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The best tycoon series around

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 106 / 115
Date: November 01, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Back in 1998, Railroad Tycoon 2 basically kicked off the tycoon-game frenzy. Now RRT3 is here and it has gone fully 3D. PopTop software is using a very powerful 3D engine with an easy-to-use camera system, and the results are beautiful. Hills and valleys look realistic, lakes and oceans look gorgeous, and the game has a new night-and-day cycle as well as weather effects. Even on lower end systems, the game effortlessly zooms from a satellite view to a close-up look at the buildings in a town.

Players of Railroad Tycoon 2 will notice that managing cargo and routes is easier than ever before. The game features a campaign as well as standalone missions and maps. And the map editor is extremely powerful and easier-to-use than ever before. PopTop also listened to fans of RRT2 and has added the most requested features: bridges and tunnels. Your trains can also carry more cars than before.

The heart of the game, of course, is building your rail network and managing your empire. Laying track requires that you pay careful attention to the terrain to avoid steep hills, as you make profits based on how fast you deliver passengers and cargo. You have dozens of engines to choose from, all rendered in exceptional detail. The economic model has been strengthened and is now much more realistic -- passengers only want to go to certain cities now, and cities need to be supplied with goods to grow and prosper.

Of course, computer opponents will compete with you for lucrative routes, and other modes of transportation like rivers will also serve cities independently of the railroads, so careful planning will be rewarded. Fortunately the game gives you lots of overlays and data views to help you manage your empire, so you can spend more time watching your trains haul logs through dense forests or speed passengers along the plains to distant cities. PopTop has always been incredibly good at taking complicated games and making them accessible for everyone, even novice players, and Railroad Tycoon 3 appears to be no exception. This is a fantastic game that is only going to get better as the series' countless fans begin creating and uploading user maps, thereby making the replay value almost infinite. If you like strategy games, you really shouldn't miss this one.

Best of the series and that's very good, indeed.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 51 / 52
Date: December 12, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Real rating would be 4 1/2 stars.

As a piece of software, RT3 is not perfect, but it is better than 90% of what's out there. It's rock-solid stable on my computer but there are those who have experienced a lot of problems, almost all related to issues with graphics cards. There are few bugs with the code and none that detract from my enjoyment of the game. PopTop's support for their products has been top notch in the past and RT3 is proving that again. New maps and code updates have already been provided and more are coming.

Now, as a game... is it fun? You bet! If you liked either of its predecessor's then I really think you'll enjoy this one. The 3D engine incorporated is the first thing you'll notice right away. Then as you start to play you're going to really start to see how different this game/simulation is from RT1 & 2. In fact, that has to be said as a warning: RT3 is NOT just RT2 with 3D graphics. If that's what you want, this isn't it. For me, that's not the bad news, it's a major part of the good news. RT3 now has a whole new economic model underneath it that literally makes the entire game new. The world's farms and factories won't sit idle waiting for your railroad to haul the goods for them. If you don't move them, the 'invisible' transportation network (overland and by water) will move them instead--oh, and don't bother trying to compete with the canal and river transport in most eras.

As others have said the micromanagement aspects of the game have been greatly reduced. Some may not like that but I do--I feel much more in the role of the tycoon controlling a financial empire with a railroad as its centerpiece. You can manage every train and every carload but you're better off letting the game do that and concentrating on the strategic business of figuring out which industrial segments to go after and which cities will benefit you most if you lay track to them. On the other hand, I often find myself simply taking the 3D camera right down to the locomotive and going along for the (often spectacular) ride.

Yes, there are things I would have done differently. And there are things I don't like (the way maint. facilities are handled was better in RT2) but on balance RT3 is an excellent product and worthy follow-up to RT1&2.

Pro:
-- Still the addictive builder-sim gameplay as always.
-- 3D engine is very good; great "ride along" views.
-- Economic model is much more realistic, particularly for the golden era timeframe (late 1800's thru about 1920).
-- Most of the micromanagement is gone.
-- Excellent editor lets you modify current maps and make new ones.
-- Excellent support by the vendor and an active fan base.

Con:
-- The computer players (AI) are poor to awful. Don't expect them to be any real competition. However, improvements are promised in an update.
-- Too few maps come with it. (Fans and vendor updates are fixing this, tho')
-- Track laying and map scale issues result in unrealistic track grades that detract from the appearance (but have little effect on gameplay).

Bottom line:
If you like the builder simulation kind of game, this one is likely to appeal to you. If you like trains or railroad history then I'm confident you'll find RT3 worth the purchase price and then some. PopTop has another winner here and with a few changes it may be a superstar in the genre.

Fun - Still the best

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 26 / 27
Date: November 14, 2003
Author: Amazon User

First off, I haven't had a problem with crashing. One crash to desktop in twenty hours of play. The game runs very smoothly, even with 25 trains. The graphics look good. Just for your information, I'm running the game on XP pro, Geforce 4 ti 4600 and 512 DDR RAM.

I've tried Trainz and a new train game called Railroad Pioneer and Railroad Tycoon 3 is in my opinion far superior, mostly because of the financial aspect. The towns are already there. You link them up and select engines and which businesses you want to buy. Making money is fun. In RRT2 you'd get a "kaching" sound for every coin you made. I kind of miss that as they took it out in RRT3, but then your house sounded like a Vegas slots room when you had a lot of trains using the old sound effect.

Some people don't like the new auto consist device, but I don't have a problem with it. Once you get more than five trains, it can be a real chore to manage all your cars. The new method allows you to concentrate on expanding, getting loans, connecting more cities and so forth.

The trains are a lot less sluggish. It's fun to lock the camera and go for a ride. Best way to show off the impressive scenery, day, night effects, weather.

The new bridges and tunnels are nice, but I've yet to master them. Track laying is never as precise as I'd like it to be. I'm a bit mystified as to how the game decides when it's going to start a tunnel or bridge. It's not like you can tell it to dig here or there like you can with the original Rollercoaster Tycoon, but then that was a tedious, confusing set up that RCT had. RRT3 keeps things moving along and focuses on the financial model and connecting cities. Hook up those routes and make money so you can buy more industries and make even more money.

The game gives you a lot of information in the form of overlays and so forth. I'm still getting used to it, but it seems quite logical and most likely this will be one of the better strategy games to play online as there is no shooting involved and setting up your routes for maximum profitablility is going to make a big difference in how well you do. To be honest though I never played RRT2 online.

Some things that are lacking and there may be a good reason for this, namely they want the game to run well on a decent system. The things lacking are people, cars, traffic, that sort of thing. While the game looks good, it could look better with the things mentioned. RCT had tons of little people, but still the game was graphically much more primitive. It'll probably be a few years before RRT will have all the people and details you might like. For now you get numerous trains with their own sound effects, smoke, lots of industries with some working parts and so forth. The wheels on your train spin, but they're not 3d wheels.

Best Ever Business Sim

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 13 / 14
Date: January 10, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This is a great business sim involving realistic issues of supply and demand, investment, the stock market, etc. Much better than games like Capitalism or Startup (that one's probably out of print).

I also like it better than Tropico because there are victory conditions. You know whether you did well or not in Railroad Tycoon and you can work to improve your performance. In Tropico, as good an economic sim as it is, too often you feel like the game just ended without any particular success or failure.

And aside from the business sim issues, the railroads and historical context make it fun on another level.

It is not, however, for kids (as one reviewer suggested). The stock market element and the semi-complicated supply and demand issues would be way too complicated for even a nine year old.

Very fun & interesting, with huge replay value

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 15 / 15
Date: December 29, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I am an older player who really likes simulation/strategy games (I still play Panzer General II, which I believe was released in 1996!) This is the first game I have seen in years that has the ease-of-play, historical interest, huge replay-ability, and just plain fun factor of RR Tycoon 3. It is a fairly new game and they have already come out with three new maps (free downloads), which leads me to believe that I will be adding maps and playing this one for a long, long time.

The 3D views makes sense for this game (not like some games that get boring very quickly after the novelty of the "special effects" wears off). It is great to be able to zoom in an out of things easily, turn the maps, etc.

Railroad Tycoon 3 keeps the interesting decisions in the game, while allowing you to delegate some decisions (such as car consists) that can really get tedious to do manually later in the games.

Nice job Poptop!

gooses review

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 12 / 14
Date: June 27, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game does the railroad industry great justice. The original railroad tycoon was made sometime in the mid 1980s which shows that this series actually made a name for itself being older than any tycoon game I know of. People who like to look at trains or moddel train sets will probably like this game a lot. Also those people who like railroad museums will like this game as long as they know how to use a computer even if they don't like playing games on it. After playing railroad tycoon 2 this game was hard to get used to. The 3d look made it hard for me to get a grasp on the playing field and some things dissapear when you zoom out on the map. If you never played the first or second railroad tycoon game and you have good vision theres no problem with that. Probably the most important thing about this game is that its the only one you can find exciting that also has trains in it. Another important thing to note is the nastalgic single player campaigne. People who study American history knows that this nation was built on the back of the "iron horse" and this game gives you a unique insight into this pivatol factor in the progression of the world in the 1800s to about 1950.

RT3 rules!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 11 / 19
Date: November 04, 2003
Author: Amazon User

RT3 is by far the best in the Railroad Tycoon series.
This game is visually stunning and has really challenged
me in the past couple days...and nights. I have had
absolutely no problem with the install or copy
protection that some reviewers speak of. Finally a
game I can sit down with the kids and play.

Amazing Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 10
Date: August 03, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This is an amazing game. It one of the best tycoon games ever made. There is an accurate and easy-to-read budget with all factors taken into consideration. I like how you can put trains on auto-consist, so they pick up whatever will make money. However, if you have too many trains, it slows down your computer gameplay, like it does on my 128 Ram comp. There are many fun maps and scenarios to play. Supply, demand, price, competition, and other things are fun to manage. There are informative maps that show the supply and demand of certain products and the prices, so you can decide where to run trains to make a lot of money. However, you don't have to only run trains, you can buy industries, farms, and ranches, making them even more profitable by running products to and from them with trains. Stocks, bonds, profitability, controlling expenses versus income and other things make this game amazingly realistic and makes a unique challenge at any hardness level to be the ultimate tycoon. Also, there are no rules to regulate you from using underhanded maneuvers to stab your opponents and fellow tycoons in the back, or take over, or become chairman of their company. The graphics aren't great, but this is an amazing game and I would strongly recommend it for anyone who likes tycoon games.

Railroad Tycoon 4

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 12
Date: May 24, 2005
Author: Amazon User

It's clear that PopTop was trying not to "screw up" all the fan loyalty they'd built with RRT2. And I agree with everything written so far concerning graphics, etc. - that part is just great.

PopTop was also trying to take the obvious elements out of business sim play. Let's face it: business sims are sort of at a crossroads right now. I love 'em - I've played business sims since RRT1 in the early 90s, or even "Utopia" on Intellivision (giving my age away). Given the fascination with business sims, how many elements can be programmed:

1. Starting conditions: resources and constraints
2. Gameplay rules, varied to make gameplay interesting
3. Random environmental events
4. Opposing AI play

The designer has to make these things "seem" realistic and yet not frustrate players trying to climb a learning curve.

In that regard, RRT3 has done very, very well.

Rise of Rails

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: June 22, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I have played this game for a long time, since it came out several years ago. This game is all kinds of fun, from I would say early to mid teens to adults. The detail of this game is amazing, immersive and generally intuitive. The control system is quick to master and the options leave the ability to pretty much do whatever you want with your tracks if you have the money to do it.

The core of this game is the historical gameplay ranging from the very birth of railways to the future in some scenarios. Maps range across the world and are realistic, with high Alps, long low plains and oceans and rivers to be bridged. As far as business goes this points out the days of cut throat business before pesky anti-trust and monopoly laws. This is a game where you are encouraged to destroy your competition and drive them into the poor house. Its as close as you can come to pulling the still beating heart of your enemy from his chest in a E-Rated game. The music is enjoyable mostly and the sound and visual effects are truely beautiful, with lapping waves, smoke from smoke stacks and fruit on trees. The effects can be turned down of course to let your computer run more smoothly.

The game originally was slightly bug ridden, not terrible, but frustrating, fortunately the Coast to Coast Free Expansion from the manufacturer solves many crashing issues as well as including a huge number of new maps, scenarios and even some trains, including some Soviet ones, which is pretty amazing.

Buy this game, try it out, play the life out of it, conquer your competition and sit back with a quiet smile knowing that you have just been put on par with the Big 4 and other great railroad tycoons.

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