Sid Meier's Railroads!

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Sid Meier's Railroads!

Developer(s)	Firaxis Games
Publisher(s)	2K Games
Designer(s)	Sid Meier
Engine	Gamebryo
Release date(s)	October 17, 2006 (North America) October 27, 2006 (Europe)
Genre(s)	Economic simulation game, Strategy
Mode(s)	Single player, multiplayer
Rating(s)	PEGI: Standard (3+)
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows
Media	CD
Input	Keyboard, Mouse

Sid Meier's Railroads! is a personal computer game developed by Sid Meier on the Gamebryo game engine that was released in October 2006 and is the sequel to Railroad Tycoon 3. Although Sid Meier created the original Railroad Tycoon, subsequent versions were developed by PopTop Software. After a visit to Miniatur Wunderland in Hamburg, Germany, Sid Meier was inspired to reinvent his original creation.^[1]

1 Overview
2 Scenarios
3 Trains
4 Critical reception
5 Criticism
6 References
7 External links

[edit] Overview

Railroads! is fully three-dimensional and geared more toward head to head real time strategy than the previous versions.^[2] The terrain is also more compressed in this game; there are few areas where players are allowed a long, straight run of track, meaning that more "interesting" parts, such as hills, mountains, rivers, and inlets, play a much more important role in the game.

The game is heavily focused on economics – players have to build and sustain entire industries using the railroads they develop. Gameplay changes from previous editions of Railroad Tycoon include a system where new technology is first auctioned to the highest bidder. This gives the player a ten-year exclusive use of that technology. Similarly, whole industries are also put up for auction amongst players.^[3] Tracklaying is automated and much easier than other editions of Railroad Tycoon.^[4] When combined with the more "compressed" terrain, it allows for tactical placement of track to obstruct and frustrate opponents.

The game also allows head-to-head play over a LAN or the Internet, supporting up to four players per game, either human or artificial intelligence.^[5]

[edit] Scenarios

Like the previous versions, Railroads! offers various historical scenarios, in regions such as the Southwestern United States, the Pacific Northwest, the United Kingdom, France and Germany. In these scenarios (fifteen in all), the game allows the user to take on the role of various famous railway tycoons from the past. These include:^[6]

[edit] Trains

Trains available in the game include:^[7]

[edit] 1828–1840

2-2-0 Planet
2-2-2 Patentee

[edit] 1830–1880

0-4-0 Grasshopper
4-2-0 Norris
4-4-0 American
2-6-0 Mogul
4-6-0 Ten Wheeler
2-8-0 Consolidation

[edit] 1835–1870

2-2-2 Adler
2-2-2 Beuth
2-4-0 Médoc

[edit] 1841–1922

4-2-2 Iron Duke
0-6-0 Dx Goods
4-2-2 Stirling
4-2-2 Johnson Midland Spinner
4-4-0 Claud Hamilton
0-8-0 Webb Compound
ES1
4-6-2 A1

[edit] 1842–1870

4-2-0 Crampton

[edit] 1871–1922

2-4-2 Class 141
4-4-2 de Glehn Atlantic
4-4-0 Class S3
4-6-0 Class P8
Ge 6/6 Crocodile Electric

[edit] 1921–1980

4-6-2 Class 01
1-Do-1 Class E18 Electric
V200 Diesel
Re 6/6 Bo-Bo-Bo

[edit] Critical reception

Railroads! received a generally favourable critical reception in the video game press; GameSpot awarded it 8.1 out of 10,^[3] while Game Informer gave it 8 out of 10.^[5] PC Zone magazine gave it 8.0, saying "there's a silo full of deep fun to be had here".^[8]

[edit] Criticism

Upon release, game players identified many problems with the game[1], some of which were subsequently patched by Firaxis' 1.01 version patch.[2] A second patch[3] was released in December, which fixes a few glitches[4], and improves the gameplay.

In addition to bugs which still lead to crashes, other complaints include:

Automatic Train Routing is far from perfect. Trains frequently choose bad tracks.
Dislike of the bright/'cartoonish' style of the graphics.
The limited camera angles available - unlike RRT3, players can't rotate the camera to view the sky, or zoom right down to track level, nor are they able to zoom out very far.
The game has fewer locomotives and cargo types than RRT3.
Maps in Sid Meier's Railroads are generally much smaller than maps in RRT3.
Cargo system has returned to the more complex system of RRT and RRT2, abandoning the "automatic cargo chooser" feature in RRT3.
Sid Meier's Railroads covers a much shorter period of history than RRT3, with few modern engines.
Sid Meier's Railroads also has considerably fewer maps/scenarios than RRT3, although more than the original RRT.
Simplified economic and stock market system which removed earlier titles' ability to raise cash by issuing bonds, and other nuances such as stock splits and margin calls.
Steam locomotives do not have tenders, unrealistic graphics

Note that fans' complaints are subjective, with some missing features being more important for some users than others - such as the case of the cargo and economic systems, which were intentionally changed reflecting the developers' attitude that "it's all about the trains"[5].