Sid Meier Humble Bundle

[Blackhawk]

For those that don't know http://www.humblebundle.com is a website where you can donate money and get things in return (usually games). This week it's a package of Sid Meier games. Unfortunately, his games seem to be Steam based rather than DRM free.

Anyway, I figured I'd mention in since I thought we had a couple people here that liked the Civilization series, or maybe someone feels like donating a dollar just to put himself through the torture of Railroads.

[Hawk]

I'm not interested in Sid's games but the website itself may prove interesting over time.
Thanks for the tip about the site.

[AdmiralHalsey]

The only things I really liked about railroads was the intro video and the track system.

[Blackhawk]

That reminds me. Civilization 3 years ago wouldn't run on my computer because of some file that was needed for the intro on some computers and they didn't include it on the cd. I had to email Firaxis and they emailed me some file back which finally made it work. Luckily back then I had internet, even if it was dial up. Finally the game loaded up and i saw the intro. What a disappointment, it was just a video going around a coliseum or something very basic.

[RulerofRails]

I bought SMR not long after it came out. There isn't lots of depth in the game play. Even though it went away from reality, a couple of places they did a few "fixes" that I wish were in RT3 such as better AI, better track laying like AH mentioned, and dedicated stations for farms, lumber camps and mines (the way the trains auto-load is a little odd though.) Also cargo would get "stored" at an industry allowing a steady production without any robbing. I noticed people wanted this in 1.06. The signals are quite buggy and took me a while to make them "work" acceptably. Some of the stuff over at the smrsimple site goes some way to improve it and kept me playing for a while, but I haven't played it for a couple of years now.

[AdmiralHalsey]

The thing that really bugged me was the fact I had to download a mod to get tenders for the steamers.(What were they thinking when the shipped the game before adding tenders to them?)


@Blackhawk, if you ever want to see a good intro watch the Silent Hunter 4 one.

[Lama]

I hated RailRoads! at the time. What really pushed me from being merely disappointed by the game to actually loathing it was the badly broken pathfinding AI, that would pile up trains when there were perfectly good paths they could have taken.

In the years since its release, however, modders have created amazing things for this game, so I've actually been producing maps for it (posted at http://www.sidmeiersrailroads.net). You still have to work around the limitations of the original game, but it can be modded to have considerably more depth and challenge than what the original release offered.

[RulerofRails]

Lama, I know I am a bit lazy not going and reading/searching that forum. But, maybe you can answer a quick question. Has Railroads! economic model/stock market been improved?

I find that it is a really good thing to help me run the most profitable railroad company I can in RT3. I didn't find that aspect in Railroads! To me it sometimes felt a little more like a sim without as much business sense. I hope I am wrong and it is better now!

[Lama]

No, I'm afraid the business aspect is as dumbed-down as it was from the start. There is no distinction between player assets and company assets. Kinda like in the original RT1, really.
But the AI poses a real challenge, and sometime I find that lacking in RT3. They buy you out if you don't pay attention.
Many basic aspects of the game rules, including economics and CPU ticks per game day are moddable, though, since it is all in xml files.
The people who have been making maps with it have pushed the operational sim as far as possible, and that aspect is decent enough (signals!).
Some are also treating it as a big old model RR, with detailed new models, liveries, etc.

[RulerofRails]

Thanks for the answer. I do remember the AI being much more competitive than in RT3. It was fun to really compete to take them over as fast as possible, for a while. Then it became a little repetitive. If I remember right, most of the user made maps were single player anyway. Maybe one day I will have the desire to play again and then I will certainly check out some of your maps.

[AdmiralHalsey]

No, I'm afraid the business aspect is as dumbed-down as it was from the start. There is no distinction between player assets and company assets. Kinda like in the original RT1, really.
But the AI poses a real challenge, and sometime I find that lacking in RT3. They buy you out if you don't pay attention.
Many basic aspects of the game rules, including economics and CPU ticks per game day are moddable, though, since it is all in xml files.
The people who have been making maps with it have pushed the operational sim as far as possible, and that aspect is decent enough (signals!).
Some are also treating it as a big old model RR, with detailed new models, liveries, etc.

Wait. So that insane speed the game makes you deal with is adjustable?

[Lama]

Wait. So that insane speed the game makes you deal with is adjustable?

Easily. You could make a scenario where it is always the same day.