Railway Empire - (transport mogul) - Kalypso Media

If it's a video game it goes here.

Moderators: LawBeefaroni, Arcanis, $iljanus

User avatar
LordMortis
Posts: 70101
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:26 pm

Re: Railway Empire - (transport mogul) - Kalypso Media

Post by LordMortis »

Lorini wrote: Wed Feb 07, 2018 8:03 pm There is both a free mode (with tasks) and a sandbox mode (without money to worry about or tasks). I play free mode but I should probably go back to the campaign.
It seems to me the campaign is really an extended tutorial but I'm still enjoying it even though I can't seem to beat the civil war ep 4 yet.

JZ,

I haven't tried the sandbox or free modes but I don't think the maps are big enough and the time limits too short (they make you stick to a single era) to make either a great long term game.

I am[/] hoping that by giving them my $50, something I rarely do, that I am on the encouraging end to get some DLC made. I'm liking a lot about the game. I'd like more though in all honesty, there may be more. Commerce may get more complex once I finish the campaign and see what else the game has to offer.
User avatar
LordMortis
Posts: 70101
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:26 pm

Re: Railway Empire - (transport mogul) - Kalypso Media

Post by LordMortis »

If they live up to their promise. <3

https://steamcommunity.com/app/503940
Railway Empire - North American map and more
February 2 - Unerde


Greetings tycoons!

It’s been a whole week since the hugely successful launch of Railway Empire, and while the game has received very positive reviews from the media and consumers alike, we want to further improve on this foundation with all the great feedback we have received so far, along with some things that we were already working on.

With that in mind, we are happy to announce that we are currently working on the following:

Available in ‘free mode’, we will introduce one huge North American map covering West to East coast, including a tech-tree covering all the tech innovations from almost 100 years of the steam revolution.
A roadmap of further free updates, which will include new content, enhanced AI, bug fixes and other general improvements inspired directly by player feedback.


Players will see these new updates begin to roll out over the next couple of months, and in the meantime we will continue to collect your feedback and reports, working to implement them wherever possible.
Stay tuned for more details coming soon!
A lot of what I wanted. Do it well!
User avatar
LordMortis
Posts: 70101
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:26 pm

Re: Railway Empire - (transport mogul) - Kalypso Media

Post by LordMortis »

And now the game freezes on every load, a problem that seems to be ubiquitous. Comes out of nowhere and your done.

I guess I wait for a patch... And this is why I hate to pay full price.
User avatar
LordMortis
Posts: 70101
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:26 pm

Re: Railway Empire - (transport mogul) - Kalypso Media

Post by LordMortis »

The good news is they are responsive for trying to diagnose the problem. Of course, so were the Clockwork Empire group...

https://steamcommunity.com/app/503940/d ... 410/?ctp=2

Still I have high hopes. I'm still in the honeymoon phase of discovering the game, like learning when warehouses are good and when to grow towns and when to have feeder towns. Last night I learned taught myself how to make a town with two depots and 8 tracks of connections and I wanted to test its efficiency. Of course that's right when the game froze and then all of the autosaves froze when zooming out.
User avatar
Reemul
Posts: 2744
Joined: Wed Oct 13, 2004 4:39 pm

Re: Railway Empire - (transport mogul) - Kalypso Media

Post by Reemul »

LordMortis wrote: Mon Feb 12, 2018 10:24 am The good news is they are responsive for trying to diagnose the problem. Of course, so were the Clockwork Empire group...
That's a ridiculous post. Clockwork Empire was pretty much abandoned before release and was obvious to all what was going to happen and did happen. This game is being well supported and has additional content coming. Maybe you should have added Duke Nukem Forever to it as well eh.. Sure it's shitty a game you like has introduced a problem that annoys you but come on.....
User avatar
LordMortis
Posts: 70101
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:26 pm

Re: Railway Empire - (transport mogul) - Kalypso Media

Post by LordMortis »

Reemul wrote: Mon Feb 12, 2018 12:53 pm
LordMortis wrote: Mon Feb 12, 2018 10:24 am The good news is they are responsive for trying to diagnose the problem. Of course, so were the Clockwork Empire group...
That's a ridiculous post. Clockwork Empire was pretty much abandoned before release and was obvious to all what was going to happen and did happen. This game is being well supported and has additional content coming. Maybe you should have added Duke Nukem Forever to it as well eh.. Sure it's shitty a game you like has introduced a problem that annoys you but come on.....

It's a game stopper that has not been resolved to this point. I am happy they are responsive to my request for help. There are requests like this all over the Internet. We'll see how long it takes to turn around. For me the game is now literally unplayable until the patch it. Likely I could uninstall the game reinstall it and then play it until it breaks again. That is not fun for me. I was enjoying the game right up to moment it became unplayable. From the look of it, the bug has been reported a lot since release. You may think it ridiculous. I think of it $50 unfulfilled at this point. That changes if they fix the problem in a week. Though I'd imagine if I were one of the people who have had the problems for two weeks already, I'd be of a different mindset.

The difference between RE and CE is I still have high hopes for RE. I will never buy anything related to CE empire development again.
User avatar
Lorini
Posts: 8282
Joined: Wed Oct 13, 2004 8:52 am
Location: Santa Clarita, California

Re: Railway Empire - (transport mogul) - Kalypso Media

Post by Lorini »

I have an update queued but there's no explanation of what it does. Try it and see if it fixes your issue and then let us know :)
Black Lives Matter
User avatar
LordMortis
Posts: 70101
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:26 pm

Re: Railway Empire - (transport mogul) - Kalypso Media

Post by LordMortis »

Lorini wrote: Mon Feb 12, 2018 3:40 pm I have an update queued but there's no explanation of what it does. Try it and see if it fixes your issue and then let us know :)

Oh that would be nice. Here's to hoping!

Edit:

Nope no new updates for me. All of the problems I read about seem to be in free mode so maybe I'll try out the scenarios while I wait for a patch.
User avatar
LordMortis
Posts: 70101
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:26 pm

Re: Railway Empire - (transport mogul) - Kalypso Media

Post by LordMortis »

New patch out today. It doesn't say it fixed my bug but so far it fixed my bug.
User avatar
LordMortis
Posts: 70101
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:26 pm

Re: Railway Empire - (transport mogul) - Kalypso Media

Post by LordMortis »

This game is hard. I can't even imaging playing the way you are supposed to. I play to pause at will. This is not a default and it hurts your "score" but I don't enjoy RTSes any more and haven't for a very long time. That said, as long you don't play where your trains can pass through each other (where is the fun in that?) organizing and building a rail network their requirements in the timeframe alotted is crazy difficult... I like it...

There still aren't any wikis or good strategy guides on line and I'm OK with that. I'm enjoying most of the learning curve. I tried watching a few people's tutorials on doing things the right way and as it turns out there aren't too many really smart people posting videos. My switch system above is still the best I've seen, though I'm not sure if it is best if you are linking together two stations in the same city. I haven't worked out the logistics for that yet. To date, I'm finding it better to keep the stations separated. Congestion can get pretty hectic with 8 linked connections. Moving to 16 would probably be a nightmare.

I discovered that staff personalites are even more complex than I thought. I assumed if staff had a trait that they would always like one specific trait and dislike another. That is not the case. I don't know how unique the trait preferences are. If each trait has a matrix of likes and dislikes or if it's relatively random. That's where a wiki or a book or something would come in handy. There's too many UI things unexplained.

The other thing that sticks in my craw is that information screens. They don't tell you much and they reset every time you start a new game. I think I can turn them off and if I can I will.

I thought I was going to be disappointed at the length of the games but as it turns out 20 years in a specific timeframe is plenty. By the time you are finishing an era, if you haven't failed you are totally cleaning up the board.

Anyhoo, after the patch fixed my crashes, I'm still playing and enjoying myself again. It's everything I wanted out of RRT2 successor, but it scratches the itch better than any other tycoon game I've since RRT2, with the possible exception of Roller-coaster Tycoon (2?) (at the time).
User avatar
LordMortis
Posts: 70101
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:26 pm

Re: Railway Empire - (transport mogul) - Kalypso Media

Post by LordMortis »

Still no Wiki

but this is something I did not know
ou can also set Waypoints to direct a train to use a particular section of track. Just click on the piece of track you want it to use, making sure to put it in the right order among the Station stops you plan. You can use this, for example, to use a bypass or siding rather than automatically following the shortest route (which the game chooses by default.) This can be valuable to keep trains off of precious Platforms that are used for loading/unloading.
will be testing this.
User avatar
LordMortis
Posts: 70101
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:26 pm

Re: Railway Empire - (transport mogul) - Kalypso Media

Post by LordMortis »

About a month in and I'm still hooked and still learning track optimization. The worst bottle necks are always at the stations which eventually need to two stations and a lot traffic per major city, while you still have a hard time meeting objective, much less building a proper landscape.

After I finally finish my first free mode, I'll probably take lessons learned back to the campaign and finally beat episode 4/the civil war.

I'm still working on the past placement for water towers. I have been setting up switches directly out of the stations with the water towers about 17 carlengths out but I'm finding that towers aren't acting as signals, like tutorials suggest they do and so the trains waiting at a signal to come in to station have to wait 34 carlengths in addition to however far I normally place the signal. (probably another 20 carlengthes. Maybe more) The net is delay I don't like. I either need to move water towers out past the first signal set or I need to push them right up against the station. I haven't worked out which is better.

I'm thinking my next evolution in optimization will be learning to effectively use the warehouse.

I'm thinking a huge city would best be served by two or more direct warehouses in immediate proximity to the city and then have 4 dedicated track on the other side to their feeder stations. Then I would use the two central track as dedicate express lines.



Something like

4 sets of two one way rails >< Watertower >< Warehouse with repair station>>>>>><<<<<
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx watertower Large Station with repair station.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
4 sets of two one way rails >< Watertower >< Warehouse with repair station>>>>>><<<<<

That allows for 8 dedicated resources to come in and short track for picking up what's needed most by 2 single trains and single way in and out for express and manufactured goods from other cities.

Anyhow a month in and I'm not bored. I hate managing staff. I hope they throw out the UI and make a sortable drag and stop UI for staff where you can see the staff, multiple trains, all their personalities and all of their likes and dislikes at a glance.

I also learned there are only two circuits for staff likes and dislike but there are several ways to get four bonuses, which can be better than and the circuits. For instance, on a rural route in a non circuit personality flow, you have the conductor and one other staff handing a bonus to the security officer who then give a bonus to either they stoker or engineer and then whichever one receive the bonus give their bonus to the other.

I'm still looking forward to a wiki.


I don't think I've mentioned it before but I've seen several "tutorials" on efficient track design and none has detailed my solution for entering stations and they've all seen worse bottle necks. If the station is on the bottom, it's just a question of, should my watertower be on the top or bottom. I've also taken to making train circuits that use two inside track loops and then have the outside loops pick up at rural stations. The big drawback there is when a train breaks down on the inner loop, they end up stacking up. While I love the flow with almost no cross over switch traffic, I will probably ultimately reject the one way loops because of the breakdown and train stacking, though maybe I will try again setting trains to fill. *shrug*

^ v ^ v
\ I I /
I I I I
Watertower
I\I I/I
I I/I I
I I\I I
I/I I\I
User avatar
LordMortis
Posts: 70101
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:26 pm

Re: Railway Empire - (transport mogul) - Kalypso Media

Post by LordMortis »

Put down into the breach and picked this back up

http://steamcommunity.com/games/503940/ ... 9465083780

I see there is a beta patch out with all of North America.

Enlarge Image

Finished the campaign. It was much easier after playing around with the scenarios for a while.

Finished a free mode scenario and am now playing my first regular scenario. The RMG doesn't do anything for me, I don't think but the better AI and RR Xings are something I look forward to.

I'm hoping for DLC somewhere down the line with a more complex and growing economy/market and for a UI improvement when it comes to staff management, which one truly bad aspect of the game beyond the poor AI system, which is in the promises note to fix.

I'm still not using the warehouse well probably because of time constraints and goals. The game is difficult to design long term for when you always have short term goals to work on.

So on and off and on and off after a month, I'm pretty happy with my $50 spent and so far they seem like they will support the game for the foreseeable future.
User avatar
LordMortis
Posts: 70101
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:26 pm

Re: Railway Empire - (transport mogul) - Kalypso Media

Post by LordMortis »

Set down for the moment but it looks like I just grabbed 1+ gig update.... No mention on Steam what it is.
User avatar
KDH
Posts: 1309
Joined: Sat Jun 04, 2005 2:04 pm
Location: California

Re: Railway Empire - (transport mogul) - Kalypso Media

Post by KDH »

.
Ain't nobody got time for that
.
User avatar
LordMortis
Posts: 70101
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:26 pm

Re: Railway Empire - (transport mogul) - Kalypso Media

Post by LordMortis »

I clicked the news button, that was no there. Any yet replies say its been there hours. :/
User avatar
KDH
Posts: 1309
Joined: Sat Jun 04, 2005 2:04 pm
Location: California

Re: Railway Empire - (transport mogul) - Kalypso Media

Post by KDH »

LordMortis wrote: Mon Mar 26, 2018 8:10 pm I clicked the news button, that was no there. Any yet replies say its been there hours. :/

I have my steam front page set to show items that have been updated .. not sure if that's an Enhanced Steam feature or standard option (too lazy at the mo') .. and the front page showed RE getting an upgrade.

I would imagine if you have RE set as "Follow" even though you own it, news of it will show up in your activity feed, separate from the news feed


The news feed is just Steam thumping their chest about marking something down 10%
.
Ain't nobody got time for that
.
User avatar
KDH
Posts: 1309
Joined: Sat Jun 04, 2005 2:04 pm
Location: California

Re: Railway Empire - (transport mogul) - Kalypso Media

Post by KDH »

.
... Enhanced AI and X-crossings hitting the Public Test Branch with the new Update 1.4
.
Tycoons!
We have recently updated our Public Test Branch with Update 1.4.
Among other things, Update 1.4 features following:

Features:

The AI opponents are now able to use the complex track system.
The AI can now make use of signals and multi-track, when the player selects complex track building mode in the game settings.
In complex mode, the AI usually builds two parallel tracks, one for each direction. They also use signals and crossings.
Players can select the track-system for the AI in the game settings.
Players and AI can build x-crossings.


For more details, please have a look into our Public Test Branch Community Hub, to be found here:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/503940/d ... 870840112/
.
Ain't nobody got time for that
.
User avatar
LordMortis
Posts: 70101
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:26 pm

Re: Railway Empire - (transport mogul) - Kalypso Media

Post by LordMortis »

Nice. the icon is still on my desktop. I have every intention of getting back to this and drastic AI changes to make them play a similar game to what I'm playing have been very much needed to improve the experience. I still enjoyed the game but it became a different kind of enjoyment based on an AI competing at a different game than I was playing. That was always.... weird.
User avatar
LordMortis
Posts: 70101
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:26 pm

Re: Railway Empire - (transport mogul) - Kalypso Media

Post by LordMortis »

Decided to download the beta for AI and complex rail networks as my next game. And now to wait for my 2 up 2 down connection to synch with Steam and pull in a gig sized patch at slower than 2 up 2 down. Aw well, no game for me this morning.
User avatar
jztemple2
Posts: 11544
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2009 7:52 am
Location: Brevard County, Florida, USA

Re: Railway Empire - (transport mogul) - Kalypso Media

Post by jztemple2 »

I'm still looking for something new to play. I'm currently playing Rolling Line which I don't see that as a long term commitment, but I've got a bit of a railway itch now :D . I still have Transport Fever 2 installed but then I realized I never picked up Railway Empire. I see that now there is a Complete Collection bundle which for ten bucks more than the regular price on the basic game will throw in the soundtrack and eight expansion DLC. Have they patched it enough to make it worthwhile to play?
My father said that anything is interesting if you bother to read about it - Michael C. Harrold
User avatar
LordMortis
Posts: 70101
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:26 pm

Re: Railway Empire - (transport mogul) - Kalypso Media

Post by LordMortis »

I played a bit recently. The game is the same as it ever was. What it does well, it does really well. Laying tracks and managing trains. Where it's always failed it continues to fail. The other players are uninteresting and the market is there so they can say the market is there. It has nothing.

If you grab games indiscriminately on Epic, the base game was free not that long ago. It's all you need. All the expansions do is add more territory and different looking commodities, etc... They add nothing really to the game unless you want to play through more scenarios with really are MotS. I'm guessing you'll set the game down before you get to the DLC scenarios.
User avatar
jztemple2
Posts: 11544
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2009 7:52 am
Location: Brevard County, Florida, USA

Re: Railway Empire - (transport mogul) - Kalypso Media

Post by jztemple2 »

Good gosh! Thanks for pointing out that it was a freebie on Epic. I own it already :roll:. Installing now :wink:
My father said that anything is interesting if you bother to read about it - Michael C. Harrold
User avatar
jztemple2
Posts: 11544
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2009 7:52 am
Location: Brevard County, Florida, USA

Re: Railway Empire - (transport mogul) - Kalypso Media

Post by jztemple2 »

And really thanks for the heads up again LordMortis. I played Railway Empire for awhile and it was meh. And then I fired up Transport Fever 2, which I hadn't played in two years, and it was more fun by miles. When I last played it there were bugs in the tutorials and I think that was what finally turned me off on it, but perhaps the bugs are fixed now. Anyway I'm giving it a new look.
My father said that anything is interesting if you bother to read about it - Michael C. Harrold
Post Reply