Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon

Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon (or, simply, Railroad Tycoon) is a trains management and business sim created by MPS Labs. It was released by Microprose in 1990 for MS-DOS and Amiga. In 1991 it was ported to Atari ST and Macintosh.

Legendary designer Sid Meier conceived the game with Bruce Shelley. The duo would create, one year later, the famous turn-based strategy masterpiece: Sid Meier's Civilization.

In Railroad Tycoon, you are the boss of a new company during the Golden Age of Railroads to build an efficient and profitable trains network. You will have to construct stations, buy the locomotives, decide what kind of wagons attach to the trains (passengers, mail, or freight). You can also build industries to maximize profits and even invest in the stock market, a lovely touch to the game. When the technology advances, you need to update the engines and retire the old ones, keeping your network fast and efficient.

Since excellent entrepreneurs are always successful in politics, you can become president or prime minister if you bring good results.

Railroad Tycoon was considered by many the best games released in 1990. It got several 100% and five stars reviews. PC Gamer voted it the 4th best computer game ever. Three years later, a Deluxe version was released for PC only. In 2006, when the remake was released, the original title was declared freeware.