This was a great game when released, but now it's showing its age. It's satisfyingly challenging, especially on the higher difficulty settings.

It's fun laying out your railway and you get a good sense of getting better at the game the more you play it, as you get involved with the more advanced functions, such as personal wealth and the stock market. The differing goals on each level, the changing emphasis depending on the year and the big shift between difficulty levels are easily enough to hold your interest over the long-term. While there's some luck involved, particularly with the economy, success is mostly a case of skill and planning. The economic model is good enough, if not spectacular.

On the downside, the user interface looks and feels like it was designed in 1998 (as it was). It can be hard finding some of the more important functions (or even the existence of them in some cases). I would recommend at least scanning through the manual.

The graphics are perfectly functional - as an isometric rather than a 3D game, they've aged better than most of this vintage. The intra-level cutscenes set the scene for the level quite well. I enjoyed the bluegrass music, even though I'm not a fan of the genre - it fits the pace of the game exactly.

As in common with many games in this genre, there's a "tipping point" at each level where you're sure that you'll be successful. The game has ten speed levels and this comes in very handy at that point.

If you're having trouble deciding, "Railroad Tycoon 3" is definitely the better game, particularly the economic model and user interface. However this can be difficult to get running on modern systems. "Railroads!" is almost a different kind of game, much easier and less in-depth - I didn't like it.

If you like management sims, you should get a lot of enjoyment out of this, particularly as it's so cheap. If you're not sure, or haven't played that style of game much, you'll probably be better off buying something more modern.

This old game is.. just perfecly made... just wish had sources to make it updated to todays computers (Multiprocessing, dirextx). While my wish is not coming true, I just enjoy playing this game.

$5? You wont go wrong buying this! I've been playig since it was originaly released way back in 1998, I belive this is the greatest stratagy/train game (board or PC) ever. The graphics arn't REAL bad, I sure wish they would redo it with improved 1920 x 1080 high resalution graphics, those old trains would really look great! As it is though, they still look ok imo. But if you can get past the grapics, you will not be disapointed. Nice atmosphere too.

10/10 as it sits.

Windows 8 with intel i5 and gforce gpu. Works great!

Yes!!!


Works like a charm on Windows 10. My favorite game of all time finally works again.

Railroad Tycoon 2 is in my opinion the best railroad company simulator there ever was.
It is reasonable in difficulty, graphics did not age too terribly and while it is simplified a bit, the corelations between products and different buildings spawning on the map through time give it endless replayability.
It is on par with Transport Tycoon, so If you liked that one, you will also love this game.

It is obviously very old, so approach with caution, If you never actually heard of it before.

The best railroad game i ever player.
Back to 1998 i was only about 10 years old, this game gave me so much fun.

This game is kickass! It engages your brain - memory and planning are paramount - while also having an excellent American folk soundtrack of guitars and harmonicas. Daft numbers of scenarios & campaigns, all with inherent replayability, can be boosted to astronomical proportions (https://codeload.github.com/oseparovic/RRT2Maps/zip/master << that's a metric f*ck-tonne of extra maps & scenarios). I have a thing for older games - they tended to be more demanding and more mentally stimulating than modern games - and this fully lives up to those ideals.

The game consists of competing with AI or human-controlled opponents (or not, if that's what you want) to connect trade resources on a map, against the backdrop of a potentially lethal economy and advancing technology. The right scenarios (in the zip I linked to above) will let you go for >150 years - some are even without a time limit - but you typically are presented goals - specific things to achieve by a specific time, in order to get a bronze, silver or gold medal (these goals are usually along the lines of "Connect point x to point y, move twelvety tonnes of cargo K between those two points and amass $------ personal fortune by date z").

I give you fair warning, the graphics aren't going to blow you away, not by a long shot, but the complexity, detail and the intense addictiveness of the game should tickle you if you're prone to being tickled by a game of this type.

If you are an analytical, logistics-oriented person who can coalesce money and talent around you to achieve ambitious goals, please submit your application to Railroad Tycoon 2 platinum.

I played this game when it first came out, it's still as solid a title now as it was then, and the mechanics and controls have aged well. While some of the campaign can be quite merciless, I hardly see how that's a problem (considering today's trends towards easy instant satisfaction games).

The AI on the map can leave something to be desired. They build weird routes, and often never expand beyond their two city connections for many years. However, what they lack in physical construction prowess they make up for with their brutal manipulation of the in-game stock market. Which is a peeve, because the market can be very hard to keep up on while you're trying to build a route through rugged mountain terrain, only to find that the dickhole AI has bought out your company, repossessed all of your assets that you put up to start said company, and then locked you out of your office so they can take a big dump on your desk.

But I digress. For the price of the game on the Steam marketplace, you will get a solid return on your investment. hours of fun. Hours of mind numbing track laying, split-screening market trading, and maxing out your profit by alternatively trimming routes and tuning the makeup of the various trains that ply them.

Ahh, Railroad Tycoon II. Another game resurrected from the mists of time and childhood memories of playing this game as a starry-eyed child with my train-obsessed father. Once the shine of nostalgia had worn away a little, however, I found myself able to give a more..objective review of the game. The positives? Well, the music is great, the attention to detail (particularly with the trains and historical aspects) is pretty impressive, and the gameplay, at its core, is quite addictive. As you play, you find yourself eager to expand your railway, to explore the map and find out what locomotive will be unlocked next. There's also an impressive array of scenarios/maps to play, and an amusing level editor. However, one drawback I found is that the game can be rather confusing. There are no proper tutorials, none that I could find anyway (occasional hint boxes hardly count), and it's scarily easy to run out of money, which in turn annoys your investors and nets you a game over. The interface can be rather confusing, and at the risk of sounding stupid, I don't really understand the financial side of the game (bonds and stock, etc) and how that all works. All that being said though, if you can wrap your head around the confusing mechanics, this is still a timeless classic of a game, and very enjoyable. Not the best, but definitely recommended as a cheap time-waster.

An old classic, filled with nostalgia and train steam. The game ranges from simple difficulties where you just relax, transport goods around and build new tracks, to full fledged industry operations where every dollar must be spent wisely, you can compete with the AI or other players at both the train stations and the financial markets, and the goods must be delivered from and to specific locations to get enough profit out of it.

On the wrong side, the UI would have needed way more tooltips, and the game is generally obscure in what does what and why.

Overall, a good choice if you like trains and that old game vibe.