Rails Across America

That song (by Blackfoot) was about heartbreak, not building railroad lines. But still seems appropriate when talking about Rails Across America, a strategic powerbroker game from Strategy First and Flying Lab Software.

Boiled down, the idea is a simple one – build a rail line, connecting as many towns within your territory as quickly as possible, trade on your prestige and power to get it done, and make yourself extremely wealthy in the process.

So how do you win? You accomplish the goals set forth in each scenario (21 of them, including a Sandbox scenario in which the economy is always booming, interest rates are low, and players can explore different ways to get prestige points without using influence or worrying about the economy). Basically, you purchase railheads, lay track between them, hope and pray that people will want to take that train between Hartford and Boston, and along the way you will hope that you get the right influence cards and make money.

This is quite a clever game. The overall look of it may not be to everyone’s liking, but chances are if you are into strategy games, and would sacrifice some graphical elements for great gameplay, you will enjoy this program.

Think of the graphical elements as a simple overlay of the country at stake (Canada and Mexico are also viable playgrounds for this game) with tiny box-like cities and animated miniature trains running between them. The interface elements are very well designed, and give the game its character.

The program has terrific sound effects, a full options menu which will allow you to set the audio elements to your liking, as well as starting parameters for each game. Set the frequency of hostile takeovers (attacks), beginning and ending years, and how much money you have to start with. Then leap in.

The tutorial explains the basics of the game well. If you take the tutorial, you will begin in New York in 1870. The first thing you do is lay track to Philadelphia. While you see the gravel being laid, and the track constructed, you set up the engines you will use to haul freight and passengers. Each engine costs money, and some may be better at doing one as opposed to the the other. Once your engines are in place, and the track has been completed, you will hear that toot of the engine and see tiny trains running back and forth between your cities.

Politics enter the fray, and as you are progressing in the game, you will see cards appearing and disappearing along the top portion. These are your influence cards. You can play these cards (think of it almost like laying down a trump in a card game) to help control, get a leg up or wipe out your opposition – which can either be a computer foe, or a human in the multiplayer game.

In the forward to the game, Paul Canniff and Russell Williams, game designers for Flying Lab, stated that one of their goals was to create a game that didn’t take forever to play out yet still embraced the depth of the cerebral strategy battle of the best of RTS games. They seemed to have done just that. The wild cards provide enough random activity to allow a player who is behind to suddenly surge forward, while well-thought out track laying strategies, and a little luck with the economy will give the player who is thinking ahead a great opportunity to run away with the game.

Rails Across America entreats players to use graft, politics, or backstabbing to accomplish the goals of uniting the country via the railroad. It is a highly cerebral venture.

This game is rated for Everyone. An update (to version 1.0.0.3) is available for this program.

Install: Easy
The program only asks for 100 megs of hard-drive space, and goes on quickly.

Gameplay: 8.5
Once you enter a scenario, time flies past. You have to move quickly, make decisions fast, and have a game plan in mind before entering. Adaptability is a great asset, as is having a bit of a ruthless attitude.

Graphics: 7
The overall graphical elements are not the best, though the player interface is well done, and the little animated trains are sort of fun to watch.

Sound: 8
The cacophony of train sounds permeates this game, and they are rendered with precision. The overall sound quality of this program is very good.

Difficulty: 8.5
Rails Across America is a definite challenge. You can set the parameters of your single player game so the computer opponents don’t try to usurp your track, but if you play an open game, you had best be on your toes.

Concept: 7.5
This is definitely a different take on the economic sim style of strategy game.

Multiplayer: 7
This program is well supported for multiplayer gaming. You can play over a LAN, the Internet (with a TCP/IP address) or through the GameSpy network. You will need GameSpy Arcade to hook up through that service, and the Arcade installer can be found on the Rails disk. Playing over GameSpy is free.