Sid Meiers Railroad

[Willem]

Well I've tried the patch and I still can't play this game. That's not going to happen until we have control over the signal towers. I want to be able to place, delete and control them. I just have no interest in the game otherwise. It bugs me having two or three signal towers side by side when only one is necessary, and not being able to get rid of some of them short of deleting a bunch of track.

And speaking of which, it's annoying not being able to delete a piece of track in order to make some changes. If it's part of a route, too bad, the train should just wait somewhere until I can make a new connection for it. I shouldn't have to delete the train itself in order to make an alteration to my layout.

And the larger maps aren't enabled even if I select Random Terrain and Cities. I guess that's something for the editor only, and I'm not really interested in creating my own maps. In the deafult maps, there's so many industries and cities crammed into such a small area, it's a pain trying to connect rails. There's just not enough room to do anything.

I was also hoping I could scale the industries on the map down, like I can for the trains and cars, but no luck. Those files are still buried in a FPK pak somewhere, and can't be accesed. It would at least give the illusion of space if I could make them a bit smaller.

All in all I've been very disappointed with this game. I was hoping that having it back in the hands of Sid that I'd finally get a game that was as appealing to me as the very first one was. But I think overall, the two that went before this one were better. This version can't even hold my interest for more than half an hour or so.

[JackRudd]

I still think the best game I've played in this genre was Railroad Tycoon 2. *curses computer for not being able to run it*

[Grandpa Troll]

Well, from what I have experienced and what I have read, an Editor shall quite possibly be the only resolution.

It is a shame, I had higher hopes

[Grandpa Troll]

Has anyone heard of an update on this game?

Sure wish an Editor at a minimum would come out so at least we may could do a work around.

Gramps

[Old Geezer]

Very useful thread guys. I knew I could find one here at Apolyton if I looked. Unfortunately, the utility of the thread was more in the nature of reinforcing my view of the game's shortcomings

Re: Updates. I don't know anything more than the next ignorant end-user, but based on past patterns from these guys, the smart money says no more patches. In the fora where they post, the devs are saying that they've solved all the solveable crash issues (blaming the rest of them on users' systems/drivers). Someone might take it upon themselves to do some feature tweaking now, but to expect anything major is to seek disappoinment, methinks.

I think the observation that hit the nail on the head was that the game seemed designed from the ground up as a multiplayer game with solitaire options enabled, but not optimized. The economics generally allow for the resolution of the game (in the form of a buyout), in under two hours using simpleminded tactics aimed at linear goals. Complexity is not merely pointless, but counterproductive.

If you're trying to create a massive, complex rail network for your personal management enjoyment, however, that's where the missing features and glitchiness generally shows up. We Civvers buy the game expecting/hoping for Civilization on rails and end up with Red Alert on rails instead. Ouch!

One of the things that bugs me most about this tradeoff is how ugly the map gets when playing against three AIs. It's not merely that it's crowded. The AIs will do some pretty awful looking stuff with their lines, including build rails that look like roller coasters as they hop over multiple competitor's lines to get to some distant (and often unprofitable) destination.

Re: Patents. Hey, I actually wanted to make a substantive contribution here. I found out by accident that they are randomly generated. I saved a game, had a patent pop up right after the save, goofed something up shortly thereafter, and went back to my save and reloaded. A patent popped up on schedule, but not the same one. I nearly always buy all patents, even if I'm not planning on using the advantage. Why? Because one or more of the AIs are, and I can impose opportunity cost on the competition by holding the patent (which, BTW, is one of the reasons why you want to hold a patent in real life, too). So even if I have no sharp curves or steep grades, I buy the patents relating to those things because the AI always does, and why give them a break if I don't have to?

[Urban Ranger]

Hi guys, any updates on the game and/or your own experience?

[Grandpa Troll]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Hi guys, any updates on the game and/or your own experience?

Mr. UR, I recently got Vista so need to reinstall and give it another go.

I simply became frustrated with the track shortcomings


Perhaps I shall try once again....