I have found Railway Empire to be a great but not excellent computer game. I enjoy it a lot. On some days for 5 hours. I found it confusing when I started playing. A tutorial would have been helpful. It was quite easy to learn how to play it but there is a fair bit to learn. The level of difficulty settings allows you to play an easy or near impossible game. Using the advanced settings, you can fine tune it. If you are a beginner do not make it too difficult for yourself. The layout of the American map is fully accurate, with all towns, mountains, rivers, etc. The vast majority of America is included with only about 8 states missing. There is a wide range of resources that you can farm or mine. And a great range of factories that allow you to make consumer goods. The main way you earn money is by creating railway lines. Creating one is easy at the start. But as the game progresses it can become tedious as you spend a lot of time creating and deciding where they should go. It has affected my enjoyment of game. There should be reports that say which is the most needed or profitable. One main downside is the lack of staff you get. Sometimes I only get 20% of the employees I need which affects how much money rail lines can make. The technology tree is great and easily allows you to easily see what technologies you can research, the benefits, cost in innovation points and the prerequisites. Later in the game you can add extra rail cars such as mail and dinning. Although these are tedious to add especially when you have a lot rail lines. The yearly report summaries the main income and expenses allowing you to see how much money you have from year to year. You can play against a couple of competitors that build rival networks. It is fun to sabotage one of your competitors’ stations or business. You can even merge with a competitor by buying shares in their company and eventually take over all their railway lines slowly over many years.
This is a great but not excellent expansion. Some days I spend 5 or more hours playing most at least 2. People that have just brought this should not play the most difficult level the first few times. There should be more hints or tutorial on how to play with settlements and territories. There seems to be a major issue supplying new settlements with the starting resources. When the trains leave the rural stations for the first time they often leave empty. this does not happen when they come back a second time. This a can increase the time to establish settlements by about 50%. This is very frustrating. The map of Australia is very accurate, All towns, rivers, states and mountains, etc are accurate placed. The harbour bridge is cute. IT is misleading to say South Australia and Queensland are included. Only half of South Australia and less than a quarter of Queensland is inluded. Only a quarter of Australia is included on the map. But most of the main cities and many outback towns are included. Some famous and rarely known towns are included. The map covers about 80% of where Australian people live. IT is good that some historical engines are included. The bread should be made in a bakery not a brewery. There are some new goods like seafood Range of factories is good but should be larger there is only 11 a far bit less than america. Again not all resources are included. Oil is missing. It can take a very long time to establish all outback towns and it is difficult to achieve which is what actually happened. Aboriginal towns and conflicts should have been included.
This game costs only $2 which is about what ius worth. The important function of loading immigrantgs on the Europe Screen does not work! you have to use a click drag function with the mouse which stupid and works with gaming mouses which are very expensive. The graphics are poor which is expected because the game was made 20 years ago.
