A great game if you want a good tycoon game, highly addictive.Easy for you grandmother and hard for you parents.
The beauty of the game is that it's easy for anyone to learn how to play, but if you want to go deeper in how the game's economy works and make a lot of money using industries, you can do that too.
Basically, it's accessible enough for your grandmother, but it is complex and deep enough for your brother the engineer, if you choose to strategize more complexly.
The games graphics are nice - you see your trains and railroads on a map - the campaign mode is basically where the game is at - you have certain goals you have to meet to beat that scenario - beat the easiest goals, you get a bronze, next hardest, silver, and hardest, gold. The best part of the game is that it feels like you are just playing against yourself, for the most part.
You actually do have to play against other tycoons who start their own railroads in addition to yours, but if you play on the default difficulty - the tycoons are horrible at managing their companies, and usually those companies go bankrupt.
Ultimately, you are competing against yourself in finding the best way to complete these goals.
What is the best train route to get certain goods from a certain town to another town to make the most money? Anyways, if you but the game, there is a tutorial, and the manual that comes with the game explains all the features of the game very well, in easy terms to understand.
If you can find it, and want a tycoon game, railroad tycoon 3 is probably the best tycoon game ever to come out.
If you're wondering, I'm sure it's better than that new Sid Meier game, Railroads.
So go get a copy.