But as involved and complex as the economic strategy can be, it's all very simple to approach. You'll end up constructing an entire empire of railroads and industries using only two building blocks. The only things you ever have to actually construct are tracks and train depots. Everything else is handled automatically. Towns sprout from specks on the map to massive cities full of towering skyscrapers, trains run their routes like clockwork (and conveniently never crash), and supply and demand fluctuate depending on a variety of economic forces. The only thing you have to do is click a track, move your mouse to where you want the track to end, and click the mouse button again and the track is instantly built and ready to be used. Things like bridges and tunnels are automatically constructed wherever necessary, so the only things you need to be concerned with is where you want your track to go, and what type of cargo you want to haul.
All of the other operations are handled through simple and intuitive menus. It only takes a couple clicks to purchase or sell stock, develop new processing facilities, upgrade engines and depots, and so on. There's also a bidding system in the game. If you're playing a multiplayer game and you want to buy an existing processing facility you'll have to bid for it, so you better make sure you have plenty of extra cash on hand before you initiate a purchase. Every so often a newly patented technology will come up for auction. These technologies can increase your profits, speed up your trains, and reduce maintenance costs. If you are the highest bidder at the end of a patent auction you have 10 years of exclusive access to that new technology, which gives you a significant advantage over your competitors.
Railroads! supports up to four players online or over a local network. All of the scenarios from the single-player game are available in multiplayer, along with the same objectives. You can choose to play as a real-world tycoon such as J.P. Morgan, George Hudson, and James Hill. You begin with a single depot and must build the largest empire possible and ultimately make enough money to buy out all of your competitors. The multiplayer games can get heated as players get into bidding wars over properties and patents, and race to be the first to complete each objective. It's easy to get into a game using the in-game server browser, and although we did notice some slight lag in multiplayer, it wasn't enough to significantly impact the game. If you don't have the option to play against human opponents, you can choose to play against computer-controlled tycoons. Usually the artificial intelligence is savvy enough to offer a respectable challenge without seeming cheap.
This game looks good, but you'll have to pay for all that detail in system resources. If you try running this game with the minimum system requirements you'll have to turn off all the visual effects, and even then you'll still be hit with frequent slowdown and lock-ups. There are also numerous graphical glitches, like clipping buildings, overlapping tunnels, twitching trains, and occasionally disappearing scenery. Most of these bugs are slightly annoying at worst, but they give the game a sloppy look. If you have a high-end PC you'll be able to get decent performance from this game, and when it's running smoothly and isn't too cluttered it does look good. The level of detail is impressive, and if you zoom in all the way you can see every detail of each train, building, and industry. You'll see each cow get loaded on a car, watch people mill about a train station watching the huge locomotives come in, see farmers toiling away in the fields, and so on. The visual style resembles a model train set, with detailed but not-quite-to-scale models representing trains, cities, and scenery.
There are more than 30 trains in the game, and you can even create custom paint schemes and logos for your fleet.
The audio in Railroads! is detailed as well. You'll hear an entire array of locomotive noises, from the distinct whistles to the whoosh of the brakes as an engine pulls into a depot. If you get close to a town you'll hear some charming pastoral tunes pick up, which seem to fit the theme, but it would be nice to have some background music available beyond the towns.
Sid Meier's Railroads! strikes a comfortable balance between a deep economic simulation and an accessible, streamlined empire-building game. People looking for the same level of micromanagement of Railroad Tycoon 3 might be disappointed with just how simplified Railroads! is, but there's still plenty of depth here to make it worth a look. This is also a good game for people who are new to tycoon-style games and just want to build a virtual model railroad without worrying about the minutiae of business management. Railroads! is a game that is easy to get into, but once you're there you'll continue to find new levels of detail that will keep you playing for a long time.
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