The presentation begins, and Daniel Dumon , Creative leader Railway Empire 2 , The unhurried story begins. He is in no hurry and does not raise his voice – sometimes he is heard almost worse than music in the game. The developer simply plays and shows reporters this strategic transport simulator sending players to the USA and Europe of the 19th century model.
Dumon perfectly understands that such games do not need a rush or loud exclamations. He knows how warmly the public received the first part. And that fans of the genre do not like to rush, creating their empires brick behind a brick. Finding the American frontier, connecting the disunited regions of Great Britain and violating the peace of the Old World.
But the time of words passes, and now the developers suggest you try out the game. And at the same time, if you want, to ride on old trains and look at the passengers. Alas, playing Railway Empire 2 happened criminally few (much less than it should if we were talking about such strategies). But still we hasten to share our impressions and tell about the game!
As required by the sequel, Railway Empire 2 has become larger and more beautiful. Or, more precisely, more realistic than the first part. Of course, at the start in the game there will be neither the beauties of Japan, nor South America, nor Australia. Exclusively the open spaces of North America, from Northern Mexico to South Canada, and old good Europe (including Great Britain).
In the version accessible to reporters, they offered to evaluate even less, a couple Kaboom Slots sister sites of regions here and the region there, but the developers note: they listened to the players and intend to make cards much more and more diverse. Now we could evaluate exclusively the north-east of the United States or the west of Mexico, but in the future we are revealed most of North America or Europe. It remains only to configure the game, choose the number of rivals and the starting city – and forward!
So far, you can have up to three rivals.
As in the first part, six characters are given to the choice: each has its own story, but, more importantly, each has its own characteristics. For example, someone can be noticeably cheaper to build paths, bridges and tunnels, and the other has a natural tendency to sabotage. And he is able to spoil life of competitors much more efficient. The author of these words did not hunt such robbery, but the developers note that players will have to invest both illegal activities and protect their own business. You can not allow villains to use your defenselessness.
In total, in Railway Empire 2, we have to manage five categories of subordinates. Here are saboteurs with already mentioned guards, and stakers, and guides with driver. Each group of employees we determine wages and set working hours. For example, if we do not want to strongly expand the staff, we just increase the shift from 8 to 12 hours. But in this case, we will encounter a decrease in the quality of work.
And in order not to finish, as well as pay attention to the obvious (still there is the same page on Steam): Yes, Railway Empire 2 is also translated into Russian. This applies to text and voice acting. Yes, sometimes what the characters say, does not coincide with the text, but these are trifles.
But before you think about employees (in general, you can not think about them until your state does not exceed 50 people), you need to decide on the infrastructure. Everything is quite simple here – even if you did not play in the first part, to learn the basics will not be difficult.
Initially, we see a map where large and not very settlements are marked. Each of them can produce (or consume) certain goods. And our task as a manager of a railway company is to ensure that everyone is full and dressed, cities and enterprises grow, and with them our capital increases. To begin with, we create a station somewhere in our starting location, and then the station where we want to lead goods or passengers and mail. For example, if a tree requires a tree, it makes sense to connect a city with a sawmill.
It is important that our stations take advantageous positions: both far from enterprises and "looking" in the right direction. An error at the planning stage can lead to many unnecessary expenses in the future, and successful placement – to tangible savings! The same applies to the position of the railway: the direct path is far from always the fastest and most comfortable, and expenses on bridges and tunnels will devour the lion's part of your budget.
So, having built the first stations, we connect them with ways (or better at once with two parallel) and create the first railway route. We assign a locomotive on this route and observe how it begins to automatically move between the specified points. And do not forget to monitor the state of technology: along the path we build serving structures, and at the stations, for example, we put a depot. If the condition of the locomotive is lowered below a certain level, it is automatically repaired.
The train from London to York needs repair. On the right above is its condition, speed and transported goods. In this case, these are passengers and mail.
But it is important, by laying the base, pay attention to the details. If we carry goods, of course, for these purposes we use the most powerful locomotive. But there are situations when it is better to start high -speed trains between large cities – they are designed to transport passengers and mail. It is important for people to get to the destination as quickly as possible, so for effective transportation it is best to immediately buy 2-3 locomotives.
At the same time, focus exclusively on high -speed transportation of people and mail will not work. Your company will not develop if the enterprises of your region will not develop. And for this to happen, you need to monitor the satisfaction of the needs of the population. First of all, people need food and basic building materials like a tree. We bring them to our station and see how the “satisfaction of demand” indicator is growing. If it is less than 40%, residents leave the city. If above 60%, the population is growing.
And this is what opens up more and more opportunities for us: business is growing – consumption is increasing – business is growing – consumption is increasing … and in parallel with all this, your railway network is expanding. As well as the fight against competitors.
Even large cities at the beginning of the game have a meager population. We sacrifice realism for the sake of intra -game logic. I wonder if it will be possible to increase the number of inhabitants to a million?..
Well, to fight competitors here can be far from only illegal methods. And you can easily do without economic "blockade". Thank you for working in a capitalist society.
Under the terms of the game, each of our company is an open joint -stock company. And we, as heads of organizations, have the right to produce bonds and trade securities of strangers. That is, if desired, we simply increase our influence on a competing company and force it to merge with our. And then, if we want, we can easily destroy all of their (already ours) infrastructure if we take up optimization. Or, having received new resources, we will provide much more cities growth and create new enterprises.
But, of course, it will be much more interesting to play not with AI, but with living players over the network. In clashes of four people.
We want – we buy someone else's promotions. We want – we release bonds and receive the required amount, then undertaking to pay the debt with interest.
Having played 2 a couple of hours in Railway Empire, the author of these lines could not be imbued with the game, as if he might be imbued if he had played a couple of dozen. And on different cards. Especially in Europe, where everything is somehow familiar, closer and dear (thanks to love for history and literature). At the same time, developers are quite well immersed in the era. And with the help of sounds, and with the help of newspapers and visual ..
Another thing is that on the release we will find only the basic version of the strategy, which is still to improve and improve. So take it immediately on the day of release? Having read a little with Railway Empire 2 (and this is important – it comes to only 3 hours of the game) and even getting pleasure from it, now I personally would answer “no” than “yes”. But if you have been bored with its additions for a long time, or you didn’t play it at all, but now you want to break into the world of railways – you will probably not agree with me.
Railway Empire 2 itself will be released on May 25 on PC, PlayStation and Xbox, and later it will appear on Nintendo Switch.