I was disappointed with Railroad Tycoons II- the “scenario” format didn’t appeal to me, as opposed to the “build an empire” format of the originals. I guess I just never wanted to grow up and leave the sandbox! [:-,]
Anyway, while scenarios are mentioned explicitly, I’m wondering if anyone knows (has dl-ed the demo, has seen reviews, etc.)- is the game returning some to its’ roots of letting you just build and run 'cross North America (or Europe, or wherever)?
Basically, I would LOVE to have an electronic version of the Mayfair “Crayon” rail games, like Empire Builder, Eurorails, etc. The original and Deluxe Railroad Tycoons gave me that, and Tycoons II did not. I don’t want to spend money (better spent on physical trains and scenery…) on something that just isn’t my style.
From what I’ve seen of it, it looks very similar to the Railroad Tycoon games. From the videos and screenshots I’ve seen Sid Meier looks more cartoonish. I have RT3 which is not much different than the previous two in my opinion.
Well, I’m not so worried about appearance, as functionality. I don’t care a hoot if the trains look 100% prototypical, or are somewhat cartoonish. I’m worried about the gameplay. RT2 lost me on its’ gameplay. I don’t play these games to play someone’s idea of a “scenario”, I play them to “command and conquer”, excuse me, develop and expand economically.
For example, I prefer Civilization (which is generally more of a develop your tech, explore, and where you’re rewarded for diplomacy and taking concern for your citizens) as opposed to various RTS games, which seem to be more rewarding duking it out and wiping out your opponents.
Not to say one is inherently “better” than another in general, just that I personally prefer one over the other. YMMV.
i loved RT1 , liked RT2 , didn’t like the way RT3 worked in many ways
i can’t find a demo to dowmload for this new one , and i’m not buying it until i try it
It caught my eye too but looks WAY too much like RRT3 which I hate.
You don’t have to play the scenarios. You can just call up any of the maps and go build your empire. Plus as the prior poster pointed out there is the sandbox too. I actually liked the scenarios because the general games got too easy.
In that reguard I don’t understand where you see the difference between RT1 and RT2. They are both based on connecting the cargo to the appropriate town. And by the way have you tried the Railroad Tycoon board game? It is way cool, easy to learn and play. When I first saw it I thought it looked like all the 1830 “tile” like games, but it is not. The best railroad board game in my opinon is Silverton (not the Mayfair one but the original by Two Wolfs). The best true to life board game for building railroads (not running trains) is/was “Rails Through the Rockies” before Windsom bought it out and renamed it “Mountain Rails”. As for computer games - it took me three years to get sort of tired of “Rails Across America”. It is a railroad oriented game not a train oriented game like the railroad tycoon series. Highly recommended.
[quote user=“Jayers”]
BTW, RT2 certainly has a sandbox fe
Yes, very different theme. I have both those too. They are running the locomotive and hence a train, rather than scheduling and dispatching trains like RRTycoon, or running the railroad like Rails Across America. I did MSTS for about two months and decided that if I was going to spend that much time watching ties go by I should go and become a real engineer and get paid for it.
first let me say that I am a big fan of RRT1 and i LOVE RRT2, didn’t enjoy RRT3 that much, do enjoy rails across america, remember A-Train back in the day, also enjoy transport tycoon deluxe as well!
I’ve only played railroads for a couple of hours so far and here is what i think:
Railroads is visually stunning, the animations are incredible…watching a load of logs getting dropped on a flatcar is so cool. The engines are very detailed, though you have to get past all of the steam locomotives running without tenders!
Laying track is neat, you will see tunnels and cuts being made, again visually stunning…however laying track in terms of game play is something else all together. In the previous games, you only had so many options on how to lay your tracks. In railroads, you can lay rails in nearly any direction possible, which creates issues quickly. you can create broadways of steel - i’ve had 5 track main lines already and there is a reason for this…the Trains seem like they are very dumb in this game…they just go from point A to point B via the nearest green signal…no way to specificly route them on certain tracks. it almost feels like you need to create a seperate rail line for each train or else everything comes to a grinding halt on a traditional sytle trunk line system. - and that aspect is very frustrating to me. Also whenever you attach track sections together with a switch, a signal tower is created, if you remove said switch or trackage later the towers remain with no way to remove them other then mass track removal, this clutters up the lines and creates more green/red signals to stop and star trains.
It is a fun and addicitive game, but you just need to get over a few humps…once you do, the hours will fly by! I gonna go back later and try my hand again at trying to create a more efficent track system, but, if my results are the same as before - mass congestion, stopped
I purchased the game 2 days ago and it is fun… here are my thoughts:
The Good:
Great interface; nice images; easy to build a huge empire. Nice looking animations… Fun game / addictive, like all of Sid’s games.
The Bad:
Sometimes annoying laying track… You can’t make double crossovers to save space & you can’t change/upgrade bridges; MISSING a lot of important engines (e.g. late steam → no Challenger or Big Boy, no geared steam; the only diesels are an F7 and a GP (?7 or 9 can’t remember the number…)
Overall, I would rate it a 7 out of 10…worth a look, but not TOTALLY realistic for rivet counters… (fun animation on loadup says “miscounting rivets” [:)] )
As for downloads, you can buy it from Direct2Drive…works real nice if you have broadband.
I looked for it on Amazon. I found several reviews for it and most were thumbs down. Right now I think I will pass on it. I still have my Railroad Tycoon Deluxe on three 3.5 flopy disks. Many great hours of fun with that game. My curent computer has a slot for 3.5’s and I have loaded it, but can not get it to run. Any suggestions ???
I miss the original. I liked that I could go into dispatcher mode and run the whole thing and monitor trains from the dispatcher view.
I still play RRT2, but only in stand alone. I HATE the scenario things, and the campaigns. I like the ability to start North America and build until I want to stop. Massive empires. What is cool about that is you start to see why the railroads were built to where they were because the geography is very close. HATE RRT3. Never play that one anymore. I am a little disappointed with some of the descriptions of the new one. Automatically builds stations? What is the point? Still on my wait list.
I really liked Transportation Tycoon too. Trains worked really well there. Plus trucks, ships and planes.