Sid Meier’s Railroads is Railroad Tycoon Lite. The level of enjoyment will depend on whether micromanagement and tough economic challenges is your style, or whether you just want to build a booming rail empire and watch your trains chug along.

This is the type of game that anyone can immediately jump into and begin playing, even if the player hasn’t played any previous Railroad Tycoon games before. The interface is extremely easy to understand, especially to build tracks. To lay track, players only have to click on the end of the existing track and move the mouse to the next location, then click again. Different terrains and grades are automatically accommodated, and bridges will be placed over water and steep rifts.

If players choose the Single Player mode, various scenarios are available. These scenarios are stand-alone and are not tied in with a common campaign, nor do they have to be completed in order. There are certain basic goals to be met, but each one also allows some tweaking as to randomization of cities, victory conditions and the difficulty level. The number of computer opponents can also be set, from 0 on up.

One scenario is set in the Northeast of the United States, in the beginning of the railroad era. Each scenario begins with a main city that has a depot and short section of track in front of the depot. In order to get things moving, players will need to lay some track to attach this city to another city, plant a depot in the new city, and buy an engine. Once the engine is bought, a route can be scheduled between the cities by choosing the depots in the desired order for the schedule. Cars to transport people, mail and cargo can be added to the engines. As soon as the money begins to roll in, players can then buy more track, more engines, and also buy industries and stocks.

The Northeast scenario has several goals, grouped into historical time periods. If these goals aren’t met, the scenario isn’t lost, but fewer points will be awarded. Typical goals include making a certain amount of money or connecting certain cities together by a set time.

The interface is easy and simple to use, but it is almost too simple. Some needed options are missing, such as an Undo button for the last action, a Clear button to clear off large tracts of items, and the ability to “see” all the cities on the map at once. There are also some slightly annoying things about the interface design, such as the fact that while in the “choosing a route” mode, players can’t toggle back and forth between all their engines and routes, but instead must leave, choose the desired engine, then come back to this screen. Depots can’t be deleted easily, either. These are very minor issues, but there is a more problematic issue with the choosing of routes, though, that at times can cause some trouble.

When choosing a route for a particular train, players are taken to a map that shows the available towns with depots. These towns are displayed as small circles. Players choose the towns in the order they want their trains to make stops in them. The problem arises when certain towns can’t be chosen for the route. For instance, many times I had a straight line of track between three or four towns, A-B-C-D. For some reason, I could choose a route from A-C, but not from B-C. Sometimes it would let me choose A-C or –D, then back again to B. The manual only stated that a possible reason for this could be a lack of a clear route for the train. This wasn’t the case, as this particular track was a straight, continuous line with no interruptions, sharp turns or Y breaks. There would be no visible difference between this section of track, and another identical one that would allow this type of travel. I don’t know if this problem was due to some type of bug, or if there was something about the signals at the depots failing to connect correctly with the track as laid down. The manual doesn’t say. The only solution is to delete the trains and tracks, and try again. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn’t. The forums have a few people reporting the same problems, but so far no one has suggested anything that works besides deleting track and rebuilding.

Once the main moneymaking routes for passengers and mail have been set in place, it’s time to start building the empire. New engines become available, and can be swapped out with the old ones. These engines allow for much faster travel. Existing industries can be purchased in towns, or new ones can be built. Raw materials can be shipped to towns with complementary factories to process them, or can be shipped to any town that just needs the raw materials. As towns gain these industries, they soon become bigger as their economy grows. Players can buy stocks for a certain time period. When playing against computer opponents or online multi-player, these added moneymaking options are a necessity for future success.

The single-player mode doesn’t offer much challenge even with computer opponents, but online multi-player really opens up the cutthroat world of the 1800’s robber barons. It’s every man, woman and child for him or herself, and quick thinking is necessary to keep ahead of the others economically.

Everything is gorgeous! Watching the trains move along from city to city is really cool, and all the industries and farms feature animations. The water and trees look very nice, even at low graphic settings. Some people have reported different graphical glitches in the game, but I didn’t experience any with an Nvidia GEForce 7600. I did opt to have lower video settings, though, as my system has below the minimum RAM requirements. The game ran a little slowly with less RAM, but was still fine.

There are plenty of sound effects, but the music is strangely lacking, except in certain instances. There isn’t a sound track that runs during the regular gameplay mode.

There is just something romantic about trains. I have enjoyed playing Railroads and watching my trains, it’s really fun! However, this game is very easy and doesn’t have much of a challenge to it in the scenarios. I personally would prefer a campaign mode with steeper challenges, and more micromanagement, as in Railroad Tycoon, but many other players will prefer this laid-back approach to trains and appreciate the instant gratification. I wonder if there are going to be any Christmas freebies for Railroads? I need a Christmas train!

Gameplay: 7.5
Railroads is fun, but this isn’t a late-nighter type of game. There just isn’t enough challenge to make this the type of game that invites obsession. On the other hand, this is the perfect game for a few hours of fun, and one that truly everyone in the family can enjoy. The interface could have been a little more helpful, and the routing better designed, but everything else is just right for some light entertainment.

Graphics: 8.0
The graphics are very pretty.

Sound: 7.0
The sound effects are nice, but where is the music?

Difficulty: Medium
The game is of a medium difficulty, but routing may be a problem for some.

Concept: 8.0
A nice way to bring the game of RailRoad Tycoon to everyone that just wants to lay track and watch trains.

Overall: 7.8
Railroads looks good and plays well. It is very easy to learn, but that doesn’t mean it is too easy to enjoy. While it’s not the difficult game Railroad Tycoon was, it has plenty of things to do and manage in the scenarios. Everyone loves trains, and everyone should enjoy this game, even if they are micromanagement nuts.