There's a strange feeling about the currency in this game. In Tiny Tower and even Pocket Planes, there was a rewarding feeling to Bux. They weren't easy to get, and whenever an opportunity came up, I'd make sure to not miss it. I never gave up on searching for a Bitizen in my tower, because the reward was a TowerBux, a very valuable thing. In Pocket Planes, whenever a passenger with Bux came up, I made sure to click on him. I never missed an opportunity. However, in Pocket Trains, coins are actually more valuable than Bux. It's weird, it doesn't feel right, though it works pretty well. I don't feel as rewarded when I earn Bux as I do when earning coins. Yet Bux are the higher currency, and coins are used for basic purposes, just like in the previous titles. It's a nice change, and it's balanced well too, so I hope it stays that way.
European Strategy It all depends on your setup! However, I'm indeed using the Mallard too. I have 7 rail roads (navy blue line breaks at Paris); - Green and Pink operate an Emerald + Vanilla Steamer, both with added fuel car. - Aqua Blue and Navy Blue operate two Carbon Steamers, both with added fuel car. - Purple and Red are my 'high speed' lines. Purple operates a National Express with added fuel car, red operates a Metro Express with added fuel car and added engine. - Navy Blue breaks at Paris, where my Paris > Reykjavik line runs with a Mallard, plus added fuel car. It does 4 journeys, and makes it back to Glasgow on the fifth before needing refueling with the added car - at 16 car capacity and a 10 minute journey time, you get a fair 45 minutes of uninterrupted play and can deliver 64 cars, plus the 16 from the uncompleted 5th journey back. Getting cars on the way back from Reykjavik is just luck of the draw to be honest... I usually pick up decent paying jobs, some quite high (for Rome etc) and simply stop in Glasgow or London to fill the train if need be. Using this strategy, I can get up to a max of around 3,500 coins (give or take 150). I remember reading that the equivalent Lisbon > NY route gains about 6,200 coins or similar (someone clarify?), except my way saves the 50,000 license fee and 7,000 or so more expensive line setup, not including the cost of more lines in NA to support NY . I'm staying in Europe until I've completed my Rio Grande Standard (the orange train) plus added fuel and engine cars (close now! : ) Many have expanded further by now, it'd be interesting to read others strategy and how it compares! *nudges all other rail masters* I tried opening Minsk with an aim for Russia but had barely any jobs either way so closed the line. My purple line is the least busy. Once I've added the 2nd engine I'll move it to the Aqua Blue line in preparation for opening the Lisbon > NY transatlantic route Other than Bordeaux, Barcelona and Rome, every city has atleast 2 lines in/out so I can collect literally every single bux and crate job, along with high paying jobs (minimizing dead end lines). To give an idea of how busy each city is, here is my current layover capacities; [Not upgraded = Rome, Budapest, Barcelona, Bordeaux, Reykjavik, Glasgow] 10 - London 15 - Madrid 15 - Amsterdam 20 - Berlin 25 - Munich 30 - Milan 100 - Paris So - the point of this is that my whole setup revolves around collecting and transporting the Bux, higher paying jobs and crates, and in that order. Stats: 7 railroads, 58,500 miles, 5,094 cars, 206 crates, 2,248 bux, 4 events, Level 10, brink of 11. Whoa. I didn't stop typing did I! I've gone off the rails...! Well, suppose I should post anyway for anyone who may find it informative _______ EDIT: This route works best when playing all out, ie. not putting the game down. It's not essential, and after just over an hour all trains will be out of fuel, but you're well rewarded - I got 16 crates, 240 bux and 25,391 coins.
Possible Bug: when selecting an empty station, there are no jobs but you can view the jobs menu. In the menu, you can move the map by touching the black space on the right. Tip: My guess for the Daily Events is that it picks a city that has not been bought yet to motivate you to expand. Be careful if you are close to the edge of a continent. I monopolised Europe and then my daily event city was Perm, Asia. Hence I had to grind for about 60k coins to get to it. Question: Are certain trains parts only available in normal crates while others only in special ones?
Here's my setup. I'm a fan of my Valhalla loop and multiple branches (I was inspired by the London tube map). However, I need to reorganise Russia and Eastern Europe once I expand further into Asia. Cheers
That transatlantic crossing was always going to be a bitch. Others have posted in this thread about the cost for the license, then the cost for the line wiping their funds out ($110k+ total). I can understand players from NA wanted to build a railway home as I'm building to Oceania for the same reason. If you insist on going this route, I can only suggest keeping your NA and European operations separate, and mostly running the transatlantic train when your train is full of fuel after a break, and you have collected worthwhile goods at Lisbon and New York.
As long as it helped just one person, it's all good! I personally like what I'm doing as it returns so much - from all my bux and crates, I now have an army of express trains to deploy in North America! Not to mention the multitude of steamers. My strategy requires a fair bit of micro management, but I believe it'll pay of when I cross continent. On a side note - I CAN'T confirm this, but I've noticed that if you are looking at your higher value train/s just before you go into the menu and open up a crate That's a heck of a lot of long lines! How many railroads do you have / what level are you? Yeeeeep, it was I'm looking to drop my Reykjavik line into NA when I open it too, as well as expand inland and south in NA. Asia doesn't appeal to me by the looks of the lines there. But I would love to get to Oceania Luckily for me, I live where we start - in the UK so there's no trek home for me! But I've visited various places around the world so I'm aiming for the best of them My initial thought is that it uses the same amount of fuel, but I'll experiment now with it. Check back here for an 'Edit'! _______________________________ Edit: It uses the same amount of fuel. It wouldn't make sense for it to use more, it would inundate the use of fuel cars and become problematic when you can add 3 engines on some trains! Tested and tried just to be sure though Woo, 100th post!!! Lol
I'm using Paris as my west Europe hub, and Budapest as my east Europe hub. Both routes that cross through Munich serve to move cargo between the hubs. Most of my European cities act as secondary hubs as they have 2 lines moving through them. I use my purple line to move goods around the Middle East, and the volgorod line to move the best goods to and from Europe. I've just expanded into India and only the very best goods from there to Europe will go via Tehran. I have absolutely zero interest in expanding into mainland Russia as I suspect it will be empty with only long rail routes. Once I've got enough money I will push to expand into Oceania.
Update on my railroad. The lines going off the screen terminate in Reykjavik and Zanzibar. Really glad I read here the advice to get some longer lines, the sheer distance my network covers has definitely helped me get high value cargos. Closing the loop around the Med (which only happened today) has been a huge help in making transfers more efficient. I'm using Steamers and a few Expresses, with the light blue, purple, and orange lines being able to carry 12 cars each and the other lines just 8. My next plan is to open a new line from Moscow to Volgograd and then points east using a Standard (which is ready to go, though I'd like to assemble a fuel car for it). Level 11, approaching 12.
I have 8 lines at level 11 (3/4 to 12). The max length is 6 but Eastern Europe is too big so my plan is to trim that.
I am lv 13, 139k miles, 9204 cars. I would also warn about expanding to NA There's the license fee, the track building fee. Plus like 2 or 3 new railroads and their track claim fee. Because you would want 1or 2 for the transit, and at least 1 for a basic feeder line towards New York or Montreal to have a meaningful return trip back to Europe. That means you need like 150,000 to have a basic working NA operation. I am regretting it, should have gone for the more logical Asia first.
I do like how you've got your lines set up I wouldn't expand any further without higher capacity trains to make it worth my waiting for them all to arrive, but that's just me You've got a really interesting route there! So the red, aqua and navy blue lines collect things at Paris, or do they collect at Budapest? Also, the bottom right hand corner by India - I notice you don't have an active line connecting there - if you deleted those 2 inactive white lines completely, does it still let you run that disconnected line by India? Also, what level are you here? That's a good looking use of lines, I like the look of the circle around the Med. Unfortunately, it requires 2 licenses to complete, of which I have none But whoaaaa, the aqua and purple lines are long!!! How long do those trains take to make it to the other side may I ask? Also, I wish I had a widescreen iPhone 5 to play this one
Wow, I feel like I'm expanding slowly. I still have 4 trains and level 11... On the bright side, the NY-Lisbon is definitely worth it though. It slowed down my progress by 2 days, but on one Lisbon to NY I made over 4k coins and 10 bux with a daylight+fuel. On the way bak I only made 1.5k, not a very good operation in NA yet. Getting a 5th train to do Washington DC and south as well as going transatlantic via reykjavic. For the skeptics of the NY-Lisbon route, it is so rewarding to see your train cross the tunnel. In my opinion, it is the best route so far, especially while you are sleeping and the other trains do a 10min route.
Absolutely. But for the life of me, I have the urge to break into America I think it somewhat mimics my first transatlantic flight in Pocket Planes! But my strategy is providing good coins, bux, crates and trains so in another 2 - 3 days I'll hit 220,000 (117,000 now). I'll probably save until then, which will give me a zillion more trains than I already have, so when I burst onto North American turf, I'll be able to deploy everything straight away My Europe network is set up perfectly for an American operation at the moment so I can't resist! I'll post here about how it goes So what's your current setup...? Can you screenshot? ________________ You're welcome!
