The main charm, IMO, of Mashinky is the ease of play. It makes construction a breeze, and once you're done building you can admire the scenery in the high level view.

With this slam dunk, is able to appeal to both those who like stripped down graphics and those who like realistic graphics. Because of a clever toogle, it delivers both OpenTTD style graphics while in construction mode, and Railroad Tycoon 3 style graphics when out of it. And also I feel like you don't really get the same sense of a 'living world' as you do in Railway Empire, which has things like local traffic appear when you zoom into the towns. On the downside, I personally found it difficult to really get my distribution chains really turning a profit. You really have to put a lot of work into creating products before distributing them. If you're into complex/multi-tiered production chains, this is interesting. Strong influence is felt from Transport Giant II. In comparison to RE and Mashinsky, it's stripped down graphics wise. Not everyone will like it's visual style but that's a subjectivity thing. Rise of Industry (formerly Project Automata) has a good heart. The trains themselves do not seem to be able to detect clear and obvious routes they could take without problems. Signalling is also annoying and frustrating, which makes complex route making difficult. Once you've created a line, it's very hard to alter it. Managing the trains themselves is not clear cut. It's on track for a release in March I believe). However, mechanically/functionally it's not as smooth as it needs to be (yet. One other aspect I like about RE is it's research system, which allows the player to decide what parts of the tech tree they'd like to receive first, rather than being handed everything at the end of each decade. Another very import aspect that I like is that RE has AI competitors, something I very strongly advocate in Transport Tycoon games after seeing how well it could be done in Sid Meier's Railways! I like the focus on growing towns, and the logic/process of why a town grows is very clear cut in Railway Empire. Railway Empire I found to have warm, slick graphics and a pleasing UI. However, they can serve as indicators of the direction each is going in. First things first: All three are in various stages of development, and thus what I played does not represent the final product.

Mashinsky vs railway empire