History VideoGame / RailroadTycoon

* SnowcloneTitle[=/=]FollowTheLeader: Oh, Lord, yes. Every single game ending with "Tycoon" can be traced back to this game.

* DummiedOut: The first game has graphics for the [=GP40=], which can be seen rolling through the intro sequence. It's also mentioned in the manual, complete with stats, but it does not actually appear in-game. ''Railroad Tycoon'' can only handle 32 locomotives due to technological limitations, and the Gresley A1 is available in two different versions for the England and Europe maps, leaving no free slot for the [=GP40=].

** The flooded eastern United States scenario in ''Tycoon 2'' is somewhere between this and FallenStatesOfAmerica. Flooding is bad enough that the ''entire'' Mississippi valley is gone almost up to Chicago and Lake Michigan, along with most of the major cities of the eastern seaboard and the Gulf Coast (Florida and Louisiana, for instance, are nothing but open ocean), and even the St. Lawrence River valley all the way up to an enlarged Lake Ontario. The governments of the USA and Canada have collapsed into several successor states, while everything from about Nebraska westwards to the edge of the map is just called "the Troubled Lands", implying that the region has become an anarchic CrapsackWorld.

* DummiedOut: The first game has graphics for the GP40 which can be seen rolling through the intro sequence. It's also mentioned in the manual, complete with stats. But it does not appear in-game. ''Railroad Tycoon'' can only handle 32 locomotives, and the Gresley A1 is available in two different versions for England and Europe, leaving no free slot for the GP40.

* FragileSpeedster: Some of the fastest steam engines, such as the No. 999, cannot climb very well. In addition, some similarly fast engines have alarmingly low reliability ratings.

* GlassCannon:
** In many early missions in ''Tycoon 2'', the Iron Duke has speed a good ten miles or more faster than other trains of the time, making it your go-to engine for those missions ... unless you're facing a route with steep grade, because the Duke moves like a snail over anything steeper than a gentle incline.
** Passenger-oriented locomotives tend to fall into this in general, with high top speeds and acceleration, but drastic fall-offs in speed with heavy loads or when travelling on anything above a moderate grade. Plus, that high top speed tends to come with a [[ShockinglyExpensiveBill hefty fuel bill]].

* NoFairCheating: When using a cheat code to win a scenario in ''3'', the dialog box that normally shows a cutscene and a scenario-specific congratulatory message will instead read "You win, cheater …"

* DiagonalSpeedBoost: Not in the direct, literal sense, as trains moving diagonally on the map are subject to the same speed limits that they are in east-west and north-south directions. However, the square grid of at least the earlier games, the original ''Railroad Tycoon'', for instance, are exploitable in that track grades going from square to square diagonally are lower than taking the same height difference east-west or north-south as the distance is increased diagonally relative to horizontally or vertically. The lower grade of the track, in turn, allows the trains passing over them to proceed and accelerate faster than higher grades would. Also, in ''2'', due to the way how the grid is mapped, actual diagonal lines on the grid don't create crossings, meaning two trains can pass the same space in the same time (rather than one of them stopping), as technically, they aren't in the same plane.

** The flooded eastern United States scenario in ''Tycoon 2'' is somewhere between this and FallenStatesOfAmerica. Flooding is bad enough that the ''entire'' Mississippi valley is gone almost up to Chicago, along with most of the major cities of the eastern seaboard and Gulf Coast (Florida and Louisiana, for instance, are simply gone). The governments of the USA and Canada have collapsed into several successor states, while everything west of about Nebraska is an anarchic CrapsackWorld called "the Troubled Lands".

** One [[http://hawkdawg.com/rrt/rrt3/map_arch/rt3_north-america.htm#AmericanCivilWar fan-made map]] allows the player to pick sides in the American Civil War, with the success of the chosen side being dependent on the player's performance in special shipping missions.

* DiagonalSpeedBoost: Not in the direct, literal sense, as trains moving diagonally on the map are subject to the same speed limits that they are in east-west and north-south directions. However, the square grid of at least the earlier games, the original ''Railroad Tycoon'', for instance, are exploitable in that track grades going from square to square diagonally are lower than taking the same height difference east-west or north-south as the distance is increased diagonally relative to horizontally or vertically. The lower grade of the track, in turn, allows the trains passing over them to proceed and accelerate faster than higher grades would.

* NintendoHard: The "Second Century" campaign in ''Tycoon 2'' presumes you've finished the original campaign and thus is appropriately a few steps up in difficulty -- many missions have multiple different objectives to achieve, you tend to work in geographically and politically unfriendly territory, often have to play the stock market, and need an awareness of how industry supply lines work. You want that Gold objective? You are ''earning'' it.

* BlessedWithSuck: In ''Tycoon 2'', the "Basic" industrial and financial difficulty levels are this, oversimplifying game mechanics to the point that they will hinder your attempts to play.
** On the Basic financial model, AI opponents cannot buy stock in your company, but you cannot buy into theirs either, putting mergers and takeovers off the table and forcing you to choke off their railroad instead. The Advanced financial model allows buying and selling competitors' stock (not just your own), and the Expert level in turn allows margin buying and short-selling for further CorruptCorporateExecutive shenanigans.
** On the Basic industrial model, ''every'' industry in range of a station generates its respective product regardless of whether it is supplied with any required input resources, meaning that if you actually incorporate the primary industries (mines, farms, etc.) into your system, you can easily end up with way more cargo than your railroad can handle (and having untransported carloads steadily tanks local goodwill towards your company). The Advanced model actually requires cargoes to be delivered before industries will convert them, and the Expert model does the same with stricter demand parameters ''and'' allows you to buy industrial buildings to take a cut of their profits.