A Review of Sid Meier's Railroads (Updated, again)

[Markbnj]

Sid Meier's Railroads shipped to stores on the 17th, and after visiting a few places Tue. morning I managed to find a clerk at a Gamestop who would dig it out of the daily shipment for me.

I have been playing it for about six or seven hours, so far, and have posted a fairly comprehensive review at my site that includes a ton of screenshots. Check it out and let me know what you think.

You can read the review here.

Update:

I posted an update to the review this evening, looking much more closely at "hard" routing mode, and why it doesn't work very well for double tracking situations. You can go directly to the update here.

Update 2:

I added some information to the end of the update above, including one new screenshot illustrating that the test road I built last night froze up this evening running five trains. The routing AI made a really stupid decision, and I have to say that it's just broken at this point, at least for realistic mode.

Update 3:

After several dozen hours of play in all scenarios, I have posted a wrap-up to my multipart review of Sid Meier's Railroads, focusing on the more subjective question of whether it is fun, and whether it meets the expectations of the game's natural fan base, Railroad Tycoon fans. The answers are, in order: yes it is, and no it doesn't.

You can read the wrap-up here.

 

[dighn]

can you make maglev trains?

 

[MmmSkyscraper]

Thanks for the detailed review.

 

[Markbnj]

Originally posted by: dighn
can you make maglev trains?

I don't think so. As far as I can tell the top loco is the French TGV. Given the smaller map sizes I can't imagine that baby blasting around at 220 mph, but I haven't gotten far enough to see about it.

Also, I updated the review this evening with more accurate information about building connectors and crossovers, and how they work with signal towers. The UI cues are very subtle, and easy to mess up.

 

[Markbnj]

Bump.

 

[Nick5324]

Nice, thanks for the write up; I might have to pick this one up.

 

[Dacalo]

I also have some fond memories playing Railroad Tycoon that was bundled with CD-Rom and Sounblaster bundle from early 90's. I will have to check this one out, thanks for the review.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Sid Meier has to be the most overrated person in gaming today. Brian Reynolds > Sid Meier.

 

[Markbnj]

I don't know how Sid Meier is "rated" today, so I don't know if he is over-rated. He more or less occupies one of the relatively scarce "grandmaster" chairs in the private room at the back of the club. Few people have come anywhere near his level of success as a designer. It's true his big wins were years ago. This title looks like a hit so far.

 

[Homerboy]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
Sid Meier has to be the most overrated person in gaming today. Brian Reynolds > Sid Meier.

pfffft
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sid_Meier#Games
pretty weak list :heart:

 

[Markbnj]

Originally posted by: Homerboy

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
Sid Meier has to be the most overrated person in gaming today. Brian Reynolds > Sid Meier.

pfffft
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sid_Meier#Games
pretty weak list :heart:

Yeah, after flops like Pirates, Railroad Tycoon, and Civilization, you'd think a guy would give up.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: Markbnj

Originally posted by: Homerboy

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
Sid Meier has to be the most overrated person in gaming today. Brian Reynolds > Sid Meier.

pfffft
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sid_Meier#Games
pretty weak list :heart:

Yeah, after flops like Pirates, Railroad Tycoon, and Civilization, you'd think a guy would give up.

Civilization 2 and SMAC (IMO) were the two best games under the "Sid Meier" name and he was not closely involved in either. But, I never said that Meier sucked at game design.

 

[Homerboy]

Originally posted by: Markbnj

Originally posted by: Homerboy

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
Sid Meier has to be the most overrated person in gaming today. Brian Reynolds > Sid Meier.

pfffft
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sid_Meier#Games
pretty weak list :heart:

Yeah, after flops like Pirates, Railroad Tycoon, and Civilization, you'd think a guy would give up.

simgolf is one of the best, underrated/respected games ever.

 

[Markbnj]

Railroads is a lot of fun so far. I just fired up a scenario on the Britain map, and there are many more cities available to build to. But then Britain and Europe were the easiest maps to make money on in the original game as well.

Signal towers are still driving me nuts, though. I can't figure out the UI cues to get the switches connected to them the right way, and the UI doesn't behave consistently. If you don't get it right then trying to connect a switch to an existing tower gets you another tower, and before too long you have trains deadlocked.

The AI also does some really whacky stuff, like building a huge stone bridge right across Portsmouth to leapfrog my railroad, or building a series of four massive iron truss overpasses from mountaintop to mountaintop to reach a coal mine.

 

[Homerboy]

are there any "watch" modes? or ULTRA simple modes?
I really was hoping there was some mode where you could just watch the trains go happily along their way. Not so much for me but for my kid (5) who is obviously too young for the game itself but would LOVE to be able to just watch the trains go by and do their work.

 

[Markbnj]

Yeah, actually there is. It's called Tabletop Mode and you select it from the scenario setup screen. The economy is disabled and there is no competition. You basically have a model railroad in a box.

 

[Homerboy]

oh boy... so just click and lay track and such?
looks like my son has a new addiction coming

 

[Markbnj]

Originally posted by: Homerboy
oh boy... so just click and lay track and such?
looks like my son has a new addiction coming

Yep, essentially that's it. Drag and drop rails, build trains, and watch them run.

 

[cubby1223]

I absolutely loved the original, I played that on an Amiga computer, so with even superior graphics to the pc game back then! I absolutely could not stand RRT2, though, and passed completely on RRT3. I wish they would create a game with the same premise as the original - you're given a giant map, a couple competitors, and you do whatever you want, the only "goal" is to survive, not the boring scenarios like "build to this city by this year" or "have $xxx by this year". I never liked that. And from the review you've got up, looks like it's much of the same scenario-based gameplay?

Does this new game offer any of that old open-ended gameplay?



Now I'm thinking of the original game. Dang that was fun gaming. I remember working at having my RR completely encircle a computer AI network, starving him out of money, then taking him over. Good times.

 

[Markbnj]

There's a lot of debate on that very topic. I think it is primarily a UI issue. The scenarios have multiple goals, and you can ignore all but the monopoly victory goal and play as long as you like. Once you achieve victory that way the game asks if you want to retire. If you say no you can play for another fifty years or something like that. Table-top mode is truly open-ended, but that's really just a simulation.

The biggest cons for me so far are: smaller maps, faster timeflow, very complicated routing mechanics in hard mode (that could turn into a positive if I figure them out), restricted zoom level (can't see the whole map and see trains moving), somewhat dumbed-down financial tools. Overall they don't outweigh the fun, but I hope some of it gets addressed in future updates.

 

[Yreka]

Originally posted by: Homerboy
are there any "watch" modes? or ULTRA simple modes?
I really was hoping there was some mode where you could just watch the trains go happily along their way. Not so much for me but for my kid (5) who is obviously too young for the game itself but would LOVE to be able to just watch the trains go by and do their work.

Exactly what I was coming here to ask.. I have been eyeballing this game for awhile, as the kiddo is absolutely ape $hit for anything train related. Looks like I will go grab a copy of it after work & check out the Tabletop mode.

 

[Markbnj]

The only caution I would give is that laying track is very simple, however building a train is just a little more complicated. I think any kid will be able to learn it after a few tries, but you will probably have to do some handholding during the setup of the first few routes.

 

[Homerboy]

even if I can just build a track/train/setup and let it run he'll be estatic

 

[Markbnj]

Bump for an update. See first post.

 

[MmmSkyscraper]

Started playing this although I have a lot to learn. Was building stuff left, right and centre then realised most of my routes were making a loss. FTL!