Yeah, I was a huge fan of 1830. It’s probably heresy, but I think that’s the best SimTex game of them all. I really should bust that out again too. I wrote a lot of words about it back when I was first getting into the pages of Computer Games Mag. Wayback Machine link…
@Mike_Cathcart introduced me to Steam: Rails To Riches. We played it one time at his place and it really stuck with me. Glad I finally bought the computer version. It’s great.
I think the only railroad games I liked more than 1830 were the original RRT, SSI’s early Rails West!, and Rails Across America (which needs a comeback).
Steam is not very close to the 18xx games because it lacks any sort of stockmarket. Players are railroads, they own their own track and deliver (randomly scattered) goods cubes to cities of the appropriate colour to earn points.
I was going to mention Rails Across America because I love that one too. It’s real-time though, so maybe not everyone’s cup of tea. It’s also not available legally anywhere atm I think, which is a shame.
I paid a largish (for games) sum of money to get a used copy sent to New Zealand after reading about it years after its release…then couldn’t get the damn thing to run when it finally arrived lol.
I started playing this and got to the first optional mission. For balancing, is it better to proceed with the main missions or do the optional ones? I mean, do you get ‘over powered’ by having a lot of vouchers if you do all the optional ones that come up or is it impossible to get S rank on the main ones without those extra vouchers? Thanks!
I wouldn’t worry about getting overpowered. I suspect it’s impossible to S-Rank some of the missions on your first go anyway, as you won’t have unlocked certain things that make it easier later on.
OK. How did you approach the game’s side missions? Do them right away? Did you just do each mission to beat all the way through and then worry about getting better scores, or didn’t you worry about the scores?
I haven’t replayed any missions yet, other than restarting when I’ve screwed up. I think I started off doing all the side missions, then I eased off, then I started doing them again when the things to spend vouchers in started to pile up. I wouldn’t sweat it either way. If you’re short on vouchers, do some side missions.
Played another round of Steam: Rails To Riches today. I’m still impressed with this conversion from the board game. AI is definitely not hard on the default difficulty, but plays a mostly competent game. It’s probably not as cutthroat as it needs to be but also keeps things interesting.
Did you do the mission to deliver luxury housing to a city yet? That one was pretty fun. It was region 17. I think I’m ready to take a break from it though. It’s a game I at least plan on going back to, but the missions to start to feel very similar to each other. Pretty solid game concentrating on doing one thing and does it well.
Very much so. A logistics puzzle, but a puzzle. Though the progression mechanics let you sort of brute force earlier levels when you unlock more stuff.
