Worst game from Firaxis?

[Lyciss]

My game crashes around the time it starts becoming unfun... Thats about 5 or 10 minutes, give or take due to possible distractions in the process.

 

[CivMonger]

My brother installed the game on my computer because it wouldn't run well on his. I've played a couple games, after the very brief tutorial and run into the same problems every time. Regardless of how I try bypass tracks I always get trains stuck going in and out of cities. With four tracks in and out and all sorts of chances to hop from one track to the next you think the trains would be able to sort out a system to get in and out? But no. So I started playing on the easy setting for train movement.

Then I ran into the little issue of train jumpers. A couple times on a more complex route my train got lost and started jumping around. I'd go from an annex to a city and take the manufactured goods somewhere while heading back to the annex but instead of heading the right direction at some point it makes a wrong turn and then starts jumping about 1/2 a screen on the tracks and being stuck in a perpetual loop of going nowhere. I've played flash games for longer than I've enjoyed this one, I'm just glad I didn't pay money for it.

 

[gadams]

I'm a long-time Civ addict who bought Railroads on a whim. I haven't played any of the RRT series, but was always intrigued. Overall, I like the game. It's like having a virtual train set, to a point. I got sucked right in and played for hours on end. Though, I won pretty darn easily.

Of all the Firaxis titles that I own, this is definitely the lowest quality. Sure, the graphics are beautiful, the music is great (the fact that major cities have their own song is brilliant) and I get to play with toy trains. However, there are some major flaws: consistently crashes once the map gets busy, takes up about a gig of memory (a gig?! sheesh!), replayability will be very low (I anticipate tiring of the game and shelving it), AI is intensely stupid and not enough initial scenarios. I could probably think of more, but that's what initially comes to mind.

Overall, am I sad that I bought it? No. It's a fun, beautiful game with a good amount of attention to detail. Is it as fun/robust as I had expected? Certainly not.

 

[Greybriar]

Bleser, I couldn't have written a post expressing my experiences any differently than your own with the Railroad Tycoon series and Railroads! Yours are exactly like my own.

I purchased Sid Meier's Railroads! the day it was released. I do not regret it.

 

[Krupo]

My brother installed the game on my computer because it wouldn't run well on his. I've played a couple games, after the very brief tutorial and run into the same problems every time. Regardless of how I try bypass tracks I always get trains stuck going in and out of cities. With four tracks in and out and all sorts of chances to hop from one track to the next you think the trains would be able to sort out a system to get in and out? But no. So I started playing on the easy setting for train movement.

Unfortunately you *can't* hope for the trains to "look ahead" and pick the best route - that is, in fact, one of the game's main challenges.

While it could've been tweaked to be more forgiving for beginners (actually, I'd say "medium" difficulty a good forgiving setting), you have to remember that each train essentially needs its own rail line.

It sucks, but it's the most efficient way to lay out your tracks.

Take a look at how the the AI routes its tracks; with some exceptions, it's generally a good example.

The only place where you'll end up trains "switching/sharing" tracks is at large terminals, where you only have 4 tracks available. If you only have three trains coming in, each should have its own track. Terminals can have 4; beyond that, tread carefully - 5 or 6 can work, much more than that and you're probably going to get gridlock

One hack, of course, is to buy out a competitor and use *his* stations.

Then I ran into the little issue of train jumpers. A couple times on a more complex route my train got lost and started jumping around. I'd go from an annex to a city and take the manufactured goods somewhere while heading back to the annex but instead of heading the right direction at some point it makes a wrong turn and then starts jumping about 1/2 a screen on the tracks and being stuck in a perpetual loop of going nowhere. I've played flash games for longer than I've enjoyed this one, I'm just glad I didn't pay money for it.

Nasty/stupid bug - delete the train or completely re-route it; excessively complex tracks may contribute to it, unfortunately.

 

[The Fjonis]

For me, the game was disappointing. I miss only ONE THING: manual signal assignment. It really makes all the difference. I played Chris Sawyer's Locomotion a lot (and Transport Tycoon before that), and here, placing signals to make junctions, one-way tracks etc is essential.

The annoying thing is that I don't really think it would be very hard for them to implement this, but they just didn't care to do it in order to "keep it simple". The way it is now, I just get terribly annoyed once I start trying to make more than single-lane tracks with one train on it.

 

[Monkson]

How long before the map editor comes out?? This game has lost it's luster without it!

 

[Swein Forkbeard]

My game crashes around the time it starts becoming unfun... Thats about 5 or 10 minutes, give or take due to possible distractions in the process.

That happens to me too sometimes.

 

[AL_DA_GREAT]

It is far from one of their good ones, some one should be fired. It felt like they quickly threw together a game. To little time was spent on it.

 

[SealJuice]

You are forgetting that all-time favorite. Sometimes I think Sid made "Sim Golf" just so no other game would be called his worst. It the "Howard the Duck" of his career.

 

[Grinder]

You are forgetting that all-time favorite. Sometimes I think Sid made "Sim Golf" just so no other game would be called his worst. It the "Howard the Duck" of his career.

At least Sim Golf doesn't crash like Railroads!.

Sim Golf is not a bad game really, it just doesn't have much in the way of depth, but then given that there was an attempt at humour in Sim Golf perhaps it wasn't meant to be taken seriously.

Since there has been no effort to fix Railroads!, then it has to be the Plan 9 From Outer Space of Sids career.

 

[Taronas]

If you only have three trains coming in, each should have its own track.

stupid me figured it out, never mind

 

[Bluevoss]

Hi all - First time poster here and was so annoyed with Railraods, I had to join up just to get my crabbies out.

This game - in a nutshell - sucked. I played a full game and was so busy (do young people really like a game so frantic?) that I never looked at my stock market sheet and never even got a chance to replace engines (I was still running an American in 1950!).

I actually went to the trouble to reinstall my favorite - Railroad Tycoon Deluxe on my desktop to see if I was just thinking "Glory Days". And you know what - RTD was a superior game. I found myself so sucked in that my familuatization game ran two hours. Its only that I cocked it up that I'll be restarting a new one tonight.

The real difference here is the game speed. The "100 year game" I ran on SMRR ran 90 minutes. Sure, that might be fine for multiplayer, but it ruined the entire game for me. Sure, I had years in RTD where I didn't buy anything - I just checked out my competition or scanned far afield for new opertunities. In SMRR, its too damn fast for that. I don't have time to play around and tune my system. And that sucks - its just another AoE, a blind screaming rush through history where you are moving too fast to appriciate anything you are doing.

Maybe the game industry is playing towards the Xtreme crowd with multiplay, but you know what? There are Pirates! forums where people still chat about their games and stratagies. P! is a great game, one that I play over and over. It its not mulitplayer - just openended and huge and fun. Whereas SMRR feels like you are building a model railroad in a broom closet.

Bluevoss-

 

[kuldiin]

This game made me feel bad for purchasing the game instead of downloading it illegally.

I suppose with all the goodness Firaxis brought out, they had to do a turd eventually.

 

[Gray_Lensman]

This game made me feel bad for purchasing the game instead of downloading it illegally.

I suppose with all the goodness Firaxis brought out, they had to do a turd eventually.

This game made me feel like I was participating in a "Toys for Tots" program and I was the unintended "Tot"

I guess if they are making money "Dumbing Down" their old titles, then go for it, but I'm not buying any more of this "Dumbed Down" trash.

 

[SittingBull]

Definitely get and run the demo before purchasing anything like this again. Where's the support?

 

[Razor2]

Railroads is definitely one of the worst (if not the worst) game Firaxis ever made. It is far too simple compared to RR2 or RR3. For example the economy or the stock market are far to simplified.

Unfortunately it seems to be a trend that every good game series must be milked to trash with a very simple sequel so it is bought by tons of console gamers (even if it is released on PC), because the gaming industry has become so mainstream that if you can't sell to the masses no publisher will fund you...its really a shame.

 

[SittingBull]

What's interesting is they are doing a FANTASTIC job with the Civilization series. I had though this sequel would be 10 times better than the original Railroad Tycoon, boy was I ever wrong.