Railroad Corporation

One of the best train/resource management game
Level of complexity is high enough to be a great/enjoyable challenge
Hours pass by and you wonder why that stupid train is up to no good
And it's all your fault again, admit it
Poor feedback makes it tedious to maintain large network and be aware of a loosing condition
Not for everyone

If you enjoy train tycoon sandbox games, this is a great game for you. It's got a good pace to get you into the mechanics and gets good progression. The campaign is pretty balanced

My initial review and thoughts after 32hrs and only just completing the first chapter (which only 15% of us have) is that:
+ I FUCKING LOVE train game!
+ As someone who loved trains so much I became a signaller this scratches a real itch of logistics and trains
+ Hard but really rewarding gameplay when it all works as intended
BUT
- It does have issues that are sometimes just game breaking and can really suck the fun out of the game.
I had the zoom function bug out which then permeated through an entire mission that i was maybe 4 hours in
or that I sometimes had the game hard crashes which happened when i dragged a single section of track TOO far
- the missions could be reworked in a way that make them more accessible or easier to complete rather than multiple hour sometimes slog fests, it took me 32 hours to complete 6 missions at that encompassed the first chapter, or 5.3 hours per mission - take that as you will, it could be a skill issue
- it expects you to figure out some of the finer nuance around the track system, either that or i didn't read it properly, but the way the AI determines the active routes and plots its course as far as i can tell is from signal to signal which you cannot manually place outside of when you are laying track - even with this in mind it can be cumbersome on the mind to plot routes
- i wanna fucking draft tracks and plan intersections without fully committing to a whole section of track, money is SO important in the early game and drafting tracks and expansion is trying to do it as best as possible on the first try and by the time you have the money to spend willy nilly your tracks and routes are so fixed in place that it is a huge cost (which yippe, i am so okay with mistakes costing money or redesigning to cost big money but when you can't draft multi tracks and relief lines then it feels like trial by fire to a degree.

Generally a pretty relaxing game. I played through all the content (including all DLCs) blind on hard difficulty and got all the achievements. I enjoyed the experience, but it was definitely dragging at the end.

It is surprisingly buggy for a game that has been out as long as it has. It would frequently go to a Windows "not responding" error message. A lot of times that preceded a crash. The vast majority of these times were when laying track. I made it crash less often (though still with the same not responding messages) by lowering the graphics quality. It was odd to me that I didn't have any graphics problems playing the game generally, but laying the track over the same graphics made a huge performance difference. About one-fourth of the achievements did not trigger for me when they should have. I was saving frequently because of the crashes, so generally loading an older save and re-playing the part to get the achievement would work. Lots of minor issues, too, like some smaller tasks being impossible, trains getting stuck trying to find a free track with multiple clear paths available, and incorrect text showing at times.

The game's strength is its mission diversity. A lot of the DLC have very different kinds of scenarios that require the player to play in very different ways than "try to make the biggest profit". I really enjoyed having to do something different for a single mission and it was good that the different mechanics didn't overstay their welcome. My favorite was probably the mission helping Santa deliver packages. I will always remember The Swamp - no research, no ability to buy new trains (the player can get some from missions), and all the trains constantly breaking down even when repairing them every station. The only mission that was incredibly difficult for me was the Niagara mission. I will have nightmares about making Canadian whiskey - probably more nightmares than anyone ever got from drinking it.

It was definitely a weakness for me that so many scenarios had the exact same starting point - no trains, no research completed. It got to be a real drag to have to do the research again every single time. I would have preferred a diversity in starting points. A different weakness is the sheer number of clicks required to add additional cars of the same thing to each station (like when there is a newer engine). A third weakness for me is that most of the people assigning missions to the player are complete flakes. They have no overall plan, no real knowledge of how things work, and poor communication skills. It was a bit frustrating to try to have success with those NPCs dragging down the experience.

That leads to my one tip for new players. Pay very close attention to everything that is said to you by the people who give you missions. It is generally incredibly important. It frequently seems like a throwaway comment not meaning anything. But it matters. Ask yourself why and how what they tell you could possibly matter. Even if it is only in a worst-case scenario. Because that scenario is likely to happen.

I enjoyed the music all the way through. It was always pleasant and I definitely had favorite tracks that I would especially enjoy. But there isn't a lot of music. I'm glad I liked it because every track plays so often.

Overall a pleasant experience with some definite frustrations and drawbacks.

fun game. more economics and train optimization needed than in Railway Empires. 12 total campaign missions. Train laying is not great but is functional.

Very cool and interesting. Lack of maps though. But the 12 campaign missions are great

Its an enjoyable game but the micro management can get tiresome. Worth getting on sale though if you can