Sid Meier's Railroads!

[xfactor9600]

Re: Sid Meier's Railroads!

I loved the original Railroad Tycoon. I keep an old machine just for the purpose of playing it. I have not liked the sequels. I always enjoyed starting up a game and competing against Rail Barrons for the Transcontinental. I hope that's possible in this game.

[poster]

Re: Sid Meier's Railroads!

I am interested by this game as well. Looks pretty cool.

[Rodster]

Re: Sid Meier's Railroads!

My copy is in @ EB and i'll pick it up tomorrow morning. If anyone picked up the game today let us know what you think.

If Sid is behind this game it should be brilliant.

[xfactor9600]

Re: Sid Meier's Railroads!

Can anyone post the system specs? I can't seem to locate them. I want this game, but obviously not if it won't play on my system.

[Shaver]

Re: Sid Meier's Railroads!

Processor: 1.4Ghz processor

Video Card: GeForce 3 or equivalent

RAM: 512Mb RAM

[JRod]

Re: Sid Meier's Railroads!

The game is out now...only went through the tutorial. Only negative right now is the lack of a true US map.

[mudtiger]

Re: Sid Meier's Railroads!

How's the simplification of the economy and stock market? I've read some grumbling on how the game is cramped and neutered.

[Rodster]

Re: Sid Meier's Railroads!

How's the simplification of the economy and stock market? I've read some grumbling on how the game is cramped and neutered.

I've read the same and since i'm a huge fan of Railroad Tycoon 2 and 3 that's a big issue for me. It doesn't surprise me if it's true cause that's Sid's style making games that are excessable to everyone.

[JRod]

Re: Sid Meier's Railroads!

I wanted to get more gametime before I said if it's too simple. Sadly I think this is the case. I think cramped and neutured is the best words to describe the game.

For one thing and this was a huge flaw in RRT3 is that how the railroads should cover an entire country. Sadly there's no US map in the game. RRT2 had the US map for the start and it was fun going trans-continental.

The mechanics of the game is simple and I would say that works intially in its favor. Setting up tracks and getting goods to the cities is easy as it should be. As you progress in the game, it slowly turns away from managing your trains and goods to managing track. I understand that laying track should be important but there's too much emphasis on it. I'm not sure what the game calls it but if you play on hard, trains will not be able to "ghost" to get to their destination. If have a lot of trains you will need to be weary of how you lay track as trains can will not move if there's a train blocking them. The AI does a great job of finding an open track but sometimes you're in a situation where you have to lay to really stupid track bypasses just to get the trains to go. In the later years it really feels like you are just creating track bypasses to get your trains running.

If you are a fan of railroad tycoon games, one of the biggest complaints with earlier games was the ability to stock pile goods. You can't in this game which makes it all about laying track. What the game wants you to do is to create an industry in that city instead of running the further route to get a resource to its industry.

There are less goods and services than other RRT games. There are enough as not to hurt the game.

I have a few other complaints. I haven't found a way to use competitor's lines. I don't know if you can. This means that you turn the game into a highway of tracks. With more than 4 competitiors it makes the tracks look like the California Highway system. You will have to lay track over your competitors tracks and sometimes it just looks silly.

The market system is not as complex as RRT2 and to me that says a lot. Both the good markets and the stock market is not as well put together. Stocks can only be bought and sold. You never really get a feel of when's a good time to buy or a bad time to sell. It's really just about selling to get cash and buying stock to take over your and the AI's company.

In terms of the good market, you never really get a sense of what you need to get to market. There's a helpful price menu that shows what a load of anything will sell. In RRT2, industries would be so dead or saturated that you had to stop the line and run something else. I never got that feeling in this game. You had to run all trains as most if not all are profitable. (This could be dependent of the difficulty level). Running trains creates the track problems I mentioned above.

Lastly, is this game could be a system hog. A game like this should not need a lot of resources.

Overall I dug out my RRT2 Platinum CD and fired it up again. That game stands the test of time. Railroads is "cramped and neutered" and it seems to be either a primer for an expansion pack or a game that needs a bit more features.

[mudtiger]

Re: Sid Meier's Railroads!

Thanks for the update JRod. I guess I'll have to find my RRT2 cd too and skip this one.

[luv_mist]

Re: Sid Meier's Railroads!

Okay, I'm kind of new to the Railroads scene. Had to dig this up. Does anyone else have a hold of this? I'm kind of liking it because it's my first. Really, it's my second but I can't get the RT3 to even start on my Vista computer. Something wrong with the compatibility. I barely got SMR running. I think I'm going to upgrade my girls computer since it's still XP. Have to resolder the power to the motherboard which is a pain in the behind. Still, I'm enjoying the heck out of this game. Anyone else feeling the same? Anyone??

[Kilmer]

Re: Sid Meier's Railroads!

I enjoy the game as light strategy. It does not take much to learn and have fun.

The Christmas scenario they released was a nice twist.

If you like to just play with a trainsim without too much hassle or complication, it is fun. If you are more serious about the subject, you will find many flaws.

Just like Sid Meier's Pirates, I always have this game a click a way for some light fun.

http://www.hookedforums.com/forwarder.html?http://www.hookedforums.com/a/viewforum.php?f=34&sid=577c6a3d511fa247685b38178ad5829d

[luv_mist]

Re: Sid Meier's Railroads!

Honestly, I can't seem to get the Christmas joint going my way. Its like a different RTS for me. I basically am addicted cause it's a new type of game. I am definitely getting on the Railroad train scene. It's holding me over until 2K8. I'm not even as eager to get 2K8 right now. Might wait until.....Wednesday.......heck, even Thursday........