank Schulz
56. r you may find it useful to have your labor leader and union groups call for a general strike against your competitor s tracks Influence is represented by colored cards Each card represents Influence in one of five areas Area Color Government Blue Money Green Publicity Purple Labor Orange Dirty Tricks Red Each card contains a number which represents the amount of influence Numbers range from 1 5 with I being very common and 5 being rare Cards with a represent cards with defensive value only You are given one Influence card every two months just for staying in business In addition the person who wins the most prestige during each year gets an extra card You may have up to 10 cards at one time If your hand is full the incoming card is sold If you hold a lower value card of the same color as the new higher value card the new card replaces the lower value card which is then sold A card of value is never automatically replaced You may be counting on its special defense ability You can discard a card click the Cash In button on the card and instantly receive money Position your mouse over the Cash In button to see how much money you will get from sell ing the card You may also want to sell your cards to clear your hand of cards you re not planning on using soon so they ll get replaced with more appropriate suits For example if you have a lot of Government cards and you really want to sabot
57. r players on the Politics screen and from this screen you can also use influence actions directly against other players THE POLITICS SCREEN Click the Politics button to open the Politics screen This screen shows the current attitudes between you and your competitors Additionally this screen allows you to apply Influence or change your attitude towards any of the other players You can also see the stance of other play ers towards you As soon as a player changes their stance towards another player the target player receives a message alerting them to the change When you are in a city with an Ally you automatically conspire to gouge all traffic from the city at monopoly rates 150 If your stance with a competitor is OK then you charge 100 However if you are at War with a competitor you charge only 70 If you are in a city with two of your allies and these allies are at War with each other then all railroads can charge only the 70 rate Additionally this screen allows you to apply Influence Actions versus another player If you are allied with another player and then use influence against them your Influence cards will be much more effective because it is a surprise attack Make sure you only ally with players you trust Or be the first one to make a surprise attack The Politics screen contains the following elements e Player List On the left is a list of each player in the game along with an Influence button co
58. rawn to accommodate the new Key Square arrangement If you click on a section of track that could use a tunnel the Tunnel checkbox will appear Checking it will add a tunnel to that section of track If you decide that you want to remove a tunnel that s been added click on it and uncheck the checkbox Tunnels cost quite a bit of money but will help your trains move much faster through steep gradient changes and may be required in more mountainous terrain Once you re done making your changes click Purchase CHANGING CONDITIONS Until you confirm your track purchase with the final press of the button other players may build tracks to the same cities There are two specific issues which may force you to change your plans 1 A competitor builds out of the Destination city taking the last Access Slot available Any time this happens when laying out the track you will receive a message telling you that the city no longer has any Access Slots 2 A competitor may buy some of the right of way that you were intending to use If this happens you will need to redo your track AFTER YOU PURCHASE YOUR TRACK When you purchase your first piece of track the game automatically suggests a name for your railroad If you want to use a different name type it in the field and click OK When you purchase a piece of track you are immediately charged a Right of Way cost after which construction of the track begins As the track is built you pay t
59. re of existing traffic by carrying it on your rails instead of a competitor s You may not profit from this track until traffic becomes available e Purple You cannot afford the right of way cost needed to purchase the land for this track More money is required to build to the city e Red It is illegal to build to this city usually because the city is too far away or because it does not have any available access slots Each access slot accommodates one railroad company although that company may have multiple tracks to the city If a city has two access slots for example only two railroads may connect to it although each railroad may have multiple tracks For more information see Access Slots LIMITS ON LAYING TRACK There are two limitations on laying track e You can only have up to five tracks in progress at any time You cannot lay anoth er track until one of the five is completed e You can only lay tracks from cities that have connecting track that is either com pleted or is currently under construction You cannot lay track from a city that only has a right of way connecting to it Example If you lay a track from New York to Hartford and then immediately lay a track from Hartford to Boston you will not be able to lay track from Boston until the New York to Hartford segment is completed DECIDING THE PATH OF YOUR TRACK Once you have selected a city that you want to build to you can decide the exact path that the track wi
60. re or less traffic for you to carry In addition the Build Track section at the bottom right of the Main Screen indicates the following e Cost of Right of Way You pay this amount immediately upon purchasing the track e Construction Cost The amount that it will cost to actually construct the track You pay this over time as you are constructing your track Build Time in Weeks The value of a land grant if one is available A land grant is an incentive to build to a city that may not have enough traffic to otherwise make it worth your while Land grants are shown as dollar signs next to the city If you position your mouse over a dollar sign a popup informs you how much the land grant is for and when it expires If you have not completed the track to the city before the grant expiration you won t collect the grant Land grants are very prevalent in the West between 1830 and 1880 Transit Time The time it will take your current average train to cross the track If the transit time is long consider pressing the Fast button to build a more direct but expensive track 22 Cities on the map are color coded to indicate their desirability e Green There is traffic waiting to be moved between the cities Although this will generate some income there may not be enough traffic to make the track profitable once you account for maintenance costs e Yellow There is no new traffic waiting to move although you may get a sha
61. reate a game that would let us play once or twice in a single evening yet still contain a wealth of strategies to explore and territories to fight over We wanted it to be fast in depth and fun And we wanted it to be about trains We love trains and we loved the original Railroad Tycoon What could be more fun than taking a strategy game we loved and making it multi player But we soon found that we had to throw everything out and start fresh The reason was scale We wanted to play a game that would let us build across the entire continent and operate hundreds of tracks and thou sands of trains We needed to streamline the play to be able to accommodate this A perfect example of this in action is that we originally had a whole screen devoted to hiring your crew to build your tracks You could assign foremen different specialists argue over wages etc When we realized that we would be doing this for hundreds of tracks at the same time as your opponent was challenging you in some distant part of the map we knew it had to go But while streamlining play meant making some things simpler other things became much more complex Our traffic routing system is extremely sophisticated It has to be because even though the player doesn t have direct control over it it has to operate realistically and believably Building a single track can have very interesting rippling effects on traffic throughout the entire rail network As in SimCity dir
62. reen light Adjusting the trains via the Utilization lights errs on the side of too many trains so it will always assign a mini mum of one train as long as there s any traffic at all MANAGERS You can hire a Manager at a fixed monthly salary to automatically add or remove engines as needed to your track although you must still perform major track upgrades yourself Managers are particularly effective when you have a lot of traffic on your track or when you need to focus your attention on a strategic goal that does not require direct supervision of a particular track It s generally wise to manage your tracks yourself during the start of a game This allows you to keep in touch with your railroad s development and will save you precious money early in the game You can automatically assign Managers to new tracks by clicking the Hire Managers for New Tracks button You do not pay a fee for this Manager until the new track is constructed When you hire a Manager the Hire Manager button turns into the Fire Manager button There is no penalty for dismissing a Manager CONGESTION AND TRACK IMPROVEMENTS Congestion indicates the amount of traffic on your track If your congestion is high traffic will move over your track much more slowly and your route will be less desirable to shippers The congestion indicator is made up of two lights If they are both green then you are running well under your track s capacity and your train
63. riday from 9 00 18 00 EST Fax 514 844 4337 Attn support E mail support strategyfirst com For faster service please have the following information available when you call e Computer brand and processor speed e Memory available Type of operating system Type of video and sound card Version of directX installed on your system WWW STRATEGYFIRST COM WWW FLYINGLAB COM N m amp N A st o
64. ropdown lets you select your computer opponents o None Select this option to limit the number of your computer opponents AJ Random Select this option to use a random computer player for this slot AlJ Select Select this option to go to the Competitors screen Click on a portrait to view information about an opponent and then click the OK button to con firm the currently selected computer player and return to the New Game screen Click Cancel to return to the New Game screen without making any changes e Starting City Use the arrows to select starting cities for you and your opponents Use the mouse wheel to move quickly through the cities You can also select a region or country such as the Northwest or Canada as your starting point When you select a starting region your starting city is randomly selected from one of the cities in that region or country If you select Random you may start almost any where on the map Note Some of the cities that appear on the map are not available in the list These cities have so little traffic that they re prohibitively difficult to start from These cities are also not used when picking a city randomly Logo There are 30 different logos from which to choose e Color There are 12 different player colors Start Starts the game with the settings that you ve chosen GAME SETTINGS FET ler ives e Map Change the game map to any installed map in pe i S
65. ry line that they can even those with very little traffic If you have to build into a city for strategic purposes you re building towards a transcontinental then it s okay to build unprofitable track Otherwise check your lines for high cost per car mile ratings which is anything above 1 If you have a line that has a high cost and it doesn t have a strategic use then consider selling it Be careful though because if a competitor buys it they can start building from that track into your area 55 56 Connect to other rail networks not just other cities Connecting to another player s rail network can increase the amount of traffic on both of your networks Revenue for traffic that crosses multiply lines will be divided according to the amount of dis tance traveled on each line Try to connect only to networks that provide traffic to cities on your lines Don t get boxed in You can only build to nearby cities and cities only allow access to a limited number of railroad companies Because of this small cities can become chokepoints throughout the map stopping you from expanding For exam ple if you are building from New York and Harrisburg and Pittsburgh become full it is very difficult to build towards the Chicago area To avoid this keep an eye on the cities that may form choke points and build to them earlier rather than later It will keep you from getting boxed in and it may stop some competitors from bein
66. s How much you spend maintaining your presence at your cities e Manager Expenses The amount spent on managers e Dividend Expenses The amount of dividends you paid out e Misc Expenses Miscellaneous expenses that are not covered elsewhere e Total Expenses The total of all of the above The fifth page of the Annual Report is the Regional Page This page shows how much cargo a player has carried per region From this page you can see who is dominating what regions of the map In order to gain the prestige of dominating a region you must carry more than twice the number of cars as the second place company SPECIAL The Special screen contains information about Dividends and Bankruptcy DIVIDENDS Dividend Use the slider to declare dividends Dividends are based upon iF fs revenues not profit and can be set to 0 5 10 and 20 of revenue At the end of each year dividends are paid out to your stockholders Dividends are a great way to turn cash into Prestige but if you can t meet your dividends the slider will be i set to the level that you can afford and you will need to remem ber to turn it back up again The longer you pay out your divi terete seie pameni dends the more Prestige you ll get for your payments hide foe The following table indicates the number of Prestige points you will earn depending on the percentage and the number of years the dividend has been paid Years Paid gt
67. s assigned to the track it is considered out of service and the maintenance cost will be much less Track Miles Laid Number of miles of new track laid Number of Tracks Number of track segments that you own Unfinished tracks are not counted towards this total Cities Served The number of cities you connect to Population Served The population total of the cities that you connect to The fourth page of the Annual Report is the Expense Page It contains the following information Loan Interest Expenses If you have a lot of loans this figure will be very high Consider paying off loans early to reduce the expense Loan Principal Expenses This is how much you spent actually paying the principal on the loan Loans are structured so that you make interest payments up until the final payment at which point you pay the principal of the loan back all at once Buy Land Expenses How much you spent buying right of way for your track Buy Track Expenses How much you spent building track Buy Train Expenses How much you spent buying new engines Build Station Expenses A station is constructed at every new city you connect to Maintain Track Expenses How much you spent maintaining your track Additional tracks double triple quadruple and electrification can make this very expensive If there are no trains assigned to the track it is considered out of service and the maintenance cost will be much less e Maintain Station Expense
68. s on the left indicate the actions that you can perform against your competitor If a button is lit up it i means that you have enough cards to attempt that action 42 Click on one of the lighted buttons If there are no lighted buttons try coming back here later when you have more cards A description of the action is displayed at the bottom of the screen The cards that will be used are automati cally selected You can click on cards to remove them from the attack and click on them again to add them back 43 Click Do It The Influence Attack screen opens and you see your cards attack your opponents If you have more cards than your opponent then the attack succeeds If you don t the attack fails There is a lot more to the game but this should be enough to get you started Read on in the manual for more information and be sure to use tooltips on controls that you don t under stand THE STARTUP SCREEN The Startup screen has the following sections Main MENU The Main Menu shows the various launch options e Quick Start Starts the game with the last settings used to start a Single Player game or the default settings if no game has been played since it was originally installed e Single Player Opens the Single Player game area From here you can start a new single player game play a specific scenario or resume a saved game e Multiplayer Opens the Multiplayer game area See Multiplayer for detailed infor
69. s show a gold sign next to them These bonuses eventually expire so you have to make sure that you complete your track to the city before the bonus expires If you position your mouse over the sign a Tooltip informs you of the bonus amount and when it expires Every five years traffic changes according to the city s real world population growth Therefore tracks that once were unprofitable can suddenly become inundated with traffic When you ve selected a city that you want to return to later press Ctrl Number This creates a bookmark for that city You can now return to the city from anywhere on the map by pressing the number you assigned to it You can click on any city in the Main Screen to view the following information e Rates The current pricing structure for traffic leaving the city If there is a Monopoly the rate is 150 of the normal price If the rate is normal it is 100 A state of War results in a 70 rate All players at the city use the same rate e List of most valuable cities Indicates the top five destinations for traffic leaving this city e Connecting Railroads This is the list of railroads that currently have track built or under construction to this city The presence of a blank square indicates that there is a free Access Slot that can accommodate a new railroad RESOURCES Freight traffic from a city represents manufacturing parcel delivery components and other items This traffic is usua
70. s will move at full speed Two yellow lights means you are running at or close to maximum capacity Your trains will run a little bit slower to make sure they don t collide with one another A red light indicates that trains 21 28 are being forced to slow down significantly due to congestion With two red lights your track has a very serious congestion problem and your trains are running a lot slower More engines and greater speed increase congestion More tracks improved signaling and longer trains lessen congestion Congestion is rated from 0 200 where 100 is the full capacity of the track segment Congestion is color coded by range and appears in the signal lights Congestion Range Color 0 99 Both green 100 110 Green over yellow 111 125 Both yellow 126 150 Yellow over red gt 150 Both red The controls to improve your track to reduce congestion are immediately below the conges tion lights You can e Double track triple track or quadruple track This builds extra parallel tracks allowing you to run trains in both directions simultaneously This is a very expen sive option but it dramatically increases your capacity e Upgrade your signaling Each upgrade allows you to run your trains closer togeth er and faster which decreases congestion Upgrading your signaling is the cheapest way to reduce your congestion e Electrify your track if available this will allow you ru
71. st as being ready to play The game cannot start until all players indicate that they are ready If other players make a change that could affect the game then your Ready checkbox will be automatically unchecked and you will have to click the Ready button again For example the Host may change the starting money value or a player may change his starting city e Ignore Changes This checks the player s Ready checkbox It will stay checked regardless of any changes made by the Host or other players e Start This button is only seen by the Host When all players have checked their Ready to Start checkbox the Host can start the game by clicking the Start button The Start button is disabled until at least one player has joined It also remains dis abled if any of the players have not checked the Ready box e Ping Displays the last checked ping time in milliseconds GAME SETTINGS e City Select Choose Host or Random Choose allows players to pick their own cities Host prohibits players from picking their own city only the Host can change cities Random starts everyone at a Random city e Allow Cheat Codes On or Off Allows the players to use cheat codes in the game if they have them e Anyone Can Pause On or Off If this control is On any player can pause the game If the control is Off only the Host can pause the game e Anyone Can Set Speed On or Off If this control is On anyone can set the speed of the game If the
72. tart Year Determines the starting date of the game Baie spa A Initially set to 1870 you can choose any year in the range 1830 2015 tan Yus EE ft ies Casa er faer vuntes ATTACKS Sesuecn End Year Determines the end date of the game ELEN mn Initially set to 1885 you can choose any year in the range 1835 2020 Initial Cash Defines the starting cash for players The increments are 500 thousand 750 thousand and 1 1 5 2 2 5 3 5 7 5 10 15 20 25 30 40 and 50 million City Select This option can only be used in multi iyi Har mpiga player games 12 Influence Attacks Common Rare and Never This control allows you to reduce or turn off the computer opponents use of Influence attacks They will only use the cards for defense or sell them for extra cash This setting does not affect you or other human players e Difficulty Level Very Easy Easy Normal Hard and Very Hard This allows the players to make the game easier for humans and harder for the computer players It changes the amount of cash made from traffic carried and changes the cost of Managers The following table shows the effects of difficulty level on cargo income and manager salary Difficulty Level Cargo Income Manager Salary AI Human AI Human Very Easy 92 120 100 50 Easy 96 110 100 80 Normal 100 100 100 100 Hard 110 96 100 100 Very Hard 120 92 100 120 e B
73. tes an inferior replacement If no light appears your replacement is similar in quality to the original engine 29 30 When you are upgrading all engines of a certain class across your network you are offered three choices All Engines Upgrades all engines of this class currently assigned to tracks regard less of whether they are assigned to cargo or passenger traffic e Cargo Upgrades all engines of this class currently assigned to pull Cargo trains e Passenger Upgrades all engines of this class currently assigned to pull Passenger trains The Upgrade box also includes estimates for how much the upgrade process will cost If there are some of the new engines in the Train Pool they will be used up before any addi tional trains are purchased The Scrap Old checkbox allows you to sell the old trains Checking this box indicates how much you will make from selling these engines Unless you have specific plans for the older engines you should always sell them The Set Default button allows you to specify the new engine as the default engine for all new tracks ENGINE EXPIRATION Engines can be so far behind in technology that they become too expensive to maintain and too unsafe to be certified to run The following occur when one of your engines is about to expire 1 You receive a message indicating that you must replace or sell the engine within a certain period of time 2 Expiring engine cards turn red in the Tr
74. than twice as much cargo as the inferior route Access SLOTS Each city has a limited number of access slots Each railroad takes up one access slot regard less of how many tracks the railroad builds from the city A small city may have two access slots while a large city like Chicago may have four When all the access slots are taken up no more railroads will be allowed to connect to the city as the citizens are unwilling to allow another rail yard to be built If you want to build to a city that doesn t have any access slots available you have two choices the first is to buy a track that currently connects to the city the second is to use Influence to open up another access slot to the city If a shortline is connected to the city you can simply click on it and then push the Offer button in the switchboard on the right If your purchase succeeds you now have access to the city Or you can purchase a shortline or player track at auction Players may be forced to auction tracks to stay out of bankruptcy If you want to use Influence to convince the city council to open a new access slot click on the city itself and then click the Influence button on the Switchboard Choose the Increase Access action and if you successfully convince them a new access slot will be created Keep in mind that while you start off being the only one who can build into that access slot it becomes open after six months and anyone can take advantage of it
75. to your chance of a scandal INFLUENCE GENERAL STRATEGIES e A railroad is ripe for Financial Panic if it is about to run out of money and desper ately needs a loan You can check its financial state on the Current Report page from the Financial screen or you can position your mouse over its logo to view a tooltip indicating the railroad s current cash e Although learning about the different types of Influence attacks is part of the game here are two further examples e Stock Raid use this attack when you want to seize some money from a wealthy opponent e Increase Access on a City Use this action if all access slots in a city are filled and you need to build there e Stack your hand by selling off cards of suits that you don t need Or pay Graft and specify that you want cards of a given suit e Buy cards if you have disposable income or if you desperately need some dirty tricks to slow down an opponent POLITICS Each railroad maintains a working relationship with all other railroads but not all relation ships are equal The better your relation is with another player the less of a penalty you pay for switching traffic between your railroads When you go to War with another player you make the penalty of switching traffic so bad that you ll almost never carry traffic originat ing on each other s lines if there are any other railroads that you can switch the traffic to You can control your attitudes toward othe
76. unt required to become the high bidder The reserve price is half the last amount offered for the track if an offer has been made The reserve may not be less than the assessed value of the track If no one bids on a track it may be abandoned or sold to become a shortline New shortlines have ener getic management and will have a 20 chance of accepting any offer for the next five years The reserve price is rounded up to the nearest bid increment value Bid button Bids the current bid amount Not Bidding button Press this to speed up the auction If everyone presses the Not Bidding button then the auction immediately ends If there are only computer players who are interested the speed of their bids will be accelerated so that the auction will end faster e Cash Your current cash on hand e Credit Checkbox Allows you to access a line of credit for bidding Once checked this cannot be un checked unless your bid can be covered by cash on hand If you don t purchase the track the credit line isn t used If you win the auction the actu al amount of credit used turns into a 5 year loan at the stated interest rate e Credit amount and rate Shows the maximum credit available and the interest rate on this money Total funds Total of cash plus any credit The left side of the Auction Screen shows information about the track being bid on There are two tabs at the top Map and Info Press the Map tab to see a mini map d
77. us games that you can access based upon your connec tion Keep in mind that you can only play against a player with the same version of the game so if one player is running the game with a patch all players must run the same patch to play The list is updated every three seconds If you have chosen Local then all of the games currently waiting for players on the same LAN subnet are displayed e Host Regular Click to host a regular game This takes you to the New Game screen e Join Click to join a game This takes you to the New Game screen THE New GAME SCREEN MULTIPLAYER This screen is the same as the New Game screen for a Single Player game with the follow ing exceptions e Player List You can have both human and computer players You can only modify your own slot unless you are the Host The Host can modify any slot which makes him solely responsible for adding computer opponents and changing the Game Settings e Player Dropdown This dropdown menu has additional options Open and Closed A human player joining the game is assigned to the first Open slot and the player s name is added to the dropdown at the top Closed means that this slot is closed to both human and computer players e If there are no Open slots available when a human player attempts to join a game the player will be rejected 15 e Ready Checking this box indicates that you are satisfied with the settings and you are marked in the Players Li
78. ve enough cards to do the action the button will be dark Once you have the right number of cards selected the Do It button becomes enabled press it to start the attack Your target will certainly want to defend itself and will send out whatever cards they have for protection The ensuing battle is presented on the Influence Attack screen One by one your cards are matched up against the defender s cards Out of this melee the lower point value card is always destroyed but the higher card may be lost as well The cards are great defenders they always destroy their attacker though there is a 1 in 10 chance they will be lost in the action If the attacker manages to send in more cards than the defender can muster the action is successful The first unopposed attacking card is used up in the process but usually any remaining unopposed attackers return to your hand Some influence actions have more power depending on how many points penetrate your opponent s defense For example Sabotage will halt construction for a number of weeks equal to the points that got through plus 4 For these actions all of the cards that make it through will be used so the only cards that will come back are cards that fought other cards and survived If you played Sabotage against an opponent and sent in these cards 2 2 2 3 3 5 and the defender has the following cards 1 1 1 4 your 3 and 5 would get through and would contribute 8 points t
79. when there is a general strike e Own Track Tells you when you complete a track Influence actions against your track sabotage safety inspections are always reported 53 54 e Continue Returns you to the Main Screen e Save Opens the Save Game screen so that you can save your game and finish it later See Save Game Screen e Retire Ends the game early You will be able to see a Replay of the game up until the point that you ended it e Credits Displays the Credits screen e Quit to Menu Returns you to the Main Menu e Quit to Windows Returns you to your desktop THE SAVE GAME SCREEN This is the same as the Resume Game screen except for the following changes e The Load Game button is now the Save Game button The Name Game box can now be edited If you want to save over an old game click on the saved game name to add its name to the Game Name box Click Save and your current game will be saved over the old game WINNING THE GAME When the game ends the player with the most Prestige Points wins You can check to see how well you re doing by going to the Financial screen or by clicking anywhere on the map except for tracks or cities You ll see an overview of what s going on in the Switchboard including Prestige totals for the top three players If you re in the last couple years of a game and you re running in second place start using Influence against the leader to knock him down a notch or two Pr

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