ailroad Tycoon 3 is not a game I ever thought I'd even try. But after playing Stronghold I still felt the city-building itch. I've had my eye on Banished for a while but somehow that still evades my library. So I delved into my games and I pulled out Tropico 4, Anno 2070 (expect to see those soon) and this. To my surprise, I did and I enjoyed it by a surprising degree. First things first however. The tutorial isn’t very good. At the start there is so much
info around investing in other companies, riding the stock market, issuing
bonds, etc that it feels like you can play the entire game without building a
rail road empire. It felt like I would be running an actual business with managing
shareholders dividends, inflation, pay rises, stock crashes (which can be
manipulated during recessions) and actual book keeping. And so I thought "this is not my type of
Tycoon - I'll stick to Roller Coasters where I can build them and watch people
pay to throw up".
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I think you could use this simulator to teach business students!
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But actually, once you get your head around it its pretty
fun. Learning to issue bonds, sell shares, balance and buy back debt and
improve your credit rating to get better interest rates, etc etc, the game
opens up a lot. All this business mumbo jumbo instead becomes a supporting part of your railway empire that you can ignore for the most part - instead becoming an optional function of min maxing. The kicker however is once you learn the flow of goods.
Clicking on any station will show what goods it has and what's the most
profitable. Seeing that New York has a lot of Iron and Providence wants it at
5x the rate of anywhere had me setting up an express line between the stations with a
train that performs better with cargo over passengers... or doing
the same with express passengers from Boston to New York and reaping the rewards, to then invest further into your railroad expansion. It's those nuances
that make the game very enjoyable. If you have an overabundance of resources in
one town, you can even create business in another town. For example one town
might have a lot of alcohol, so create taverns in a town with high population
and watch consumption boom!
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| Boston had plenty of passengers wanting to go West to Buffalo! |
Combine the goods management with other competing monopolies
that you can invest in, crash their stock, merge with, do hostile takeovers,
superseded or share their tracks or just overall compete with through sheer
rail way experience there is a definitive element of tycoon building strategy.
Then throw in ‘railway crafting’ which is really its own art form as you have
to manage the cheapest way to build a track across various elements of
topography – bridges and tunnels are expensive, hills cost fuel, etc. Balance
this with the speed of a straight track over time and the consistent revenue
this will bring. Now you have many layers of logistics strategy to explore. At
the end of that’s exactly what it is, logistics, and considering that’s my job
the feels too close to home. I think I was one and done with this one – I
finished the first campaign, enjoyed it, now it’s time to move on… Or so I
thought. There’s just something about this game that comes me coming back. The country
harmonic(a) soundtrack, starring at a map as you balance all the logistical contingencies
to set out your railroad empire. ]
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Althought clearly outdated. It is a charming game..
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