Any tips on how to play this game?

[Lemonpie]

No matter what I do, I can't get past the -100/second stretch of the map.

[Xafian]

Training = generation of happyness
Zeal = ??
You need 2 wagons of the same level to upgrade (1x1 2x2 3x3 etc)

[MindereakITA]

The very last part of the game is brutal, I managed to beat it multiple times but so far my run with the most happiness to spare, over 2k, was when I went full training. I should start screenshotting winning runs, too bad the game ends without giving you a chance to review your final train.

[Big Nut INC]

use Academy to get 3 level 5 ivory tower for 180 happiness each end run with 24000 happiness.

[ratzuskboje]

I went for early speed generation (get train speed to around 100% extra) and then slot in the 3 exploration guild as soon as you can and go for the bottom route, to try and explore as many cities as possible. then swap to the shorter timer cars to spam that +300-400 extra happines generated by the explorers guild as often as you can

[sfrazer]

Basically it seems like a match 2 game where the various car types/factions give different bonuses. The bonuses increase with both number of matching types/factions and "stacks" of cars.

Since you can only stack a car with a matching type/faction/stack level, the rate at which you gain cards that can stack will affect your happiness generation.

As such, Academy seems particularly broken because with only 2 academy cars you begin to get bonus Academy card drops (every 4 turns at first and it drops to every 1 turn at 4 academy cars) which will allow you to generate 5-stack academy cars fairly quickly. At some point (when all the Academy cars you have are already 5-stacks?) the drops become "Ivory Towers." When you can stack those 5-high they generate 180 happiness each turn which seems to overcome even the worst modifiers

[SP00KYGUNNER]

Find 2 things that synergize and try to build around it. Engine power with reduce cycle time or exploration for example.

[Bork]

There's a pretty no brainer strategy of going for brotherhood cars to get that x7 happiness multiplier at the end. Combine this with some reasonable early and mid game choices about what to add to this build and you should be able to hit the end game everytime. This strat doesn't require any particular luck with cards or even specific other cards.
I think basically all the strats come down to this, really lean into a specific set of bonuses, however, not all bonuses are equal, some are hard to pull off, and others are just garbage. I found the balance of these to be pretty lousy - however, on finding out this was a gamejam game, it makes sense, they didn't have the time to tune the balance, everything is more of a throw it at the wall and see if it sticks.
If it's any consolation the -100 part of the game is the final stage, so, you're almost there, just failing at the final hurdle. Albeit that hurdle is stupidly ( and arbitrarily ) bad news ( particularly with the final few stops that will wipe a few thousand happiness out per step ).

[RivieraKid]

it's important to bare in mind that there is no "-100/second stretch of the map". The -100/s appears after a certain amount of days, it is not connected to where you are. So if you get to the end of the map faster - either by speeding up the train or not going round a lot of nodes, its easy to reach the end of the game without getting to that section. In fact, I'm pretty sure the -100/s only exists to say you've taken too long and make you lose, I don't think you are supposed to fight your way through it.

[Lemonpie]

Originally posted by RivieraKid:

it's important to bare in mind that there is no "-100/second stretch of the map". The -100/s appears after a certain amount of days, it is not connected to where you are. So if you get to the end of the map faster - either by speeding up the train or not going round a lot of nodes, its easy to reach the end of the game without getting to that section. In fact, I'm pretty sure the -100/s only exists to say you've taken too long and make you lose, I don't think you are supposed to fight your way through it.

Um.. there is. When you go through the first wasteland, you get an additional -35/s. Then the second wasteland gives additional -100/s.

[RivieraKid]

Originally posted by Lemonpie:

Originally posted by RivieraKid:

it's important to bare in mind that there is no "-100/second stretch of the map". The -100/s appears after a certain amount of days, it is not connected to where you are. So if you get to the end of the map faster - either by speeding up the train or not going round a lot of nodes, its easy to reach the end of the game without getting to that section. In fact, I'm pretty sure the -100/s only exists to say you've taken too long and make you lose, I don't think you are supposed to fight your way through it.

Um.. there is. When you go through the first wasteland, you get an additional -35/s. Then the second wasteland gives additional -100/s.

Yup, I'm an idiot.

[Cybernautis]

Security is reasonably strong to stack mid game happiness and the control car doesn't cost a space. Only things are that the necessary 3rd tier cars don't come early and the combo doesn't give you enough for late game.
Any suggestions for Optimal Pathing?

[Jethanded Wyvern]

Originally posted by Big Nut INC:

use Academy to get 3 level 5 ivory tower for 180 happiness each end run with 24000 happiness.

My last run just died with me finally getting Ivory Tower cards at last.

You impatient bastards. You could have sat comfortable and warm.

[Graven Ash]

Get the second level of the blue synergy early on, balanced with the gear cars to speed up the train.

The way that the Blue Synergy works is it will only keep giving you a certain type of car until you have that car at level 5 & once you have all 4 blue cars at level 5 it will start giving you "Ivory Tower" cars.

So focus on grabbing blue cars or gear cars early on, saving all the white cars you can afford to.

Once your engine is fully upgraded (228% speed) swap over to the white cars instead of the engine improvement cars, the increased cycle speed + the free cars per cycle is unstoppable.

If you have the second conductor (I forget her name but you unlock her after 2-3 wins) she lets you have 2 extra cars on your train, with her if you are a tiny bit lucky you can get to Ivory Towers before you even hit the nuclear bunker landmark (I always go down south when given the option to achieve this) then if you have a couple level 5 Ivory Towers you can actually double back into the storm & hit every node on the map.

The Perfect Train requires conductor 2, so you can get 12 max cars it goes "Front Car" (at the front) followed by 3-4 level 5 ivory towers, the double length white car I think its called the "Executive Lounge" or something, and then whatever white cars you have. I made it to day 260 or so just running around in the storm and I didn't have to call it quits I just was bored with that run at that point.

The one trick to remember with this strategy is that car synergies require different kinds of cars, so if you have 2 ivory towers and 2 other blue cars you don't get the level 2 of that synergy, so you need to build up your Ivory Towers fully before switching to them fully (you can swap out the Ivory Tower for 1 of of your blues, just don't swap it out for 2 of them).

[Semtext]

tremendous tips here. thanks everyone. i managed to win with brotherhood 7 plus communication, but doing it again felt really boring.

[identifiedasbeingdisrespectful]

Originally posted by SelWrynn:

Get the second level of the blue synergy early on, balanced with the gear cars to speed up the train.

The way that the Blue Synergy works is it will only keep giving you a certain type of car until you have that car at level 5 & once you have all 4 blue cars at level 5 it will start giving you "Ivory Tower" cars.

So focus on grabbing blue cars or gear cars early on, saving all the white cars you can afford to.

Once your engine is fully upgraded (228% speed) swap over to the white cars instead of the engine improvement cars, the increased cycle speed + the free cars per cycle is unstoppable.

If you have the second conductor (I forget her name but you unlock her after 2-3 wins) she lets you have 2 extra cars on your train, with her if you are a tiny bit lucky you can get to Ivory Towers before you even hit the nuclear bunker landmark (I always go down south when given the option to achieve this) then if you have a couple level 5 Ivory Towers you can actually double back into the storm & hit every node on the map.

The Perfect Train requires conductor 2, so you can get 12 max cars it goes "Front Car" (at the front) followed by 3-4 level 5 ivory towers, the double length white car I think its called the "Executive Lounge" or something, and then whatever white cars you have. I made it to day 260 or so just running around in the storm and I didn't have to call it quits I just was bored with that run at that point.

The one trick to remember with this strategy is that car synergies require different kinds of cars, so if you have 2 ivory towers and 2 other blue cars you don't get the level 2 of that synergy, so you need to build up your Ivory Towers fully before switching to them fully (you can swap out the Ivory Tower for 1 of of your blues, just don't swap it out for 2 of them).

You miss out on a ton of happiness not pairing the fuel and hammer comm car at the end when you have front car.