Railroad Tycoon

Railroad Tycoon (1991)

Genres:Strategy, Simulator
Themes:Business
Game modes:Single player
Story:Railroad Tycoon is maybe the most famous Tycoon game. Your goal is to build a railroad empire. You have to build your railroad, improve stations, manage your bank accounts and investments. You have to get the others from business or buy their miserable companies as cheap as possible. Show them who is the real and only one Railroad Tycoon.Show more
user avatarAdded by @mgalley
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Stories about this game (6)
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You could play the whole of the USA from the beginning of railroads to the modern era. Finding the best path for your tracks was very challenging in the early years.
I never played this game. My child memory was an ad: When you retire from Civilization I, after the demographics are shown, the ad for this game is present among others, and I always wish to play it.
user avatar@Torchiestuser avatar@Torchiest
February 26, 2025
This was such an amazingly innovative game. Along with Civilization, Railroad Tycoon made Sid Meier a household name in the gaming world. It was literally the original Tycoon game! I remember the excitement of seeing the whole country spread out like a blank canvas, and planning which cities to connect to start making money. And the fun of getting high-speed trains that would break records and get cool nicknames. It felt like later games in the series over complicated things and lost some of the magic of the original, which was relatively clean and simple.
user avatar@manf0001user avatar@manf0001
February 16, 2025
As a kid I got into model railroading around the same time I discovered Railroad Tycoon, so for me I could work on railroading in multiple ways and have a fun experience. Also helped a bit with geography.
I found a bug where, if you lost enough money fast enough, your cash would roll around to a very large positive balance. Not sure if that was specific to my processor or not. I found it in one other game too--not Microprose or related in any way.
user avatar@MrToaduser avatar@MrToad
April 27, 2025
The original, and still my favorite version. Less restricted and less complicated than the modern remake, it held my interest long after the later, prettier version left me bored. Building the railroads across vast stretches of North America, or the smaller region of the UK or Europe, was easy to do, but challenging to do well. My kids learned numbers and set theory from helping me build trains when they were very young, but that's not the reason I would like to have this back - it was the locomotives more than anything, within a simple and enjoyable game that doesn't get bogged down in modern complications.
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