Hello Everyone!

I’m Daniel, I’ve been running SmrSimple for about 15 years now. Since my childhood I’ve loved playing train games. A feeling I am sure many reading can share Over the years since participating in the SMR modding scene I eventually made my way into the game industry. From there I worked up my career to eventually making my dream game: RAILGRADE.

In making RAILGRADE I took many lessons from SMR. Not least of which was I wanted to fix branching. As you may know in SMR the AI often gets trains deadlocked. We solved that whole-sale in RAILGRADE by giving players full control over where and when trains take branches. We then structured the entire game around a handcrafted campaign. We’re further working on supporting a proper in-game map editor along with support for the Steam workshop. Thus a site like smrsimple would not even be required in the future to grab new maps for RAILGRADE, you will be able to download them directly!

If any of that catches your interest please consider wishlisting my game on Steam Thank you for your time and consideration.

Even if you already have SMR you should consider grabbing a copy to give to friends.

Just in time for Christmas you could win a copy of Sid Meier’s Railroad for Mac! The developers at feral interactive were kind enough to donate a copy of SMR for Mac to smrsimple. The contest ends December 27th but if you’re in a hurry you can also get a copy from the Mac App Store

The rules of the contest are simple. Make a post naming your favourite train or locomotive and optionally tell the story why it is your favourite. Then on the 27th of December, one week from now and two days after Christmas, I’ll have the computer pick a random winner! Make sure you use your real email when commenting so I can contact you if you win. If you want to enter the contest (since contests are fun) but don’t have a mac then just say so and I’ll make the computer skip you.

I’ll go first as an example, don’t worry I’ll exclude myself from the contest.

Note: just click the “continue reading” link to bring up the comments.

In SMR for Mac can tunnel & bridge prices be configured on a per
map basis?
Overall, the Mac functionality in-game is the same as for the PC version of the game, so
you can’t customise any aspect of the Mac game that you couldn’t in the PC version. This
means you can’t configure tunnel and bridge prices on a per-map basis.

What made you decide to port SMR?
We’re big strategy fans here at Feral, and in recent years we’ve released business
simulation games such as Tropico 3 and The Movies as well as RTS and turn-based
strategy games like Empire: Total War and Rome: Total War. We ported Sid Meier’s
Pirates! to the Mac in 2008, and it did well, so Sid Meier’s Railroads! was a logical choice.
On a more personal level, there’s something really timeless about the game, it really
captures the joy of playing with train sets. On top of that it has the business simulator
edge, which as you know is highly addictive!

Do you have a favorite map?
I think everyone who worked on it has their favourite maps. Because we’re based in
London we are particularly fond of Great Britain, it’s like a fantasy of what it would be like if
our rail networks ran on time…

Have you tried any custom maps?
We did test a number of custom maps and found a number of bugs in the
PC scenario editor which caused crashes. Although we don’t support the editor officially (it
was also unsupported on the PC), we did fix a number of bugs to help modders
who decide to use the editor.

Did you ever figure out how to make a train go in a circular route?
Some things are a mystery to even us. Maybe Sid Meier knows?

As you know back in 2006 SMR was very crash prone, now in 2012
with SMR for Mac what would you say about stability?
The Mac is based on the final PC patched version, so everything that was fixed in that
version is fixed in the Mac version. In addition, we also fixed a number of logic bugs and
crashes on the Mac version.

No software is ever perfect (apart from perhaps “Hello World” written in BASIC), but Sid
Meierâ€s Railroads! on the Mac is very stable and fun to play. If users do find a crash, they
should contact our support team and we can add the details to our bug tracking system for
a potential future patch.

Have you added any maps to SMR for Mac?
We didn’t create any new maps, but we did include the “Lapland” map, which as we’re
sure you know, features the delivery of cookies across the frozen wastes of Father
Christmas’ homeland.

What was the most fun aspect of developing SMR for Mac?
Testing the multiplayer! Our QA team all work in the same room, so when they tested
four-player online multiplayer we could hear their shouts of delight… or despair. We also
learned a lot about the history of the railroads, particularly the documentation team, who
spent many happy hours proof-reading the manual. They now win the “transport” round of
every pub quiz.

Are there any easter eggs for us to find?
There arenâ€t any Easter Eggs, but we did fix some issues that were present in the PC
version, especially when it came to modding and custom scenarios.

Are there any other interesting features in the Mac version?
Definitely!

The first thing is that it supports Apple’s Game Center, which is Apple’s online gaming
platform that was released on Macs this summer as a feature of OS X 10.8 Mountain
Lion (though it had been around on iOS for a bit longer). Because it was released not
long afterwards, Railroads! would have been one of the first games to use Game Center’s
features as an online matching service. Additionally, we added new, Mac-specific features
that we add to all our games, such as automatically-filed screenshots and a custom front-
end panel. In Railroads!, this panel lets you customise your iTunes options and control
whether the Terrain Editor is displayed in game, for example.

Probably the most interesting feature is the music though; due to licensing issues we
were unable to use the original music for the game, which meant we had to record our
own! That means that almost all the music you hear in game was written and recorded
especially for the Mac version. Itâ€s now high-quality stereo recordings instead of the low-bit
rate mono recordings in the original release.

We also created a dedicated area for the Mac version of the game on our support site,
where we list FAQs for the game and will list any future patched. We also created a
minisite that contains a potted history of the Railroad Tycoon series.

Does SMR for Mac alter SMR’s asset loading behaviour?
No, to maintain compatibility between the versions (for modding etc) the engine code is the
same.

Does SMR for Mac support more than 4GB of RAM?
The game is a 32bit title (like almost all games and applications). If an application is 32bit,
it can only address 4GB of RAM for its own exclusive use. However, as the OS is 64bit
(as are the OS libraries) then the 4GB can be used exclusively by the application while the
rest of the OS and the graphics drivers (etc) use their own memory allocation, which is not
part of that 4GB limit.

It is very rare that a game needs more than 4GB of allocated memory, and rewriting the
entire game engine in 64 bit was not feasible due to the limited benefit it would have.

I want to thank Feral Interactive for taking the time to answer my questions and I hope you’ve enjoyed reading their responses.

[p]To win all you have to do is come up with the best railroading pun.[/p]

[p]Even if you are not a Mac I’d suggest checking out the competition. The current entries already had me rolling* (stock) with laughter. [/p]

[p]I cannot wait to see what everyone comes up with once this contest rolls into the station*.[/p]

[p]*I’m not very good at puns.[/p]

Feral Interactive has a minisite with more infromation: http://www.feralinteractive.com/en/mac-games/railroads/

You can already buy the game from Amazon or directly from Feral Interactive. They’ve also ported other excellent games like Sid Meier’s Pirates! and Tropico 3.

I’ve asked Feral Interactive if custom maps are support, I’ll update this post when I get a response.

To start everything off we’re having a contest. More specifically the “2010 Screenshot Contest!” head over the the 2010 Sid Meier’s Railroad Screenshot Contest! topic to learn more.

A lot has happened in these short years, not least of which is now just about every modern computer is able to run Sid Meier’s Railroads on the highest settings. To celebrate I’m going to go play a game of Sid Meier’s Railroads online and dream about what the next year is going to bring.