Railroad Tycoon II

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Name: Railroad Tycoon II Year: 1999 Publisher: Gathering of Developers Developer: PopTop Software Inc. Platform: PC Genre: Simulation Total rating: 78.3% - rated 42 times rate now: please log in to rate Submitter: Alexi_Wolf Score: 10 points Added: Jul 25 2007 Warez status: Abandonware

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Author: Cannonballsimp Date: Jan 21 2012 - 11:57 Score: 100 points

RAILROAD TYCOON II – If you like trains...

I discovered this game not long ago on Classic Gaming Network and the screenshots caught my eye. I never played the original, but I remembered playing Transport Tycoon and thinking that there were just too many options, and the interface was dismal. I thought that the same idea, but using trains only and with a more friendly, modern interface, could only be better. And I was right. Railroad Tycoon II is an excellent piece of entertainment. It is complex enough to provide a satisfying challenge, but never at the expense of playability; there is never any doubt that it is meant to be a game. It is easy to get into, but difficult to comprehend completely.

Gameplay
In the campaign, gameplay can be divided into financial and design activities, which are performed concurrently. The relative emphasis on each one differs from level to level. In some, you can almost ignore the stock market and limit you interest in money to your company's bank balance. In others, you are required to amass a personal fortune in profits, which can only be done by playing the stock market. In these levels, your company is basically a cash cow to be milked; you're a trader who dabbles in trains.

The principle behind designing a successful railway in Railroad Tycoon II is to balance supply and demand, and to set up chains between suppliers (such as coalmines, orchards and cotton plantations), manufacturers (such as textile and steel mills, bakeries and canneries) and consumers (big cities and sometimes ports). Grow your network slowly; first find a reliable, medium-distance passenger route to bring in some regular cash. Taking out a bond is usually a good idea. Keep an eye on your first route for its first few trips, while you still have time, making sure that you're not hauling empty carriages. Then start connecting up one or two nearby core industries (such as goods and food, which every settlement of more than three houses will consume). These early routes will run throughout the game, so make sure they are sustainable! As the years roll by, new industries appear, better locomotives become available, and well-supplied cities expand.

Like in the real world, the principle behind stock market success in Railroad Tycoon II is to buy low and sell high, and also like in the real world, predicting which stocks will rise and which will fall is tricky. To win some of the levels, you'll almost certainly have to engage in risky practices such as buying stock on the margin, selling it short, taking out numerous bonds, and cranking up the dividend so that your a larger percentage of your companies profits end up in your own pocket. Although the AI players are pretty dismal railway designers, they are stock-market demons, so watch out; you can easily find yourself suddenly a minority stockholder in your own company.

While the lengthy campaign is arguably the core of the single player game, other modes are available. You can play scenarios, which have similar objectives to the campaign levels, but lack their historical contextualisation. In this mode, you can also set the financial and industrial model at any of three different complexity levels, which greatly alter the overall challenge. The campaign levels and scenarios all have bronze, silver and gold victory conditions. This is a great touch; if the basic bronze victory turns out to be too easy, try and go for a silver or gold. In Sandbox mode, the competitive part of the game is removed entirely; you have no opponents and unlimited funds. This might seem attractive at first, especially if you find financial management a chore. However, without the requirement that your railway must be financially viable, there is not really any challenge, no incentive to really optimise your network, and no way to gauge your success. Sandbox mode also serves as a map editor; you can also alter the terrain and add and remove industries.

Interface, Graphics and Sound
Nobody plays this kind of game for the graphics. Railroad Tycoon II has functional, seldom pretty graphics. Sound, similarly, does the job; its informative but unobtrusive (apart from a very loud and entirely unnecessary snoring noise which occurs of you dawdle at one of the menus for too long). There is a cash-register noise which very effectively indicates when a train has just delivered a cargo; its length is proportional to the value of the cargo hauled. The interface, compared with, say, Transport Tycoon, is intuitive. My only gripe is that in order to perform financial actions such as buying and selling shares, you have to navigate away from the main view and bring up one of several separate financial windows.

Conclusion
There are two kinds of person in the world; the kind that is indifferent to trains, and the kind that, like me, has an inexplicable affection for them. To the former, this game is likely to appear a well-made and detailed simulation, but slow and difficult and a bit too serious. To the latter, on the other hand it is a delight. Could it be improved? Well, the ability to build short tunnels would be nice. Some of the graphics are a bit rough around the edges, like the way carriages remain horizontal even when on a steep hill, and support for higher resolutions would be great. The ability to buy and sell stock and do other frequently performed financial functions in the main window (say, a line of finance buttons running down the right hand edge of the screen) would make financial management much smoother. These are all small gripes though, from someone who has spent perhaps more hours playing the game than he should have. I recommend this to anyone who likes trains and has many hours to kill.

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By Rosencruz - Oct 02 2012 - 17:38 One of the hardest Tycoons ever. I recommend Platinum version with 1.56 patch. Works fine on newer PC's.

By Silver_tish - Aug 14 2012 - 08:12 I remember this game. But I think it's too difficult for me.

By Crash - Jul 17 2010 - 09:18 Ryanch, it's unlikely that this game will have totalled your hard drive. It probably was already dying.

By Ryanch06 - Jul 27 2009 - 13:59 did anybody get a bsod when playing this. 2 days after installing this and 3 bsod's my hard drive packed up. i want to download it again but first i want to know if this was what destroyed my hard drive???

By Mcristi - Jul 18 2009 - 18:53 i love this game. used to play several hours a day. thx a lot

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