izigame.me

As I continue to grapple with my midlife crisis, I hopped into yet another train game - Railway Empire 2. If Transport Fever is a modernization of TTD, Railway Empire is the modernization of Sid Meier's Railroads!, which itself was a modernization of the better Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon series. The problem with Sid Meier's Railroads! is that it simplified a lot of the minutia that originally made Railroad Tycoon so addictive. It was a good enough game but inferior to its predecessor, Railroad Tycoon 3.

And so it is with Railway Empire 2. I remember liking the first version of the game. The track-laying mechanic is probably the best of any railway tycoon (genre) game I've played. Rather than laying tracks by segment, you're allowed to plan the entire line before committing to it, tweaking the path it takes along its length and seeing how it affects cost, speed, grade, whatever.

I eventually lost interest in the first Railway Empire after 20-30 hours but was satisfied I got my money's worth. It's been long enough that I'm not sure exactly what I liked about the first one, but Railway Empire 2 seems to be missing it. It's got that same Kalypso-style personality that I absolutely love but creating routes is now an exercise in frustration. Either it was oversimplified from the first one or the first one's scenarios didn't require very complicated routing. At any rate, the game doesn't give you the control or information you need to plan multiple interconnecting lines, especially if you make the mistake of choosing the "auto-signal" option at the outset of the campaign. But at the same time, it only seems to auto-signal parallel lines. Imagine you're driving on the interstate but every time a car hops on the on-ramp, everyone else on the interstate has to stop and wait for them to merge. Also the on-ramp is several miles long.

Conversely, the game has you manually placing certain structures and gridirons that I would consider inconsequential in a setting where even the layout of the cities is procedurally rearranged to make room for your railway as it plows through the center of town.

It's a weird mish-mash of oversimplified and overcomplicated that doesn't seem to work. Laying tracks and planning lines is reminiscent of the simple joy of playing with model trains. But then having to manage utilization of those tracks, along with individual engine maintenance, upgrades, supply and demand, stocks and bonds, and research is much more akin to a deeper management game. Unfortunately, the game doesn't surface the information or authority you need to manage these things effectively. The end result is a tangled mess of rails and confusion over how your once-beautiful railway came to this. Play Transport Fever 2 instead.