How to hide money before era changeover in Rail Nation
Era changeover is an exiting time for dedicated Rail Nation players: New goods appear, another magic hour could be near, and new trains await.
But that excitement can be short-lived for players who haven’t saved enough money and thus can’t afford new goodies. However, players also shouldn’t be upping their banks too much — spending $3 million to save $5 million for an hour isn’t a best practice. So how can players hide money for an hour or two before changeover, then get it back when it’s time?
- Dump money in expensive buildings that will take a while to complete.
The laboratory’s costs rise nicely, and the lab’s completion time is so long that even if your construction yard is at a high level, you’ll still need a few hours to complete a lab level. The only caveat here is that to hide a lot of money in the lab, you’ll need to have leveled it enough that the next level will have significant cost.
The station concourse costs even more to level and takes even longer, making it potentially a better option.
One bad option for hiding money is the construction yard. It takes little time to build and costs relatively little.
2. Start building track.
Track cost and completion time increase as you build track, so for this to work well, you’ll need to have tracked to a fair number of facilities already. You’ll also need track available. If you need more track to hide money, why not instead hide some in the track production building? It’s not a bad option, and if you need track and you need to hide money, you should probably spend that money instead because you’re about to gain goods and thus you will likely need track.
If you want to hide money in track, the key is to leave yourself enough time to cancel the track after era changeover. Then you’ll need to remember to cancel it. I suggest setting a timer.
3. Don’t collect trainspotters.
Every trainspotter gives money, so if you’re looking to avoid your bank max, let them stay on the map. Make notes of where they are so you can collect them quickly once you need them, but you can keep up to ten on the map without missing opportunities for more. And as a bonus, if one of the trainspotters is rare, you’ve already collected it for this set and you want to save it for when you need it for another set, just again note where it is and then avoid clicking until you’re ready.
Saving lotto tickets is a related option. I recommend this one partly because it can help you avoid maxing out your bank and partly because lottos can give RP, which you generally won’t want in the few hours before era changeover but definitely will want right after changeover.
4. (Under)bid on a worker.
This is the worst of several good options. Here’s why:
a) You can cancel track and buildings whenever you want (before they finish, that is). But when you bid on a worker, you get that money back — if you get it back (see the below reason) — only after bidding on the worker is finished. That means you can’t bid, then unbid.
b) Any money you bid on a worker is money you don’t get back if your corporation wins the worker. To get your money back, you have to lose, which means every member of your corporation has to not win the worker. And some of your corporation members might want that worker, which makes this an even worse option.
Those money-hiding options range from solid to meh. Other options are, in my view, worse:
- Buying extra cars and trains.
This option is not great because you lose money when you sell those things. Functionally, there’s no difference between losing money selling thing and losing money maxing out your bank. Since you’re trying to avoid maxing out your bank, this option is bad.
2. Building things that don’t cost much or don’t take much time.
This option uses a building slot suboptimally. Bad idea, pure and simple.
3. Train maintenance.
Money you spend on train maintenance is lost. You will recoup it at least a little in the ensuing time because your trains will run better, but the goal in hiding money is to be able to get it back again, and you can’t unrepair a train. Also, if your trains are still in the 90s or even 80s, repairing them is often not efficient.
Good luck with era changeover. I hope these tips help you prepare better.
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