Sid Meier's Railroads Interview (con't)

FiringSquad: What sort of industries will the player have to control in Sid Meier's Railroads?

Dan Magaha: There are lots of industries inside the cities and resources for those industries in the outlying countryside. Some of the outlying resources are Cattle Ranches, Coal Mines, Gold Mines, Grain Elevators, Lumber Mills, Oil Wells, Sheep Farms, Dairy Farms, Swine Farms, Fisheries, and Vineyards. They supply materials to industries in the city like the Auto Factory, Food Plant, Furniture Plant, Newspaper Plant, Paper Mill, Power Plant, Refinery, Stockyard, Steel Mill, Stockyard, Textile Mill, War Factory, Chemical Plant, Hospital, Cannery, Winery, Brewery, and Fromagerie.

FiringSquad: What sort of challenges will the player have to face in building their railroad empire?

Dan Magaha: Corporate warfare for one! Every player in the game has some of their own stock when the game starts. You can freely buy and sell shares of your own stock or that of your opponent. When all of the stock for a given player is owned, there is a buyout price that is determined from the current stock price and how many shares you own of that company. If you pay that amount, you have completed a hostile takeover and you will now control all of that player’s assets. The AI will attempt to buy you out as well but that is currently the default option and can be turned off as players wish.

FiringSquad: How much customization will there be in the game in terms of train and railroad design?

Dan Magaha: Players have complete control over the appearance of their engines in the game. We refer to this unofficially as “pimp my train”. You can adjust the color and paint schemes of your fleet or individual engines and you can add logos, either historical or ones you create yourself, to the engines as well. The design of your Railroad is completely customizable in terms of where you take the track, whether you have bridges and tunnels, where you place your stations, what supplies and goods you choose to haul etc.

FiringSquad: What other features do you think are important in the game?

Dan Magaha: Multiplayer! Up to 4 players can compete in LAN or Internet games, and the multiplayer games are all “last man standing”, so you have to “buy out” your competitors to win the game. You can do all the things you do in the single-player game mode, but in MP games they are especially interesting because human players can utilize strategies AI players just can’t. For example, throughout the game you will have “auctions” you can bid on against other players. In multiplayer games we have seen a strategy where one player will try to drive the price of an auction way up to force another player to pay a lot to buy something they want, and meanwhile the other player will then swoop in and buy stock in that player, knowing they don’t have any free cash to spend to do anything about it.

We really have fun playing in multiplayer; it’s a fast-paced game mode and very competitive. I look forward to seeing what really good RTS MP players can accomplish with this game.