Welcome to the Railroad Tycoon Series Wiki[]
Founder's message[]
Hello, I am Raleigh98
What started as a joke in my boring 10th grade humanities class has turned into a full-on project. This site when finished will be designed to help people with the Railroad Tycoon series. If you wish to give us feedback or suggestions, feel free to start a discussion on the discuss area of this site, or leave a message on the founder's wall.
To contact me personally, email 'mrraleigh98@gmail.com'.
Railroad Tycoon 2[]
- List of Industries in Railroad Tycoon II
- List of Cargo in Railroad Tycoon II
- List of Locomotives in Railroad Tycoon II
- Campaigns and Scenarios (WIP)
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 covers four business simulation games that were created between 1990 and 2006: Railroad Tycoon (1990), Railroad Tycoon II (1998), Railroad Tycoon 3 (2003) and Sid Meier's Railroads! (2006). However, apart from these, many expansion packs, re-releases and community mods appeared.
Even though each game was very different from its predecessor, all four games have a common goal for the player. Players take the role of chairmen of their own railroads, and must build their businesses by laying track, building stations, trains and facilities, and also managing the stocks, investments, and economic growth of each company. Each game also featured competitive AI, which could attempt to foil the growth of your company while growing their own as well.
Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon (1990)[]
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 USA; Northeast USA; England; Europe. The player starts a company with $1,000,000 in capital; half equity, half as an interest-bearing loan. The player acts as a railway entrepreneur who owns and manages the business as described above and handles individual train movement and may 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.
A Busy Network in Railroad Tycoon Deluxe
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, two new scenarios (South America and Africa) were added.
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 they purchased the rights to the series from MicroProse a year later, and it was reworked into a sequel. The game was released by Gathering of Developers in 1998 for PC and Mac OS; later it was 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. An 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 one.
A spanning bridge, a feature added in Railroad Tycoon II: A Second Century
The game was quite well received; and 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 on), 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 entirely new.
Further re-releases 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 player community.
Railroad Tycoon 3 (2003)[]
The new 3D graphics were a major selling feature in Railroad Tycoon 3
Railroad Tycoon 3 was also developed by PopTop Software, and was 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 was no longer rigid, as it was in Railroad Tycoon and RT2: 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 scenarios 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 scenarios, each with their own goals and challenges.
The game was fairly successful, but some gamers preferred 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 it 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 most 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 alternative means of transportation if no train service is provided, that were features of Railroad Tycoon 3. 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 received mostly favourably, but its simplicity lost a lot of the hardcore fans of the series who just stuck to the previous editions. </activityfeed>
Railroad Tycoon II cover
Railroad Tycoon 3 Cover Art
Sid Meier's Railroads Cover Art
