Simutrans plans the move to Steam. The game will be available for free on the distribution platform. This might help new players to get to know the game, and those who already play the game and also use Steam an easier way to keep Simutrans up to date. If you do not use Steam, don’t worry, all other ways of distribution that are currently used, for example, source code, binaries, Windows-installer, and inclusion in many Linux installers will still be available.
Steam is a large, commercial game distribution platform, that means they sell games online, provide downloads that are started from within Steam. Steam is avaible for Windows, Mac-OS, and Linux (SteamOS). Greenlight is Steam’s procedure to get games to the platform that do not have a large publisher behind them. I.e, indie-developers or open source. Steam users can vote for games to pass Greenlight, and if you have a Steam account, we should be very happy if you did so. You can vote for Simutrans on its Greenlight page.
If you love skiing, mountain climbing or a well planned railroad then you can play on this map of the Swiss Alps made by NYC911. It is part of an interesting scenario in which you have to be very careful in laying your track.
We have been able to extend our Simutrans South American maps collection by courtesy of gabyregistrado. He made a very nice map of the western part of the Rio de la Plata. It measures 1599×798 and has nice water and mountain features. Apparently the air is very good in this environment.
Feo has made a very cute map of the Valley of Mexico, the historical heart of Mexico and Mexico City. It is only 304×240, so very suitable for low-profile computers or network play. Set water level at -2.
Sarlock has made a map of Vancouver and its Fraser river. It is a very big and detailed map, sized 6000×2148. Each tile represents 20m, so we are talking about an area of around 120×40 km. Mountain heights are on a logarithmic scale. Be sure to set water level at -9. To date this is the longest map on Simutrans Maps and it might be hard on your computer if you completely fill it up.