Two New Train Games

[Hawk]

Looks like there's a couple new train games coming down the pike. Railway Empire and Mashinky.
Quill18 did a review of them at YouTube.

Railway Empire - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMOaBn_gMBA

Mashinky - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tj3zWhABrM8

[Gumboots]

If they don't require Steam I might take a look at them. Graphics are certainly good.

[Hawk]

At this point it looks like they both will require Steam. The main reason I won't be getting either, aside from the fact that my rig doesn't meet the minimum system requirements for either game.

[Gumboots]

Meh. If I buy a game I want to be able to decide when and how I play it. I won't put up with anyone else telling me how to do it.

Edit: I looked around a bit. They are saying they will be selling a physical version (ie: CD, non-Steam). However, there will be no capacity to modify any aspect of the game outside of the Steam workshop. This presumably means that any mods that are made will have to be run through Steam, even if you have the physical version of the game.

There's also no talk of any sort of map editor, so it looks like you'll get the default campaign and nothing else. I'm not sure if there will be any way around this.

Of course, it's also possible that enthusiasts may figure out how to do their own modding, if there is enough interest in the game.

[Hawk]

Personally I refuse to use Steam, and that decision is made form experience. I had an account a few years ago that I had to create in order to register a complimentary copy of Railworks.
I got rid of Railworks and Steam and never looked back.

I wonder if that cd version is going to require registration through Steam. That's what happened with Railworks, and I know of quite a few other games that have fallen into that crap trap.

Railway Empire is distributed by Kalypso and they do have some games at GOG. I wonder if that will eventually happen? Not that it matters to me. I can't play it anyway.

[RulerofRails]

That's the first in-game footage I saw from Railway Empire. Better than I was expecting from the trailer to be honest. Wouldn't say I'm hooked though, but "interested."

I never did the Steam thing either, and would prefer to avoid it. At the same time, if it will one day be on cd, and people one day make some great maps for it with attention to detail: all RT3's bugs make me wonder if I will regret not giving it more of a chance in it's early stages. When maybe the developers would pay attention, or just get your voice lost in the crowd.

I do wish it all the best. I hope there is at least stability with the developers for the sake of support, the way there wasn't with RT3. I think I read that with Railroads!, they pretty much went belly up as soon as the thing was released.

[Gumboots]

I wonder if that cd version is going to require registration through Steam. That's what happened with Railworks, and I know of quite a few other games that have fallen into that crap trap.

If they try to pull that stunt I won't be interested. Now that you mention it, I wouldn't be surprised if they do it that way, given that they are saying any mods will be via Steam. Kinda defeats the point of buying a CD if you're still tied to someone's else's system.

[AT41B]

I just watched the link for 'Railway Empire' and read about it. There are a large number of train game players that are in the same boat as I am. We are tied to a limit of STREAM time. And I for one am not going to pursue the purchase of ANY more game of any kind that require the use of "Steam" to run thew game. I am telling my children not to get me one for any personal occasions. They can get something else or nothing at all.

[bombardiere]

Two very interesting game. I will definitely keep my eye on both.

Many new games goes to GoG these day, so it may be possible to buy these without Steam DRM. I hope.

Railway Empire looks more refined. Looks like they got many features from RT3, but sadly also from Sid Meyer's Railroads. Actually it doesn't look very original. However multiple platforms on a large station is really good bonus.

My biggest concern is that it is a Kalypso game. I have played Tropico series and this does look a lot like a Tropico game. It means that it is scenario based. So I am not sure is RT3 huge continental railway systems are possible. Also Tropico games have been fun but got boring and repetitive quite quickly. For me at least. So this is a game to watch but I am not sure if it is for me.

Mashinky is more interesting to me. I like how you can choose from different wagon and that track laying screen is almost brilliant. Plus for terraforming. However this game looks like micromanaging hell. Wagon options are nice, but if my train is stuck with the wagons bought then it means that the return journey is almost always empty. I don't like that.

It looks like Mashinky's roots are firmly on orginal Transport Tycoon series. So I wonder if the developers will later wants to add other transport modes. Cars lorries etc.

[Hawk]

It will be interesting to see if either one, or both, ends up on GOG, but it really doesn't matter to me. My rig won't run either one.

[acorn_farmer_84]

Well I gave in and picked up Railway Empire on steam.
From the couple of hours I've played of the BETA, I'd say it's a decent game and able to hold my interest for that long at least..... whether it's worth $42 USD or not is another question. Especially when Transport Fever is cheaper at $35 USD, and in my option is more fleshed out, detailed, and feature rich.

To some extent I don't think its fair to compare them..... they are both targeted at slightly different audiences.... transport fever is substantially more complicated, with the player looking after the whole transport 'ecosystem' from transcontinental rail lines (and air/ship routes).... down to local bus routes and delivery trucks. Railway Empire on the other hand is more like railroad tycoon, with the player using purely rail connections to connect cities and industry with no local transport to worry about.

I feel like transport fever has a much better track laying system, with more realistic looking track layouts, and speed being severely limited by bends etc. Railway empire's track laying feels a bit 'dumbed down' to me....though this is to an extent personal preference... I can see the advantage of it to a more casual player, and it's a lot easier and less 'fiddley'.

One big advantage of Railway Empire is the inclusion of AI opponents and stock markets Railroad Tycoon style, which I feel is sorely missing from Transport fever.

Overall Railway empire feels kind of like a 2017 remake of Sid Meier's Railroads to me. There's definite improvements over Railroads, the track laying and signalling is miles better for example, however it still doesn't come close to Railroad Tycoon 3 in my book.... it has the same 'toony' kind of feel that I personally couldn't stand from Railroads.

All in all, a welcome addition to the gaming line up, but I think I'll stick with Transport Fever and Railroad Tycoon 3 as my railway tycoon games of choice.

I agree with a number of you that it would be nice if both games end up on GOG, but to give steam credit when it's due...DRM aside, the steam workshop functionality is really nice in Transport Fever for installing new mod's and locos.

[RulerofRails]

acorn, I have been probably watching Railway Empire too closely, vids of gameplay etc.. I have a query that I couldn't work out from them so far. How much depth is there in calculation of freight revenues?

In the Railroad Tycoon series obviously we have a revenue bar for each train. That feature was "dropped" for Railroads!, so maybe it is unsurprising that RE omits it too. But that leaves it very hard for me to tell from vids if there is more depth than meets the eye.

What I'm wondering:
1. Does freight revenue vary depending on the type of good transported?
2. In Railroads! demand is infinite, you get paid virtually the same rate per load if you ship in 20 loads per year as 2. How is it in this game?
3. Does freight revenue have a distance component?

[bombardiere]

Kalypso's Urban Empire and Tropico series are on GoG, so it could be that Railway Empire will be too.

Even though Urban Empire has similar name to Railway Empire, I understand that these two are from different developers. Still I have read that Urban Empire is considered as flawed. It seems that it forgot to include a game inside it.

So Urban Empire and Railway Empire are not same, but I see some similarities. The character selection is similar looking. However more I see about Railway Empire, more it looks like improved Railroads. Scenarios and maps looks. For example Eastern seaborne map is missing Philadelphia. The engine selection looks interesting for an engine buff like me, but I wonder that are those more than just slight variations of few base locomotives. The game needs large customer created map option before I will buy it. So I vary about Railway Empire, but wait and see.

I tried Train Fever when I was still using Steam. It has some very good points, but it was too limited for me. Maps were too small to create proper railway empire and it required a high performance computer to run properly. I might try Transport Fever on GoG sale, but I want to run trains on a very large map. Transport Fever's maps are bigger, but still those do not have transcontinental feeling. Still it seems to have very active modding community, so alarge number user made locomotives etc. are available.

[acorn_farmer_84]

@RulerofRails in response to your questions;
1) Whilst I've not played to game enough to know for sure, but from my observations so far I believe it does vary between cargo types. At the very least express cargo (pax and mail) appears to be more valuable than any freight cargo.

2) You get paid the same amount per load regardless of how many items you ship, however the demand of each city/industry is finite, ie a specific city may only have demand for 5 loads of vegetables per month.

3) Again I haven't played enough to know for sure, but from my initial observations I believe it does. Unfortunately it's hard to tell because of the 'dumbed down' nature of the game. Unlike Railroad Tycoon 3 where you could hover the mouse over a car to view the load and $ value, the only way I've found to find how much I'm getting paid for a load is by observing a train unloading and the dollar amounts which appear on the screen as each car unloads.

After playing for another few hours today I feel there's another couple of points I should make:

• There are no 'line's' as such.... just individual trains on individual routes. If you want to have multiple trains operating the same route you can clone an exiting train.... however changes to the stopping patterns on one train will not carry over to over trains that were cloned from it/operating the same 'route'.

• Stations will not transfer freight from one train to another. The only way to transport freight is through direct lines from supply to demand, or through the use of "warehouses". Warehouses are special transfer stations that receive up to 6 specified goods, store these goods, and then transfer them to another train. They don't have any catchment themselves from the nearby area. I'm finding this quite frustrating as large amounts if space is wasted building a station, then a transfer station next door so I can actually transport freight long distance. I'm not sure on the reasoning behind having these as opposed to just allow transfer at stations as occurs in every other transport/rail tycoon game that I've played.

[RulerofRails]

I was curious about if freight prices are stable, on a route to a city that is oversupplied vs. one that is undersupplied. (I know about the game design premise of delivering goods in order to grow towns.) I'm talking about the economics, if it were that the player doesn't have an incentive to grow a far-off town or to supply an industry, will it be Railroads-esque where economics dictates shipping to the nearest demand location. I truely hope not.

In RT3 we always talk in ROI terms. Even if it's subconcious or "learned" from trial-and-error experience, that will tell us what works in the game. We talk about a growth curve, which is in some measure exponential, because we invest our profits back into the company.

RT3 has what I would call "setbacks" built into the game (with programmable events we can add many more). Of the built-in ones there are various examples, but an obvious one is overhead. These "setbacks" slow growth rate. Overhead is a cost that increases in step with company size. Another form is decline in ROI over time. An obvious one is that with the first few hauls we equalize demands (where I was going with the freight question) so price differentials weaken significantly. Others: station age decay, car weight increases, decline in passenger prices based on the year, etc..

I have an open mind. I'm not saying that the game needs the same type of features. I just want to know that there are some such measures to control growth rate in place. The tech. tree seems to be effectively the opposite. Again I have to hope for the best. . . .


At this point, we are talking better than Railroads!, the question then becomes: how much better? I can say straight away that the signalling is better, no comparison. To summarize really the whole post: how much more complex is the economy than Railroads!?

[RulerofRails]

Just to let everyone know that there is a pre-release sale for the game on GoG.

Thanks to a Steam gift card I couldn't resist getting the beta a couple weeks back. It is a quick, fun game if you take it for what it is. But if you have high expectations, chances are you will be disappointed. It's not RT4. I enjoy playing it, but it wont put too big a dent in how much I play RT3.

It's a big upgrade compared to Railroads!, unless you wanted to play multiplayer, and it does have some good features from RTII and RT3 too. But the economic complexity we are used to isn't there. More focus has been paid to the trains, and there are good options for them individually. For example, an express route needs to be consistently fast otherwise the train will lose that status. You can add personnel to important trains to improve their performance/revenue. There are some neat features like engines get dirty if they are not maintained, and there are more options for consists than ever before. Including what we always want in RT3: specify types of cargo (one by one) that a train shouldn't load when on auto consist.

Freight economy:
I answer my third question, there is a flat rate for all freight regardless of distance. This seems strange but in practice it works fine because the game has a logistic element involved in growing the cities. Demand isn't infinite, trains will only load if there is demand for that cargo at one of the destinations on their route. Each city has specific demands according to size. If more than 60% of the currently demanded cargoes are present the city will grow.

An important aspect is no re-hauling: once freight is delivered to a city you can't pick it up with another train. There are warehouses which can be used as central distribution points, these are of varying usefulness in practice. Thanks to the signal system this gives a logistic challenge for routes. If you can't see yourself enjoying the strategy available in this system, that will limit how much you can enjoy the game.

Industries:
Industries in the cities can be built, sold, and destroyed. These can be upgraded. You can buy farms/mines etc.. These can also be upgraded. Their profitability relies on your rail network providing a larger market for their products. It's generally not worth buying those you haven't connected.

Comments:
When you read the features list, that's how it is. Some things that one might expect like a map editor aren't available. There is no random seeding either. Thanks to the YouTube videos you know how it plays. UI is designed for consoles as well, so it takes a bit to get used to. For example, the train list is very primitive. But there is a neat feature that you can click on a piece of track which will display a list of all trains that use it, then you can select the one you want from there.

I have enjoyed playing, but it does require an open mind to get used to the track laying/signalling system when first playing the game. It is also setup more as a game where you leave the clock running. The track laying system, once you learn it, is efficient enough for this.

Last question: Is it a finished game? Will have to wait till release to answer definitely, but the betas have been stable. Virtually no mention of performance issues. Beta feedback has been taken onboard, and the gameplay improved thanks to it. There are still some minor things that can be refined (and they may well be in the "release" version), but I think in all it's a good product already.

I will end in saying I'm not trying to "sell" the game. If you aren't excited about it, then this info probably isn't going to change your mind.

[Hawk]

Looks like Railway Empire was built mainly for Intel processors, since it only requires a 2.5 GHz but for AMD it's 3.6 GHz.
$40. seems a bit much for that game though.

No matter. I can't run it anyway. Besides, my gaming computer just died.

[Cash on Wheels]

Just to let everyone know that there is a pre-re..................

Good I need something to replace Transport D̶i̶s̶e̶a̶s̶e̶ Fever.

Mod Support?
Do the trains stall?/Do they alert you if they do?
Will a broke down train clog the main require a rescue train?
Will your employees walk out on strike?
Are the train crashes animated?
Can you convert the money you make into Bitcoin?

A RRT3 upgrade has been long over due. And that is good sign when you *remotely* endorse.

[RulerofRails]

1. Modding is limited. Files are locked away in special formats per usual. Actually, the "features" list was changed. The updated one has fewer mods allowed, for example it omits a previously promised map editor. This is very suspicious that they might try DLCs. Unless there is some complication with how hard nice maps are to make. The terrain is so detailed that I almost wonder if it's "created" rather than "generated". Hopefully it's just me not up with the modern era of gaming.

2. Yes. There are warnings. These are yellow triangles that show up in the direction of the event. Clicking will take you there. There are warnings for no water, poor maintenance, and stuck trains.
3. There are no train crashes. Trains will stall if their route breaks. You will see warnings. There are breakdowns though, random and due to low maintenance.
4. There are no strikes, but each employee has a character trait. Some don't "match" with others. In the worst case the train will stop due to their "fight". You will get notice of this.

Having never owned a console, I ignorantly have an "idea" (very possibly wrong) that console games tend to be higher priced than PC ones. Perhaps this is the explanation for the price which I agree is on the high side especially for the less train-nerdy players that I'm sure need to be attracted to achieve financial success. If I divide how many hours I will play by the cost, it's quite reasonable.

I never tried the "fevers". Trains are my thing, symbol of efficiency. Other transportation cools things for me. Also from some gameplay footage they seem more sandbox than strategic. As in, it's all about planning the perfect line, rather than a more organic process of upgrades to existing infrastructure and more gradual expansion. Signalling inherently impacts this, so Railway Empire has lost some, tech/research tree helps to limit IMO.

At the end of the day, it's obvious to me that there's a lot of diversity in the styles of play among RT3 players. RT3 is great to allow that, but with this game there is less scope for diversity in acceptable game styles. This alone is enough for me to predict that not everyone who likes RT3 will like it. But the main concepts behind the game that will separate play style (signalling/city growth) have simple, solid logic that gives some different strategy potential, while obviously some others especially for economy/complicated events are unfortunately missing.

PS. Nice avatar!

[Akarin]

Looks like there's a couple new train games coming down the pike. Railway Empire and Mashinky.
Quill18 did a review of them at YouTube.

Railway Empire - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMOaBn_gMBA

Mashinky - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tj3zWhABrM8

I just found out about both these games today. Might give them a shot when they eventually go on sale. In the meantime I've been playing Train Fever. I actually had this game in my library for years, but never touched it because I never took the time to get over the learning hump. I didn't realize Transport Fever was the improved version of it, but I have no desire to spend the money or deal with ships/planes. In fact I'm only playing Train Fever now to get my RT3 fix in. Which I don't need anymore as of today. See last year I finally upgraded to a custom built desktop. I ended up using the same operating system I had on my previous laptop (which ran RT3 fine), but shortly after setup and I made a half-arsed attempt at installing RT3. I failed and just gave up as I was preoccupied with other game genres (I go through genre phases, so I might end up leaving train-related games alone for months and focus on grand strategy instead). Finally today I decided to try again and got it working perfectly. I just need to reload all the mods, skins, and custom scenarios and I'll be back in action, but I do want to ride out my Train Fever game till the end. It really isn't that great at all, but I want to see the modern locos before I give up. Anyway I was looking around Steam to fill the RT3 hole in my heart earlier when I found these two. Even though RT3 is back in action I might give them a shot anyway.

Just a quick look at Railway Empire kind of reminds me of Rails Across America. Anyone ever play this? I think it's from before even RT3, 2001 maybe. My CD's beat to hell but I'm going to try installing right now. And while we're on the topic, earlier this year I managed to get Lionel's Traintown installed and running.