Wes Fenlon
From the archives: This Reinstall was originally published in PC Gamer magazine #201 (UK, July 2009). The feature appears as originally written, with only minor changes in formatting and presentation.
I’ve been diving into back issues of PC Gamer magazine to resurrect writing that never made it onto the older versions of PCGamer.com, and I couldn’t resist bringing back this look at 2006’s Sid Meier’s Railroads! Why? Well, I like trains, but more importantly, I love the decades-long bit of putting an exclamation point in the title of Sid Meier games. Sid Meier is psyched about trains. He’s psyched about pirates. He’s psyched about… Gettysburg? Last year’s new Civ struggled a bit at launch and is now finally getting the big update it needs, but I would’ve called it perfect on release if they’d called it Sid Meier’s Civilization 7! instead. Let Sid be psyched about history!
The early 2000s were a particularly bustling time for Firaxis, as it remade many of Meier’s earlier ’80s and ’90s strategy games (like Railroads!) in 3D. Those follow-ups are now older than the originals were when they were remade, though, and I think Pirates! and Railroads! are both due for another go, the latter of which Tim Edwards wrote in this Reinstall was “cruelly ignored upon release.” Perhaps time has been kind to it: Railroads came out in 2006, and yet there are 108 people playing it on Steam as I write this! If that doesn’t warrant an exclamantion mark, I don’t know what does.
Reinstall: Tim Edwards plays Sid Meier’s Railroads! and tracks his progress – PC Gamer #201 (UK, July 2009)
I didn’t realise I enjoyed business. But business is competition. Competition is a game. And games, I think we can all agree, are awesome. That’s why I’ve fallen in love with the railroads.
Sid Meier’s Railroads! in this case. Sid Meier of Civilization, and Gettysburg, and Golf fame—to name but a few. Sid is widely recognised as one of the truly great designers, someone who has a reputation for cutting through to the core of what makes games interesting. Someone who can craft game mechanics from market forces and direct AI to produce human-like behaviour. Someone who can find the fun and humour in often quite dark subject matter. Civilization is a videogame all the family can enjoy. It’s also about genocide, racism, religious hatred and slavery. Go Sid.
That lightness of touch is everywhere in Railroads!. I think this is a game that was cruelly ignored upon release. It stands upon uneasy ground. It is neither a game about the micromanagement of railroad tracks and train-routes, a game of signals and junctions, nor is it a hard-nosed business simulation. You will not be setting ticket prices, nor will you be balancing freight costs. Instead, it lies somewhere in the middle. A game about train sets and toys and the raw competition of commerce. I think it is, in fact, a competitive real-time boardgame, one that deserves to be played with friends.
Fare enough?
So: in Railroads!, you link towns and industries with the goods and passengers they need by painting tracks across a bright and airy landscape. There are around ten scenarios, each set in distinct and exciting periods for rail technology, and each can be played to completion in about a couple of hours. You can play alone, but to experience what the game is really about, you’ll want to add at least a couple of AI competitors, or try it in multiplayer.
Given that the game didn’t sell particularly well, and it used a hideous GameSpy server browser, you’re better off hooking up over an office network and/or LAN party. Yes. You read that correctly. I’m advocating running a Railroads! LAN party.
When you start playing, you’re looking to get a war chest by carrying passengers to and from the major cities. The money is good, but not massive. Pick a shortish route, and you’ll save on the maintenance and running costs. Once you’ve made your first $100K, you’ll face a decision. Extend, secure, or invest?
Financial engineering
This is where Railroads! begins to get dirty. Extending your railroad means putting lines down between more cities and industries, taking control of their goods and taking a stake in their production. It’s no coincidence that dropping a depot on a lumbermill or factory is called ‘annexing’ in Railroads!—it’s a hostile act. You’re saying to your opponents “this is my territory. Keep off.”
Your second option is to secure your position. You can do that in two ways: the first is to use your float to buy up the industries you’re planning to exploit – then you’ll get an income not just from transporting their goods, but for every item sold. Raw materials don’t make you much cash. Transporting iron ore is for suckers. Transporting nitrates (goat shit, essentially) from a farm is for losers. What you should be doing is moving the finished products: the bombs and missiles produced from refined materials. Buying up that weapons factory in Leicester can secure your position throughout the mid-game. Monopolies are fun.
But it’s not a simple case of throwing cash onto the table and reaping the rewards. You can’t just buy your factory. When you make an offer, the factory is put up for auction, and at that point, all the AI players or human players can put in bids. And they will, just to screw you.
If you want and need that factory, you’re going to have to pay for it – often through the nose. Other players want a cut of the proceeds, or they just want to drive the purchase price higher and higher. You can bankrupt players like this. Or you can make them vulnerable to hostile takeover.
You could call it investing, or you could call it ‘being a cock’.
The final method of attack is to start buying shares, either in yourself or your competitors. You can buy share options in 10% increments, the cost of which is determined by the value of the company in question, their assets and profits. Gather a greater than 50% aggregate stake in a company, and you’ll take them over completely, either adding their railroad to your own network, or selling the entire company off. You’re the Borg, but with the cybernetic killing machines replaced by fat controllers.
It’s horrifying to realise that a rival has a 30% stake in your company. It is even more horrifying to realise that to raise the capital to complete a major project or network upgrade, you’ll have to sell some of your own shares.
Rolling stock
Image credit: Firaxis Games
Image credit: Firaxis Games
Image credit: Firaxis Games
That’s where the genius of Railroads! appears—in the interaction between these three systems. Need money? Sell shares. That’s a risk. Want to take a controlling interest? Hoard cash and hope the value of your rivals doesn’t outpace your savings. Want to bankrupt an opponent? Make a play to buy the industries at the heart of their network. If you win the auction, you’ll be in the black. If you lose, they’ll double their operating profits, but they may have to sell stocks to raise the cash.
From the archives
This Reinstall was originally published in PC Gamer #201 (UK, June 2009).
You can still subscribe to PC Gamer to get new issues of the magazine (in print!) every month.
In singleplayer, the Railroads! AI does an extraordinary job of exploiting these interactions—triggering auctions you can’t afford to drive you to sell stock, or annexing your most important industries. In multiplayer, it’s a constant battle between friendly fuckwittery and outright humiliation.
This remains an imperfect game, however. Irritating routing bugs have been present since launch: you’ll sometimes find trains can’t find their way through a junction. And it remains slightit’s in desperate need of an easy-to-use level editor and new scenarios. But it’s a worthwhile and worthy game to test your business acumen. There are few games like it: few games in which you can honestly end a session with “I do actually own yo’ asses. Now fetch me tea.”
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