Which Locomotive do you prefer?

[Cununculus]

There are 3 different available steam locomotives.

Ranking their characteristicis in a simplified way:

Hound: Highest Speed, medium fuel consumtion, least cars (less then 8?), durability, and strength

Grandpa: Lowest fuel consumption, medium speed, cars (8), durability, and strength

Towering Bull: Most cars (9 is possible), strongest locomotive and most durable, but highest fuel consumption and the most slow

But is one more easily modified? Is there a specific playstyle for each?
Or is it irrelevant which one you choose?

And apart from all this, which do you prefer?

[Krieger Von Klapper]

Towing Bull, fast is not everything. Unless you are going for the achievement. You'll be begging for slower pace movements and more Cargo space as you move along.

[Liro Raériyo]

honestly each train really determines how many soldier cars your gonna have, and 3 is good enough in most cases, hound cant support every car with 3 soldier cars though so you would have to make a choice of which one to cut, and the only one i can see being feasible is the artillery car, kitchen is great for producing extra food, you basically need the workshop if you want to get the many useful upgrades to alleviate temperature issues and the hospital car is too good for making money and clearing sickness when blazing through.

[Cununculus]

Originally posted by Krieger von Klapper:

Towing Bull, fast is not everything. Unless you are going for the achievement. You'll be begging for slower pace movements and more Cargo space as you move along.

Begging for slower pace? Thought the pressure of resources and artillery strikes would mean speed is of the essence.

[Cununculus]

Originally posted by Liro Raériyo:

honestly each train really determines how many soldier cars your gonna have, and 3 is good enough in most cases, hound cant support every car with 3 soldier cars though so you would have to make a choice of which one to cut, and the only one i can see being feasible is the artillery car, kitchen is great for producing extra food, you basically need the workshop if you want to get the many useful upgrades to alleviate temperature issues and the hospital car is too good for making money and clearing sickness when blazing through.

Are three cars of soldiers necessary? Or could you survive with two?
Though imagine it would lead to the painful choice of who to leave behind....

[OrangeLark]

Originally posted by Cununculus / Mr. Foody:

Originally posted by Krieger von Klapper:

Towing Bull, fast is not everything. Unless you are going for the achievement. You'll be begging for slower pace movements and more Cargo space as you move along.

Begging for slower pace? Thought the pressure of resources and artillery strikes would mean speed is of the essence.

Speed doesn't help much to meet the deadline of missions. It has to be snail slow to miss them.

And Artillery strike is conducted when stationary anyway.

But you do need few people to do everything so you will need enough space to fit them, thus you need something to pull.

I think something not clearly measured ( except one or two achievements ) is, the underlying mission of the game is picking up as many people as possible, as how it was in the history. So my policy is leaving no one behind, regardless of situations. I tend to have near 40 people or above 40 people in each journey.

[Cununculus]

Originally posted by OrangeLark:

Originally posted by Cununculus / Mr. Foody:

Begging for slower pace? Thought the pressure of resources and artillery strikes would mean speed is of the essence.

Speed doesn't help much to meet the deadline of missions. It has to be snail slow to miss them.

And Artillery strike is conducted when stationary anyway.

But you do need few people to do everything so you will need enough space to fit them, thus you need something to pull.

I think something not clearly measured ( except one or two achievements ) is, the underlying mission of the game is picking up as many people as possible, as how it was in the history. So my policy is leaving no one behind, regardless of situations. I tend to have near 40 people or above 40 people in each journey.

Thanks! In that case the heavy Bull train seems the way the go.

[Krieger Von Klapper]

Originally posted by Cununculus / Mr. Foody:

Originally posted by OrangeLark:

Speed doesn't help much to meet the deadline of missions. It has to be snail slow to miss them.

And Artillery strike is conducted when stationary anyway.

But you do need few people to do everything so you will need enough space to fit them, thus you need something to pull.

I think something not clearly measured ( except one or two achievements ) is, the underlying mission of the game is picking up as many people as possible, as how it was in the history. So my policy is leaving no one behind, regardless of situations. I tend to have near 40 people or above 40 people in each journey.

Thanks! In that case the heavy Bull train seems the way the go.

Once you get your kitchen Car, that pretty much settles your food resource issue. You'll be doubling your food every time with the soup you are churning out. Ran out of Fuel? Convert your wood and cloth then.

Also, you can pretty much cheese the threat meter if you can start and stop repeatedly before they reach 30km/h. That reduces the meter. But that also consumes Fuel. But you'll be swimming in them soon enough.

In fact I have so much food, I opted to sell my kitchen car for another storage car halfway.

[Liro Raériyo]

actually, if your workers last action bypassed fuel costs, it costs nothing to start/stop constantly until the next fuel check

[VanguardMk1]

I like the towing bull because I can get every car type and 4 infantry cars. That way I can train everybody on everything, I don't have to leave anybody behind and I can manage storage by creating new squads, although it's annoying to only have one storage car. I would like it if every locomotive type got one extra car.

The speed has never been necessary for me. With a level 5 engineer, overdrive and the speed upgrade, even the slowest locomotive will always give you all the speed you need, although it's never really necessary.

[Ericus1]

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[OrangeLark]

Originally posted by Cununculus / Mr. Foody:

Originally posted by OrangeLark:

Speed doesn't help much to meet the deadline of missions. It has to be snail slow to miss them.

And Artillery strike is conducted when stationary anyway.

But you do need few people to do everything so you will need enough space to fit them, thus you need something to pull.

I think something not clearly measured ( except one or two achievements ) is, the underlying mission of the game is picking up as many people as possible, as how it was in the history. So my policy is leaving no one behind, regardless of situations. I tend to have near 40 people or above 40 people in each journey.

Thanks! In that case the heavy Bull train seems the way the go.

Yes indeed. And even with its towing capacity, I still have to upgrade to pull the additional cars. ( four infantry cars, one artillery car, one storage car, one hospital car, one kitchen car, and one workshop car )

[Ericus1]

The nice feature they put in the game is that your upgrades to the engine car "transfer over" to the new engine. So don't worry about doing some early upgrades to your original engine, you don't "lose" them.

[The Mighty Mulletman]

Originally posted by Cununculus / Mr. Foody:

There are 3 different available steam locomotives.

Ranking their characteristicis in a simplified way:

Hound: Highest Speed, medium fuel consumtion, least cars (less then 8?), durability, and strength

Grandpa: Lowest fuel consumption, medium speed, cars (8), durability, and strength

Towering Bull: Most cars (9 is possible), strongest locomotive and most durable, but highest fuel consumption and the most slow

But is one more easily modified? Is there a specific playstyle for each?
Or is it irrelevant which one you choose?

And apart from all this, which do you prefer?

Personally I like the Towing Bull train the most of the three. Slow and steady is my style.

Ol' Grandpa is the default train to my mind, a balance between the two extremes of the dashing Hound and trotting Bull.
I like having a workshop, kitchen, artillery and hospital, getting all the good upgrade and I always try to leave no one behind if it can be helped and as such I value that extra towing capacity highly.

I have thought of it a bit and I can see how different trains are better suited to different parts of the game or different play styles. For example, at the second choice of route, I'd argue that if you take the northern rout, you should use a hound and take advantage of it's speed and stockpiled resources to quickly pass through with minimum stops, minimising the fuel needed for stoves and food required for your soldiers, if you're heading south, take one of the other two for their extra durability and tow capacity as you'll be fighting and recovering more often.

I have played with the Hound and considered it's strengths and weaknesses, it's biggest advantage is, simply put, that it's fast.
Speed is an undervalued but critically important trait while other stuff most players prefer to have, like the hospital, kitchen and workshop are nice to have but in my experience, not critical to whether or not you can finish the game, if other players are like me, they enjoy stopping for as many Points of interest, resources and upgrades as possible so train speed doesn't seem that important a factor but really you don't have to stop for every location to finish the game, the quicker your train moves, the quicker you finish the game. The less time you spend reaching the port, the less resources you'll need (Food, fuel for stoves etc) to reach the port.
With the speed upgrade it's the fastest by a fair margin without using double speed and it's light on fuel use compared to the other trains.
The upgrades available are nice but you don't need them to finish the game. I also find that if you try to collect all the fuel you can along the way, you'll end up with a sizeable surplus by the last mission. You need some surplus for Siberia but otherwise as long as you have enough to reach the next chapter, you'll be fine.

[OrangeLark]

Originally posted by The Mighty Mulletman:

Originally posted by Cununculus / Mr. Foody:

There are 3 different available steam locomotives.

Ranking their characteristicis in a simplified way:

Hound: Highest Speed, medium fuel consumtion, least cars (less then 8?), durability, and strength

Grandpa: Lowest fuel consumption, medium speed, cars (8), durability, and strength

Towering Bull: Most cars (9 is possible), strongest locomotive and most durable, but highest fuel consumption and the most slow

But is one more easily modified? Is there a specific playstyle for each?
Or is it irrelevant which one you choose?

And apart from all this, which do you prefer?

Personally I like the Towing Bull train the most of the three. Slow and steady is my style.

Ol' Grandpa is the default train to my mind, a balance between the two extremes of the dashing Hound and trotting Bull.
I like having a workshop, kitchen, artillery and hospital, getting all the good upgrade and I always try to leave no one behind if it can be helped and as such I value that extra towing capacity highly.

I have thought of it a bit and I can see how different trains are better suited to different parts of the game or different play styles. For example, at the second choice of route, I'd argue that if you take the northern rout, you should use a hound and take advantage of it's speed and stockpiled resources to quickly pass through with minimum stops, minimising the fuel needed for stoves and food required for your soldiers, if you're heading south, take one of the other two for their extra durability and tow capacity as you'll be fighting and recovering more often.

I have played with the Hound and considered it's strengths and weaknesses, it's biggest advantage is, simply put, that it's fast.
Speed is an undervalued but critically important trait while other stuff most players prefer to have, like the hospital, kitchen and workshop are nice to have but in my experience, not critical to whether or not you can finish the game, if other players are like me, they enjoy stopping for as many Points of interest, resources and upgrades as possible so train speed doesn't seem that important a factor but really you don't have to stop for every location to finish the game, the quicker your train moves, the quicker you finish the game. The less time you spend reaching the port, the less resources you'll need (Food, fuel for stoves etc) to reach the port.
With the speed upgrade it's the fastest by a fair margin without using double speed and it's light on fuel use compared to the other trains.
The upgrades available are nice but you don't need them to finish the game. I also find that if you try to collect all the fuel you can along the way, you'll end up with a sizeable surplus by the last mission. You need some surplus for Siberia but otherwise as long as you have enough to reach the next chapter, you'll be fine.

I live somewhere as cold as Siberia, so I know winter can be harsh and fuel is important. I am very conservative on fuel and I obtain coals whenever I can,

so two stops before Vladivostok, I had close to 4000.......

[The Mighty Mulletman]

Originally posted by OrangeLark:

Originally posted by The Mighty Mulletman:

Personally I like the Towing Bull train the most of the three. Slow and steady is my style.

Ol' Grandpa is the default train to my mind, a balance between the two extremes of the dashing Hound and trotting Bull.
I like having a workshop, kitchen, artillery and hospital, getting all the good upgrade and I always try to leave no one behind if it can be helped and as such I value that extra towing capacity highly.

I have thought of it a bit and I can see how different trains are better suited to different parts of the game or different play styles. For example, at the second choice of route, I'd argue that if you take the northern rout, you should use a hound and take advantage of it's speed and stockpiled resources to quickly pass through with minimum stops, minimising the fuel needed for stoves and food required for your soldiers, if you're heading south, take one of the other two for their extra durability and tow capacity as you'll be fighting and recovering more often.

I have played with the Hound and considered it's strengths and weaknesses, it's biggest advantage is, simply put, that it's fast.
Speed is an undervalued but critically important trait while other stuff most players prefer to have, like the hospital, kitchen and workshop are nice to have but in my experience, not critical to whether or not you can finish the game, if other players are like me, they enjoy stopping for as many Points of interest, resources and upgrades as possible so train speed doesn't seem that important a factor but really you don't have to stop for every location to finish the game, the quicker your train moves, the quicker you finish the game. The less time you spend reaching the port, the less resources you'll need (Food, fuel for stoves etc) to reach the port.
With the speed upgrade it's the fastest by a fair margin without using double speed and it's light on fuel use compared to the other trains.
The upgrades available are nice but you don't need them to finish the game. I also find that if you try to collect all the fuel you can along the way, you'll end up with a sizeable surplus by the last mission. You need some surplus for Siberia but otherwise as long as you have enough to reach the next chapter, you'll be fine.

I live somewhere as cold as Siberia, so I know winter can be harsh and fuel is important. I am very conservative on fuel and I obtain coals whenever I can,

so two stops before Vladivostok, I had close to 4000.......

I had a similar experience with coal the first time round. Now I sell or trade all fuel but twice what i need to finish a chapter.