Online multiplayer free-to-play Railroad Tycoon for mobile

[4drian]

Greetings!

Many years ago there was a well made railway tycoon game for computers, single player as far as I remember, called "Railroad Tycoon 3" developed by a company named PopTop Software. The game-play was well thought - besides the development of the railway system, it was possible to even build or buy other types of businesses that combined with the railway network generated additional income. Maybe You know this old computer game.
I've been looking for a railroad tycoon free-to-play game built for mobile devices, online competitive multiplayer, with a solid game-play featuring a deeper level of economics and nice graphics, as good as Railroad Tycoon 3 was or even better, but couldn't find anything.
Do You maybe know one that is like this?

Many thanks,
Adrian

[NorthernWarrior]

Nothing that I've found. Trainz has a mobile version, pretty crap being essentially based on the old UTC (2003 era) and cut down at that. There's numerous cloned Indian and Russian driving games but nothing that really offers the depth of Transport Tycoon or Railroad Tycoon.

Even if there was, my experience with tablet games - they may be "free to play" but if you want to make progress you end up needing to buy premium currency to make any sort of quick progress.

[4drian]

Yes, in fact I have searched a lot for such a game for mobile devices and haven't found anything - that is why I thought to ask here in case someone knows something more than what apparently can be found using search engines. There are quite some years by now that both Android and iOS devices are on the market and is a bit sad that no good developer with a passion for trains and economics thought about making such a game. Maybe I am wrong, but from my perspective Railroad Tycoon 3 in the field of train tycoon was as great as Age of Empires 2 was in the field of medieval strategy. Would be really nice if an experienced game developer builds a game with such depth for mobile devices - I really believe that many people would really appreciate it and enjoy playing such a game competing against players from all over the world.

Is true that many of those free-to-play games are passively pushing people to spend real money on game items, but there are also some games in which is truly possible to compete at a fair level and have fun and enjoy playing the game, without spending any money at all.

[metalangel]

Transport Tycoon (in name only - the actual game is based on the inferior follow-up, Locomotion) is on iOS for certain, CAD$9.99.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/transport-tycoon/id634013256

There is a "lite" version if you want to try it out first. Quite honestly, you are not going to find anything better, and $9.99 for a proper game that you own, without microtransactions or energy bars or any other freemium nonsense, is well with the money.

If you have Android, you can get OpenTTD, I think, which is far and away the best tycoon game ever, IMHO.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.openttd.sdl&hl=en_CA&gl=US

Simutrans was also available for iOS quite a few years ago (I used to dabble in it during my time on the railway) but eventually an iOS update came that made it incompatible.

[militen]

Ah, I remember Railroad Tycoon 3—absolute classic! It had a brilliant mix of railway management and economics, something that’s hard to find in mobile games these days. Sadly, most free-to-play railway sims now lean towards casual gameplay with microtransactions rather than deep economic strategy. Rail Nation might be worth a look, as it has an online competitive element, but it’s not quite on the same level as RT3. By the way, if you're into personalising your mobile, you might like garageringtones.com —always fun to have a fitting tone for different occasions. Hope you find the perfect railway game soon!