I'm considering purchasing Sid Meier's Railroads! from Impulse. First because I love Firaxis games (I have CivIV and Pirates - the original and remake) and I know they do a great job on all their games. But also because my son loves trains and I thought this would be a great game to play together (me playing and him watching and giving input - he's two and a half).
I see through Impulse that it is not compatible with Vista. For anyone who has this game: Have you been able to get it to run on Vista? I see there is a /LARGEADDRESSAWARE flag that you could use. Has that worked? Do you even need it now?
Also, how do you like the game? Is it fun? Challenging? In multiplayer, is it possible to have teams so that 2 human players can go against 2 AI players?
Thanks for any and all input.
to test I just installed it on win7 64bit and it run as well as it does on xp32bit, the large addressaware flag is to use more ram to prevent the game from crashing due to ram space limits ie 2gb ram data space per process.
yes it one of the games that I run when I am tired of sins, so I think it is fun, and moderratly challenging, but I do not know about the multiplayer side, so I am not going to state anything about it
harpo
I personally found the game disappointing. It is pretty much a dumbed down version of Railroad Tycoon 2, but with prettier graphics (albeit somewhat cartoonish).
The stock market is a particular disappointment, since you can only buy stock for cash and so can never engage in serious stock market manipulation simply because you lack the resources.
Finally, the track laying is cumbersome and difficult to do correctly. The result can easily be an unweildy layout the makes it impossible to run your trains effeciently.
I only played the game sproatically for a few weeks before abandoning it.
I enjoy the game immensly. The very fact that its a less complicated simulation makes it a good game to play with your child. I know my daughter loves playing the game with me.
I run Windows XP, so I can't help you with that part of your post. And I never played multiplayer either.
I have it running on Vista 64 SP1 and it works fine...no hassles what so ever.
As a RRT fan from the original back on the Amiga i can agree with Jacob in that the game was dissapointing when compared to the previous titles.
It lacks the depth of the other games and the map sizes do not really allow for epic continental networks.
The fun factor though is high for what it is. I do play it often still but i do not look for a RRT experiance from the game...
For the price it is on Impulse i say its worth it, just don't go into expecting it to pick up or better what RRT2 or 3 had to offer.
I've only played the demo, so I can't say a whole lot, or what I say might be outdated.
From my experience, the game seemed to lack a whole lot of control, and pre-planning. For instance, if I were to link 2 separate rail tracks together, all the trains from the local service might decide to clutter the express lane. Likewise, I could not somehow pre-plan my track placements so that it would not only look good and work well. I also had to pay for any screw ups I made to get things to look good and work well.
If its of any interest, a bunch of new train games arrived on Impulse today. The info on some of the games indicate you can choose to be the driver. If you are not playing competively, this game might give you a more "in character" experience.
Click the link to read more:http://www.impulsedriven.com/news/1263_Aurans_Trains_Series_Comes_to_Impulse
I did some looking into the new games myself. I found these videos on the company's website.
http://www.n3vrf41l.com/trainz_simulator_2009_world_builder.php?PID=179
You should get the demo. As has been mentioned, it is less complicated than Railroad Tycoon 3. If you want a more casual game with less depth, go for it. If you want the most detailed simulation, I would dig up a copy of RT3.
Thanks for all the input folks. I'll most likely be going with this game soon as casual play is more fun for me with this type of game.
I also liked this game, I don't know if I can run it on Win7, but it worked very well on XP.
*confused*
From Impulse store:
That's one of the reasons for my post: I was wondering if anyone has had success with running the game in Windows Vista. It looks like people have been able to run it either by using the flag I mentioned or without it.
Word of warning.. when Impulse first came out, it would refuse to download something that was labeled as incompatible with your current OS. Hopefully that has changed, but I would still advise you to either email support and ask, or join #stardock on IRC and ask there, if it would allow the download.
I remember when Impulse was in testing it would show Etherlords II as incompatible and wouldn't let me download it, but then I got it from SDC and it worked, and after I pointed that out they flipped the switch for Vista-compatible and it would download.
Again, no idea if that's how it is now but I figure better safe than sorry.
If I recall correctly, this game devolves pretty quickly in the multiplayer arena towards the end of the game. Almost unplayable lag, well I am calling it lag but i don't think that is what it is though.
I run Railroads on a 64 bit Vista without having to do anything as far as I remember, but it was some time ago... The game is very very very easy but it's nice (although Transport Tycoon continues to be a masterpiece without anything coming close ).
No idea about the multiplayer
I would recommend Railroad Tycoon 3. On hard it can be difficult, much bigger area (Whole US if wanted), and new companies can spring up.
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