Welcome to the Railroad Tycoon Series Wiki[]
Hello, I am Raleigh98
What started as a joke in my boring 10th grade humanities class has turned into a full-on project. This wikia when finished will be designed to help people with the Railroad Tycoon series. If you wish to give me feedback or suggestions, feel free to start a discussion on the discuss area of this wikia, or leave a message on my wall.
To contact me personally, email 'mrraleigh98@gmail.com'.
Here is the List of Industries and List of Cargo in Railroad Tycoon II.
The Railroad Tycoon II locomotives pages are complete. Click for the List of Locomotives in Railroad Tycoon II.
Meanwhile, Campaign and Scenario Guides is a current work in progress. Click for the main page of the Campaigns and Scenarios of Railroad Tycoon II.
Goals[]
- I will do Railroad Tycoon II first, as it is the game I have played and have the most knowledge about. (20% complete)
- Locomotives (done!)
- Scenarios (Original and TSC first)
- Game Mechanics
- Scenarios (Gold and Platinum)
- The Original game will be next (2% complete)
- Railroad Tycoon 3
- Sid Meier's Railroads
Of course, you can feel free to create your own pages and add to existing ones too if you feel confident. The above is just the order I intend to work on this wiki.
About the Railroad Tycoon Series[]
Gameplay from Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon
Railroad Tycoon is a set of business simulation games that were created between 1990-2006. Altogether, there were 4 main games: Railroad Tycoon (1990), Railroad Tycoon II (1998), Railroad Tycoon 3 (2003) and Sid Meier's Railroads (2006). However, apart from these, there were many expansion packs, rereleases and community mods that came along with it.
Even though each game was very different from it's predecessor, all 4 games have a common goal for the player. The player takes the role of a chairman of their own railroad, and must build their company by laying track, building stations, trains and facilities, but also managing the stocks, investments, and economical growth of the company. Each game also featured competitive AI, which would attempt to foil the growth of your company while growing their own as well.
Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon (1990)[]
A Busy Network in Railroad Tycoon Deluxe
Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon was the first game of the series and was directly designed by Sid Meier, and with cooperation with game publisher MicroProse was released on MS-DOS in early 1990.
The game featured four scenarios: Western United States, Northeast United States, Great Britain, or Continental Europe. The player starts a company with one million dollars in capital; half equity, half a loan. The player acts as a railway entrepreneur who owns and manages the business as described above and may also handle individual train movement and build additional industries. The game models supply and demand of goods and passengers as well as a miniature stock market on which players can buy and sell stock of their own or competing companies.
It was hailed as one of the best games of its era, and was commercially successful.
In 1993, an updated version of the game named Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon Deluxe was released with a host of new features, as well as updated graphics. Despite this, the Deluxe edition wasn't successful, largely due to slow game-play and many bugs. However, 2 new scenarios (South America and Africa) were added, and introduced robbers that would steal cargo and also sheriffs that would stop them.
Railroad Tycoon II (1998)[]
The Second Game of the series was developed by PopTop Software headed by Phil Steinmeyer, beginning in 1996 as a game similar to Railroad Tycoon, but purchased the rights to the series from MicroProse a year later, and was reworked into a sequel. The game was released by Gathering of Developers in 1998 for PC, Mac OS, and later ported onto Linux, the PlayStation and the Dreamcast.
The Game features improvements in all aspects of the game, including improved dimetric graphics, new trains, new industries and supply chains, a map editor, as well as a dynamic economy. A 18 scenario campaign was added, where the player would need to complete each stage before moving onto the next stage. Each of these stages often reflected a real-life event where railroads would prove to be very important. There were also many other stand alone scenarios which were real-world maps, and the player would attempt to build a railroad empire from it.
A spanning bridge, a feature added in Railroad Tycoon II: A Second Century
The Game was quite well received, and in turn, an expansion pack was released the next year named Railroad Tycoon II: the Second Century. While the first game largely focused on the first century of railroading (1830-1930), the second century expanded the gameplay of the later eras (1930-2030), adding 5 new locomotives, 5 new industries, a "metra" system, spanning bridges, waypointing, and cargo depot management. An all new campaign was added, and 12 more stand alone scenarios, that were either based on the campaign, or were entirely new.
Further rereleases Railroad Tycoon II: Gold Edition (2000) and Railroad Tycoon II: Platinum Edition (2001) were a combination of the original with the second century expansion, with a bunch of extra maps included, some even from the RT2 community.
Railroad Tycoon 3 (2003)[]
The new 3D graphics was a major selling feature in Railroad Tycoon 3
Railroad Tycoon 3 was once again developed by PopTop Software, and released by Gathering of Developers in 2003. The game was a vast change from its predecessors, being in full 3D, with free camera movement. The square grid of was no longer rigid, as it was in Railroad Tycoon and as rail and structures could now be rotated 360 degrees. Many new locomotives were added, and scenarios created, and the game's economy reworked. The campaign contained 16 scenario's from four different settings. Much like the previous game however, the rating of winning the scenario was again Bronze, Silver, and Gold. There were again many stand alone scenario's, each with their own goals and challenges.
The game was fairly successful, but some gamers preferring the previous dimetric view, and the prevalence of bugs was a noted problem.
There was a lot of community created content for this game, such as the Coast to Coast expansion pack, which added extra locomotives and scenarios. The community-headed Trainmaster mod redesigned the industrial model to make it more complicated than ever before, and countless maps have been created and shared online.
Sid Meier's Railroads! (2006)[]
A screenshot from Sid Meier's Railroads!
Sid Meier's Railroads was released on October 17, 2006 by Firaxis Games, whose parent company, Take-Two Interactive, acquired and was headed this time by original creator Sid Meier. Sid was initially uninterested in creating a sequel but soon his interest was regained after a visit to Miniatur Wunderland.
Railroads! features a fully three-dimensional world but goes back to the dimetric view of Railroad Tycoon II. It is reckoned to be the game with the realistic simulation of railway operation, as the focus is geared towards economics, and supply chains. However, the game does not have the dynamic pricing of goods across the entire map or cargo that can find alternate means of transportation if no train service is provided that were features of Railroad Tycoon III, and other simplifications compared to previous Railroad Tycoon games are that there is no separation of individual money from company money, nor the ability to raise money on an in-game bond market.
The game was recieved mostly favourably, but due to it's simplicity, it had lost a lot of the hardcore fans of the series who just stuck to the previous editions.
Latest activity[]
Railroad Tycoon II cover
Railroad Tycoon 3 Cover Art
Sid Meier's Railroads Cover Art
