Love this game, I have personally put... waaaayyy too many hours into it already.

Note: this guide is incomplete and will have additions added to it.

Now everyone who plays this game will have their own style when it comes to setting up towns. This section is intended to give people who are struggling to get out of the 1800s in the game a better start to getting to the future. The breakout is a very important aspect of the game

1) First lets look at an easy example:



The town of Newbiggen-by-the-Sea, big name, small town. There are two theories I will present when establishing the initial routing. For this town, I elected to use simply a singular tram. I will accomplish this by upgrading all the roads to medium with tram rails.



By putting stops roughly 2-3 blocks a part, ensures I high level of coverage, and the actors (residents of the town) won't go walk far to use the tram. I would STRONGLY RECOMEND that you follow my example and have 2 tram routes, one going clockwise and one going counterclockwise. This decreases the transit time and encourages the actors to use your tram to go 4 blocks instead of walking those blocks because your route only goes one direction and takes a significant amount of time to get to the stop they want.


2) Another Typical Town: Breakout with trams AND buses (gasp)

Alright so we begin with the initial town of Hoddesdon:


what makes this different than the city in 1) is that its more sprawled out, there isn't an easy initial circumfrance to make with a tram line. So what I did was set up the roadwork for a tram that would encompass the outside of the town.



This is important because the town will grow and by creating a wide tract for the initial tram, you can just add a few stops later. Now as you can see, the center of the town isn't covered by the tram route, so fill in the gaps.


Notice the 2 tram lines going on the outside, running opposite directions, and the 1 bus line filling in the gaps.


Using trams and buses in this way is recommended:

a) Trams usually upgrade their capacity faster
b) Trams have a lower maintenence cost
c) Bus lines are easier to expand
d) Makes more sense in considering real life.

For both towns I would start off with 2-3 trams per line to cover the initial use, and 2 buses for the same reason. And then add trams and buses as necessary. It will depend on how long the line is and covers.

Naming lines and depots.

I urge you to name lines and be as specific as you can. It seems obvious but when you a have 100+ lines as towns grow and you connect, naming the lines allows you to quickly add vehicles to a line, without having to hover over line # and hope you find the right route.


Naming depots allow you to transform this:


Into this:


It matters when you are replacing vehicles (upgrading and the like) to prevent you from experiencing this:



Can you tell where those trams are going? What town they are in? Without clicking on the tram depot button and using the camera center button?

When you are replacing 20+ lines worth of vehicles it makes the process so much easier.

With game mechanics as the currently are, growth is very important for the future of your company, especially outside of the 1800s. Sure you can make a profit year-to-year by putting a few buses around towns, maybe waiting to make a train and adding one town to the mix as you go. But practically, that pauses the growth and development of any town you are not actively in. It makes expanding to that town later in the game a money sink, because there's not enought people in the town to really make that 200 passenger train get filled.

What's the best early strategy for growth? Bus Lines, they're cheap, easy to make... and plus they actually make the large bus stops useful!



Also I strongly recommend putting your road depots near your bus terminals/large bus stations. They are going to need buses added the most when you make the line active.

Continuing the trend from the initial breakout, I recommend puting a stop for both tram lines very near. Or use the large tram station:



Now you want to use the large stations mostly for consolidation, and their larger capacity. When you start creating multiple routes, people will move from one bus line to another.

So we have our large bus/tram stations and we simply connect the two:



Then, quickly expand that to a 3rd town:


This concept is essential, especially if you are going for the Truck Fever achievement.

But even without going for the achievement this is essential, why?

a) jumpstarts the growth of towns (which really setups a better late game scenario)
b) significantly cheaper than starting off with a train route. (3 towns set up cost less then 2 million, with 1+ million in reserve for the 20+ vehicles that needed to be added soon for maximum effect)
c) It makes some serious money early in the game: