Transport Fever 2: 5 Best Tips for Beginners

Let’s acknowledge the elephant in the room: building a transportation empire — it isn’t going to be a walk in the park. If anything, it’s going to take a great deal of blood, sweat, tears, and a huge portion of that lofty loan that the bank had provided you during the preliminary phases of your ambitious endeavors. For what it’s worth, though, having a few good tips under your belt will take you a long way in Transport Fever 2, so before you take over the reins, be sure to brush up on the following pointers.

5. Roll With the Punches

It won’t take long for you to realize that, whilst you’re out carving new railroads and routes for your cargo to travel through, the game’s AI will automatically take care of the city-building aspects. As a result of this, you will find that not every town on your radar will benefit your endeavors; on the contrary, some of them will make your job a lot harder. The good news is, you can, weirdly enough, demolish a few roadblocks in order to keep your infrastructure intact and secure. If you do take this approach, then the AI will have no choice but to reconsider its decisions and find new ways to operate around your agenda.

Of course, the aim of the game, really, is to essentially connect the world and have it so that no location is without its own infrastructure. However, if a town is proving to be a bit of a problem, then don’t be afraid to toy with the AI and work around it, if only until you’ve secured a new way to provide it with the resources and transportation network it wants and needs.

4. Don’t Blow Your Budget

When starting out in the world of Transport Fever 2, you’ll have access to a LOAN of $5,000,000. With that said, like any loan, you will need to pay it back, with added interest, to boot. Therefore, for the sake of keeping your financial situation above water, you should only spend what’s absolutely necessary, and never take advantage of the funds at your disposal. Remember, you will need to pay it all back, so do yourself a favor and keep as much of it in your back pocket as possible, if only until you’ve repaid your debts and started to flip a profit.

As it turns out, establishing a railway network is the most expensive thing you’ll need to do in both the campaign and its Free Mode. For this reason alone, you’ll want to focus your attention on the trucks and ships, as these types of vessels will already have natural terrain to work with. Ultimately, you’ll want to channel your profits into building a sturdy rail line that can not only transport cargo from one city to the next, but also settlers for new cities and landmarks, too. To begin, however, you should prioritize the land and sea.

3. Don’t Overcomplicate Things

When it comes to finding the ideal map in Transport Fever 2, you’re going to want to find somewhere that has more water than hills, and just enough towns and factories to help get your foot on the ladder. Simply put, the more hills you have to clamber over, the slower your transport will be; the more water you have, the easier it will be to ship valuable resources around. In other words, the flatter the terrain, the quicker you’ll be able to move cargo and citizens around.

In addition to the terrain type, you’ll also need to choose a starting period to work with. It’s worth mentioning here that, in most cases, opting for 1850 will ultimately lead to tougher challenges, as technology will be scarce, and resources will cost a lot more than they would in, for example, a modern-day period. For this reason alone, you should consider starting out at a later date, if only to make your early developments flow a lot easier. If, however, you’re hell-bent on starting at the very beginning, then be sure to onboard all of the pointers that the campaign has to offer, as these tips will help you out in the Free Mode later down the line.

2. Materials Over Citizens

Before you set out to flesh out your cities and generate a populace that speaks for itself, you’ll want to look into growing said cities with an irreplaceable transportation network, and more importantly, a series of routes than have the power to flush resources into the community on a year-round schedule. To be clear, you should aim to provide your settlements with the bare essentials before expanding the borders and filling each and every quarter with new citizens. Again, you'll want to resort to using ships and trucks as much as possible, if only to whittle down on railway costs.

1. Sideline Free Mode

As tempting as it may be to sideline the campaign and shoot straight for the open and, let's face it, less restricted Free Mode, the fact is, the campaign can, and often will provide you with the tools and tips needed to thrive out in the sandbox mode. Sounds strange, but the truth is, the Free Mode can be a lot tougher than the bog-standard campaign, as it more or less hurls every single object and predicament at you all at once, whereas the campaign essentially walks you through each mode of transport and scenario, piece by piece. So, before you shoot straight for the stars, aim to spend some time down on earth, if only until you've mastered the core mechanics.

So, what’s your take? Do you have any useful tips for Transport Fever 2 newcomers? If so, then be sure to drop us a comment over on our socials here.