[RR] Railroad Tycoon 4?

[hklvette]

Most farms and mines in RT3 produce 2 carloads a year.This means one 6-car train every three years - far too little for a single locomotive.

That was fixed in RR. There are different size sources for each resource, which produces and stores at a fixed rate/ amount. They can also be grown if you have a constant demand for them.

 

[rubbersocks]

I was disappointed about the last installment of Sid Meier's RT... too simplistic and heavy on the CPU/GPU... I'm more a fan of the economic simulation side of the game.

 

[GeezerGamer]

I would prefer RT4 before Railroads 2. Here are some wishes:

What would you like to see in a Railroad sequel?

I just picked up the RRT3 demo last week and I love it! I have a question or possibly something to add to the wish list for a RRT4.

It's my understanding from what I've read that the economy is inactive in sandbox mode.

I would like the economy to be active in the sandbox mode. I don't like being restricted to the objectives of a scenario or campaign. I want to be able to pursue my own objectives in my own time frame.

Otherwise, I'm pretty happy with it.

 

[Optimizer]

I'd also like to see power plants really producing electric power, improving the output of factories, and lowering fuel costs for electric locomotives.

 

[TyloniusFunk]

I'm not a train freak, but I've played Transport Tycoon back in the day and I really liked Railroads! The problem with the game is it's too easy, I burned out on it because I had to literally turn everything up to max difficulty to get much of a challenge. Little tricks you learn make a huge impact on the game, such as, at the very beginning, building to the closest possible town the shortest possible rail and then building the longest possible mail/passenger train such that it instantly flips back and forth almost negating the travel time completely. Gameplay niggles like that need to be ironed out. Otherwise, the style is very appealing (not just the bright 3D but the music and Barron caricatures as well.) The ease of laying track has a great feel.

Other issues:
-opponent track style is atrocious such that when you buy out a competitor it is almost impossible to work with his track and understand his routes, it's almost always easier to liquefy unless you are about to win anyway
-along with this, routing is hard to predict, better UI is needed to demonstrate effects of routing before a route is assigned and game time is lost observing the failure
-the stock and auction system is virtually perfect, exactly for its simplicity, but could use one or two addition elements to add depth, something to even things up when one player gets in a dominant position (Mergers and Acquisitions? Nationalization?)
-currently supply chains are too linear and it's far to easy to predict routes of your opponent
-larger maps, though the current size is about right to encourage player interaction and competition for resources, much larger maps should still be an option for sandbox
-better address the situation where two players compete for the same resource in a town with various mechanics, such as varying the price of a good by town based on supply

 

[Apteryx]

One thing to keep in mind is that there are 2 Railway Tycoon series, developed by 2 distinct organisations

Sid Meirs
Railroad Tycoon
Railroad Tycoon Deluxe
Railroads

PopTop Software
Railroad Tycoon II
Railroad Tycoon II, The second Century
Railroad Tycoon III

PopTop software bought the "Railroad Tycoon" name from Paradox software(or who ever it was that owned the name, it wasn't Sid by the way).

So, Sid Meirs is NOT going to write "Railroad Tycoon IV", he MAY write "Railroads II" but it will look nothing like "Railroad Tycoon III".
Sid could however buy back the "Railroad Tycoon" name ( he probably has the assets and Take2 are, as far as I am aware, in financial strife), does that mean he wants to?, don't ask me, ask Sid

PopTop were bought out by Take2 software some years ago. Incidently the guy who started PopTop software also wrote "Tropico"

 

[Greybriar]

Welcome to the Civilization Fanatics' Forums, Apteryx.

"PopTop software bought the "Railroad Tycoon" name from Paradox software(or who ever it was that owned the name, it wasn't Sid by the way)."

MicroProse published Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon in 1990. If MicroProse did not own the copyright, I would be interested in knowing who did (my guess would be Bill Stealey).

According to MobyGames, the Railroad Tycoon series consists of:

• Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon
  [*]Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon Deluxe
  [*]Railroad Tycoon II (and its expansions)
• Railroad Tycoon 3
  [*]Railroad Tycoon Collection

So I suppose it depends on your point of view as to what constitutes the Railroad Tycoon series. I feel that Sid Meier's Railroads! is in a separate class from all the other Railroad Tycoon games .

As for Sid Meier, isn't he pretty much a private contractor now?

 

[cooljimbo2000]

it should work for vista because railroads didnt.

 

[calzetta]

R! was a disappointment; poor graphics (too much space used up by trains), poor industry management (industries showed up before their actual development). Never gone beyond the first scenario, I could not stand it. RR3 is much better, but it does not work in Vista (does anybody know a fix?).
Improvements for RR4: better engine graphics (as of now, no engineer on it!); possibility to choose the rail span depending on the country; progress of the railroad construction over time (it does not make sense that I can build a 1000mile line in no time); possibility to build heavy industries only if there is a railroad nearby, possibility to contract costs/priority with competitor firms, possibility to create joint ventures.

 

[City Builder]

I'd like to see a sequel to Rails across America.

 

[Crushem]

I have played Railroad Tycoon 1, 2 and 3 and still play 3 from time to time. I like how the game improved in the original series the mechanics, economy, etc.
I purchased Railroads the other day and am not happy with the flow and functionality of the game. I did purchase from direct2download with the latest patch, maybe there's something more on the retail version, but there is no ability to have a sandbox mode where you can still make $$ and opt to choose winning conditions. I also find the double tracking AI very poor in Railroads. Atlease with RRT3 trains would properly use double tracks. Not to mention problems with adding additional stations in RR where the stations show up, but you can't add them to your route.

I would support a RRT4 with some updates to bring it to the 2010's. I like the way the cities grow in RR, but overall it seems to be an inmature game development wise as compared to RRT3

 

[The Rusty Gamer]

I loved some of Railroad Pioneer's inovations, such as rewards for completing a task (small train or track upgrade), FOW, and slow exploration. I would like to see these kinds of things in RT4 (perhaps as optional) and also, most importantly, REAL TIME track & staion building, plus other associated buildings and upgrades. Maybe even a delay between ordering a new train and it arriving. I like the idea in Rails Across America of workers. You could speed up the building by paying more and/or increasing the number of workers. There could also be a chance of a strike. So, a combination of the best of these games.

You know, now I think about it, a railroad game could be designed as a Civ 4 modpack...

 

[TheDS]

Amazing that I never heard of Railroad Pioneers before stumbling upon this thread. I'm DLing the demo now to see what it's like.

I heard that Railroads was kind of a step backwards from RT1, so I've never bothered to play it. I enjoyed RT1 back in the day, and RT2 seemed to address all its limitations. I like RT2, and in fact still play it quite a bit and have modified many of the scenarios to make them playable or enjoyable, whichever they lacked, and made a handful of my own. (Frex unconnected track-laying is almost impossible to enjoy, and there are a few scenarios that have obviously never been played even once by their creators.) I tried out RT3 but it was a painful experience and if it addressed any of RT2's shortcomings, I couldn't tell for all the difficulty I had doing even the most basic things.

So what I'd like is for RT2 to get reworked a little so that it's a lot more player and modder friendly. Simply reworking the interface so that trains and stations are sortable would work wonders for its usability. When you've got 100+ trains, it's tough to keep track of them all. And the scenario editor is almost a crime against nature. Simply being able to copy and paste text would work wonders for usability.

I don't want the excessive graphical ridiculousness of "modern" games. The more "realistic" you make it, the harder it is to have any idea what's going on. RT2 kept things fairly simple and understandable, and with only a few exceptions, when I look at the screen, I don't have to click on something to know what it is. Civ4 barely does that, and if it wasn't for the improved gameplay I'd go back to Civ2.

Tiles. 8 directions. (6 would probably work too.) Track. Stations. Checkboxes to build multiple station-support buildings. Trains. 6 cars is plenty. These are the core simplicities that make the game great. There aren't a lot of changes necessary to make it a "perfect" game. The rules are understandable by anyone without any difficulty. You can play it well within 5 minutes of someone showing it to you. You can't do that with RT3. I'm hoping this Railroad Pioneers is a good step up, because I'd like to play a good Railroad game.

There's also Rails Across America, which didn't make it into your poll. I liked that game a lot, but it has a critical flaw that makes it unplayable. The traffic model just doesn't work the right way and your rails oscillate from being overpacked to unused and back, especially if you have more than one route to get somewhere. I tried to get the designers to fix their game, but they wouldn't have any of it, and now no one plays it.

 

[The Rusty Gamer]

RT2's big flaw - you couldn't build tunnels. This was apparently to make gameplay challenging, but whoever's heard of

I'm curious as to how you modified the scenarios TheDS. What kind of changes did you make?

Rails cross America - too simple to fix the trafficig problem - just push a few buttons and it does it automatically.

Hexagonal tiles for RRT - now that would be interesting.

 

[TheDS]

Hey Rusty!

RT2's big flaw - you couldn't build tunnels. This was apparently to make gameplay challenging, but whoever's heard of

IMO tunnels were unrealistic and useless anyway. Most of the maps in RT2 would make tunnels impractical most of the time. If they allowed you to preplan your route and then okay it, they might find an occasional use, but largely I think they're not really missed.

I'm curious as to how you modified the scenarios TheDS. What kind of changes did you make?

Mostly I turn off the limitation that won't let you build unconnected track. 90% of the time it's very annoying to be unable to build track from some other direction, and 75% of the time you get stuck with highly inefficient routes over mountains. There's a couple scenarios you simply can't win if you're not allowed to take out loans, some you can't win if you can't buy stock on margin, and some are just flat out impossible. Frex, the Dominican Republic scenario is insane and I doubt it was ever playtested or played. It's so bad I'd have to see hard evidence before I believed it.

So basically just simple stuff most of the time.

There's also a few maps where they do a poor job of reserving cells through a city so you can't build track through it! I've adjusted the reserve cells on a lot of maps to make them more playable. And some I found they didn't do the resources right. Frex, Auto plants but no way to get Rubber. And I really like the new buildings (Distillery, Ammo, etc) and add them to some scenarios. Now and then there's poor distribution of some industries so it's almost impossible to work some of the chains; frex low odds of a Paper plant, maybe only one or two cities with a Paper plant, etc.

There's a couple of scenarios that are in the modern times and they start you out with just $100,000 (which means you start a company with only $1million when most trains cost that much). Any scenario that starts after about 1980 needs some kind of boost to get you going.

And there are plenty of maps that would need a complete overhaul to be any fun. Cities all too close together or too far apart, cities all too big or too small, not enough or too many industries, crappy port industry selections, ridiculously rugged mountains, too hard to grow your company and pay off your loans, etc. Some of it could just be a matter of taste, but there's only a handful of maps I enjoy without modification, and only another handful I bothered to modify to make them playable.

Rails cross America - too simple to fix the trafficig problem - just push a few buttons and it does it automatically.

Actually that only makes the problem worse. The managers can't keep up with the demand and they're not allowed to change track or signaling levels. Your traffic winds up going from oversaturated to completely barren and back and managers only react every month. I never went to the effort to try, but I think you'd have to turn managers off and leave the trains at a certain number on a given line and just live with it, but I doubt that would work either.

The solution the fans give is NEVER EVER upgrade your track. Live with single track and basic signals the whole time the whole game. You lose out on business, but you don't have dry spells where you pay for unused capacity either.

The real solution is for the routing algorithms to get unfutzed, but they won't do it. Otherwise it's a very cool game!

Hexagonal tiles for RRT - now that would be interesting.

You know it would! They could probably take a page from the crayon games too.

BTW, Railroad Pioneer seems to be a bit too overcomplicated for my tastes. I didn't have time to learn the whole thing and nothing was obvious to me. I think I woulda liked it a few years ago when I had that kind of time, but not nowadays.

 

[mwyeoh]

Just on a sidepoint for anyone that stumbles upon this thread, there is a community made 'super-mod' for Railroad Tycoon 3 called Trainmaster which actually includes some of the things discussed in this thread

The link is here http://hawkdawg.com/rrt/rrt3/TM/

The site also hosts the Coast-to-Coast expansion, the 1.05 official patch, the 1.06 UN-official patch and a FIX FOR VISTA AND WIN7 USERS SO THAT THEY CAN PLAY THE EXPANSION

 

[The Rusty Gamer]

With civ 5 out and hexagonal tiles, I wonder if there is a way to mod it to create a railroad game?

 

[Stemwinder30]

I would like to see a game centered around the North American late Steam era into the Diesel era into the present.

The Railroad Tycoon series simply doesn't satisfy me as far as Locomotive selection, it's unrealistically puny!

The game needs classification yards (large freight yards), shortlines (small, beat-up branchlines), Locomotive Manufacturers (EMD, General Electric, American Locomotive Company, etc...), Small passing sidings (a small section of track where trains stop to pass each other), Used Locomotives, Leased Locomotives, Locomotive lash-ups (C'mon, hardly any train uses just one single locomotive anymore! You need at least 2 or 3 to be realistic.), Power pooling (a designated area that particular locomotives would be used in), Rebuilding old locos (Better than scrapping them!) and a lot more!

The game needs at least the fundamentally common locomotives with realistic building dates (the time that they can be built new). I think the list of diesels should at least look sorta like this:

ALCO
RS-2 (1946-1950)
RS-3 (1950-1956)
RS-11 (1956-1964)
PA (1946-1953)
FA (1946-1959)
C424 (1963-1967)
C420 (1963-1968)
C430 (1966-1968)
C636 (1967-1968)
S-2 (1940-1950)

EMD (Electro-Motive Division) (GM)
FT (1939-1945)
F3 (1945-1949)
F7 (1949-1953)
F9 (1953-1960)
E6 (1939-1942)
E7 (1947-1949)
E8 (1949-1954)
E9 (1954-1964)
NW2 (1939-1949)
SW1 (1938-1953)
SW8 (1950-1954)
SW9 (1950-1953)
SW1200 (1954-1966)
SW1500 (1966-1974)
MP15DC (1974-1980)
MP15AC (1975-1984)
GP7 (1949-1954)
GP9 (1954-1963)
GP20 (1959-1962)
GP30 (1961-1963)
GP35 (1963-1966)
GP40 (1965-1971)
GP38 (1966-1971)
GP38-2 (1972-1986)
GP40-2 (1972-1986)
GP50 (1980-1985)
GP60 (1985-1994)
SD9 (1954-1959)
SD24 (1958-1963)
SD35 (1964-1966)
SD40 (1966-1972)
SD45 (1965-1971)
SD40-2 (1972-1988)
SD50 (1980-1987)
SD60 (1984-1985)
SD70 (1992-2007)
SD70AC (1992-2007)
SD70M-2 (2005-End)
SD70ACe (2005-End)
F45 (1968-1971)
SDP40F (1973-1974)
F40PH (1976-1992)
F59PHI (1994-End)

General Electric
44-Ton (1940-1956)
U25B (1959-1966)
U23B (1968-1977)
U30B (1966-1975)
U30C (1966-1976)
U36C (1971-1975)
B23-7 (1977-1984)
B30-7 (1977-1983)
B36-7 (1980-1985)
C30-7 (1976-1986)
C36-7 (1978-1986)
B32-8E (1987-1992)
B40-8 (1987-1992)
C40-8 (1987-1994)
C44-9 (1993-2005)
AC4400 (1993-2005)
ES44DC (2005-End)
ES44AC (2005-End)
P32AC-DM (1992-2001)
P42DC (1992-2001)

Baldwin Locomotive Works
AS-416 (1950-1955)
RF-16 (1960-1953)

Lima
LT-2500 (1950-1951)
LS-1200 (1950-1951)

Railpower Technologies
GG20B (2004-End)

Motive Power Inc.
MP21B (2007-End)
MP20B (2007-End)
MP20C (2009-End)
MP36PH-3S (2003-End)


The list, even though long, is far from complete. You can have the option to modify things such as the Short Hood (Nose) of some of the locomotives and most definitely the paint scheme! Possibly even the horn sound when it takes off.

Baldwin, ALCO, and Lima would be making steam locomotives before the diesels, I haven't really decided on the Steamers yet.

Boos, yays, or nays would be welcome.

 

[Earthling]

Rearden metal or nothing

 

[Skwink]

Brother, this forum has been long dead, then revived by the resistance, the died again. You probably won't get much here.