What is Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon?

If the sound of a train whistle sends thrills up your spine. Micro Prose Software has the program for you. Railroad hobbyists and simulation-game nuts alike will need a stiff cure after trying Railroad Tycoon, Long a best-selling simulation game in the DOS world. Railroad Tycoon has finally made it to the Macintosh. With the exception of a few quirks that stem from its DOS roots. Railroad Tycoon is a wonderful game that quickly becomes addictive.

As you've probably guessed, the primary action in Railroad Tycoon revolves around building trains, schedules, and stations as well as laying the miles of track needed to run the trains. The game provides an excellent simulation environment that includes natural objects such as trees and mountains as well as cities and a wide variety of geographic and time options. The environment generator creates a new situation for each simulation. New York may be a major city in one, for example, and a sleepy village in the next.

Not surprisingly, train building is one of the game's most detailed actions. You can choose engines based on historical availability and the needs of your railroad company. Detailed performance specs guide you in making wise choices. You can select from a wide variety of cars to string behind your engine, and you can tailor the performance of your trains to each particular environment. You can also choose to have the program control the trains, or you can control them manually.

Railroad Tycoon provides three computer opponents, who range from nice guy to vicious cutthroat. Like a bonafide tycoon, you can wheel and deal in railroad stocks, both your own and those of your competitors.

The game is best played in 256 colors (set the partition to 2,000K+, because the program doesn't launch with the default settings), because large-scale views use color codes to present important information. Railroad Tycoon supplies a host of wonderful sounds and great animation effects, including trains that chug along and whistle. These extras slow the action down, bui you can turn them off if the lack of speed bothers you.

Railroad Tycoon's copy protection requires that you correctly identify 1 of 16 engines in order to play (all are shown in the manual ). The documentation consists of a history of railroading and a small Mac-specific instruction booklet.

Railroad Tycoon's conversion from the DOS world to the Mac has introduced some idiosyncrasies. Many operations require mouse action as well as a keyboard command (with no menu equivalent).

Although Railroad Tycoon's interface flaws and poky performance can be annoying, they're easy to overlook in light of the game's overall brilliance. Owning the Short line and Reading was never like this. If you like good simulation games or if you're a railroad buff, Railroad Tycoon is a great way to while away a lot of time.

Bobker, Steven. (January 1992). Railroad Tycoon. MacUser. (pg. 91).

See also: Railroad Tycoon II, Railroad Tycoon II Gold, Railroad Tycoon II: The Next Millenium - Special Edition, Railroad Tycoon 3

Download Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon for Mac

Architecture

Motorola 68K

System Requirements

From Mac OS 6.0 up to Mac OS 7.6

Compatibility notes

Emulating this? It could probably run under: Basilisk II