As mentioned last week, Railway Empire is a pretty fun business management game. It’s not perfect, but I found it to be enjoyable. I also mentioned that there is a lot of Railway Empire DLC. So many pieces of DLC in fact, that if you own them all (like me) then you end up with a hefty amount of content. As each DLC adds 1 to 3 scenarios, alongside some achievements and new trains, wrapping the game takes a long time. I’ve put more than 150 hours into the game, and I still haven’t managed to get all the achievements for example. Part of this is because the scenarios can be challenging, especially when aiming for a President rating. Another part is that each DLC requires you to complete a 100 year sandbox game. Which takes a while.

With that out of the way, let’s begin looking at the various DLCs. The first DLC released was the Mexico DLC, which adds 1 scenario and 2 trains. It’s a very modest scenario in terms of content, although it does have two different “paths” that can be completed. Once you’ve done the first few tasks, you can side with one of two quest givers, and that then impacts the rest of the scenario. Generally it’s not too difficult and is moderately entertaining. This DLC also includes a new sandbox map, and the ability to play maps in night mode.

Following the Mexico DLC, we head to the other part of North America that has hitherto been missing. Namely Canada, with “The Great Lakes” DLC. Unfortunately this one kind of sucks, with just 1 scenario that’s a bit of a chore to play. It did add Warehouses to the game via a free update, which are useful and let you store excess goods. Aside from that though, if you pay for the scenario then you’ll encounter the new weather system. Which basically means that in the winter months, your trains move extremely slowly. It’s aboot as fun as it sounds. You do also get a new sandbox map and two new trains.

Almost as a form of making up for the Canada DLC, we have the “Crossing the Andes” pack next. Which contains three scenarios. It also has 2 new trains, a night-mode and a new sandbox map. The scenarios themselves are decent I would say, essentially it’s the same map every time with 3 players. Each scenario has you playing as one of these players, while the other 2 are competitors. The map is cordoned off for a while, so that you can build up your railway. Although you’ll need to complete various objectives of course. These scenarios have a nice build up of challenge, and I found the overall map to be decent.

After mucking around the America’s, the next Railway Empire DLC was for Great Britain and Ireland. This one is pretty good (hence the slightly raised price). Although I found the scenario to be extremely long. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but after Mexico and the Crossing the Andes DLCs I’d rather have more shorter scenarios. Than an extremely long one. As for the rest of the content, there’s a new sandbox map of course, alongside 10 whole trains. I think the sandbox map and fiddling with the trains is arguably where the meat of this one lies.

Following the UK DLC, we got the Germany DLC. This one isn’t bad, with one scenario that re-uses an idea from the Mexico DLC. Namely that the scenario splits into two paths, after a certain point, adding replayability. Unfortunately it adds a new feature, that sucks. This new feature is that the map is split into regions. That need to be unlocked, with fat stacks of Deutschmarks. The mission is both quite easy because your competitors are stuck in one region. Whilst also being a bit sluggish as expansion requires large upfront investments. Alongside the new scenario and sandbox map, there are also 10 new trains.

The next Railway Empire DLC was for France. The France DLC is basically a repeat of the German DLC, with two paths through the scenario. Alongside the same lousy region locking system. Although unlocking regions requires a bit less money. The mission is therefore another fairly easy one, with some replayability. You also get 10 new trains, the new sandbox map and a new piece of music. Which I haven’t mentioned for the others, but every DLC comes with a new menu screen and a new piece of music.

After the France DLC, we got the Northern Europe DLC. This one has a single scenario, that kind of sucks. Much like Canada you have the thrilling weather system that just makes the trains go slow in winter. As a bonus, the scenario also starts to veer into the tediously long area. The thrilling regions system also returns again. Oh and you only get 3 new trains this time. In conclusion then, the scenario isn’t good and it combines two of the worst DLC mechanics.

We then suddenly got sent to Australia for the Down Under DLC. This one doesn’t have the same lousy mechanics. Yet it adds a new mechanic that I personally don’t care for. So it’s swings and roundabouts. Essentially you can “choose” what settlements to grow. To do this, you need to ship a certain amount of basic materials to each settlement. These settlements then become normal towns. Various resources are only unlocked if there’s a town nearby though. In theory this lets you “grow” your rail network, as your needs change. The reality is that everything just takes a long time, in an already long scenario. With the cherry on top being a busted rating system for this mission. If you want the best rating, you need to disable the pause mode otherwise it’s literally impossible. Finally there’s a new sandbox map and 3 new trains.

Rounding out the Railway Empire DLC is the Japan DLC pack. This one has two scenarios, and is actually fun. The gimmick this time is that you can adjust passenger routes. Essentially each route gets a passenger satisfaction score. You can tweak this score by changing the train, staff, ticket price and building some new buildings in each town. Such as hotels that increase passenger satisfaction for trains stopping in that town. The scenarios themselves are decently enjoyable, if a bit easy. Even though the region locking mechanic returns. You also get 8 new trains and 3 maps (one is just a combination of the other two).

In conclusion then, most of the Railway Empire DLC is decent. I’d say the Great Lakes and Northern Europe packs are the weakest of the two. Most of the rest are pretty fun, with the Japan and Crossing the Andes packs offering the most content. The rest are somewhere in the middle, I think Mexico and France are stronger than Germany. With Germany being better than the UK and both being less tedious than the Australian one. Ultimately most of them are fairly basic with a scenario, new map and offer a couple hours of content. With 9 different packs though there’s a lot of combined content. Especially for the completionists. None of them are as good as the base game, but if you enjoyed the base game then this is a nice way to get something new to do.

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Railway Empire has ended up as one of my most played games on Steam, largely due to it’s prolific amount of DLC. Yet in spite of the excessive amount of playtime the DLC has added, the base game itself is certainly no slouch. Not only is there a full campaign with multiple missions that serves as a glorified tutorial of the game’s systems, but there are also more than a dozen scenarios. These scenarios are quite similar to the campaign missions. While they have a bit less polish, they add a good bit of extra challenge.

As for the game itself, Railway Empire is a fun little railroad management business simulator. Par for the course, it revolves around connecting cities and businesses. You take the goods that towns and factories need, then ship them into towns. Once the towns are stocked, they’ll gradually grow and develop businesses. These businesses then produce products that other towns will need. At the same time, you’re connecting the cities up and so you can start to transport larger and larger amounts of goods. Of course as you make a profit on every train-car of cargo (or passengers) shipped, your business grows. Which funds the placement of new tracks, the purchasing of new trains and thus the creation of new routes.

The twist with the gameplay mentioned above, is that you’ll need to achieve certain objectives. So you might need to grow a city to a certain size, by a certain date. Or ship so many of a certain good, to a certain destination. This sounds straightforward, but because you’ll have multiple goals at the same time, budget limitations play a role. As such you can often find yourself struggling to achieve these objectives. Especially as the game punishes you, if you aren’t able to achieve them in half the time. This punishment occurs through a reduction of the final score.

Once you’ve got through all of those objectives across the campaign and scenarios, you can enjoy the sandbox mode. Which lets you play through any of the maps from the previous modes, during any time period from 1830 through to 1930 that you choose. Each time period has it’s own trains and some technologies, although these technologies are largely the same. This is because the technologies add +5% engine power, or +8% more passengers waiting in stations and so on.

As for the other aspects of Railway Empire, they’re also pretty good. You can ride along any train in “real-time”, and even blow the horn. The graphics are pretty good, although I’d recommend limiting the frame-rate in the options. Otherwise my PC tended to try and throttle itself aiming for hundreds of frames per second. The music is also period appropriate and fine, although it does repeat itself a bit much. Finally there are some other things to manage. You can buy businesses, construct factories and hire staff. These are good ways to make a bit of extra money once you know what you’re doing.

With all that being said, there are some quirks and niggles in Railway Empire. Firstly, the AI opponents are extremely annoying. You can’t share tracks unlike some other games, so you’ll need to construct tunnels and bridges galore to compete with them. They field an insane number of trains, while also obnoxiously over-bidding. They’re bad at growing towns, and irritating to deal with at the higher levels as they cheat. As for the trains, mass upgrades are tedious to perform especially as you keep researching new trains. The track-laying tool is good, although it can be unforgiving with angles. Plus it loves to create expensive routes, that with a modicum of tweaking become much cheaper. Finally I found that too many of the scenarios ended with me sitting on the bonds screen, trying to buyout my competitors. A lengthy process, even if your business is clearly more successful than theirs.

In conclusion then, Railroad Empire is a pretty fun little railroad management game that has a lot of content. It’s not perfect, but with good visuals and lots of tweaks to make it is an engrossing game. The rating system also gives it so much needed challenge, while aiming for the achievements will take you a while. Ultimately I’d consider it a solid game, even if I think that some maps can just take a bit too long. As such I’d recommend it to any fans of this mini-genre, although I think Sid Meier’s Railroads is a better starting point for those who are unsure.

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