Railway Empire 2

I thought it might be a good idea to first stress test the game with a complex network of trains and rails. Turns out it was a good idea. The game has so much potential, yet progression feels pointless after the first hour ingame, which is just sad. In terms of network logics it does a quite good job within the automatic signals mode, but still its just surface scratching and it is not really possible to tweak rail networks to a maximum efficiency, as trains are literally as stupid as they could possibly be. The manual signals mode is a horrible mess, I would not recommend messing around with this. (And yes there are many good examples, of how network signals could work out there. e.g. Sweet Transit, or Factorio) On top of all that. It is literally unplayable in Multiplayer, since once you want to use waypoints to create better working routes they all recieve the same name like 1. waypoint 0; 2. Waypoint 0 and so on and so forth... But that is not everything. As this is possibly just and optical flaw Trains start driving in endless circles across all map hunting for a waypoint they will never reach, resulting in hitting 0% HP creating unsolveable traffic jams. I spent literally hours following these trains to figure out they pass the shown waypoint multiple times without getting further. It is just frustrating and for that price I wont ever buy something like that again.

I feel like it is a decent game, however I think it ain't worth 50€. I haven't played Railway Empire 1, but I do not see a huge step up. I think removing the manual placement of the railway signs was a mistake, I think that is were I would be very invested in, to learn where to place them and to learn out of my mistakes, since it is a very challenging part of Railway Empire 1. Gameplay is pretty alright, got me into thinking at the start and then I quickly had the hang of it. A city needs it's stuff, imported by farms and other cities, the city can produce some material itself to export and evolve, if I understood it correctly. People can also be use the trains, when the train is not set to transport only materials. There is this Research and Development part, where you can research buffs, new trains etc.. The maps are pretty big, having a map of the whole USA and almost everything of europe and the ability to split the map in different sections to make a chill round feels nice to have. Yeah that's it. It is alright, but it ain't enough for me and my 50€. I definetly think that for a perfect review my playtime ain't enough, but I think the game has not enough complexity. It felt challenging at the start, but that quickly went away, which is what wasn't what I was looking for. If you want to try the game, buy it when it's on sale.

The tracklaying is not as good as Railway Empire 1. It's much harder to get the nice broad sweeping curves that I used to get. I would have been much happier if they had just upgraded the graphics and fixed the bugs (station throat crossover bugs especially) in RE1 and added the new features (eight tracked stations).

Every time I play this game, far into it, after many hours of play, trains will get hopelessly backed up at a train station and the only way to clear the traffic jam is to delete one or more trains; sometimes deleting a train line clears the traffic jam, sometimes it doesn't. Eventually uninstalled game and have no intention of playing it anymore.

Absolute Abzocke ! Das Spiel ist ein einziges Geklicke und Rein-Raus gezoome. Völlig sinnbefreit und auf keinen Fall besser als das 20 Jahre alte Railroad Tycoon 3.

This game is fun for the first few hours figuring out and setting up production lines and trading routes, but after a while it just gets tedious. The problem solving just becomes a chore, that makes you realize you're playing single player board game (I don't know many board games that are single player that is fun). The (computer) competition is a joke and just acts more like an annoyance. Lots of people have probably pointed out that its essentially the first game, just with a bit more QoL improvements. I have to agree, there is nothing new or exciting if you played the first one. I'm already halfway through the campaign and I just don't care anymore, the tasks and "missions" just aren't keeping me interested. There's a game here, but it's not really satisfying or engaging. Feels like I'm ticking off items from a grocery or chore list.

Ich bin ein großer Fan der ersten Ausgabe – ich fand das Bedürfnis, auf Details zu achten, fesselnd und befreiend. Ich bin seit 10 Stunden bei der zweiten Ausgabe. Die Bildrate ist schockierend, die Benutzeroberfläche ist langsam, die Steuerung ist nicht intuitiv. Es scheint, dass die Designer das Spiel abschwächen wollten, indem sie die Signalisierung und die Notwendigkeit, die Stationen im Laufe der Zeit zu vergrößern, eliminierten. Der Fokus liegt mehr auf den Strecken als auf den Zügen. Das Fracht-/Lagersystem hat sich ebenfalls verändert und ist gelinde gesagt verwirrend. Das Gleiche gilt für das Gleis-/Signalsystem. Der Spieler kann nun keine einzelnen Signale mehr setzen. Das Spiel setzt automatisch Signale auf Doppelgleis oder Doppelgleissegmenten.