Railway Empire 2 Review (TwoMoons)
TLDR: If you were a fan of Railway Empire 1, then this is undoubtedly an improvement to the game. This game is undoubtedly a B+, and the items below are QOL improvements that could take it to an A+. If you're a fan of logistics games or railway games, it's one of the best, if not currently the best, out there.
I'm a Giga Chad and decided to read: There are essentially 10 issues that prevent this game from being an A+. I'll try to denote the issue, an example, and then a recommended fix. I've beaten the first 4 scenarios at max rating, and the last one at the second to last rating, and I've got 171 hours in the game. So I think i'm at a point where I hope my observations aren't seen as flippant.
1) Warehouses restricted to 6 goods: I expect this is done because the total goods on a train, if more than 6 choices, start to overload the GUI. However, you have nearly 20+ goods in the game. Even assuming that warehouses in a single city don't need to list such goods on the warehouse for storage, this makes it impossible for the 3 train station caps, each with their own warehouses, to handle all goods in the game, thereby knocking out one of the most important parts: i.e. ensuring you can have a good logistics network set up.
2) Stating that a train should not depart unless it is full: This seems like a simple no brainer and is so when you only have one train. The issue is when you have multiple trains. I.E. if I have 1 train, it'll wait at the station until it's full, then depart. Easy, and it greatly cuts down on traffic and costs per trip, especially when you're daisy chaining warehouses. The real issue is when you have more than one train. At certain times, you may have say up to 4 trains sitting at the same station, and rather than the game only filling one train at a time, it'll split the goods amongst all waiting trains. Thus, if you say "Hey, train with a caboose and refrigerator, only depart if you have 6 cars, so you're at 8 total cars." You could have 4 trains, each slowly filling up, when in reality you should have only one being filled up, and the others waiting. This further compounds inefficiency in that those trains are taking up tracks, and could be preventing other trains from up or down the daisy chain from dropping off their goods. FIX: Make it where if you have multiple trains going on the same line (with the minimum cars requirement), the train will only fill up one train at a time.
3) Cities won't accept certain goods until a population threshhold is met. I find it really hard to believe that small town won't want fresh fruits, vegetables, or milk until there's enough people. This becomes even more apparent with refined goods like cheese. All goods should be in demand, and the demand should scale with the population. Thus a small town needs fruit, veggies, milk, and cement, but not as much as a metropolis. Again, I think this was done by the developers to cut down on the number of choices a person has to make when shuttling goods, but come on, let us figure it out and reward us for good logistics.
4) Supply Towers: Supply towers across long distances make sense, but when I have two cities very close to each other....they should fill up on Oil, Water, and Sand while they're offloading. And this honestly shouldn't take more than a day. This would also clear up the unnecessary tech tree additions speeding this process up. Per the note below on buildings caps, if the developers really want to make it cost something, then just make it a new building; but I can't imagine a town that has a station not being able to handle what is simple maintenance. It's akin to a gas station not having gas...
5) Supply Towers cause a slowdown even when not used: self explanatory. When you have as short distance between cities, with the supply tower in the middle, this sometimes prevents express routes. My key example is map 5, the two cities in the top left (can't remember) can't be express lines with a sand tower due to this requirement. FIX: When a train departs, it should be able to calculate if it needs a tower, and if so, slow down, if not, then don't slow down.
6) Warehouse "shunting" needs an overhaul. So warehouse shunting is the only way to play the game and ensure every city in your domain gets to 120K. I.E. you set up your warehouses to keep pushing goods down the line. While it's obviously doable now, it makes it where when you add a single good to your network, you have to pause the game, and then go from the good all the way from city to city and say "Ok, pick up new good here, but NOT at the new city", then go to the new city and repeat. FIX: this one's a bit harder, in that I think it would require it's own new GUI, akin to the Flow of Goods GUI. Whereby you would have to click a good, then drag it from point to point in one direction (with forks) to prevent you from having to go station by station.
7) City demand needs to be tapered down: When i hit metropolises, sometimes i need dedicated lines to ensure 2 goods are maxed out, and they're running at maximum efficiency. This seems a bit much. This also essentially neuters daisy chaining warehouses, because even with 4 full lanes constantly carrying cargo, I can't meet demand. FIX: demand just needs an overhaul.
8) Trains being maintained should be taken off the tracks. By end game, metropolises with even up to 8 lines are often bogged down due to waiting on maintained trains. Any train station is going to have a roundabout to take the train off the tracks. Could you imagine going to station and seeing a train with no cars, and engineers out there? When you ask "Heya....I'm running late for my literal express ticket" you get a "yeah, we figured out how to cross the entirety of europe, but a separate roundabout and maintenance shed? Haven't figured that out chief. C'est la vie!" FIX: Remove the warehouse cap on buildings (in the point below), and add a new building that allows trains under maintenance to be removed from the track, then when there's a free spot, they're put back on. This mechanic already exists with new trains being added to lines, so I think the bones are there.
9) Stations should not be capped on buildings: I think this is a bid to make it where folks "diversify" their stations...but it's not working. If I can build something like grand central station, let me put as many buildings there as I want. People often have their first station have the first 2 lines being express, then lines 2-6 being freight. If you daisy chain warehouses, you've lost one slot already, and the other is likely going to be maintenance. "But what about putting a station between them that is only used for maintenance, in order to free up the end lines?" Yeah, you could, but you're adding a building a stop just to handle what could easily be handled at the end line. This is an unnecessary addition to logistics. FIX; Just uncap building slots.
10) Lines should presume you want the train restricted all the way down the line. I.E. if you have City A -> Warehouse - City B, and you say "hey express line, only use lines 1 and 2", then once the train goes from City A to the Warehouse, it will thereafter just arbitrarily choose whatever line it wants. This doesn't seem like a big deal, but when you have dedicated lines for express and freight, you don't want to have your express line stuck behind a slow freight train. The fix for this is creating waypoints, but they're just a hassle: I.E. City A to Waypoint 1 to Warehouse to Waypoint 2 to City B to Waypoint 3 to Warehouse to Waypoint 4 to City. FIX: Make it where a dedicated line runs through everything.