portwineboy

I can't recommend this game to any Railroad Tycoon fan.

I was really excited by Sid's take on one of my favorite genres, but like Sim City Rome, I feel like the game was dumbed down way too much.

The maps seem small, the stock market is way too simplistic, you can't (or I can't figure out how to) buy natural resources, only production facilities. For all the reviews touting the ease of laying rail lines I'd kill for a RRT3 style toolbar to do it with. I wound up with junky looking rails way too easily. To lay double rails you need to first lay a single rail and they wind up looking funky. Trains don't break down, no water or sand requirements for steam engines...bleh. I could probably go on but I know I'm being picky.

If you are looking for a quick and easily accessible railroad management game this is for you...if you enjoyed the depth of RRT I'd say try the demo first.

I remember working on municipal labor contracts for the City of Philadelphia back in the 1990s. I worked pretty often with the mayor and his chief of staff, preparing materials about city management...basically to show why the unions were asking for more than the city could pay. Time and time again I sat there thinking, holy shit, this was covered in SimCity! I loved that level of detail...

Sid, I hope Spore is better!!!

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shakran

I bet Sid disagrees, since Spore is being designed by Wil Wright



Sid Meir kinda fails to impress me overall. Civilization was OK, but got suckier with each successive sequel. The only one I REALLY liked from him was Alpha Centauri. I think Wright's games (Sim City, etc) are much more impressive.

RAGEAngel9

Pirates was a lot of fun.

portwineboy

Oops, my bad. Got them both totally confused...still unhappy with Railroads though.

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shakran

IMHO the best game in this genre is still Transport Tycoon Deluxe. . . .which can now be had for free by searching for it on google.

The graphics are quite dated, but the gameplay is better than anyone else.

and there's a TTD patch out there to make the trains even more realistic

Delirious

Railroads certainly lacks the depth of it's predescessors. However it is a fun game to play. The small maps will only take an hour or so to conquer, whereas games like civ could take up many joyous hours.

Also the QA department didn't really do a good job as there are many major bugs such as being able to buy and sell stock over and over for easy profit (yes it works in multiplayer)

Overall with the simplistic nature of the game, I think Railroads may be geared more toward multiplayer.