Is it worth the money?
- Thread starter Civ4Rocks
- Start date
I am glad I bought it despite the issues and bugs. Unless you don't mind the initial bug-shake-out-phase, I recommend you wait until the first patch comes out.
But I actually don't mind it DESPITE the bugs/crashes. It *is* that much fun and it's going to be a joy over time, I'm sure.
And in the long run, MODs are going to make this game a classic - I just read Brian Reynold's interview on the CFC mainpage about how Civ 2 had longevity thanks to mods, and from my cursory check, SMR supports that too. If they can expand the map size and kill the issues this is going to be a pure joy.
But I actually don't mind it DESPITE the bugs/crashes. It *is* that much fun and it's going to be a joy over time, I'm sure.
And in the long run, MODs are going to make this game a classic - I just read Brian Reynold's interview on the CFC mainpage about how Civ 2 had longevity thanks to mods, and from my cursory check, SMR supports that too. If they can expand the map size and kill the issues this is going to be a pure joy.
Dale
Mohawk Games Developer
- Joined
- Mar 14, 2002
- Messages
- 7,848
And for another view, I'll give you the rundown from someone who enjoys creating advanced train networks (ala TTDL or RRT2):
Okay, I've played around with it all weekend solidly, and as I see it there are three MAJOR issues with the game:
- Unable to control switching in the route screen
- Train intelligence is non-existent
- There is only one logical decision, concentrate on ore --> steel --> cars/arms --> city, guarenteed win
The first two issues combined cause enormous frustration, and will only lead to more suicides.
This game works well with one train per line. But you cannot setup an efficient advanced train network.
Say for example I have a station with three lines: passenger/mail, ore in, steel out. A simple thing. My passenger/mail line needs to be kept seperate as P&M is speed calculated for income. However goods aren't. So you have your steel out train (off to the arms/car factory) set to wait till full to get the most profit from the trip. Therefore, the ore coming in must be on its own line too, as the waiting steel train will block incoming ore. Each station can only service three lines. Now, I add a second ore line. I link in the second ore line onto the signal at the end of the ore in platform. No problems there. It adds in, and manages incoming ore trains so there's no blocking. Now comes the fun part, I add a third incoming ore line. The problem is, you can only have two lines per signal piece. You cannot have three lines funnel into one platform through one signal, which you can do in almost every other railroad/transport game, even the crappy industry giant you could do it. So you have to add it in further up the line, causing a second signal, and a place where trains can block each other.
Another situation:
I had a P&M loop of one line between 4 towns. I then brought in cows to one of the cities and then moved the food to the next town. When I created the train to move the food to city B it created on the P&M line. So I thought instead of wasting that $80K I'd add in a switch piece from the P&M line to the food line before city B. Cool, the food train pulled into platform two. But I couldn't delete the switch piece to leave the food train on the correct line. So every time it returned to city A it blocked a P&M train costing me time and money. Also, every now and again a P&M train would go onto the second line, unload/load, turn around then go all the way around the loop to the next station holding up trains everywhere!
While the game is pretty, and good to look at (though a further out zoom would be great), the game severely lacks in gameplay. It's very simplistic, and only really works for single train lines. Not efficient at all. Also, once you get your ore --> steel --> arms/car --> city lines going, the AI cannot keep up. It's win from there. It's a one decision strategy that guarentees the win. Sorry Sid, but you missed the mark on your own quote, "If there's only one logical decision, then it's not a strategy game".
Final rating: 5 / 10
Shelving?: Yes
Dale
Okay, I've played around with it all weekend solidly, and as I see it there are three MAJOR issues with the game:
- Unable to control switching in the route screen
- Train intelligence is non-existent
- There is only one logical decision, concentrate on ore --> steel --> cars/arms --> city, guarenteed win
The first two issues combined cause enormous frustration, and will only lead to more suicides.
This game works well with one train per line. But you cannot setup an efficient advanced train network.Say for example I have a station with three lines: passenger/mail, ore in, steel out. A simple thing. My passenger/mail line needs to be kept seperate as P&M is speed calculated for income. However goods aren't. So you have your steel out train (off to the arms/car factory) set to wait till full to get the most profit from the trip. Therefore, the ore coming in must be on its own line too, as the waiting steel train will block incoming ore. Each station can only service three lines. Now, I add a second ore line. I link in the second ore line onto the signal at the end of the ore in platform. No problems there. It adds in, and manages incoming ore trains so there's no blocking. Now comes the fun part, I add a third incoming ore line. The problem is, you can only have two lines per signal piece. You cannot have three lines funnel into one platform through one signal, which you can do in almost every other railroad/transport game, even the crappy industry giant you could do it. So you have to add it in further up the line, causing a second signal, and a place where trains can block each other.
Another situation:
I had a P&M loop of one line between 4 towns. I then brought in cows to one of the cities and then moved the food to the next town. When I created the train to move the food to city B it created on the P&M line. So I thought instead of wasting that $80K I'd add in a switch piece from the P&M line to the food line before city B. Cool, the food train pulled into platform two. But I couldn't delete the switch piece to leave the food train on the correct line. So every time it returned to city A it blocked a P&M train costing me time and money. Also, every now and again a P&M train would go onto the second line, unload/load, turn around then go all the way around the loop to the next station holding up trains everywhere!
While the game is pretty, and good to look at (though a further out zoom would be great), the game severely lacks in gameplay. It's very simplistic, and only really works for single train lines. Not efficient at all. Also, once you get your ore --> steel --> arms/car --> city lines going, the AI cannot keep up. It's win from there. It's a one decision strategy that guarentees the win. Sorry Sid, but you missed the mark on your own quote, "If there's only one logical decision, then it's not a strategy game".
Final rating: 5 / 10
Shelving?: Yes
Dale
SMR (Sid Meier's Railroads!) is not tycoon game per se.
It is beautiful and pleasing game to build and watch. I appraise Firaxis for job well done.
But, I question it is deep strategy game. It has some competition factor in it.
But mainly it boggs down to following fixed and obvious rules and some luck.
Winning depends too much on initial starting placement.
Starting position is even more pivotal than that of the Civ4 game.
I played over 20+ full game. But all thing goes in too similar pattern on either winning or loseing;
Once you get initial edge over enemy, there is not much surpise or dramatic turning over of game outcome.
After 20 min or so, rest of game is just step by step to winning or losing.
There is competition and complexity in the game. But I doubt that consistent strategy beyond obviuos ones.
I can not foresee outcome of each move I made. I cannot speculate expected return of my investment.
Game does not show enough information so that I can not make a educated guess.
Geograpy is all impotant but there is no overview/stategy map other than small minimap.
Thinking hard and planning ahead does not make much difference on game outcome.
So I have to make a blind ad-hoc decision with my finger crossed and without concrete expectation or persuative background/strategy
If you want deep strategy game with pierce competition and sound and pleasing complexity like Civ4,
This is not game for you. But if you like simple and enjoyable model train simulator with
some competition elements, this is the game for you.
It is beautiful and pleasing game to build and watch. I appraise Firaxis for job well done.
But, I question it is deep strategy game. It has some competition factor in it.
But mainly it boggs down to following fixed and obvious rules and some luck.
Winning depends too much on initial starting placement.
Starting position is even more pivotal than that of the Civ4 game.
I played over 20+ full game. But all thing goes in too similar pattern on either winning or loseing;
Once you get initial edge over enemy, there is not much surpise or dramatic turning over of game outcome.
After 20 min or so, rest of game is just step by step to winning or losing.
There is competition and complexity in the game. But I doubt that consistent strategy beyond obviuos ones.
I can not foresee outcome of each move I made. I cannot speculate expected return of my investment.
Game does not show enough information so that I can not make a educated guess.
Geograpy is all impotant but there is no overview/stategy map other than small minimap.
Thinking hard and planning ahead does not make much difference on game outcome.
So I have to make a blind ad-hoc decision with my finger crossed and without concrete expectation or persuative background/strategy
If you want deep strategy game with pierce competition and sound and pleasing complexity like Civ4,
This is not game for you. But if you like simple and enjoyable model train simulator with
some competition elements, this is the game for you.
Quagga
Former Dictator
I've been having fun with it, except for the frequent crashes. If I had to do over, I wouldn't buy it until after the first patch is out.
As I said, I think it's fun, but it does seem like a "version 1" product.
I find the newspapers and new engine announcements that pop up really frustrating sometimes. They blow my concentration.
I can't zoom out far enough. I guess I'm used to Civ's world view. The problem is that this is a continuous time sort of game, so while I'm trying to locate somebody who supplies or wants a particular commodity, the AI is busy laying track! (Yes, I know the minimap shows some of this, but it doesn't have enough info.)
Similarly, the auctions take too long. Months of game time go by while an auction takes place.
On the plus side, my kids are interested in the game. They don't care much for Civ, but they want to play this one. I let them watch.
As I said, I think it's fun, but it does seem like a "version 1" product.
I find the newspapers and new engine announcements that pop up really frustrating sometimes. They blow my concentration.
I can't zoom out far enough. I guess I'm used to Civ's world view. The problem is that this is a continuous time sort of game, so while I'm trying to locate somebody who supplies or wants a particular commodity, the AI is busy laying track! (Yes, I know the minimap shows some of this, but it doesn't have enough info.)
Similarly, the auctions take too long. Months of game time go by while an auction takes place.
On the plus side, my kids are interested in the game. They don't care much for Civ, but they want to play this one. I let them watch.
Quagga said:
What I find *much* more significant, having given it some thought, is how *completely* pointless the newspapers are. yeah, demand for one item dips or rises, and perhaps with some MODs/patches the news will have a real effect on gameplay. The way it runs right now, I safely ignore the news, other than treating it as a cute little interruption b/c the trains will continue to make money no matter what (unless they get stuck!).
Now in RRT (and the others), when a newspaper told you that a PANIC or depression had hit the economy, you freaked out. One of two things happened: you had cash, and it was time to build build build because labour costs had fallen, or you were heavily leveraged, and the sudden drop in prices for shipping meant possible bankruptcy.
It's obvious that Firaxis chose to make the game much more fun by removing the "fear of bankruptcy" factor by 1. eliminating the ability to issue bonds, and 2. making the economy *much* "easier" (less violent swings in the markets).
I still haven't decided whether or not this is, on the whole, a Bad Thing. On the one hand, not having to worry about that stuff is a relief (which was, no doubt, their goal), but at the same time the rest of the game isn't making enough of a challenge to make up for the easiness.
Hitting "Prime Minister of England" in my second game on Financier would've been impossible in RRT - and by Civ standards, shouldn't happen either! - I really think they toned down the difficulty to a ridiculously easy level.
Having said all that, zx1111's assessment is quite accurate, in the last paragraph there. On that level, this game does v. well. If was 6 years old, playing this with easy routing, I'd probably have the time of my life (assuming the crashes get fixed!).
Grotius
Prince
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2002
- Messages
- 409
Well, I'm having great fun with it. I played the original RR Tycoon, plus RRT2 and RRT3, and while this game doesn't have as much micromanagement as those games did, it does feature a more compelling train-construction engine, at least for me. It's truly a pleasure to build a rail network, to watch the detailed animations of the cars being loaded, to fuss with double- and triple-tracking, to build tunnels and bridges, and to watch your trains huff and puff around the tracks. It's true that in this game, the emphasis is more on building a fun rail network than on tycoonery; hence the change in name.
I did have some crashes at first, but then I turned down tree density, and I've only had one crash since. It obviously does need a stability patch, but it's now very playable for me.
I don't think the train AI is as poor as some people seem to think. You have to be very careful setting up your tracks and signal towers (which are generated automatically when you add crossings to double- and triple-track). E.g, don't build crossings (signal towers) between the two towers that demarcate a depot. I do wish the game gave us more info on what works and what doesn't, but I do find that I improve with each passing game. To be sure, there are probably bugs here, and it would be nice to have more control over routing, track direction, etc. But there's already plenty here to keep my interest.
I did have some crashes at first, but then I turned down tree density, and I've only had one crash since. It obviously does need a stability patch, but it's now very playable for me.
I don't think the train AI is as poor as some people seem to think. You have to be very careful setting up your tracks and signal towers (which are generated automatically when you add crossings to double- and triple-track). E.g, don't build crossings (signal towers) between the two towers that demarcate a depot. I do wish the game gave us more info on what works and what doesn't, but I do find that I improve with each passing game. To be sure, there are probably bugs here, and it would be nice to have more control over routing, track direction, etc. But there's already plenty here to keep my interest.
Grotius said:
I grew to appreciate how the train AI works, but the inability to control direction/routing is a huge glaring weakness.
If the trains could "back up" that would help immensely - if not just let me "pick them up" and put them where I want them to be.
Cool tip about tracks in the depots, though - I'll try and remember that (that may explain why I've had some of the problems I've encountered so far!)
Tarascan_King
Chieftain
- Joined
- Oct 17, 2005
- Messages
- 96
If youre a casual gamer, YES
If youre a hardcore strategist/micromanagement lover, NO!
If youre a hardcore strategist/micromanagement lover, NO!
Grohan
Bug-hunter
But what if you aren't into railroads as much as you are into pirates?Falconer said:
rupertlittlebea
Prince
then you won't be quite as disappointed by the lack of depth.
parachute4u
Warlord
you cannot stop trains
you cannot send trains back or to other stations manually
you cannot build maintenance shop
you cannot issue bonds
you cannot change dividend
you cannot have personal wealth
you cannot connect to an opponents station
you cannot chose the bridges
you cannot .......
apart from that is the same as RRT2
oh , and it is in 3D that does not run very well
is it worth the money? -- well, depends on how you earn your money, I suppose.
you cannot send trains back or to other stations manually
you cannot build maintenance shop
you cannot issue bonds
you cannot change dividend
you cannot have personal wealth
you cannot connect to an opponents station
you cannot chose the bridges
you cannot .......
apart from that is the same as RRT2
oh , and it is in 3D that does not run very well
is it worth the money? -- well, depends on how you earn your money, I suppose.
jprc
My dog is smarter than me
I bought it . I played it
. I give it away
. I will forget it
. I wasted my money...
Pirates! was better as it was not build around economy, but discoveries and "conquest": much much more refreshing
I 100% agree with the review on Amazon:
I've spent some good time with the game now and, despite the fact that I'm about as big a fan of Sid Meier's work as you're likely to find, have to admit disappointment with this game. When it comes right down to it, the game seems more like Sid's golf game than the original RRT. It's shallow, fast and just not nearly as fun as you'd hope.
Of course it's not all bad. The graphics are beautiful, the music is great and you actually get a real manual. The game looks nice and plays nice, even on a system which is not a true gaming rig. The animations are great as well and I love how each of the train cars at a depot have to be filled individually with coal or grain or whatever the case may be. The patent auctions are well done as well.
Unfortunately, there are a few problems with the game:
First, the game moves too quickly. For example, if you play the Eastern USA scenario, you may start in Baltimore. You can immediately join with Washington, plunk a depot in Washington, and get a little Grasshopper to run a single mail car and a single passenger car back and forth. By the time the train has made its first run from Baltimore to Washington, you'll have enough money to connect to your second city (Baltimore to Frederick). So you do that, and get your second train. Give it four or five minutes and you'll be able to either double the line between BAL and WAS or create a third line to a nearby resource. Within fifteen minutes you will have connected to every city and needed resource in the vicinity. By then your opponents (assuming you are playing against two) will have pretty well done the same so that every good-sized town has at least one connection. The opponent railroads are a complete mess, with weird overpasses and tunnels all over the place. Much like the previous iterations of RRT, the AI seems to deal with brute force rather than sophistication.
Second, the maps are too small. RRT and RRT2 had a real epic feel. RRT2 was especially good with this, allowing you to make huge railroads stretching across an entire continent. The maps in SMR are tiny in comparison and few in number. This could be my single biggest point of disappointment. It contributes, of course, to the first problem, since you now have three railroads stuck in just a small corner of a country.
Third, the financial game is shallow compared to previous RRTs. The same is true of the economies. There doesn't seem to be much sophistication in this. Also, it is very easy to make great deals of money and, because the game moves so quickly, if you take a few minutes to look around the map, you'll probably find that suddenly you've got a couple million dollars in your account. This may be less the case in the more difficult European scenarios, but certainly I haven't had any trouble making money in the US of A. The stock market offers buy and selling. There is no splitting, no short selling or anything else. There are ten shares per company and that's it. I may just be missing something, but it also seems difficult to know how much different resources are worth, which ones are the most valuable, and so on.
Fourth, there seem to be some problems with routing. It's not unusual to see trains getting all plugged up near stations, even stations with three tracks running through them. The crossovers kind of work, but not as well as you might hope. When a station gets enough traffic running through it (and that may be only 5 or 6 trains) it can really begin to bog down so trains sit endlessly without being able to unload. There have also been times when the little "end of line" roadblocks have refused to go away, even in the middle of a station. That means no trains can run past the roadblock out the other side of the station. To this point I haven't found an easy way of resolving this. I think it will prove difficult to have stations with a large number of trains accessing them.
Fifth, laying track is so automatic it's almost disappointing. Unlike previous games, there do not seem to be a lot of premiums in placing bridges or tunnels. A track running from Phoenix to Flagstaff, which requires at least one major bridge and a couple of long tunnel sections, will only set you back about $500,000. That wouldn't get you very far in previous RRT games, and I think it's better that way. It used to be more important to find just the right route (anyone else remember running trains through the mountains to California in RRT2?), but now it hardly matters anymore. Terrain gets smoothed, tunnels get dug and bridges get built just like that. You can just smack a track wherever you want one and the game takes care of the rest.
Sixth, there is no campaign. This is hugely disappointing as the campaign in RRT2 was one of the best parts of the game (with the exception of those stupid puzzle ones where all you had to do is route trains). The individual scenarios have a list of objectives, but if you are not looking for them, you won't find them and won't heed them. I don't think you ever get reminded of the objectives and they don't seem to have any real bearing on the game. They are just there. Once you finish a scenario there is no connection to the next one--you just start over. All-in-all, this is pretty disappointing.
So overall, I think it has the makings of a great game...they just didn't finish it. The game itself is so good in the way it looks and the way it plays. It pains me that they kept it so shallow.
PS - One more thing. I forgot to mention the strange fact that the economies are not modified depending on the era. So be prepared to funnel steel to an automobile manufacturer in 1830...and one that is based in a city filled with 20th century skyscrapers.
. I played it . I give it away . I will forget it . I wasted my money... Pirates! was better as it was not build around economy, but discoveries and "conquest": much much more refreshing
I 100% agree with the review on Amazon:
I've spent some good time with the game now and, despite the fact that I'm about as big a fan of Sid Meier's work as you're likely to find, have to admit disappointment with this game. When it comes right down to it, the game seems more like Sid's golf game than the original RRT. It's shallow, fast and just not nearly as fun as you'd hope.
Of course it's not all bad. The graphics are beautiful, the music is great and you actually get a real manual. The game looks nice and plays nice, even on a system which is not a true gaming rig. The animations are great as well and I love how each of the train cars at a depot have to be filled individually with coal or grain or whatever the case may be. The patent auctions are well done as well.
Unfortunately, there are a few problems with the game:
First, the game moves too quickly. For example, if you play the Eastern USA scenario, you may start in Baltimore. You can immediately join with Washington, plunk a depot in Washington, and get a little Grasshopper to run a single mail car and a single passenger car back and forth. By the time the train has made its first run from Baltimore to Washington, you'll have enough money to connect to your second city (Baltimore to Frederick). So you do that, and get your second train. Give it four or five minutes and you'll be able to either double the line between BAL and WAS or create a third line to a nearby resource. Within fifteen minutes you will have connected to every city and needed resource in the vicinity. By then your opponents (assuming you are playing against two) will have pretty well done the same so that every good-sized town has at least one connection. The opponent railroads are a complete mess, with weird overpasses and tunnels all over the place. Much like the previous iterations of RRT, the AI seems to deal with brute force rather than sophistication.
Second, the maps are too small. RRT and RRT2 had a real epic feel. RRT2 was especially good with this, allowing you to make huge railroads stretching across an entire continent. The maps in SMR are tiny in comparison and few in number. This could be my single biggest point of disappointment. It contributes, of course, to the first problem, since you now have three railroads stuck in just a small corner of a country.
Third, the financial game is shallow compared to previous RRTs. The same is true of the economies. There doesn't seem to be much sophistication in this. Also, it is very easy to make great deals of money and, because the game moves so quickly, if you take a few minutes to look around the map, you'll probably find that suddenly you've got a couple million dollars in your account. This may be less the case in the more difficult European scenarios, but certainly I haven't had any trouble making money in the US of A. The stock market offers buy and selling. There is no splitting, no short selling or anything else. There are ten shares per company and that's it. I may just be missing something, but it also seems difficult to know how much different resources are worth, which ones are the most valuable, and so on.
Fourth, there seem to be some problems with routing. It's not unusual to see trains getting all plugged up near stations, even stations with three tracks running through them. The crossovers kind of work, but not as well as you might hope. When a station gets enough traffic running through it (and that may be only 5 or 6 trains) it can really begin to bog down so trains sit endlessly without being able to unload. There have also been times when the little "end of line" roadblocks have refused to go away, even in the middle of a station. That means no trains can run past the roadblock out the other side of the station. To this point I haven't found an easy way of resolving this. I think it will prove difficult to have stations with a large number of trains accessing them.
Fifth, laying track is so automatic it's almost disappointing. Unlike previous games, there do not seem to be a lot of premiums in placing bridges or tunnels. A track running from Phoenix to Flagstaff, which requires at least one major bridge and a couple of long tunnel sections, will only set you back about $500,000. That wouldn't get you very far in previous RRT games, and I think it's better that way. It used to be more important to find just the right route (anyone else remember running trains through the mountains to California in RRT2?), but now it hardly matters anymore. Terrain gets smoothed, tunnels get dug and bridges get built just like that. You can just smack a track wherever you want one and the game takes care of the rest.
Sixth, there is no campaign. This is hugely disappointing as the campaign in RRT2 was one of the best parts of the game (with the exception of those stupid puzzle ones where all you had to do is route trains). The individual scenarios have a list of objectives, but if you are not looking for them, you won't find them and won't heed them. I don't think you ever get reminded of the objectives and they don't seem to have any real bearing on the game. They are just there. Once you finish a scenario there is no connection to the next one--you just start over. All-in-all, this is pretty disappointing.
So overall, I think it has the makings of a great game...they just didn't finish it. The game itself is so good in the way it looks and the way it plays. It pains me that they kept it so shallow.
PS - One more thing. I forgot to mention the strange fact that the economies are not modified depending on the era. So be prepared to funnel steel to an automobile manufacturer in 1830...and one that is based in a city filled with 20th century skyscrapers.
I really want to like this game but I just can't... I'm not sure if its me or not but alot of time even with 1 train and only 2 stations I cannot get the damn train to stop at the station. I have had almost 0% sucsess at all getting the train to stop at the original station you start with...
Anyone else experiencing this?
Anyone else experiencing this?
