Railroad Tycoon (video game)

The objective of the game is to build and manage a railroad company by laying tracks, building stations, and buying and scheduling trains. The player acts as a railway entrepreneur and may start companies in any of four geographic locales: the Western United States, Northeast United States, Great Britain, or Continental Europe. The company starts with one million dollars in capital, half equity, half a loan. The company may raise additional capital through the sale of bonds.

The player manages the business as described above and may also handle individual train movement and build additional industries. The game models supply and demand of goods and passengers as well as a miniature stock market on which players can buy and sell stock of their own or competing companies. The game also has other railroad companies attempting to put the player out of business with stock dealings and rate wars.

There are four types of stations: Signal Tower, Depot, Station and Terminal. The Signal Tower acts as a passing loop and may control movements. The rest service surrounding areas: the Depot serves its own square and the adjoining eight squares, the Station takes another ring, and the Terminal handles up to three squares away. The player can build at most 32 stations. When the player builds the first station they also build their first engine shop. Each engine shop is the manufacturing area for the player's different trains. The player can upgrade and downgrade Depots, Stations and Terminals. Other facilities such as stores and hotels may be added.

Once the player builds a station they can build their first train (of the 32 permitted) at any engine shop. The player then can add cars to the train and send it on its way. The player can at any time change the consist, with options including pure mail and passenger cars as well as specialized freight cars for each of the game's nine other commodity types.

The player can continue to build the track network and build stations until they run out of funds. The game runs for a century (1830 - 1930 and 1866 - 1966 in America and 1900 - 2000 in Europe), with accounting periods being two years long. Stations built or rebuilt in a particular accounting period pay the player double freight rates for everything they purchase in that period.

Not every station buys everything offered to it. Some goods producers buy nothing. There are two alternatives the player can choose between: Simple Economy (where, for example, a station serving two or more cities will buy anything) and Complex Economy (where "two cities" will buy mail, passengers, and a couple of other products; "four villages" will buy passengers and different freight products; only a station with a steel mill will buy coal; and other products have other buyer types). There are product variations over the four geographical scenarios.

The original version had a signed integer overload error, where if you went deep enough into debt, the negative integer would flip to a positive number and you had unlimited cash. You could have a 15-figure negative number, but once you get to 16 figures, there is no space for the negative - since the game could only accommodate 16 bits.

Railroad Tycoon sold more than 400,000 units by September 1997.[5]

In the July 1990 edition of Games International (Issue 16), Brian Walker gave the game a perfect score of 10 out of 10, saying, "Certainly this is one of the most captivating games I've ever played."[6]

In the September 1990 edition of Computer Gaming World, Railroad Tycoon was named Game of the Year.[7] In the next issue, M. Ryan Brooks gave the game five out of five stars.[8] In 1992, Computer Gaming World added it to the magazine's Hall of Fame for games that readers highly rated over time.[9]

In the December 1990 edition of PC Sources, Russ Lockwood called Railroad Tycoon one of the best games of the year.[10]

In the January 1991 and October 1991 issues of Dragon, Patricia and Kirk Lesser awarded both the PC version[11] and the Macintosh version[12] perfect scores of 5 out of 5.

The editors of Strategy Plus declared it their 1990 game of the year.[13]

The game won the 1991 Software Publishers Association Excellence in Software Award for Best Strategy Program.[14]

In 1991, PC Format named Railroad Tycoon one of the 50 best computer games ever.[15]

In 1994, PC Gamer US declared it the fourth best computer game ever.[16]

In 1996, Computer Gaming World declared Railroad Tycoon the 41st-best computer game ever released.[17]

In 1998, PC Gamer US declared it the 25th-best computer game ever released, and the editors called it "groundbreaking in every sense".[18]

• Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon at MobyGames
• Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon Deluxe at MobyGames
• Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon at the Hall of Light