Railroad Corporation

[Orange46]

Has anyone played this 2019 game?

[RulerofRails]

Yes. I have. It's good for 1v1 multiplayer. Far less buggy than RT3 MP. The feel of "quality" is maybe not there quite as much. Track-laying and path-finding are slightly better than average in my opinion. The core gameplay (how you manage train routes) is similar in some ways to RRTII. While the economic aspect doesn't have the depth we want, there is more strategic depth than Railway Empire. Plus I feel more connected to an individual train. So for me it's a better game. It's not a RT4, but it's good and the MP is quite good.

[Orange46]

Thanks.

[Orange46]

I really like this game. Hopefully, it is a work in progress with more to come. I think the designer must have been reading my wishes for RT4 on this site.
OK, I am not too far in and expect to discover the gotchas, but at $15....

You can't buy industries, which probably kills it for some. [edit: you actually can buy them, I just discovered. It just wasn't allowed in the 1st mission, but there are no P&L statements for industries and the only benefit seems to be that you don't have to pay for the finished product when you ship it.] Cargoes seem to work like in RT2 - a set price to buy and sell, with prices varying by how much of the cargo the destination has and by distance (crow's) for express cargoes. So far, my city has only 1/20 grain and 2/20 meat so I am getting good prices. 

The train screen shows you the speed of the train for each of its legs (a big wish of mine). Right now I can only handle 2 cars but with larger engines the number of cars goes up a lot, varying by the weight of the cargoes. The game tells you when you are over loaded and also calculates the speed of each leg of the trip.

I have two trains running from the grain farm, with a wye near the meat plant, and they are operating smoothly. There are signals, but I did not have to place them and both trains can operate in the same direction on one track. (RT1)
[edit: lot's of trains can work the tracks and they don't get lost. Track building is very easy especially when compared to all of the other transport games, including RT3. Signals are automatically added to each track segment and overpasses are a breeze and the track planner lets you build multiple segments with detailed costs for track, earth digging, bridges, etc before you actually have to commit to the build.]

A station can handle both trains because you can't see under the cover, but only one can actually do anything at a time. And you can upgrade stations, so eventually I can add more tracks (hidden, I presume) and probably hotels and stuff (guessing). (Another big wish.)What is missing is the mixed freights from Railroad Tycoon 3, where cargoes were automatically loaded. Adding Rail Yards to the stations could be a way to do this, working sort of like the warehouse building in the game. Finally, stations and track place easily in the town center as in Sid M"s RRs.

Edit3: Another nice feature is that all of the basic industries are located in small towns. Initially, they only supply the material (e.g. wheat) but if you ship enough they develop into normal cities. (This was another big wish of mine. I even did an RT3 scenario where I had houses popping up constantly to try to get this to happen in RT3, but the houses would self destruct eventually, which led to me just respawning them every year.

What I really like the most about this game is that you can play it in dispatcher mode - at least in the very long tutorial missions. You can focus on setting up a line, then move on to the next line and this is something I tried to force in many of my RT2/3 maps. The train list gives you enough information to see if your older lines are messing up, so you can really focus on the line you are establishing. Of course, if you want to maximize your railroad early by going into debt, or taking on contracts, then you will have to focus on all of your lines all of the time. I presume this is what happens if you play on line opponents.

[Orange46]

I am now trying to figure out how to play the free DLC and having no luck. I subscribed days ago to 4 of them and still don't see them in the Campaign/DLC section. They are in the Editor section, but you can't play them from there.

[RulerofRails]

I only know of 2 Free DLC, Wonderful Forest and Christmas Rush. Could it be that you are trying to play some player made maps? For those, Main Menu -> Free Game -> Workshop Scenarios (3rd tab).

[Orange46]

Thanks. Don't know why I missed that!

[kamyFC]

I really like this game. Hopefully, it is a work in progress with more to come. I think the designer must have been reading my wishes for RT4 on this site.
OK, I am not too far in and expect to discover the gotchas, but at $15....

You can't buy industries, which probably kills it for some. [edit: you actually can buy them, I just discovered. It just wasn't allowed in the 1st mission, but there are no P&L statements for industries and the only benefit seems to be that you don't have to pay for the finished product when you ship it.] Cargoes seem to work like in RT2 - a set price to buy and sell, with prices varying by how much of the cargo the destination has and by distance (crow's) for express cargoes. So far, my city has only 1/20 grain and 2/20 meat so I am getting good prices. 

The train screen shows you the speed of the train for each of its legs (a big wish of mine). Right now I can only handle 2 cars but with larger engines the number of cars goes up a lot, varying by the weight of the cargoes. The game tells you when you are over loaded and also calculates the speed of each leg of the trip.

I have two trains running from the grain farm, with a wye near the meat plant, and they are operating smoothly. There are signals, but I did not have to place them and both trains can operate in the same direction on one track. (RT1)
[edit: lot's of trains can work the tracks and they don't get lost. Track building is very easy especially when compared to all of the other transport games, including RT3. Signals are automatically added to each track segment and overpasses are a breeze and the track planner lets you build multiple segments with detailed costs for track, earth digging, bridges, etc before you actually have to commit to the build.]

A station can handle both trains because you can't see under the cover, but only one can actually do anything at a time. And you can upgrade stations, so eventually I can add more tracks (hidden, I presume) and probably hotels and stuff (guessing). (Another big wish.)What is missing is the mixed freights from Railroad Tycoon 3, where cargoes were automatically loaded. Adding Rail Yards to the stations could be a way to do this, working sort of like the warehouse building in the game. Finally, stations and track place easily in the town center as in Sid M"s RRs.

Edit3: Another nice feature is that all of the basic industries are located in small towns. Initially, they only supply the material (e.g. wheat) but if you ship enough they develop into normal cities. (This was another big wish of mine. I even did an RT3 scenario where I had houses popping up constantly to try to get this to happen in RT3, but the houses would self destruct eventually, which led to me just respawning them every year.

What I really like the most about this game is that you can play it in dispatcher mode - at least in the very long tutorial missions. You can focus on setting up a line, then move on to the next line and this is something I tried to force in many of my RT2/3 maps. The train list gives you enough information to see if your older lines are messing up, so you can really focus on the line you are establishing. Of course, if you want to maximize your railroad early by going into debt, or taking on contracts, then you will have to focus on all of your lines all of the time. I presume this is what happens if you play on line opponents.

Thank you so much for this wonderful review on Rail Road corporation.
Having adored RRT2 and RRT3 way back in the day, I keep playing them to this day.
Unfortunately no modern games can match those two classic games in terms of scale, economic strategy, customizations, user created maps, huge variety of trains and a challenge that AI competitors provide.
I read that Railroad Corporation has a more tycoon feel to it. But I'm disappointed that there only steam trains and no diesel or electric trains? Also there are only 10 trains!? Is that true?
Railroad tycoon 2 and 3 had trains from the 1830s to modern trains after the year 2000!
Also there are no AI competitors, which is really disappointing.
Railway empire apparently has 40 trains but there are no tycoon elements and no AI competitors.
Given these limitations in modern train games compared to the classic Pop Top games, Which game would you recommend?
Thanks in advance!

[RulerofRails]

I realize you asked Orange46, but I will chime in a little. Railroad Corporation is in my opinion more enjoyable than Railway Empire. Especially for economic strategy. It plays a bit more like RRT2, but it is not as deep. True, there aren't many locos. There is a sort-of-ok AI in some of the maps. This was added later in development. In my opinion the game was released before ready. However, in recent game fashion there have been updates that largely remedy this, introduced along with DLCs. The later DLCs made recently are much better for replayability. Finally there is usable randomization of start location/resources/factories which is a staple of the older games. The editor is pretty basic and a bit hard to use, but new lands can be created. There are a handful of quality custom maps available at this time.

Railway Empire has almost 80 locomotives if you include the Europe/World ones introduced in the various DLCs. However, you would need to use a custom map to play with all of them at once. And the original scenarios/time periods only allow you to play with about a dozen at a time, the others are in locked parts of the tech tree. There is no editor, just external tools where we can tinker with settings/city/resoruce placements. There is no way to create new land so that they can sell new land as DLC. The major weaknesses of this game for me are that there is basically no randomization introduced, and that freight is flat rate with a each city of x size requires everything at high volume. A traffic management element is involved as well especially basic signals. Theis can be turned off but that destroys any difficulty. Gameplay is less strategy and more mindless building.

[Orange46]

RulerofRails is actually an expert on both of these games and I agree with him fully. Both games are worth playing and hopefully one day one of them will exceed RT3.

[kamyFC]

I realize you asked Orange46, but I will chime in a little. Railroad Corporation is in my opinion more enjoyable than Railway Empire. Especially for economic strategy. It plays a bit more like RRT2, but it is not as deep. True, there aren't many locos. There is a sort-of-ok AI in some of the maps. This was added later in development. In my opinion the game was released before ready. However, in recent game fashion there have been updates that largely remedy this, introduced along with DLCs. The later DLCs made recently are much better for replayability. Finally there is usable randomization of start location/resources/factories which is a staple of the older games. The editor is pretty basic and a bit hard to use, but new lands can be created. There are a handful of quality custom maps available at this time.

Railway Empire has almost 80 locomotives if you include the Europe/World ones introduced in the various DLCs. However, you would need to use a custom map to play with all of them at once. And the original scenarios/time periods only allow you to play with about a dozen at a time, the others are in locked parts of the tech tree. There is no editor, just external tools where we can tinker with settings/city/resoruce placements. There is no way to create new land so that they can sell new land as DLC. The major weaknesses of this game for me are that there is basically no randomization introduced, and that freight is flat rate with a each city of x size requires everything at high volume. A traffic management element is involved as well especially basic signals. Theis can be turned off but that destroys any difficulty. Gameplay is less strategy and more mindless building.

Wonderful. Thanks for that perspective. I appreciated the better economic model of RRT3 especially where the local supply and demand worked differently since goods will move on their own to a certain extent. But I loved the simple mechanics of RRT2 more. I felt fixed isometric perspective was good in RRT2. The steel mills and nuclear power plants looked impressive. So if Railroad Corporation is similar to RRT2, i will enjoy it. Although, no electric locos is disappointing!

Also in RRT2, you could play a scenario or campaign.
Campaigns were story modes essentially. Scenarios were more open ended, although many had some objectives. This enabled you to start from scratch and play longer.
Do we have such 'Scenario' modes in Railroad Corporation?


Looks like they have added a lot of DLC's. Looks like some DLC's are new campaigns. While some are skins and such. Which do you recommend among these?


Once i saw how Railway empire sold country specific DLCs, i knew the game would be a shallow experience.
It's such a shame that no game still can match RRT2 and 3.

[RulerofRails]

Hey, sorry for the late reply. There is no movement of freight in Railroad Corporation without a railroad. Also, there is no autotmatic consist manager: you are in control of what your train picks up/unloads. Those are the reasons I compared it more to RTII. However, unlike RTII it's a 3D world.

Back in the day I did play a fair bit of RTII, but eventually I realized that the physics of corners which are treated like a +2% grade and the exponential long-distance passenger/mail revenue break the strategic integrity of the game. The strategic play is the longest, straightest line hauling express, bull-dozing everything blocking your path. At a certain point it wasn't fun anymore, and definitely couldn't be called "realistic", so I haven't played the game in quite some time.

I don't know of any strategic game breaking things in Railroad Corporation. Well, there is a trading system, and it's borked, you can transfer cargoes from one warhouse to another for a slight fee. But as long as you don't build the Commodity Exchange you can pretend this deficiency doesn't exist. At least that's what I do.

Only the "Civil War" DLC is a "campaign", I think 5 missions or so. The rest are a single mission for single player. Last two can also be played in co-op mode with a friend. The free ones were released as such (for free) as "challenges", they did away with that menu in the game and grouped everything under the "campaign" menu. But, yes, these are more like scenarios from RTII.

I think the latest one, All or Nothing, is best, then Volatile Markets. These need more strategy and the random distribution of factories and resources by this stage of the game is fairly good. For this reason I think that if you like the game they can be worthwhile if you like the basics of the game but want better strategy. I have put 40+ hours into the latest DLC for example, even though it's just one mission.

I suppose you watched some youtube gameplay? If you are pinching pennies I would do that before buying. And, would again probably recommend playing through the normal campaign in the main game before buying DLC. The actions like laying track, load/unload orders, etc.. are universal in the game. Slight warning that the track-laying tool in this game is a bit cumbersome, information about grades is a little weak. It depends on personal tolerance of deficiencies. Some of the campaign missions are better than others, but most are ok. They have static placements of factories/resources. But for a play or two, that doesn't matter.

[kamyFC]

I suppose you watched some youtube gameplay? If you are pinching pennies I would do that before buying. And, would again probably recommend playing through the normal campaign in the main game before buying DLC. The actions like laying track, load/unload orders, etc.. are universal in the game. Slight warning that the track-laying tool in this game is a bit cumbersome, information about grades is a little weak. It depends on personal tolerance of deficiencies. Some of the campaign missions are better than others, but most are ok. They have static placements of factories/resources. But for a play or two, that doesn't matter.

Much appreciated 'RulerofRails'! Thanks for that information. I will get the base game and then get the DLCs mentioned.
Will revert on my findings or will bug you on any doubts!

In this era of railroad game starvation, we atleast have something!