Railroad Tycoon II Macintosh Demo
Originally developed by PopTop Software
Macintosh version by Westlake Interactive

A little about RAILROAD TYCOON II©
Few things have changed the world as dramatically and as quickly as did the invention of the steam locomotive.  Created in Britain by Richard Trevithick in 1804, its humble beginnings could not have foretold the massive changes that it would bring to the world.  Initially replacing the horse for freight work and thus earning the long lived moniker "The Iron Horse",  the steam locomotive and the railways on which they ran created whole new industries, folklore, and legends.

Railroad Tycoon II Mac provides you with an opportunity to relive and reshape those early formative years, revel in it's golden age and struggle with itÕs future role in the world.  As an industrial baron, you will attempt to grow your company into a railroad empire, and hey, if you get rich in the process, so much the better.


About this Demo
This is a demo version of Railroad Tycoon II Mac, provided free for your enjoyment and evaluation.  

The demo includes two fully playable scenarios "The Golden Age", focusing on the northeastern United States in the late 19th century, and "Birth of the Iron Horse", focusing on the dawn of railroading in the British Isles.  The scenarios in the demo are a bit easier than many of the scenarios in the full game, and were chosen to introduce new players to the game play.

This demo also lets you preview the map editor that is included with the full game, although you canÕt save maps in this demo version.

The full game includes 33 scenarios (including 3 not included in the original PC version of Railroad Tycoon II) from every continent and major industrial nation on earth, running from the introduction of steam power in the early 1800s to the latest electric bullet trains.   A campaign game ties together 18 of the toughest and most historically important railroad situations of all time.  Multiplayer mode allows you to play against other Mac players around the world.  The built in editor allows you to create your own scenarios or to download numerous maps already available on the web (PC maps work on the Mac, and vice versa).  The full game also includes a great bluesy soundtrack and many video clips to transport you back to the railroad era.  In short Š this demoÕs great, but it only provides a small glimpse of the full game.

Railroad Tycoon II Mac is currently available in stores.  Look on www.godgames.com and www.poptop.com for more information on the full game and the demo.  

Unfortunately, we canÕt provide any technical support or game help beyond whatÕs in this document  (The full game has full telephone technical support and hints).  

WeÕve been having a lot of fun with this demo, and hope you will too.  Enjoy!  

Installation
The first time you run the Railroad Tycoon II demo it will detect the capabilities of your Mac and set video and game options accordingly.  You can change these options via the Preferences control panel inside the game.  

If when you run Railroad Tycoon II, you get a message "There is not enough room to open Railroad Tycoon II", you will need to quit any other applications you have running and possibly turn on Virtual Memory.  To turn on Virtual Memory, select Control Panels from the Apple Menu in the upper left corner of the screen.  When the Control Panels window appears, double click on the "Memory" icon.  Click the radio button next to Virtual Memory "On", and click the small arrow buttons to adjust the memory size (on the right side of the panel).  It will probably start out at 17M or 33M.  Adjust the number up to at least 40M.  This will use extra space on your hard disk as memory, allowing the game to run.  You must restart your Mac after changing the Virtual Memory options for it to take affect.


Requirements
PowerPC 132mhz or greater
16MB RAM (32 recommended)
4X CD ROM
Mac OS 7.5.3 or later
QuickTime 3.0 or later (included on the full version CD)
800x600 (at least) capable video card and monitor (1024x768 video mode recommended)
130MB free hard disk space


Documentation
This document is intended to be a mini-manual for playing Railroad Tycoon II Mac.  Its not completely comprehensive, but should get you up and playing fairly quickly.  There is a brief in-game tutorial that duplicates some of the content of this readme, for the 90% of the public that doesnÕt read the readme.  However, this document has more detail.  Also, there are several images in the demo folder showing the industry model and the cars available in the game.  We suggest that you print out at least the industry chart, if not all the images, for reference as you play.


Getting started with the game
Upon launching the game, you will find yourself in the main menu screen.  

At this point the best thing to do is to start the Tutorial.  Select "Single Player", then "Load Game", and then double click on the "Tutorial" file when it appears in the load dialog.  If you play the tutorial first, skip to the Playing the game and the interface section of this readme a few paragraphs below. 

You can also play scenarios outside of the Tutorial.  Select "Single Player", then "New Game".  You will now have a panel on the right side with your game setup information.  The default map is "Britain", The Birth of the Iron Horse.  You can click on the "Map" button next to the map name to select the other demo map, "Eastern USA", The Golden Age.

However, we should take a look at your game options.  Click on the "Options" button, which will open a panel on the left side with various game options.  Here's where we get a little tricky.  On the control panel to the far RIGHT you will see 5 little horses showing you game difficulty, Easy, Medium, Hard, Expert and Custom.  Watch the control panel on the left side and click on the  MEDIUM game setting on the RIGHT  side.  You should have seen the financial and industrial models shift from basic to advanced settings.  This allows you a few more game features with which to play including stronger cargo demands and the ability to merge with other companies.  Also you will see that there are now no positive or negative Revenue Modifiers.  You can play with these as you like but for your first game we suggest playing on Easy game difficulty.  Click the OK button on the left control panel to accept your settings.

This should leave you with the control panel on the far right side.  In the center list box you should see the name Isambard Kingdom Brunel with a small line drawing of a human face to the left of the name.  This is who you will be playing and can not be changed in this demo.  To the left of the list box is a spinner, an up and down arrow showing a number and the words Computer Players just below.  Go ahead and click the UP arrow twice.  This will add two computer players, George Hudson and Clement Attlee.  If you want, you can add up to 8 players in this scenario.  We suggest only 2 for the first time player.   Ready to kick some IRON TAIL ?!  Click the OK buttonÉ and away we go.


Playing the game and the interface
As you enter the main game, youÕll be greeted with a popup window explaining of the goal of this scenario (except in the tutorial game).  Please read it carefully.  In the Britain scenario, your goal is to be the first person to reach $5 million dollars in net personal wealth.  That means the first person to have a combined total of personal cash and stocks worth $5 million or more dollars.  If you can earn $15 or $40 million by the year 1899 you will receive a greater victory.  Click the OK button to have it disappear.

Once that window (and the subsequent tutorial window), have been read and closed, press the <PAUSE> key (or press the minus key three times).  This will stop the game action while you get your bearings and do your initial setup.  To get the game going again, press the <PAUSE> key one more time or adjust the game speed with the plus or minus key.

A quick overview of the main game interface, which is divided up into 4 main sections:

„	Main Window.  The large main window which contains the world and is used for direct interaction with the physical items in the game world.   The 4 buttons on the bottom right corner are in order:  rotate view clockwise, rotate view counter clockwise, zoom out and zoom in.  You can change your world view in 90 degree increments rotationally, and in 6 fixed zoom increments.

There are also 8 important buttons on the left side of the main window, as follows:


1.	Lay track 
2.	Build new station
3.	Bulldoze object
4.	Map overview
5.	Purchase train
6.	Go to stock market
7.	Control panel
8.	File options

Several of these options require you to have a company in operation before you can use them.  WeÕll start a company in a second, then you can play to your heartÕs content.  Bear with us for a second as we run through the rest of the interface.

„	The Radar Map view.  This is the view on the bottom left of your screen.  A satellite view of the entire game world is shown here.  You can click in here and the map view will center on that location.

„	The Center List Box.  Here is the nerve center of your empire.  From here you can jump to all the major activity centers in the game, coordinate actions, view trains, view companies, view stations, and view yourself.  To change what is displayed here click on one of the four white tabs at the bottom. 

1.	Stations:  This will show you all the stations your company owns, and what cargos they supply and demand.
2.	Trains:  Your companyÕs trains, obviously.
3.	Players:  This shows you all the railroad tycoons in the game, including yourself (youÕre Isambard Kingdom Brunel), with a green box around you.
4.	Companies:  Any active companies in the game are shown here.  You can also start a new company here.
 
„ The Activity Box.  This is the box at the bottom right of your screen just below the map view buttons.  Here you will see short event related videos, current events and chase camera views.  Clicking on it will scroll through previous messages.

Now, lets get rollingÉ


Starting a company
In this scenario, you donÕt start off in control of a company Š youÕll need to start one.  In the center list box, click on the company tab, then double click on <<< Start a new company >>>.  Now youÕll get to set up your new company.  We suggest investing all your money in your initial company by sliding the personal investment to the maximum.  With more personal investment, youÕll be able to draw a larger investment from outside investors as well, and you can slide that all the way up, giving you $1,650,000 to start with.  You could start with less, but youÕd probably have to borrow money sooner.


Industry basics
Now youÕve got to get your railroad going and make some money.  The primary way a railroad makes money is by hauling cargo and passengers around.  On a wide open map like this, you should find a promising location where you can easily connect two points that will generate a lot of cargos for you to haul.  However, to make a good profit, you canÕt just haul cargos anywhere Š you need to haul them to someplace that needs them.

There are two basics types of cargo in the game Š passengers and freight.  Every town and city on the map produces a steady supply of passengers that need to get to the other cities.  Passengers are the easiest cargo to use initially, and for your initial run, we suggest connecting Slough to Oxford (in the eastern part of the map, near London) and hauling passengers between them. Mail cargo is the one special freight type that operates like passengers, going city to city.

However, youÕll probably find out what the real railroads soon discovered, that passengers are easy, but the big money is often in freight.  Hauling freight is slightly more complex, because you generally need to find an industry producing freight, then another industry nearby that has a demand for the freight the first produces.  As freights get hauled from city to city, they get processed into more finished products, until they are hauled to a big city to be consumed by the public.  For instance, if you look around in the southwest portion of the map, youÕll probably find some sheep farms.  You can haul wool from these farms to a textile mill (usually located in a mid sized town), where it is processed into finished goods, which can be hauled to another town for a fat profit.  Your railroad doesnÕt actually buy and sell the goods, but it earns a fee for hauling them.

You can always option-click on a building to find out what it is, and what it supplies and demands.  

There is one more twist to this whole equation.  There is no building on the map entitled "town" or "city", however, most of the finished goods must be hauled to a town or city for final sale.  A town or city is simply any cluster of 4 or 8 houses, respectively, that are all near the same station. 

Alright, letÕs lay some track between Slough and Oxford.

Laying Track
1.	Select the lay track  button in the main window (left side, top button).
2.	You will see two types of track, single and double.  Select single track, which is cheaper, but more prone to congestion.  You can always upgrade to double track later.  YouÕll need to build a bridge across the Thames river to connect the towns, and we suggest you select the topmost bridge type Š the wooden bridge, because itÕs the cheapest.  The downside to wooden bridges is that they can not be double width, but since youÕre laying single track, that doesnÕt matter.
3.	Now move your mouse cursor to the place where you want to start building your track.  The mouse cursor may change to an XÕed out version, if you put the mouse over a lake, a building, or some other place you canÕt lay track.
4.	Now press and hold the mouse button and move the mouse around to lay out your track.  Voila!  If for some reason you don't like the way the track is looking, press the < ESC > button before you let up on the mouse button.
5.	You will notice numbers appearing at intervals along the track as you lay it.  The white numbers with the $ symbol indicate the cost of that section of track.  The green numbers indicate the track grade (steepness).  Trains donÕt like steep grades!  If you see the numbers change from green to yellow or red, youÕve got a steep piece of track.  The numbers in yellow are moderate or cautionary grades and the red are sever or prohibitive grades.  RED numbers can kill your route by making it impossible for some trains to move more than 1 mile an hour, so "don't lay that line if you can't do the time!"  Fortunately, the area around Slough and Oxford is relatively flat, so you shouldnÕt have too many grade problems. 
6.	When youÕve laid all the track you need, click on the lay track button again to exit track laying mode.

Tips:
-	Curves will also slow your trains down a bit, try to minimize the number of turns in the track
-	A running total of the cost of the current track route is maintained at the bottom of the list box.
-	You may want to place track in small increments to get the exact route you want.  You can also click on the buttons on the right side of the track laying interface to try alternate laying methods.  With the alternate interfaces, you can lay track always in a straight line, or a single piece at a time.



Station Building
Once youÕve got a line laid out, you need to put down stations at either end.

1.	Select the Build Station button in the main window (left side, second from top).
2.	You will be shown the 3 different sizes of station and a list of the different architecture styles on the far right.  Station architecture has no effect on the game mechanics.  Station size is very important.  Bigger stations cost more, but they have a larger area of effect.  The area of effect defines what buildings will use the station.  
3.	Select a medium station by clicking it on the list.  Your cursor now becomes a medium station in the game map.  As you move it around the map, youÕll see a highlighted area of effect around the station.  Click on small and large station types to see the difference in their area of effect.  For Oxford, you may need a large station to fully encompass the area.  For Slough, a medium station should be sufficient.
4.	The station itself will turn Green if its in a valid location.  Note that the piece of track attached to the station must be aligned with some existing track on the map in order to have a valid placement.  Large stations are so big that it can be difficult to squeeze them into a big city.  If necessary, you can always drop down to a smaller station size or use the bulldozer tool to clear out an area.

After you place the station, youÕll be taken to the station detail screen, where youÕll get a close up view of your new station.  Click on "Buy" to get a list of things you can add to the station. 

A list containing all of the available station upgrades including their cost and function should now be seen.  You'll need at least one station in which these items are built:  a water tower, a sanding tower and a roundhouse.  These items keep your engines running at their best performance.  If you don't have sand you'll see a little pile of sand in the engine list box, this means your engine will be losing traction.  With no water, your steam engines will slow greatly.  With no roundhouse, your engines will not receive maintenance, their operational costs will soar, and theyÕll suffer much more frequent breakdowns.
 
Once you've placed two stations press the <PAUSE> key again (or press + three times) to resume the real time portion of the game.  You will now see building animations and the date at the bottom of the screen will begin to advance.  If you click on the station tab under the center list box, youÕll see your new stations, and theyÕll probably begin to slowly fill with cargos awaiting shipment.


The Locomotive
Okay let's buy a train to start the money rolling in.  Select the Purchase Train button. (left side, fifth from top).

Here you'll find a list of the locomotives currently available including their statistics.
-	Cost		how much cash it will take to purchase the locomotive.
-	Maintenance	yearly estimated cost to maintain that locomotive.
-	Fuel		yearly estimated cost to fuel that locomotive.
-	Acceleration	how quickly that locomotive gets to its top speed.
-	Reliability	rating for the frequency of breakdown or catastrophic mechanical failure.

The top speed chart is in miles per hour and shows its rated performance at grades and with loads.

Choosing a locomotive should be based on your needs.  Selecting a locomotive that is horrible on grades if you've built in the mountains would probably be a bad idea.  However, since youÕre out in the plains, you can pretty much ignore the numbers for the higher grades.  We suggest the 4-2-2 Iron Duke.

Once you've purchased a locomotive, you will be in the train routing screen.  Here you will see the newly purchased locomotive with 2 default passenger cars set to go to the only two stations you own.  Double click on the first station and the right side of the screen will switch from the planning map to the station cargo screen.  

The very bottom of your screen will now change to a view of the selected station.  Supplied cargos are on the left side and demanded cargos are on the right. 

On the right side, youÕll now see a list of the cars in your trainÕs consist, and all the cars available to add to that consist.  Clicking on a car on the top line will remove it from your consist.  Clicking on a car from the area below will add it to your consist.  

We suggest an initial consist of 2 passenger cars and 1 mail car for this train.  Set it up, and hit OK to accept any changes.  The planning map will reappear.
 
On the planning map, you can change your trainÕs route.  This probably isnÕt applicable at the moment, as you only have two stations.  But as you add stations, routing will become crucial.  To add to or rearrange your route, you can click and drag any station star from the planning map on the right to the routing list on the left and place it in whatever order you wish.  Or you can select the DELETE button near the bottom of each station stop on the route to remove that stop completely.

When youÕre done setting up your train, press "Exit" in the lower right corner of the screen to exit this screen.

Now you can zoom in on your station to see your train chugging away.  (The train could be in Slough or Oxford, depending on which side you started at.)  The train will start off dimmed out, which means the train is inactive, in this case because its loading cargo.  Assuming the game isnÕt paused (you can use the plus and minus keys to change speed), youÕll soon see your train leave the station. 

You have begun your railroading careerÉ

A couple of additional train pointers.  Option clicking on your engine in the main screen will show you its vital statistics.  Option clicking on the train in the center list box will show you its speed and value.  

On the center list box, youÕll probably see a number of gold coins.  They indicate the value of the trainÕs cargo.  As time goes on, the coins will tick down.  Time is money!  The faster you deliver your cargo, the more money you earn.  Some cargos, such as passengers and mail, are more time sensitive than others, such as coal or iron.

There is great deal more to explore, and many options to micro-manage and improve your performance.


High Finance
The game is called Railroad Tycoon, and so far, youÕve focused more on the railroad part than the tycoon part.  Time to enter the world of Railroad Tycoon II high finance.

Click on the company tab in the center list box, then double click on your company.  Now you get a chance to look over your companyÕs books.  There are many pages and many tabs.  Most are self explanatory, so I'll skip to the last page.  Click on the Finances tab.  On the right page you will find 6 activities written in gold:
„	Issue Bonds.  Here is how you will typically fund costly expansion of your company.  The biggest hurdle to overcome is your credit rating.  If your credit rating is CCC or worse you're out of luck.  Good company performance over a sizeable amount of time will bring this up to par.  Issuing a bond will give you cash in exchange for a long term repayment guarantee and regular interest payments.  Don't be fooled into thinking that these things don't have to be repaid, check to see how long you have before they come due.
„	Issue Stock.  This will generate a smaller amount of cash, but you donÕt have to make interest payments.  On the down side, it will erode your stock prices if overused and will make it possible for your competitors to buy up controlling interest in your company, leaving you vulnerable to a hostile takeover.
„	Buy Back Stock.  This will use some of your extra company cash to buy stock back from the public, which generally increases your stock price and gets the stock off the market so others can't buy into your operations.
„	Change Dividend.  You can determine how much money is paid out to each share holder for each share they hold, including yourself.  The higher it is the more attractive the stock but it eats up your companyÕs cash, so you should generally keep the dividend rate low until your company is highly profitable.
„	Attempt Merger.   An advanced option, not available on the easier difficulty levels, but very effective in consolidating a large empire, if youÕve got the cash.  Offer more per share for a higher chance of success.
„	Declare Bankruptcy.  When you want to say UNCLE and get some protection from your creditors, click here.  It will cut your debts in half, but your credit rating will bottom out.  You may find it difficult to issue any stock as well.  This is a last resort, it is very hard to come back from this move.


Stocks
You can reach the stock market by clicking on the stock market button in the main window, or on the stock certificate on the company detail screen.  You'll now be in your "office".  Richly appointed and you even have your own whistle!  You'll also notice a hand holding a stock report.  ThatÕs you! (Well actually, itÕs the programmerÕs dadÕs hand, but just play along).  

You can switch between the two sections of the stock report by clicking the Personal and Corporate tabs at the bottom of the page.  The corporate list shows a chart with all the necessary information to get you strategizing; however you should note you can select the different charting options that are displayed by clicking on the small check box to the right of the item e.g.  Book value per share, a green line will now appear on the chart.

The personal chart lists all the stocks you own and their value.  It also gives you the option to buy, sell or view.
„	Buy. Allows you to buy 1,000 shares of the stock at a time.
„	Sell. Allows you to buy 1,000 shares of the stock at a time.

Really quite simple.  As a rule, every time you buy a stock, the value of that stock rises.  This is the easiest way to make your stock more valuable and harder for your competitors to buy.  Selling has the exact opposite effect.  But the stocks also rise and fall based on the underlying success of the companies they represent.  Even if you buy a lot of it, a bad stock is still a bad stock.

Assuming you started the game on "Basic" financial model (The default for an easy game), your options are somewhat limited.  You can only buy and sell your own stock, and you canÕt use margin or short sell stock.  However, as you play on the more advanced levels, youÕll discover a lot of money making opportunities:
„ Investing in other companies. If you think another railroad might make more money that yours, or you just want to hedge your bets, buy some of itÕs stock.  You can even play an entire game without starting a railroad, just as an investor.  Also, if you acquire at least 10% of a competitor, you can try running for chairman of that company.  If you get enough votes, youÕre the chairman, and you didnÕt even have to start the company yourself!
„ Margin Buying.  Here you're borrowing money to invest in stocks, using other stocks as collateral. You purchase this stock in anticipation of the stock value rising.  If the price of the stock you've just purchased on margin goes up then you've made some money.  If it goes down and you donÕt have enough collateral, youÕll get a margin call Š youÕll have to sell off enough stock to cover your debts.  In a bad market, you can go broke (as many did in 1929). Some people call this gambling others call it the stock market.
„ Short Selling.  Here you're trying to sell stock that you don't have.  YouÕre actually borrowing the stock shares from your broker, selling them, and hoping to buy them back later at a lower price to return to the broker.  If the market price of the share you've sold goes down then you will have made a profit.  Mind you, you don't own this stock, you're just selling it and covering the cost of the market shift.

You can do some real damage to yourself and or your competitors with these tactics.


ThereÕs a lot more to the game, but the general overview will stop here.  If you conquer "Birth of the Iron Horse", try it again on a harder difficulty level, or move on to "The Golden Age" for more challenge.


Some Fine Points
AboutÉ
„ Connecting to a competitorÕs track.  There is no special dance necessary to connect to a competitorÕs track - just connect to it as if it were your own.  The downside is that every section of your competitors track that your trains run on will cost you a share of that trainÕs revenue, proportionate to how much track it runs on.  For short distances, it's not usually a problem; however you'll find it is normally a good practice to keep a route to under 45% on foreign track.  Also, on competitorÕs track you'll be the lowest priority and will always stop for the owners trains.
„ Using a competitorÕs station.  Like connecting track, just connect and route a consist to that station.  You'll pay a fee to the station owner every time you load or unload cargo there.  This is less costly than running a long way on your competitors track and it can cost your opponent the revenue from the loss of the cargo you haul away.
„ Buying industries.  Look before you leap!  Not available till you play on the EXPERT industry mode; however double click on an industry (any building on the main map except houses and stations) before you buy it to see what kind of performance it's generating.  Remember these are long term investments and may not pay for themselves for several years.  The more cargo going to and from an industry, the more profitable it is.
„ Terrain effects.  Building on desert, mountain or swamp can cost many times more than on a smooth prairie.  It also costs more to maintain.  Look at your route carefully before you build.  Use the grid < G > key, to find your best routes.
„ Safety.  If you buy unreliable engines, youÕll notice they like to go BOOM, making a big mess on the track  (For your own fireworks show, select an engine and press <CTRL> <C>  To reduce crashes and breakdowns, buy more reliable engines, put cabooses on them, and make sure they never run out of oil.  Also, as engines age they tend to be much less reliable.  Try to replace engines as they get to be 15 or 20 years old.
„ Security.  Security from train robbers is not an overriding problemÉ usually.  If you know you operate in an area that has problems with theft and raiding, use a caboose.  They also help lower your maintenance.  Of course they eat up an entire slot on your consist.
„ Cargo demand.  On expert industrial mode, stations will display a demand level that ranges from 0 to 9.  At a demand of 0 they will pay 50% of a cargo's value.  At a demand of 9 they will pay 140% of the cargo's value.  If you oversaturate a station with a particular cargo, the demand level will plunge.  Moral, take cargo to the places that really want it!

Have FUN!
PopTop Software Inc.

Keyboard Commands


======Universal Hot Keys======
<Print Screen>       	- Screen Shot
+                    	- Increase Game Speed
-                    	- Decrease Game Speed
<Pause>              	- Pause Game
<F3>                 	- Toggle 8 or 16 Bit Color
<F4>                		- Toggle Full Screen Mode

======Main Window Hot Keys======

T - Track Lay 
S - Station Build 
B - Bulldoze
O - Overview
P - Purchase Train
M - Stock Market
C - Control Panel
F - File Options
G - Grid On/Off
N - Newspaper
E - Expand List Box
Q - Quit
1 - Station Tab
2 - Train Tab
3 - Player Tab
4 - Company Tab

6 - Overview - Resources
7 - Overview - Stations 
8 - Overview - Grades   
9 - Overview - Traffic Density
0 - Overview - Track Owner

L - List Screen for Station, Train, Player or Company 
D - Detail Screen for Station, Train, Player or Company 

<Arrow Keys>        	- Scroll Screen
<Ctrl> <Arrow Keys> 	- Scroll screen a Lot

<Keypad 8> - Zoom In
<Keypad 2> - Zoom Out
<Keypad 4> - Rotate Map Left
<Keypad 6> - Rotate Map Right

<Ctrl> L     	- Load Game
<Ctrl> S     	- Save Game
<Ctrl> P     	- Polygons On/Off
<Ctrl> C     	- Causes currently selected engine to crash
<Ctrl> B     	- Causes currently selected engine to breakdown
<Ctrl> R     	- Causes currently selected engine to be robbed