Compared to the old Railway Tycoon games, Is this worth a buy?

[A Pebble]

Does the game have the same level of depth and gameplay as RT or is this game buggy and unoriginal like a lot of games recently?

[genemead]

"Railway Tycoon"?
Never heard of it.

Let's rephrase that: "Compared to any of the other modern railroad games out there, is this worth a buy?"

Answer- YES. (Why would you even TRY to compare a 20 year-old game to any modern game? I have fond memories of PONG too, but that doesn't mean I'm holding out for a game that's like it!!!)

No, it is not "buggy".
No, it is not "unoriginal". There's not another game like it.
No, there hasn't been another game with the "depth and game play" of RT in over 20 years, and there won't ever be. (There's plenty of "different" train games, NONE are like the others, and none will ever be "like" RT.)

There's plenty of You Tubes on RE. Watch a few.
Then try it, you'll like it. Besides, it's on sale for half off. What have you got to lose?

[MagnusA]

If playing a game with at least the same depth and game play as the Railroad Tycoon games you want, RRT2 Platinum (the last RT2 edition released) is actually available here at Steam. I still have the old cd-rom version and it works fine even today on Windows 10.

RE is more of a puzzle game with a railway backdrop rather than a train or ecenomic simulator.

[Bob the Builder]

Compared to RT2 Platinum, track laying system is more complex, and it is fun once you learn it.

However, I don't like some of the other differences with RT2:
-Hiring staff for individual trains is unnecessary micromanagement.
-Stock market and economy is simplified.
-The density of cities seems low.

I agree that it's more of a puzzle game.

[albriradios]

Yes, it is worth it.

I'm a long time RT3 player. Still play a RT3 game every now and then but its getting less and less frequent.

I completely agree with the earlier posts. I will add that Railway Empire is more of a "lay track and run trains" game than an economic empire building game. One could win an RT3 game and never build any track.

My advice, as an old RT3 salt, is to jump into this game with both feet to fully enjoy it, but IGNORE the stock market (except to buy out a competitor) and IGNORE the staff component and invest into track & trains rather than industry.

[chaney]

I concur in general up to the last paragraph.

The Commodities market is underdeveloped and not worth much attention, true.

As far as staff goes, the office personnel are great investments most of the time, and train staff are cheap and profitable - just don't bother spending a lot of time on them - buy and place reasonably.

Fill demand and expand - profit!

[gardlt]

One of the main differences with this game is the way it handles pause. The way the game was designed the game runs at all times* except in build mode. So, when you are managing your trains the game will be running. Contrast to past Railroad Tycoon games, even in Sid Meier's Railroads!, where it's actually IMPOSSIBLE to run the game while setting up a route. This will give you an idea that the game isn't designed to let you carefully manage trains. I have really tried to do this, some little is possible with great care, but it just isn't satisfying the way it was in past games.

*A manual pause was added at early player's request. However, there are full refunds for deleted track/stations in the main game modes. This breaks the time component of investment that past games had. For example, would you build a Steel bridge now, at a greater upfront cost, instead of going for the cheaper wooden one that you will later have to tear down. The only way to make time matter is to switch to real time, and use the setting without pause.

The main mechanic is city growth. More than 50% of strategic decisions are based around growing cities. Cities grow fast, can double within a year, and demand is predominately linear proportional to city size. So, we end up with an astronomical demand for cargo very quickly. Money starts to fly in. Others mention a puzzle, and this is part of that to try to keep a network looking somewhat "clean" while supplying large cities. All are created equal so you could haul everything in from everywhere if unchecked.

This game has signalling and unique routes. This also takes the focus away from individual trains. Dedicated infrastructure will be needed for the typical route*. It's hard to think of something that wont require building.

*There is no tool to manage more than one train other than copy orders from one into another. Mostly, you setup a train and clone it 4-6 times.

[lalala]

I don't recommend:
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198048421323/recommended/503940

[chaney]

Since comments are disabled on the review, I'll respond a bit here since you linked it.
This game is obviously not RT2 or RT3. The fact that it is not the same does not inherently make it better or worse. Some areas are not as well defined as others in one game or the other. Track laying here is more complex, and can be frustrating, but with experience it works very well - once you avoid minimum radius curves and steep terrain. The economic part is not as complex, but the logistical puzzle is quite good.

"Buying industry in worst case will just generate 0 revenue, but never losses..." because there is not maintenance, right? Well, what is overlooked here is that maintenance costs in RE are a pittance, and the true "loss" is opportunity cost. Based on what you wrote, it seems like a good idea to buy up industries ... which is about the worst strategy in general for this game, exceptions under some circumstances of course. The return on investment is very slow compared with building and operating rails and making deliveries.

Sorry you didn't like the game, that's fine, but I wanted to correct what I thought were some missed conceptions in the review.

[lalala]

Originally posted by chaney:

Since comments are disabled on the review, I'll respond a bit here since you linked it.
This game is obviously not RT2 or RT3. The fact that it is not the same does not inherently make it better or worse.

Can you quote where I said "its worser bcause it is not RT2/3"? I can't find that. Only when I pick out pieces and have a very good creativity I can evtl. put it together this way.

Btw, the game does officially try to be a successor to RT and sid mayers sid meier's railroads. But that just as an aside.

Originally posted by chaney:

Track laying here is more complex, and can be frustrating, but with experience it works very well - once you avoid minimum radius curves and steep terrain.

Its not the best way to "correct" someone starting with ad-hominem, turning it down to the person not knowing how to properly place tracks. This is actually the point where I stop talk to you and only talk to others who were interested.

Even if you know the flaws of track building, the track building will still suck. In fact, the time wasted example in the review is already based on the knowledge. The example in review is intentionally picked, so that its not just solved by knowing the flaws of the game. Chaney could have spotted this, if chaney was not up to being offensive (even though in a subtle way, not aggressive).

Originally posted by chaney:

The economic part is not as complex, but the logistical puzzle is quite good.

Chaney is right about puzzle:
Its a puzzle with a single color and you have to figure out how the pieces fit by randomly trying.

Originally posted by chaney:

"Buying industry in worst case will just generate 0 revenue, but never losses..." because there is not maintenance, right? Well, what is overlooked here is that maintenance costs in RE are a pittance, and the true "loss" is opportunity cost.

There is nothing overlooked. There is no maintanance. Achieving bankruptcy is de-facto impossible in this game. Thats something people whoi love economy games should know.

Loss of opportunity is always there when you have decision between different investments with different returns. Its like saying that all cars are good because they can roll...

Problem is, that the component of "risk" is missing...

Originally posted by chaney:

Based on what you wrote and a lot of creativity on my side, it seems like a good idea to buy up industries ... which is about the worst strategy in general for this game, exceptions under some circumstances of course.

I have corrected the quote, self-explanatory.

Originally posted by chaney:

The return on investment is very slow compared with building and operating rails and making deliveries.

The return is so low, because there is no risk component added to it. Making the reutnr higher would make the game even easier.

I guess at this point anyone interessted in some depth knows what to expect.

[Thineboot]

I wanted to add a comment to your "review", too. Since I've read how much creativity you've invested in changing someone else quotes, namely chaney, I better stop here before you have too much text to change...

[chaney]

This is too much twisting. Keep it rational and honest. I have communicated ideas but what could be a productive discussion is taken as a turn-based adversarial combat with restrictive rules where a small technical artifact dominates the game. Let's keep it intellectually honest. I am not your enemy.

"Can you quote where I said "its worser bcause it is not RT2/3"? I can't find that. Only when I pick out pieces and have a very good creativity I can evtl. put it together this way.

Btw, the game does officially try to be a successor to RT and sid mayers sid meier's railroads."

I can not quote that directly. Your review seems to clearly put the game in a less favorable light than RT2/3, I simply chose to offer what I though was a more complete comparison. There is nothing that is a stretch in inferring your preference, so how can you suggest I address your straw man?!? If I interpreted you incorrectly, you can correct me by explicitly stating so and I will apologize.

In what official way does RE try to be a successor to RT/Railroads? It is a similar setting. The games are quite different. RE started out as more of an arcade style game (Trainiac setting is closer to that) while some of us helped it evolve to include more of a puzzle style game (full Pause.) As a successor to, direct replacement for, or simulation of RT, it fails. As its own game, it does quite will IMHO. I don't really care if it is a successor, or if people think it is, but asserting an "officially" status implies an authority on the general subject that requires justification. Assertions that can't be supported are not persuasive, but do degrade credibility. That is technically ad-hominem argument, but is neither a fallacy nor improper in debating a point. Not all ad-hominem is about "personal" attack, but can be about incompleteness in the argument or can point to the weakness in the way a point is made. That's all quite fair and reasonable for honest discussion.

lalala has stated some criticism of the track management. I have agreed it is far from perfect. Following up with some suggestions on how to avoid the problem, which in my personal experience makes the deficiencies in the system easy to avoid almost all the time, is again not an attack on the person or their character, but an extension of the details in the point. This is helpful to communicating information and should not be taken as an offense, but as offense was taken, I apologize for not communicating more gently.

Regarding buying industries, there is in fact great risk. The game, in most modes, sets goals that must be met on time or the scenario is failed. Sinking precious capital into poor investments will cause a loss to the player. Simply not going bankrupt is not sufficient. Taking a generalized notion of "economy game" this one may be included. RE addresses the details in particular ways. Those details certainly don't match all prior notions, nor are they particularly realistic. They are the rules of the game. They can be changed with mods to some extent. This game balance neglects maintenance and puts high value on making deliveries with trains in relative terms. The result, for some of us, is a satisfying game.

[lalala]

Originally posted by chaney:

"Can you quote where I said "its worser bcause it is not RT2/3"? I can't find that. Only when I pick out pieces and have a very good creativity I can evtl. put it together this way.

I can not quote that directly.

This sums it up overall. No need to waste time. I guess Slick and other interested have their question answered. There is no point proving anything to someone who starts with a "correction of points in review" and ad-hominem and now turns it into an attempted "intellectual conversation". Next reply I'v probably suddenly turned down an attempt to make an hyper-intellectual conversation about the next moon landing or similar...

[chaney]

If you can not differentiate *fallacious* "ad-hominem" from correct informal logical "ad-hominem" pointing out that a presentation is meaningfully incomplete, then it will be difficult to maintain a rational discussion.

Accusing someone of something that sounds bad is not persuasive. Your attempt to assert a shade of meaning to a term that does not apply is fallacy and comes across as dishonest.

Now it would seem that an "intellectual conversation" is something to be avoided and ridiculed. That does sum up a lot, and is in fact fallacious ad-hominem.

Agree, there is not further need to waste time.

[Thineboot]

In your "review", lalala, you're describing in length your fundamental struggle with laying "basic tracks". And no, I can't "Imagine trying to fix a basic track for 30-45 min with no success." when someone claims to be familiar with railroad games based on the fact, that you compare RE falsely with RT 2 & 3.

Falsely because RE is neither a successor nor had the devs claimed this and beginning with genemead, MagnusA, Bob the Builder, albriradios, chaney and the trainiac expert gardlt everyone has stated this more or less direct, too.

You have a problem with RE because you can't play it and that's fine. RE isn't RT 4, it's not "an economic game", it's much more a puzzle game - see multiple statements above - and you don't like this. That's fine.

It's not the fault of RE that it's not RT 4, which you wanted to play. To write a negative review based on your personal opinion is ok, that's what most of these reviews are, personal opinions.

What's not ok is your personal behavior in this thread. You know it, the regular readers and writers know it and since you can't stop to twist quotes the occasional readers hopefully check your words before skipping to the next thread, too.

[lalala]

You guys missed the point where I said I'm no talking to you, because you'v presented your level of densness to others well enough, so that there is no point for me deepening it any further. But feel free to continue this pedantic nagging :D