...bother with achievements at all?

Some people do not care, and more power to 'em. For me, there's a little hole in my enjoyment knowing that there's something that can be done that I haven't yet... achieved. Hence, I enjoy games more after I've completed the achis that are meaningful to me, since there's not a little niggling feeling telling me something isn't done yet. OCD for win/fail, you decide.

I've been trying to nail some of the more specific achievements for dozens of games, and succeeded in a few now that I've photo-documented for posterity, and for a while I was posting them in the forum and making the world see such inanities. Now that I've got a couple completed, I'm sharing with others the strategy used to complete them, without polluting the forums.

I'm also interested in the strategies others have used, and those used for achievements not yet noted here, so please comment if you have something not recorded here. As a work in progress, I will update the guide and give credit where it's due.

That said, this is what my little victories looked like; thanks for looking, and happy riding.

Please give an UP rating if you find this guide useful.

These are pretty obvious if you have read the achievement requirements; they're included here for the sake of completeness.

The only unclear thing about them is some of the high numbers needed; I have no idea how to score 400 in a single game, and haven't yet seen even a remote possibility to complete 15 tickets in a game, so I'd love to see some commentary from anyone who knows how these are done.

1. Pressure Gauges (score the amount listed)
   
2. Conductor (play the amount of games listed)
   
3. Punched Tickets (complete the number of routes listed in a single game)
   
4. Railway Tycoon (win with 4x Vanderbot Jr)
   
5. Handcar: (win without using a Locomotive - the multi-colored card)

These are the ones that come easiest (or so I opine...) when you play against only 1 bot (or player, I suppose).

1. Coal Tender (win with all black routes in your possession)
2. Poker Player (win with all 5-space routes in your possession)

Ideally you'll be able to take known cards from the sidebar most every turn, so that you can build the routes you want to build as quickly as possible, but this is very hard with black cars, and can be difficult once you're down to only a route or two left (for Poker).

As a rule, what I do on a hand where I don't have my primary choice available and will draw anyway, is to take the first card from the sidebar if and only if I will eventually need that color, even if I don't need it right then, just to see what the next flip will be; maybe I flip a card that I do need and can take the known without having to draw and waste. You can certaily also blind draw on the chance of getting the colors you do need and/or Locomotives, but if you haven't been counting the cards the bot is keeping from the sidebar, or can't see because they are blind drawing, this is a risk I find less rewarding.

The hard part comes when you have to choose between drawing an unknown (and having two chances to do it) or choosing a Locomotive from the sidebar, but getting only 1 card. Every time, this situation will be specific to the state of the game; choose wisely - there's no tip for this circumstance because it's all but pure gambling...

...and no pictures since I haven't yet completed these achievements.

I was surprised to pop this achievement on the same game that I got Transcontinental. While I did block a couple of bot routes, I was really only trying to get my own 45-train for the Transcon achi, and just got lucky.



The strategy I had been using for this one was the same as the one used for Old Movies - basically just using a single bot as the only opponent and waiting for a draw of central and eastern routes where I could easily place short routes early on to block access to strategic/versatile routes. Since the objective and qualification for this one is that you have to win the game while the bot cannot complete any tickets, reactive play is suggested for most of the game after assuring the routes you need to complete a couple of short tickets.

Since you'll play reactively (blocking routes you think the opponent is trying to complete), you can afford to take several of the first ten or so turns just building up cards in your hand and watching what develops. If the opponent got a short route (Devner to El Paso, for example), you probably won't block them anyway, but in a game where they happen to play cross country routes, you should easily prevail. Until you get that circumstance, practice building your routes and learning what short routes to block early, based on the patterns you see the bot building.

Since this one is unpredictable (you never know what the opponent has; you just have to guess) it's good to play with other achis as primary goals, and you just might get lucky with this one before you have to grind it too hard.

This screencap probably looks familiar to the one in the Dynamite Joe section, and it is in fact the same shot; I got lucky while going for this achi, and popped them both.

Best chance is to play with one bot, since you must win the game to pop this achievement.



It makes sense for this achievement to consider routes that are in fact 45 cars long before you find yourself without the cars to build that last route, or trying to figure out how to build three 1-space routes when you have only 3 cars remaining. To a point you can play fast and loose right up to about the last 10 to 15 cars, but at that point you have to start thinking about saving a larger route for last build, or in any case, how to play your last few cars.

One way or another, you'll have a winding monster of a track laid, and that means it's a great idea to go for cross country routes that give both higher scores (than short routes) and more spread out tickets, meaning less chance of competing for common cities.

Theoritically, it's also possible to pop Hobo with this one, if you get a couple of low-score tickets and also block the bot from completing theirs - but trying to do both will almost always lead to failure.

If you're at all familiar with this game, you probably know that there are two things that will make this one easier:

1. completing multiple routes that are close to/on top of each other, and
2. avoiding long routes with more than 3 (maybe 4) cars per leg
3. claiming small 'utility' routes when you have too many cards to draw again, and have to get rid of a couple of them to keep your hand light

I suggest attempting this one when your initial draw is a bunch of central or east coast routes, taking up as many of the short connections to New York, Dallas/Houston, and Chicago as possible, and drawing for more routes quickly, but not before your starter routes are either assured or impossible.

No screencap because this one is observed as you play; just have to think it out and get a very little bit lucky.

You must win to pop this achievement.

I haven't popped this one - yet. Got it! The strategy detailed is what worked for me, but it came down to the wire: my last card, and my last turn, made it an 81/80 win, with one of the bot tickets successfully blocked:







The setup I'm seeking is a start with two low-point routes that I can afford to not complete, on a map where it's only me and a single bot player. The reason for this is that, with less than four players, double routes (where there are 2 tracks from one city to another) cannot be double-claimed.

This means that there are many opportunities to block the bot from completing routes, which, when successful, means that the bot point total is lowered, thus giving your Hobo chances of winning quite a boost. Combined with the fact that you're not completing routes anyway, this seems like a high-yield strategy, but like I said, I haven't done it in about 15 games of trying.

Sometimes the bot is sneaky... and sometimes the game plays you! :psi:

Seizing the 6-car routes will yield a lot of points, and since you're not going to complete your tickets anyway, you have a lot of time to sit back and wait for the cards you need, then play a bunch of routes very quickly. With a little luck and a couple of blocking routes, I expect to get this one in short order.

Big thanks to flyingmonkeys for advice on this section!

This one is a little bit tricky only because you need to have a start with at least 2 ticket on only gray routes, and those routes must be only gray. Any claim of any route of any color (other than gray) will prevent this achievement pop, since you're no longer 'black & white' like ye olde movies.

I also found it fairly easy to do versus only 1 bot opponent, since double routes can only be claimed once, making it easy to block the bot from completing tickets, thus reducing their score. Clearly, this strategy will be challenging in a game where the opponent has drawn tickets on the central route, because he will try to take those routes early; you'll know pretty quickly if this is the case.



On your turn, if possible, take cards from the revealed sidebar that match colors you have already; as a rule, you want pairs of cards since the vast majority of tickets that can be completed for this achievement are located on short routes.

When there are no matches, that's a good turn to play a route; alternatively, darw blind, and you may now have a match to a color that's already in the sidebar for your second pick. In the screencap, you can see that I took the two northwestern routes (3 & 4 spaces) and the far north central route (6 spaces) to gain score and block the bot, but I also worked to get Longest Train bonus by twisting through the central and eastern routes as much as possible.

For this one you don't have to complete all of your starting tickets - or any at all, it would appear - you just can't draw any others. Theoretically, you could win this achievement and Hobo on the same game, if you were very, very lucky. I think I kept four of five starting tickets and completed them all.

No screencap because I wasn't worried about taking them when I got this one, but it's fairly simple; even if you do have to play a couple of games to get it, the strategy isn't difficult: build routes, complete tickets, don't draw more tickets, win. Easy-peasy.

Simple with 1 bot/opponent.

Must win to unlock, and must be played on the Mega Cities map.

As nearly as I can tell, Trestle at this time is a broken achievement:





This is very frustrating, indeed, especially since the devs do not seem to be active on Steam at present.

I don't know why the other game didn't pop the achi; I'd not used anything less than 3 and I'd won the game. Well, again, I've met that circumstance and this time it popped. Very strange, indeed.

This is what it looked like at the end.





As you can see, the bot got three of four tickets, as well as longest route, but I completed my three starting tickets and seized a couple of extra, longer routes for points

Bingo!

http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=592190083
Game notes are available in the screencap commentary by author.

(Having still never played the India/Eastern maps, I trust the contributor on this one and Marco Polo, since I've never seen them myself.)

Thanks much, captchaoss!

http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=645717726

Screeencap description has details of the game and how it was played.

Thanks much, captchaoss!

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2879719665