Railroad Tycoon 3

While 3rd game introduced certain great mechanics, like the way how non-railway transport is handled, it has worse graphics than 2nd game, cluttered UI, a lot of concepts are sketchy and poorly explained and in general, it repeats all the scenarios with slightly different set of rules, making it a dull experience. Great for fan-made maps, boring when played vanilla

Move goods from low value areas to high value areas. Create and buy industries. Listen to classic railroad themed tunes.

None came even close, and sadly none that followed in other series' came close. This one has it all. By default it is focused on industry, the stock market, and both the business and personal wealth aspects of both financial and real market manipulation. To say that predecessors or followers came even close, is not really playing the game. It has been updated by the community and search for the unofficial 1.06 patch. Not that railroading is missing, but if you'd like to tinker with more of the railroad side, you have the freely available trainmaster mod. If you'd like more depth you have maps and customizations that the community made. A pity that none ever came close to its economic depth since.

I played this as a kid before I fully understood the game and decided to buy it a couple months ago to re-live some nostalgia. Playing it as an adult, the learning curve is easy to pick up after using the tutorial mode. A quick google search will reveal that there's two patches required to for it to work on a modern OS (config file fix and blurry texture fix) and GOG has applied both for you, meaning it runs perfectly out of the box on my Windows 7 laptop without any troubleshooting. For its time, the the graphics are good and the maps, music, and aesthetics really work together to create a nice atmosphere while not getting in the way of gameplay. The economic simulation is detailed with a fully hashed out supply chain that can change as the game progresses, a stock market that you can apply basic real-world trading principles to, and a thorough ledger for managing your rail empire. Setting up trains and buying industries is easy and the game gives you the option to micromanage cargos if you want without forcing you into it. I think this was one of the best Tycoon series games ever made, and if you played it as a kid you'll love it just as much (maybe even more!) now.

This is THE rail simulator game. I have spent hundreds of hours on this game and here we are in '21 back for more.. Why no follow up was released along the same lines of economy, trains and geography is beyond me.