Railway Empire vs Transport Fever

[Chaserix]

Was just wondering if this would be worth buying if I already have Transport Fever.

[SeaBee]

Railway Empire is just about building a railway empire, there is no other form of transportation. I have Transport Fever and enjoyed it, this game is a bit different, only focused on the history of the railway starting in the 1830's. If you enjoy setting up rail lines, laying tracks and moving goods and people from place to place, this will be a fun game for you.

[Randy Lahey]

Does it include the transportation of goods, weight of trains, and long trains like Transport Fever? I was thinking of picking it up now that it's 70% off. Transport Fever is one of my favourites.

[Astralis L.]

This is my question too. Transport Fever fans, please chime in.

I love the complexity of TF so I don't want to move to something simplistic. As a fan of Sid Meir's Trains (that was the name?) and the old Train Tycoon series, I don't want to go back to those. I had fun but want something fresh.

[Chaserix]

I just bought it and I will tell you guys what I think about it

[Chaserix]

I'm gonna refund and just save my money for the summer sale, I can totally see why people would like this but I personally don't. If I were you I would buy it and just get a refund if you don't like it.

[El Presidente]

At least TpF can be figured out. I am still trying to figure out how the game builds sidings.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1676036773

[El Presidente]

I finally figured it out. He just didn't say it very well.

[Durendal.exe]

Weighing in here: They're very different games. I like both on their own merits, but I could definitely see fans of one not liking the other at all.

Originally posted by George Costanza:

Does it include the transportation of goods, weight of trains, and long trains like Transport Fever? I was thinking of picking it up now that it's 70% off. Transport Fever is one of my favourites.

Goods yes. The complexity of the goods chain is one of my favorite things about RE, and I wish more games in the genre had as much going on there. (tying the industries into the town growth system is also really nice.)

The weight of goods is...modeled to some degree? It's never stated so I assume it to be a hard abstraction.

All trains are, I'm afraid, the same length. You only manage locomotives, and they pick up and drop off up to eight cars at each stop.

The best way I think I can describe it is that RE is more of an 'arcade' style Tycoon game than the 'sim' style that games like TF represent.

My only major gripe with it is route management. Since all trains have their own route with no sharing options. So modifying a route with twenty trains means manually digging into menus for twenty trains. Really, the entire UX in RE is ultimately sub-par to put it politely. Not a deal breaker (for me at least), but definitely at issue.

[Randy Lahey]

I might just wait until there's a bundle sale with a few more maps by the sound of things. It's not overpriced, I just have too many games already. How does it compare to Mashinky?

[Astralis L.]

Thanks for the review. I'm not ready to get back into arcade train games. I'll stick to TF for a while.

[Lowlight]

I didn't care for TF. I wanted to but it's kind of like those Paradox games in that the UI is awful, the systems are fiddly and poorly explained, and if you get the hang of things you better not take a break from the game for more than a week because you will have forgotten everything you learned and have to either start over or pour through awful YouTube clips.

[Krupo]

The UI here is AAA compared to the very finicky TF interface. Much more forgiving track-laying, but not totally easy, and I really like how RE shows you the breakdown of costs (how much track vs bridges/tunnels etc compose the price of a railway expansion).

Originally posted by i8pikachu:

Thanks for the review. I'm not ready to get back into arcade train games. I'll stick to TF for a while.

Hehe, I'd hardly consider this "arcade." It's much closer in spirit to the original Railroad Tycoon, and adds in new twists as well.

As others mentioned, the industry system is more interesting too.

[CocoJacoby]

I have both and really enjoy TF much more. Railway Empire is more of a competitive Railroad Tycoon type game while Transport Fever is more of a realistic simulation. Personally I like the graphics and the ability to build complex infrastructure in Transport Fever. For instance you can't place roads and have railroad crossings in RE and there are only trains . . . no other transportation.

I also love to watch the environment change, cities grow and vehicles operate which is great on TF but the tight camera angles in RE doesn't allow much of it. Also the mod community on TF is outstanding!

But hold on . . . Railway Corporation is about to be released and Urban Games is working on a sequel (?) to Transport Fever. So you will soon have other options.