What should I do when the game starts?

[BJ99]

As title says, I'm playing and familiar with the game, but there aren't many detailed tutorials to teach me how to play the game.

I wanted to start by train transporting goods, but I found that it would take a lot of time for me to earn back my costs.

What should I do and what should not do to improve my income and help me get off to a better start?

[Roboron]

Depending on the pakset, transporting goods can be more or less profitable at the beginning.

If you don't make enough money with goods, try with passengers first. A good way to start is by creating some inter-city bus lanes (those are the profitable ones), supplied if necessary by intra-city bus lanes (that may not be as profitable but are required to feed passengers to the inter-city lanes).

Invest your well earned money connecting more cities, tourist attractions and industries to your network (prioritizing buildings with higher passenger levels). The more things you connect, the more passengers you will get, the more money you can make.

Don't start with trains until you got a stable income and enough passengers to justify its cost.

[BJ99]

Depending on the pakset, transporting goods can be more or less profitable at the beginning.

If you don't make enough money with goods, try with passengers first. A good way to start is by creating some inter-city bus lanes (those are the profitable ones), supplied if necessary by inter-city bus lanes (that may not be as profitable but are required to feed passengers to the inter-city lanes).

Invest your well earned money connecting more cities, tourist attractions and industries to your network (prioritizing buildings with higher passenger levels). The more things you connect, the more passengers you will get, the more money you can do.

Don't start with trains until you got a stable income and enough passengers to justify its cost.

I started transporting oil by train to the power plant, but I found that it made so little profit that I had to wait a lot of time to earn money to buy the next locomotive.

As for the intercity bus method you mentioned, can you tell me more details about it?

Thanks!

[Andarix]

Unfortunately, there are no general instructions. It depends on the pakset used. Game Info key n on most paksets.

pak128 freight transport with trains is almost impossible to achieve high profits.

pak64, coal is not advisable. Oil is just fine, depending on the vehicles available and the route.

pak128.german is difficult. Production rates are initially low but increase over time. Here the boosts (passengers, mail and electricity) are also very important in order to get enough goods for transport.

Other paksets are different again.

pak128.german and pak64.german have no speed bonus. The speed of the vehicles is not quite as important as it is with the paksets with a speed bonus.

[makie]

As for the intercity bus method you mentioned, can you tell me more details about it?

1. Connecting the town-halls to each other.
2. look at the factories "workers(or customers) live in:" and connect it to the station at that townhall
3. look for region in the city with high level buildings and connect this to the station at the townhall
4. connect tourist attraction with high passenger level to your network
5. feed the market with enough goods so the don´t run empty

for pak128.german
Don´t use the biggest engine and the fastest trains, because this are to expensive.
There are a lot of tiny vehicle that are good enough for starting.

[prissi]

You could also look at the AI (best is probably the scripted AI) as these will choose a good candidate for a pak set to start transport with.

For the intercity bus AI, this really depends on your road settings. If the largest town is well connected to other towns by roads, then building a bus line from the small towns or factories with workers from that city to one or more circle lines in the large town can give a good profit. It is best to put the main exchange bus terminal somewhere where you can build a station later to replace bus lines by trains. (Building some extra street to reserve the land ...)

The building up of a bus network can be seen by the passenger AI, although it often makes some unprofitable innertown routes in small towns or struggles with wait for load.

[BJ99]

1. Connecting the town-halls to each other.
2. look at the factories "workers(or customers) live in:" and connect it to the station at that townhall
3. look for region in the city with high level buildings and connect this to the station at the townhall
4. connect tourist attraction with high passenger level to your network
5. feed the market with enough goods so the don´t run empty

for pak128.german
Don´t use the biggest engine and the fastest trains, because this are to expensive.
There are a lot of tiny vehicle that are good enough for starting.

OK, I will try it later. Thanks!