Railway Empire

I've kept my eye on this game for some time, but £34 is way out of my spending limit so I purchased while it was on offer. It seems a more detailed version of Sid Meier's Railroads!, which IMO was a flawed game and not as good as the old RR Tycoon games. RW seems to have a lot more depth and scale. My biggest complaint with Railway Empire is the control system; using WASD to move around actally buffers keystrokes - hold a key for longer than half a second or so and the game sweeps away across the map for many seconds afterwards. This makes it extremely difficult to navigate. Another review said the controls are "fine" - they are absolutely not fine and not worthy of the premium price they are asking. Placing signals is also an excercise in frustration, as mouse input is repeatedly ingored. A much better UI is needed for this. I'm still evaluating the game but I'm minded to get a refund until the shockingly bad controls are corrected.

0/5, the game had potential but often felt like taking me for a complete fool. It left me head shaking. - Automatic freight choosing is really boring and stupid. - Awekward Interface. Often you need to move the mouse over the whole screen and click many times. This limits the playing speed very badly. - The mass of trains you need is ridiculous. That is even worse because there is no possibility to sort or group them. Calling one train a 'line' is stupid. - Using Signals feels very tedious and needless, also because there are no real crossings. - Why is there sand and oil? It has no effect. - Why are there shares when there is no dividend? Why do you have to buy 100% to merge? Shares don't work that way. - Why are there higher tier products? There is no point in making them. Every transport and factory gets you the same revenue. - Using personell is useless and extremely tedious, just as the resarch tree. - Weather effects are annoying and can not be switched off. The bright and dark from the clouds is very uncomfortable. Turning them off should be minimum. - Some of the scenarios goals are very stupid and feel like very bad level design. - Too much DLCs, too costly. - Trains behaviour and look is very uncool. Acceleration is stupidly fast and trains look like toys. There is no massiveness of real steam trains. I wonder if the developers ever saw one for real. - The first person camera while driving a train is very strangely attached and has limited looking angle. You can't even look at the train. Its a game about TRAINS, so, let me see the TRAIN. Feels very disappointing. - Playing with AI is absolutly no fun. Tracks can't intersect with theirs and the comments are very, very annoying. - Laying tracks can be very cumbersome at times, the new track bends very strangely. - Your built rail network looks like a mess. + Music is good. For me, Railroad Tycoon 2 is the better game in every single point, from graphics to interface to gameplay to campaign.

But RRT3 is a very old title and this offers more or less that experience, only with nicer graphics. So if this is an itch you're looking to scratch, Railway Empire should do just that. I've played this game on and off for a year or so, and bough all the DLC and quite enjoyed myself. This is a solid 4 out of 5 star game. But it is not a five star game, it's a four star game - which means, while it's mostly excellent and way ahead of the average game of a similar nature, there are a number of rough edges, annoyances and such things which preclude the game from reaching the heights it would otherwise easily reach. Some of these are from comparison with classics such as RRT3 and some spring up simply from the way the Railway Empire presents itself. Good things: - in-game graphics are pretty and inviting - laying tracks is easy and innovative - options and strategies seem well balanced, i.e. one can build an empire on many pillars Bad things: - the game is too easy, because the strategies are too simple, it's very hard to lose - the cartoony style of the AI is annoying and out of place, like an afterthought - the UI is very bad, lacking tooltips and is a chore to muddle through Ugly things: - the day/night cycle is a switch, as in, do you want day or do you want night... I don't even - there is no weather, and the only seasons are winter and summer - the game only goes to 1930 and there's a lot of DLCs

I do not write reviews very often, but when i saw here some bad comments on the game, i felt the need to write here one. This game is great!! When you love trains, want to learn something about economy, and you have a lot of free time, this is the game. I must admit, the learning curve is somewhat steep, but when you take the time to see some videos (for example here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShcR4XmL0Yg), where they explain how to lay tracks, how to make a strategy plan and you get used to the controls you get, this game is very addictive. When i see one of thee bad reviews, where they say, that the train is not leaving the station, and he or she doesnt know why, one of the reasons could be that the destination/city of the train doesnt need the goods you want to ship with the train. Simply said, when you want to ship beer to chicago, and chicago has already their own brewery that makes beer, there is no need to ship beer to chicago, so the train will not leave the station. Yes, you have to know this ;) Have a lot of fun.

this game is fun to play and waste away the hours on a rainy or snowy day. similar to railroad tycoon. no manual to help, have to browse around by trial and error to figure things out. the STOCK MARKET needs work, if you can finish a scenario with out the AI competitors buying you out, you have a option to finish the term allotted, with only a few months left the competitors always buy you out and game ends. other than a few little bugs still fun to play. if it wasnt for the bad stock market i would give this sim/tycoon game a 5 star.