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

[paperfist]

Have you guys found any fan sites for this game? I'm hoping some mods will come out to address the simple nature of the game and make it a little more involving.

After having played every other railroad game out there this on has really brought it down to a basic level. You can't lay signals by hand; you can't pick bridge types; you can't upgrade stations with hotels, cold storage and the like; the scale is off a wee bit with the cities being large (and fast growing) and the maps being very small. The lack of a zoom out is killer

It isn't that I'm not enjoying the game, but other then filling the objectives of the scenarios it doesn't require an awful lot of thought as you basically just 2 click to drag out a rail then setup a station and then build a train and you're done. Then it's on to the next city/resource...

 

[Dacalo]

I played this game for about 3 hours last night, and I must say, I found the gameplay a bit underwhelming. In short, the gameplay is too simple, as if the game was geared towards children.

 

[Markbnj]

I can definitely see the point on the gameplay, and a lot of other people are complaining too. The only "fan site" that I've seen so far is the board at Gamefaqs, which is getting a fair number of posts. I'm sure there are others.

I think the game would be fun if the routing worked correctly/sufficiently in "hard" mode. It's certainly no railroad simulator, but it has most of the competitive elements that RRT had. But right now I think it is basically broken.

 

[paperfist]

Originally posted by: Markbnj
I can definitely see the point on the gameplay, and a lot of other people are complaining too. The only "fan site" that I've seen so far is the board at Gamefaqs, which is getting a fair number of posts. I'm sure there are others.

I think the game would be fun if the routing worked correctly/sufficiently in "hard" mode. It's certainly no railroad simulator, but it has most of the competitive elements that RRT had. But right now I think it is basically broken.

Yeah that seems to be the most active forum so far for Railroads and there are actually 2 devs who frequent the boards. There is also a few people there who have been messing around with the XML files to work on mods so things are looking up on that end.

 

[pontifex]

i'm on the fence about this game. looks fun but i'm not sure how much i would enjoy it. i'm not into model trains and stuff.

i like games where i can build stuff but i tend to lose interest after awhile because there isn't much action.

 

[Infohawk]

I was disappointed. The game is too simple. Also, I agree the routing system is currently broken. We should be able to have double crossovers, one way signals, etc. I really hope this is fixed with a patch or mods. Transport Tycoon Deluxe is an example of how to manage routing.

 

[Markbnj]

Well, I had to update the review again. See OP for less-than-encouraging results. As far as I am concerned the train routing in this game is just broken in realistic mode.

 

[TheSlamma]

Originally posted by: 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.

They have a Tabletop mode that lets you just lay track and trains out with no limits... you would have to build the track and everything then just save the game... then load it up whenever they want to watch

 

[sswingle]

I got bored after playing a couple scenarios. It gave me objectives to comlete in x many years, and I was getting many of the objectives done way ahead of schedule.

I haven't played against an AI though...

 

[Markbnj]

I have played two scenarios through in "medium" routing mode, one at the "investor" level of difficulty, and one on "financier." I was able to walk away with the AI competition easily in both scenarios. The first was in Britain, second in Germany. I don't even mess with "hard" routing mode at this point because it is broken. Anyway, the game is a lot of fun just from the perspective of building neat railroads and keeping them running, but the opponent AI seems very weak to me. It does all sort of stupid stuff like building inefficient trackage (not to mention impossible trackage), and it doesn't aggressively use all the tools available (building or buying industry, for example). I've even seen it bid against itself in a patent auction that I had dismissed. In both scenarios by the mid point my company was worth 2 - 3 times my competitor's.

I was also disappointed to see that the game isn't very dynamic. Once you have it up and running things don't seem to change much. Industries don't really wax and wane much, and the overall economy seems to have relatively little effect on revenue or traffic.

So yeah, they have some work to do. Going to try online play soon, and maybe that will be more challenging.

 

[MmmSkyscraper]

I'm playing it with easy routing cos if the experienced players can't make it work, I don't stand a hope in hell. Finished the NW scenario as Congressman or something, achieved all the objectives bar the passengers.

Haven't had any CTD's yet but I've had occassions where one of the arrow keys gets "stuck" and it keeps scrolling the map in that direction until I smack a few of the other keys. Weird.

 

[Lonyo]

Originally posted by: Infohawk
I was disappointed. The game is too simple. Also, I agree the routing system is currently broken. We should be able to have double crossovers, one way signals, etc. I really hope this is fixed with a patch or mods. Transport Tycoon Deluxe is an example of how to manage routing.

I've got Railroads.
I've got RRT2
I've got TTD.

TTD is by far the best, though some elements of RRT2 are good.
Railroads is just a big pile of crap in comparison.

 

[Hadsus]

Yeow.....maybe I shouldn't ask but.......widescreen support?

 

[MmmSkyscraper]

Originally posted by: Hadsus
Yeow.....maybe I shouldn't ask but.......widescreen support?

I'm running widescreen.

 

[Markbnj]

Yeah, widescreen support is one of the pleasant surprises. Correctly detects and offers all modes supported by the current hardware.

 

[KeithP]

There is a demo now available.

-KeithP

 

[Markbnj]

Firaxis also mentioned on the Gamespot forum that a patch is being released to testing tomorrow, and that the map editor is being polished up for inclusion with the second patch. Not sure when that will be. They also said they are testing the ability to mod larger maps, and that it looked good, but would be resource intensive. Thread here.

 

[BatmanNate]

F-15 Strike Eagle II was one of my favorite games as a kid. I like Sid Meier's games because they approach a genre that is strictly simulation and add fun to the mix.

 

[paperfist]

Wow check out the tentative list of fixes for the patch!

Gamespot Forums thread

 

[Markbnj]

Yeah, it's a huge patch. That list of crash fixes is instructive. That's a lot of bugs to let out into a release product, and the fact that they were so quickly identified and fixed (eight days from release) says something about the quality control and testing applied to this game, i.e. there wasn't much of either. Dan Magha (the producer) posts on the Gamespot forum regularly, and has mentioned on at least one occasion a problem or problems they would have fixed "if they had a couple more months." I think, generally, they should have been given a couple more months.

 

[40sTheme]

Originally posted by: Homerboy
simgolf is one of the best, underrated/respected games ever.

QFT

 

[Furyline]

Originally posted by: 40sTheme

Originally posted by: Homerboy
simgolf is one of the best, underrated/respected games ever.

QFT

Yes I agree.


I downloaded the demo for Railroads! but it freezes up right in the beginning of the tutorial when i try to place a depot. Maybe my rig is not awesome enough to handle it but that kind of turns me off of the game.

 

[Markbnj]

The game is a bit of a resource hog. If you can get to the options menu (I haven't played the demo) try turning down antialiasing, texture qual., shadows, and trees. It might help. I have seen some other reports of the demo crashing, and so it might make sense just to wait a few days for the patch.

 

[paperfist]

Originally posted by: Markbnj
Yeah, it's a huge patch. That list of crash fixes is instructive. That's a lot of bugs to let out into a release product, and the fact that they were so quickly identified and fixed (eight days from release) says something about the quality control and testing applied to this game, i.e. there wasn't much of either. Dan Magha (the producer) posts on the Gamespot forum regularly, and has mentioned on at least one occasion a problem or problems they would have fixed "if they had a couple more months." I think, generally, they should have been given a couple more months.

I think I read in one of the Gamespot previews/interviews that the game from start to finish was an 8 month project. That's pretty fast for any game these days even if they did borrow stuff from CIV IV...

 

[Whitecloak]

I am unhappy with the small amount of single player maps. and the game randomly crashes on me when there are too many trains/tracks on the map.