What would improve Railroads! ?

[Kenster]

I'm sure most of what I'm about to say has already been suggested so just count those as a ditto then..

1. Larger Maps..
2. More Maps..
3. Campaign (progress from easy to hard)..
4. Better control over selecting track, signals, etc... for deletion..
5. Undo (for the times you twitch and lay track around the world)..
6. A way to redo track that has a train route on it..
7. Sidings (small stations at the same location for cargo)..
8. Better looking tunnels (the tunnels get all messed up looking with two
or more side by side)..
9. Wider unzoom..
10. Better control over track laying ie. laying straight only track..
11. Way points (to control routing of trains)..
12. Bonding.. $$
13. Prorate trains when up grading. (give back a little $)
14. Sell/delete a business..
15. Buy resource givers (Farms, oil, coal, etc..)..
16. Better paint coloring (red looks pink when train is in game)..
17. Intros (back ground history) for each scenario & a switch to turn them off..
18. Better train routing logic (I get trains that end up going nuts & not to the stations)..
--Added--
19. In game Map/Scenario Editor..
20. Ability to add my own mp3 music files and have the game play them..
21. Varied cargo value based on distance traveled and degraded with time it takes to get to destination..

Well thats all for now..
I'm stall a big fan of RRT II but hoping SMRR will replace it..

P.S. Sid, how about redoing Civil War next..

[eilelwen]

everyone else has pretty much covered everything else so I have a one or two modding things.

1. The tender can take a texture change as well as the engine. This would be nice for things like my F-Series B unit.

2. The nif exporter you guys used.

3. If possible an example of one of your max files that we can open and look at and go ohhhhhh.

[Choo]

1. Add save replay to multiplayer
2. Add ladder system to multiplayer
3. Add option to modify starting and ending age of a multiplayer scenario where player with most points at the end of the period is the winner.
4. Add option to disable human players being replaced by AI in multiplayer when humans quit mid game.
5. Randomize landscape and city locations should be much better optimized to not place industries/cities in an unnatural way (mid of water/mountain so they looked bugged)
5. Seems like you don;t have your graphics engine capable of downsizing textures,polys when zooming out so I imagine that is a big issue to making a "overview" view available but it would be great to view the map from above at 50 and 100% increments during those long waits at the end before buyout ....
6. the minimap icons, once the game has entered Metropolis stage, make the minimap almost completely useless. It's impossible that you can make such a design decision and be proud of being a great game designer...

[animeguru]

I just want to be able to play for a full match without it freezing / CTD / or just hanging up in general.

... and that's playing by myself. Forget about playing with a computer opponent.


I'm not that far from Fireaxis' office... I wonder what they'd do if I drove up there and asked for a refund on the game.

Well, I have yet to receive a response to my email to Firaxis about the appalling performance of this game... no big suprise there.

First, I should note that I exceed the system requirements for this game. I do not have a dual core system like many others who have experienced problems, nor any other similarities that I could try the various other hacks people have discovered to run the game. I've updated my drivers and my Windows install (which is something that I have never been required to do for any other PC game I've ever bought, and I've got 60+), but no luck.

Anyway, I installed the patch and it seemed to help keep the game running for longer periods of time. Though I had it stall on me for a minute or so as I got farther into the game, it would keep on trucking after a bit and I could at least still play without a CTD. The graphical glitches have actually increased... I am regularly presented with a screen that is completely green save the actual railroad tracks. Sound still works, but since I can't see anything other than green and empty tracks, there isn't anything I can do.

Only downside to the patch is that the next day after installing it, the game won't even start up anymore. As soon as I launch it, I get a program error, which doesn't even resolve itself and I'm forced to open the task manager and kill the error. Can't kill the game, just the error... that will actually get the game to shut down.

At this point, I don't even want to play anymore. The sheer frustration at trying to play a match is rediculous. I managed to finish the paltry 5 scenario's that were included with the game by reloading from autosaves after the crashing before. Now, I'd love to play some multiplayer. Hell, I'd love to be able to play a full match against the computer, but alas it is not to be.

I've been a big fan of Sid's games for years. The sheer amount of time I've played Civ is rediculous. Pirates was excellent (I never played the original)... but after this I don't think I'll be buying any more Firaxis games anymore.

The Railroad Tycoon series easily among my top 5 PC games... I was really hoping to add this title to the list. Sadly, it would appear not.

The worst part about the entire ordeal is that this is a PC game, which means I can't return it for a refund and since I bought this with a gift card I received for my birthday from my fiancee, I can't even get a refund through my credit card company (as I would be able to do with any other lemon of a purchase via the buyer protections it offers).

It would seem that this year I just got a crappy present that left a bad taste in my mouth.

[Choo]

animeguru - this reminds me of starforce problems - the cd protection software/driver that comes with the cd version of the game. Do you have daemon tools or any other cd emulation software installed? The not starting up crash can be caused by this. I have a dual core cpu and I've bought Railroads over direct2drive (no retailers in my country have the game) and haven't had any (well most) of the problems people usually have been having because d2d version does not include startforce protection. What problems I experienced were some graphics glitches (at some point in game at a certain angle the whole screen looks like a big bunch of brown/green polys but if I change the zoom I can see the cities/trains/tracks again) and a crash here and there ( had one since the patch).

[animeguru]

Nope, no deamon tools of drive emulation at all. I've closed out just about everything possible without stopping Windows from running, the graphical settings are at the absolute minimum (at least they were when I could actually start the game), I've updated my drivers, my system, etc etc.

At this point, it's not me or my system, it's poor coding and support from Firaxis. This patch was rushed out because the game was so buggy to start with, they figured they couldn't make it any worse. I guess they were wrong.

[{USI}_Zombie]

I miss the random events from RRT: Occasional bridge washouts, derailments/collisions, governer needs to go to a certain city and a bonus for getting him there quickly....

I also miss upgrading my stations myself...instead of automatic upgrades for stations and terminals, let us pick them, (and pay for them).

Signal Towers that are controllable, I seem to remember we could set a signal in RRT to behave as we wanted, this would be good if say you need a just 1 more train of a good to complete a scenerio goal, you could set hold signals down the line to stop other trains and de-conflict your priority cargo to its destination.

Zoom to events...if a city solicits a railroad, instead of using the find city funtion, a simple zoom to event would be nice, any event like "New York now accepts xxxx", zoom to New York.

Others have mentioned buying resources to gain exclusive rights, I like this idea.

Question: If a city has a steel mill AND a power plant, does my coal get split between the 2? Do both industries procees all 8 cars, 4 for each, or all 8 to just 1 of them? Never figured that out...but if the cargo is split, I want an option to designate WHICH industry gets my coal...why give JP Morgan, who owns the powerplant, income while the steel mill I own doesn't use my whole train?

[{USI}_Zombie]

actually, I just discovered how to zoom to events

[Soduka]

After looking over all suggestions on what would make the game better, and playing it myself, I can agree on one major detail. The game was just too dumbed down. I understand this wasn't meant to be the ultimate tycoon Railroad game, but unfortunetly I don't feel like I have alot of power over the game. The only time I feel like I am having fun is the beginning of the game. That first rush of 10 minutes into the game, After that, poof, boooring. There's just not the depth there that I miss from the old RRT.

The AI decides just about everything for you. You cannot control where your trains go, where your tracks build, and there aren't enough random events.

The largest and best thing I miss from old RRT's was Train's Crashing. What's up with them just stopping now? Even on hard mode, just no action left into it.

They should have designed the game for multiplayer mode, and empire building Single Player mode. I don't think it worked out too well having them trying to comprimise for both game modes without hurting one or the other more than they already have.

Again major points are missing like longer games, more depth, random events and more stuff to spend my money on. I also miss being an evil robber baron and bleeding my opponents dry and taking over their business. What's up with having to own the entire company to do this? 60% majority stock holder should have enough power to start calling some shots...

I'd label this game a 3/5.

GREAT design, GREAT thought, but not a simulator. Perhaps a mod can pick that part up...?

[von Beanie]

I just loaded the game, played the tutorial and started the first scenario set in the SW United States beginning in 1850. Knowing that I needed to build a railroad from Flagstaff to Vegas and Phoenix, I began looking for them. I understand that the geography is highly generalized, but I didn't expect to find Flagstaff north of the Colorado River! Moreover, for a scenario set in 1850, I find it interesting that there is a Lake Mead (began to fill after Hoover Dam was completed in 1930s) and a Las Vegas (it didn't really exist as a town until about 1905, and was barely a railroad stop until the 1930s).

What's happened to basic historic or geographic reality in this game?

[Aramus]

You'll find landmarks in the cities too.... Chicago has the Sears Tower, for example. And others have already commented on the demand for cars in 1840 - they change shape though from model-T to some nice 1940s shape at some point.

[snoopy55]

Something I'd like to seeis, you've just bought out another player and you want to look at what you've gotten. Well, your lost unless you want to follow every train on the map. But if you could click on a Resource and a list of trains loading there would pop up and let you click on each oneto view it, you could make changes in it or even delete it if it is conflicting with your needs from that same Resource. One for City/Industries would be nice also.

[lapuce033]

Yes it has been said.... Bigger maps, like for example like we had in RRT-2.

I also would like to see like in RRT-2 that you can run electric locomotives only on electrified track. It would be more of a challenge.

Bigger selction of engines.

Thats about it for now....

[TheGlobalizer]

13. Prorate trains when up grading. (give back a little $)

Already gives a trade-in value for existing trains.

[Kenster]

13. Prorate trains when up grading. (give back a little $)

Already gives a trade-in value for existing trains.

Sorry.. I guess I didn't notice