There has long been only one option for those of us who enjoy games of economic warfare rather than guns and bombs, and that is Railroad Tycoon. However, the Tycoon series’ creator, Sid Meier, who’s no longer involved with the title, has now released his own update to the game he invented over a decade ago.

Anyone who has played the latest Railroad Tycoon game, version three, will find Railroads! instantly familiar. The same old building blocks are all there, and the aim is much the same too.

Players lay down track, build stations, and carry passengers, mail and cargo between towns and cities. As the game progresses, not only do new engines become available, but the landscape is affected by how you play – settlements that receive heavy traffic grow into towns, and then into giant cities. By the end of a game, it’s hard to imagine that it all started with a single train and a pair of station buildings.

The competitive element comes from the fact that other players are fighting over the same territory. As with Railroad Tycoon, these can be computer-generated figures, or humans playing over the internet.

The game looks great – it takes full advantage of the latest graphics technology, and that means that a reasonably fast PC is required to get the most out of it. That said, we managed to get a very playable game running on our test PC, which is around 18 months old.

Gameplay is easier than in the most recent Tycoon game – the economic aspect has been simplified, making it much easier for newcomers and younger players to pick up the game and get building. However, anyone used to shuffling goods around the map to get them in just the right place, and building the right units in the right place, might find Railroads a little too simple.

There were a few glitches in which the program stopped responding or crashed, but we put that down to this being an early version. Expect to see a downloadable fix released by the game's makers to solve this.

While Railroads! is a good attempt to make the game more playable, it could be too simple for some people. Then again, as a fun way of getting younger players interested in the basics of economics, it works well.

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