For those looking for a spiritual successor to Railroad Tycoon II look no further, as Rails & Riches is on Kickstarter.
https://d2pq0u4uni88oo.cloudfront.net/projects/1860286/video-547443-h264_high.mp4
To briefly summarize, Rails & Riches "... is a real-time 3D strategy game that puts the player in the position of a Rail Baron. The player connects cities and industries by laying track and making deals."
Continuing, players then "... select or generate a scenario, and lay track along an economical path that also meets the grade limitations of the engines you can afford. You must place and upgrade your stations to collect necessary resources. You must keep your industries fed to produce more refined goods and make your cities and industries grow."
Essentially, it is a Railroad Tycoon sequel in all but name, with the primary focus on the "... steam locomotive between the 1880’s to the 1930’s." While this may seem as a logical choice for a time period, it is quite different from Railroad Tycoon II in that Rails & Riches is only focusing on a fifty year period compared to over the the 200 year timeline featured in Railroad Tycoon II. However, Combine Games intention is to have players create and share "... regional architectural and time appropriate structures for the game without waiting for Combine Games to make it so." The developers have stated that they expect to add content from later eras, such as diesel and electronic trains, with more 'regional' content to be added from around the world.
So far, the Kickstarter for Rails & Riches has made $7,582 at the time of writing out of their goal of $800,000. The Kickstarter has just under 23 days to go.
If funded, the game is expected to be released on Steam for PC, utilizing the Unity 5 Engine. Steam Workshop will be used to share creations such as skins, scenarios and buildings.
For more information, stay tuned to Techraptor.
