Note: Before getting into the meat of the game, we must mention that this review is based on the gameplay after Firaxis released the patch which fixed numerous problems, including multiple lock-ups and crashes to the desktop. If you buy a copy of Railroads, or already have one, make sure to get the update from 2K Games.
It’s been a long time since Sid Meier tackled a train game. The legendary designer practically started the “Tycoon” series (or genre) with the classic Railroad Tycoon. PopTop Software snatched up the torch and subsequently took the series to the next level with Railroad Tycoon II (and less so with III). Now, Sid Meier is back with Railroads!, a game that, oddly enough, has very little to do with the earlier Tycoon games.
In fact if you go into this thinking you are about to play Railroad Tycoon IV then you are bound to be disappointed. This is not that game. The old Tycoon games were more business sims that used trains as the canvas. Railroads is just the opposite of that. This is more like playing with a model train set; it’s lighter on the strategy but also much more accessible than the previous games.
Railroads follows a similar design of many of Sid Meier’s “new” games – from the cartoonish, yet highly detailed graphics and animation, to the elegant interface to the less “hardcore” strategic elements, Railroads is the ideal game for someone who likes the idea of building routes from Philly to Washington without the hassle of all of the minor details that made the earlier Tycoon games so popular with hard-line strategy fans.
The core of the game consists of laying track from city to city (or from resource to city), choosing which goods to put on the train (be it people, mail, food, steel, etc.), and selecting the proper engine. It’s all a matter of basic (and I mean basic) supply and demand. You start each game with a small track starting at one city. The easy to grasp interface tells you what each city needs, as well as all of the nearby cities and industries that could possibly supply the city with those goods. It’s a big daisy-chain; you build a track to a lumber yard then haul the lumber to a city which can turn it into paper, then ship the finished paper to a city with a newspaper plant that requires of steady stream of it. This all earns you cash, which is needed to buy more track, better trains, and better technology via the in-game auctions.
The auctions pop up from time to time; they offer enhanced tech that awards the winner a patent for ten game years. Some of the items up for sale can greatly enhance your empire while you are the sole owner of the tech – faster trains, less expensive tracks, and a lower cost for building tunnels are just a few examples. The CPU players will also bid on the items but it’s in multiplayer against other people where the auctions are the most fun as bidding wars break out and you need to weigh your options as to whether a new piece of technology is worth the crazy prices.
Speaking of your opponents, each scenario allows you to play against one to three AI players or you can simply play solo with the goal being to not go broke (which is only a real possibility on the hardest levels of difficulty). Railroads isn’t a cut-throat strategy game, even when playing against other people—you cannot “block” a player from accessing a city, for example. There isn’t a whole lot of direct conflict between players other than buying stock options in your opponents company (you can buy other players out to eliminate them) as well as trying to empty a resource area of its raw materials before your opponent can get to it. But if you are looking for a business sim where you can really stick it to your opponent, this really isn’t that sort of game.
