Railroad Tycoon is a strategy game for designed for dos. The game was designed by Sid Meier for MicroProse in the 1990s. Basically the gamer runs a railroad company. The game includes supply and demand models and the gamer can lay track, buy stations and buy and schedule trains. Players can start in different locations including the U.S. West and Midwest or the Northeast, England, and (on a smaller scale including southern England) Europe.
At the begging of the game the gamer is provided with one Million dollars (half of this amount is loans and the other half assists).
The gamer can build four types of stations, Signal Tower, Depot, Station, and Terminal, when the first station is built an engine shop is also built. The engine shop is used for building the great trains of the game. A player can have no more than 32 stations because the game was meant to be played on old doses. The first station being built allows the player to build trains. Once a train is built the player can add cars and send the train on its way.
Another way the producers of the game found to save space is to only allow 32 trains. There are different cars for different items in the game and some cars are better for certain things. For example
the mail car can only carry mail while the passenger car carries passengers. There are nine types of cars. The trains are slowed down when they go through bad terrain. Another problem with going through bad terrain is that it costs more to build tunnels through the mountains. There are different types of economies for difficulties. A simple economy will buy anything while a complex economy will only buy things the city needs.
In 1993 Railroad Tycoon deluxe was made but sold poorly. Railroad Tycoon deluxe didn’t do well because it was slow and the new features were not worth while. The only advantages were an improved graphics, more sound effects, and more maps. Some of the new maps included South America and South Africa. They also had area inclusive resources like diamonds for South Africa. Sid Meier is now working on making the newest edition Sid Meier’s Railroads.
