Just curious, does anyone else play the computer game Railroad Tycoon III. If you havent had the opportunity to play this game you should seek it out and play it. Its a great game and can informative about early trains and freight.
Steve
It’s quite fun, isn’t it?
VERY time consuming though.
I prefer RR Tycoon II. III is II with some added low-quality graphics tricks (unless I missed something BIG).
yes it is alot of fun and very time consuming ive played a single game for 8 hours or more at a time.
Steven
Why play Railroad Tycoon. I AM a railroad tycoon. I am also the CEO, engineer, brakeman and maintenance of way worker. Now, if I could only overthrow the Chief Financial Officer (my wife)… [:)]
i was addicted to it then i got microsoft train simulator
I like the 2 version until traffic gridlocks halt the system, the railroad that is.
3 is pretty fun with the wartime traffic scenario. You cannot get all of the freight to the ports in time but you can try pretty well.
Some of these games lasted weeks on my machine.
yeo that one and train sim.
I like 2 better than 3. Even though RT3 has better graphic for following the train around, I like the hands on management and the ability to nit pick the track laying in RT2. I’m afraid I’ve wasted a good month of my life playing that game! [:D]
Haven’t played RRT-III much. Every time I do, I find that I get tired of their “scenarios”. Gimme the old versions (II, or, if I can keep it working on newer and newer OS, I) where you’re just fighting it out economically with the other opponents.
Brian Pickering
I’ve only played RT2 and I’ll tell you there’s something not quite kosher about seeing a LNER steamer on point of a Chicago-NYC express freight hehe.
That is what i like about them. you can get trains that would never exist in real lifre happening. it is also why i have models of them
I treid playing it but it had a scratch so the game did not work correctly. Maybe i will get it in a while?? Tim
My game won’t play either. I played it on a much less powerful machine than the one I have, but now I can’t get it to work. I still play RRT 2 from time to time, and it is very addicting. All of Sid Meier’s games are (Civilization, Pirates). I especially like the fact that they used old TYCO and Bachmann models as the basis for the cars and industries in the game, kind of a retro tribute. I think that RRT 3 should have toaned down the graphics and concentrated more on the game play aspects. Even though it was cool that they finally brought in tunnels, and boosted up the AI a bit.
In all honesty, these games kept me in the hobby while I was in college and didn’t have the money or space for a layout or rolling stock.
I much much prefer both the original Railroad Tycoon and the Railroad Tycoon II. With the third version it is almost impossible to engineer a good route. There is no good view for railbuilding and it assumes entirely too much. The ratings given to the locomotives seem to have no basis in reality. I only played it a few times and went back to version II. Even version II doesn’t “run” the trains as well as version I did. They should bring back the “signal tower” station type.
This can be caused by several things and fixed by running or designing the railroad differently.
- Locomotives assigned to trains that have too low an “acceleration” rate. When one train overruns another it takes the trains too long to get moving again. Choose different locomotives for the trains.
- Trains are too long for the blocks between the stations. In version two the only option is to make the trains shorter. In version I add a signal tower to make the blocks smaller.
- Simply too much traffic for the rails. Split the track the first section out of the station and make it a 4 or 6 track main line. OR for through trains that don’t have to stop in the clogged area make a cut off track that completely buypasses the busy station or section of track.
- There is a bad grade that clogs up the track on it. Rebuild the track with less grades, add a second route around the grade, get more powerful locomotives, or run shorter trains.
- Too diverse of train classifications. The low class (drag) trains are constantly getting run over by expresses and can never get moving. Eventually all the low class trains are congregated in the one spot and running over each other too. Use only two classes of trains express and other.
- Using wooden or steel bridges slow the trains down and create bottle necks. Replace the
I have both 2 and 3. I like three because it allows you to have a couple more cars on a train. I still wish someone would make a fairly realistic map of Kentucky,then I could create my own L&N. Anyone ever tried Rails Across America?
Yes, I played RAA quite a bit for awhile. I really enjoyed it. Different approach than RRT.
how do you get that to work ? i’ve tried putting in a double line between stations and the trains all take whichever route is shorter , the longer line never gets used
I have both RR Tycoon 2 and Train Sim.
I really like RRT111. The problem for me is finding a computer that will run it without locking up or crashing. My desktop at home will play it fairly well. Only crashes sometimes. My laptop will crash or lockup with in a couple of minutes. My laptop is a Compac Presario 2500. Biggest piece of crap that’s ever been called a computer.