The game that set the standard
The objective of the game is to build and manage a railroad company for 100 years. In this period the player can lay tracks, build stations buy and schedule trains and if desired the individual movements and make up of the train. Trains can carry mail, passengers, oil, wood and about 10 different goods depending on the progression of the game for which the company will be paid When delivered to a station that has a demand for those goods. A station will always have a demand for passengers and mail, the size of the town determines the volume of passengers and mail offered.
The manager also has to keep an eye on the state of his trains, old trains brake down frequently and new engines come on the market. The supply and demand of the station changes as new industries take the place of old ones. Stations can be upgraded from a simple station to a terminal and can have optional additions build with maintenance shop,restaurants, a post office and a selection of facilities to store different goods. These either add revenue to the delivered cargo or lessen the penalty for delayed goods.
The player can influence the demand for certain goods by building factories that can transform the raw materials into goods that are needed elsewhere, this can be very expensive but offers the player the challenge to build a complete supply chain for a certain product. The railroad company gets part of the profit the factory it owns. Provided enough raw materials were supplied.
Besides managing of the operational side of the company, the player can also buy and sell stock of their own and other railroad companies in the game thus sharing in the profits (or losses). When the player owns a majority of the stock he takes over the company by offering a higher stock price for the remaining stock, if the bid is accepted the railroad and all of its assets becomes part of your railroad empire. But this also means other companies can take over your railroad by buying the majority of your stock.
The graphics are nothing special, the top down view is blocky and crude but the game play makes up for it. With a full set of stations and trains (32 is the max for both) it challenges the player. With schedules to monitor, investments to make the pressure to make a profit before the next audit by the accountant is due.
With Capitalism still 5 years away Railroad tycoon is pretty in depth for an early business strategy game. .
Having said that, the game also has some downsides.
The early stages pretty much decide the rest of the game. Transporting passengers in 1835 brings huge profits, sometimes as much as one million per run. This makes the stock rise disproportionally, when the player buys most of his stock early in the game he becomes sole owner of the company and doesn't have to worry about the opinions of his stockholders if you don't buy out the stock it becomes too expensive to buy, leaving you wide open for a hostile take over.
Passengers and mail are the only two commodities that actually make a lot of money, the rest of the goods become a burden after a while. They have to be transported but the margins are too low to generate any serious profits, the only reason to include the other commodities (in my opinion) is the challenge of making a fully working supply chain for a number of goods.
The game has no sound to speak off. Just some soundbites every now and then and the most annoying soundtrack ever heard in gaming history, I still remember it until this day.
All in all this is the game that set the standard, for both the rest of the railroad tycoon series and other economy based strategy games. I personally think this should be in the hall of fame. Sid Meyer put the original game on his website (http://www.2kgames.com/railroads/railroads.html) as a free download so have a look and play it for a few hours.