strategy

First off, I haven't had a problem with crashing. One crash to desktop in twenty hours of play. The game runs very smoothly, even with 25 trains. The graphics look good. Just for your information, I'm running the game on XP pro, Geforce 4 ti 4600 and 512 DDR RAM.

I've tried Trainz and a new train game called Railroad Pioneer and Railroad Tycoon 3 is in my opinion far superior, mostly because of the financial aspect. The towns are already there. You link them up and select engines and which businesses you want to buy. Making money is fun. In RRT2 you'd get a "kaching" sound for every coin you made. I kind of miss that as they took it out in RRT3, but then your house sounded like a Vegas slots room when you had a lot of trains using the old sound effect.

Some people don't like the new auto consist device, but I don't have a problem with it. Once you get more than five trains, it can be a real chore to manage all your cars. The new method allows you to concentrate on expanding, getting loans, connecting more cities and so forth.

The trains are a lot less sluggish. It's fun to lock the camera and go for a ride. Best way to show off the impressive scenery, day, night effects, weather.

The new bridges and tunnels are nice, but I've yet to master them. Track laying is never as precise as I'd like it to be. I'm a bit mystified as to how the game decides when it's going to start a tunnel or bridge. It's not like you can tell it to dig here or there like you can with the original Rollercoaster Tycoon, but then that was a tedious, confusing set up that RCT had. RRT3 keeps things moving along and focuses on the financial model and connecting cities. Hook up those routes and make money so you can buy more industries and make even more money.

The game gives you a lot of information in the form of overlays and so forth. I'm still getting used to it, but it seems quite logical and most likely this will be one of the better strategy games to play online as there is no shooting involved and setting up your routes for maximum profitablility is going to make a big difference in how well you do. To be honest though I never played RRT2 online.

Some things that are lacking and there may be a good reason for this, namely they want the game to run well on a decent system. The things lacking are people, cars, traffic, that sort of thing. While the game looks good, it could look better with the things mentioned. RCT had tons of little people, but still the game was graphically much more primitive. It'll probably be a few years before RRT will have all the people and details you might like. For now you get numerous trains with their own sound effects, smoke, lots of industries with some working parts and so forth. The wheels on your train spin, but they're not 3d wheels.

Back in 1998, Railroad Tycoon 2 basically kicked off the tycoon-game frenzy. Now RRT3 is here and it has gone fully 3D. PopTop software is using a very powerful 3D engine with an easy-to-use camera system, and the results are beautiful. Hills and valleys look realistic, lakes and oceans look gorgeous, and the game has a new night-and-day cycle as well as weather effects. Even on lower end systems, the game effortlessly zooms from a satellite view to a close-up look at the buildings in a town.

Players of Railroad Tycoon 2 will notice that managing cargo and routes is easier than ever before. The game features a campaign as well as standalone missions and maps. And the map editor is extremely powerful and easier-to-use than ever before. PopTop also listened to fans of RRT2 and has added the most requested features: bridges and tunnels. Your trains can also carry more cars than before.

The heart of the game, of course, is building your rail network and managing your empire. Laying track requires that you pay careful attention to the terrain to avoid steep hills, as you make profits based on how fast you deliver passengers and cargo. You have dozens of engines to choose from, all rendered in exceptional detail. The economic model has been strengthened and is now much more realistic -- passengers only want to go to certain cities now, and cities need to be supplied with goods to grow and prosper.

Of course, computer opponents will compete with you for lucrative routes, and other modes of transportation like rivers will also serve cities independently of the railroads, so careful planning will be rewarded. Fortunately the game gives you lots of overlays and data views to help you manage your empire, so you can spend more time watching your trains haul logs through dense forests or speed passengers along the plains to distant cities. PopTop has always been incredibly good at taking complicated games and making them accessible for everyone, even novice players, and Railroad Tycoon 3 appears to be no exception. This is a fantastic game that is only going to get better as the series' countless fans begin creating and uploading user maps, thereby making the replay value almost infinite. If you like strategy games, you really shouldn't miss this one.

This game I guess is alittle too indepth for me. Too complicated, and when your trying to get it started, you seem to run out of montey too fast. You never know if you have people on your trains or not, you don't ever see people, and that is something I was hoping for. My most favorite tycoon game of all time is Zoo Tycoon Complete Collection...the graphics are the best, and you can see the people no problem. I think I had myself alittle too excited for RT3, and got let down. Overall, I think it was just alittle too complicated....heck, I even let my older brother play it, who happens to be a tycoon nut, and he didn't even care for it, and he's 32.
I was also hoping that is was something that my kids would enjoy playing, but it's not even something they would understand or enjoy..my son hates it. It's just too advanced for kids....and maybe even alittle for adults. I think if you are a savy business person, then you would probobly love this game, but I am not, and that is where my problem comes in....Oh well....