Transport Tycoon

General

See also OpenTTD

Transport Tycoon is a simulation/strategy game, in which you are the owner of a transport company. The object is to make money... lots of money!

The interface is a display screen showing a 3-D isometric view of the world. This is amazingly detailed. There are various cities and industries scattered around the map. As the game progresses, you can actually see the trees grow, the cities become larger, and your vehicles move around the map.

Picture of game, showing detail
Incredible detail. The picture shows a sawmill, with a road and parts of a factory and town visible.
(The picture on this page may be of poorer quality than the graphics in the actual game)

The cities and industries produce people and all sorts of commodities which require transportation to various places. You must build a transportation network consisting of railways, road vehicles, planes, and ships (that's roughly in decreasing order of importance). Of course, all that costs money. You start out with a small amount of cash in the beginning, which you can use to start a few routes. The local government will offer subsidies on certain routes, which can increase your takings on that route by 1.5 to 4 times the normal.

Depending on difficulty options, you will have one to seven competitors. But these are not much of a problem, as the game's AI (artificial intelligence) is not very intelligent.

Try the Transport Tycoon Semi-FAQ for more information. To buy, try Barkman Computers in the UK, that's where I got my copy.

Downloads

Here are some scenarios and saved games: (download at your own risk!)

--Scenarios--

Bombay: This is a scenario consisting of my city. It is not very true-to-life, but it's the best I could do.

Surprise (47kb): Well, if I told you, it wouldn't be a surprise, would it? Alright, it's a pretty normal scenario, except that the town names may be familiar to some people.

Miscellaneous scenario #1: This one I just thought up one Monday morning. Some interesting layouts... maybe.

The Flatlands: (26kb) Absolutely flat land, no water. Huge and complex train layouts possible. Plenty of money-making opportunities.

Game pack: Some old scenarios and corresponding saved games. Includes a readme.txt.

--Saved games--

Planes I (55kb): Based on a scenario I found somewhere on the net. There are 9 islands each with one city on them. That's where the planes come in. With a little bridge-building and lots of money (from the planes), you can have trains too. Check the names I've given the planes and ships...

Metromegalopolis I (105kb): Played upto February 2036. This one's for showing off :-)
Based on James Baughn's scenario (I think) of the same name. No competition, player's company has over 400 million dollars on hand. There is a very large city in the centre which makes things difficult...

Metromegalopolis II (113kb): The same as Metromegalopolis I but played till December 2067. See if you did the same thing with MM-I that I did!

AusTrans Corporation saved game: The year is 2070 and the player's company has made over $639 million!

Bridges: (50k) July 2050. Company has over $146 million on hand, company value is $150.9 million. From the temperate climate's "bridges" scenario.

Treasure Island: (66k) June 2049. Based on Sub-tropical "Treasure island" scenario. A large rail network with full connectivity.

Money Grows on Trains: (173k)
Dec. 2049. Company value: $161.6 mil. Cash on hand: $155.9 mil.
Based on J.S. Baughn's scenario of the same name. A large train network brings raw material to a single factory in one corner of the map.

West Country 90201: (104k)
Sept. 1995. Company value: $4 million. Cash on hand: $3.5 million. 36 trains, 4 road vehicles.
Based on built-in temperate scenario. Most of the money made from wood, coal, and farm services.

Get Rich: Two saved games, one from 1999 and one from 2022. The 1999 is ready for an upgrade to monorail. The 2022 has just seen the introduction of maglevs and faces a change from monorails to maglevs.

2007 August: I've taken to naming the companies after the year and month when the game was started. This one is based on the tropical climate's "Damn!" scenario. Lots of little islands, so many ships. There are disconnected train networks to facilitate upgrades later. The monorail has just been made available. In the 200708-2012 file, all the rails have been upgraded to monorail and tweaks have been made.

August 31 2007: This is a saved game from the tropical climate's "Treasure Island" scenario. The year is 1996 and monorails have been introduced. Since it's a small map, I can cover almost everything with trains and a couple of ships. 2007-09-16: The monorail save game is now available in the zip file. 2007-10-05: The maglev save game is available. Everything is monorail, maglevs are now available.

October 2007: I think this is a randomly-generated map. The save game is from October 1998, and monorails are the newest thing. Note the massive amount of land reclamation. It is more expensive than bridges, and does not allow ships to pass, but trains can run faster and closer together. 200710-mr.sv1 contains the saved game after upgrading everything to monorails.

New York. I downloaded a scenario of New York from East Town (?). It's a fun map, made difficult by the urban sprawl (hint: passenger trains) and the multiple town names that are almost similar. My game started with several farms in the west, so I got grain trains going but the factory is in an awkward place. I intend to build my own factory in a better location. I also have oil trains running across half the map, and oil tankers running across another quarter. Since that's not making money either, it's going to get a refinery. The map year is around 1970-1980 (starts in 1960).
The first save game, in 1978, is just after building a refinery. The system built a factory at a great location, in the west, and all the routes have been changed for it.
I moved this saved game to OpenTTD in April 2008.

Trivia

(Most of these observations are based on the temperate climate of TTd)