Railroad Tycoon is a business simulation game series. There are five games in the series; the original Railroad Tycoon (1990), Railroad Tycoon Deluxe (1993), Railroad Tycoon II (1998), Railroad Tycoon 3 (2003), and Sid Meier's Railroads! (2006). Railroad Tycoon was written by game designer Sid Meier and published by MicroProse. Though it shares the "Tycoon" suffix, it is not related to other Microprose games such as RollerCoaster Tycoon and Transport Tycoon, which were developed by Scottish programmer Chris Sawyer. The objective of the game is to build and manage a railroad company by laying track, building stations, and buying and scheduling trains. The railroad must be built in a certain time to win the game. Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon The original version allowed the player to start companies in several settings: the U.S. West and Midwest or the Northeast, England, and (on a smaller scale including southern England) Europe. The player manages the business as described above and may also handle individual train movement and build additional industries. The game also has other railroad companies attempting to put the player out of business with stock dealings and "Rate Wars". The player starts with one million dollars, half as equity, half as loan. The player can get more cash by selling $500,000 bonds at various interest rates (which depend on the current economic condition in the game). As part of the release of the new Sid Meier's Railroads, 2K Games released the full version of the original Railroad Tycoon game for free, which is available on their website. Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon Deluxe An updated version of this game named Railroad Tycoon Deluxe was created and released in 1993. Despite a host of new features and graphics, Deluxe sold very poorly, due to some bugs and slow gameplay (most notoriously the F4 map screen, which brings the game to a crawl). Deluxe is essentially the same game as Railroad Tycoon, with improved hi-resolution graphics, new sound effects, and several additions. The additions are: new maps (South America and Africa) with region-specific cargo types (e.g. troops for Africa), new time ranges and locomotives, bandits who can hijack trains, and sheriffs who will arrest them. Although the game is called Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon Deluxe, Sid Meier himself had nothing to do with the development of this version. Railroad Tycoon II A sequel featuring improved graphics and more complex gameplay was published by