Railroad Tycoon 3 Preview

It might not have sounded like the world's most exciting idea at first, but the Railroad Tycoon series has quietly secured the loyalty of many strategy fans over the years with its combination of in-depth economics simulation and equally deep railroad building and management. The concept was simple--build a financial empire by conquering the great wildernesses of the world by means of the iron horse--and the formula developed over time into the original 1991 game from Sid Meier and the 1998 sequel from PopTop. PopTop then went off to create Tropico, and was involved with Tropico 2, but after a long, long hiatus, the rail-building series will finally continue with Railroad Tycoon 3, a new game with a new engine and plenty of new features.

Railroad Tycoon goes 3D.

The most obvious addition that Railroad Tycoon 3 will make to the series is its brand-new 3D graphics engine, which will include the much-requested ability to create train tunnels, as well as bridges over bodies of water. The game's shimmering water will be pixel-shaded, and the game itself will feature full day-night cycles and weather effects, including fog, rain, and snow. In addition, the developer has worked tirelessly at improving the game's overall look, adding a new track set and new textures for the game's trains. Even the night sky in Railroad Tycoon 3 will look good, thanks to the game's realistically modeled starscape, mapped directly from NASA star charts (that's right--NASA star charts). When asked why PopTop decided to attempt to map the actual star chart of our known universe in its railroad strategy game, producer Frans Felsi replied, "Why not? We figured, if we could make our game [that realistic], let's go for it."

The team also decided to go for a powerful game editor that will let you create custom missions and custom maps using a landscaping tool that will let you click and drag bits of terrain to quickly and easily create mountains, valleys, and forests. The tool was already capable of putting together plausible-looking landscapes when we saw the game at this year's E3, but since then, the team has tripled the number of editing tools available to include detail-oriented options like blending texture colors (to make the transition between grasslands and beaches look more plausible for fastidious mapmakers) and quickly foresting or deforesting a certain area. You'll be able to choose whatever climate and vegetation you like, so you can create a snowy, pine-forested mountain range, a densely packed tropical jungle complete with winding rivers and palm trees, or pretty much anything else. And these terrain features will have a real impact on the way the missions are played--tall mountains will pose a real danger for low-grade trains, which will have to traverse them slowly, while forested areas can be great sites to build logging camps or even small logging communities. The editor will even let you create a series of linked scenarios, complete with triggered events that will be announced in the local newspaper. Most importantly, the editor will feature the often-requested "undo" feature, which should help meticulous mapmakers considerably.

Like the previous games in the series, Railroad Tycoon 3 will let you play as an ambitious would-be railroad magnate who will earn his or her fortune by building profitable trade routes throughout the countryside. The single-player campaign will feature historically accurate representations of venues around the world from the 19th century to the present day, including America, Europe, and Japan, and true to the game's historical setting, your railroad circuits will tend to be smaller and involve less rerouting than in previous games, to reflect the way trains have historically been run.