Geekshow

A Look at Rails of Europe

Wednesday, March 11th, 2009

Before we head off to look at some games that are slightly more site appropriate, we wanted to cover the expansion to the game we first covered. Rails of Europe is an expansion of Railroad Tycoon, but includes a much tighter gameplay experience for fewer players. Let’s have a look.

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Railroad Tycoon was released in 2005. In 2008, a new expansion was released for it. The name “Railroad Tycoon” was based on the computer game of the same name. As a result, manufacturing copies of the game required paying a licensing fee. So when it came time to make an expansion game, they decided it was in their best interest financially to remove the Railroad Tycoon name. Instead, they named the expansion, “Rails of Europe“. In addition, they removed every mention of Tycoons in the game. Even the “Mission” cards you collect at the beginning of the game are called “Baron Cards” rather than “Tycoon Cards”.

It is important to mention that this game is an expansion. It can’t be played without the components from the first game. So you will have to either buy Railroad Tycoon, the forthcoming Railways of the World, or do some printing in order to come up with the components you need to play. But with that in mind, let’s discuss what makes this game better than Railroad Tycoon. Keep in mind, that I’m assuming you’ve already read my Railroad Tycoon review, and/or watched the video.

Gameplay

The fact is, this game plays like Railroad Tycoon in just about every way. The game mechanics are virtually identical. Only a couple additions and subtractions from the base game exist. However, those changes along with the different board (Europe vs The US) create a much more tight gameplay experience.

My favorite gameplay change from Railroad Tycoon involve the Major Lines. These were used in RRT in order to reward you for completing connections between two far off cities. For instance, New York to Chicago would net you a lot of bonus points. However, in RRT, you had to wait for those specific cards to come up. Then it would be a mad dash to see if anyone could get there. It was a neat mechanic, for sure. It created a lot of rushes for particular destinations.

With Rails of Europe, they changed the way Major Lines work. From the start of the game, all of them are available for completion. So you will always be working with an eye toward completing these connections. It’s a subtle change, but it has an interesting effect on gameplay. Instead of creating late game rushes, you have to keep an eye on your opponents the whole game.

However, a majority of the gameplay differences come from the board design itself. The major “problem” for Railroad Tycoon, when it came to gameplay, was that everything was so spread out. In a game with few players, it would wind up with there being too much open space for a really interactive game. So the games often ended up being awarded to players that could break off and manage to remain un-harassed by their fellow players. There was also the problem of a lot of wasted space that didn’t really provide much usefulness in the game. In our games, there were literally cities that we had never built to after dozens of plays.

With Rails of Europe, the layout of the board is brutal. The two biggest cities, Paris and Berlin, are in the center of the map. If you want a decent chance at winning the game, you are probably going to have to build through those cities. There are a healthy number of cubes waiting to be delivered there, and a large number of major line connections involve that area. This alone changes the game dynamic. Instead of the US map encouraging players to stay away from the west as much as possible, this map encourages players to start their scrums in the center of the map, and work out in whichever direction benefits you the most. Instead of having 5-8 cities go untouched in a game, we now usually only have 1-2 cities (Athens, and Copenhagen, usually) that go untouched for multiple games.

The mechanics of the game encourage you to build to places you may normally not build. Nearly every corner of the board is made accessible and possible because of the points the appropriate Major Lines will give you. Add in the Service Bounties, which give players points for being the first person to deliver a cube to a certain city, and just about every major area of the board with be built to in most games.

There is at least one issue I’ve had with the new mechanics of the game, however. Capital Charter is a new type of card making it’s way into the game this time around. The card awards you for your opponents building into or out of Paris and Berlin. However, the card takes an action to acquire, and is heavily restricted in it’s use. For one, only track built after you receive the card gives you bonus points. Secondly, you only get 1 point for each route out of the city per player. So if you are playing with the maximum number of players, and you get the card on the first turn of the game, you can probably get the maximum 4 points. However, if you get the card later in the game, you are looking at 1-2 points, maximum. It’s probable that you may not get any points from the card as well. We’ve taken the cards out of our rotation, just because they are usually lame ducks that take up space that much cooler cards could occupy. I personally feel that the game took a step forward by making the Major Lines stay around constantly. However, it took a step back because of the Capital Charters using a similar method as the original Major Lines.

Overall though, the gameplay is fantastic in the expansion. A definite improvement to Railroad Tycoon. One that has made sure that we haven’t touch RRT since Rails of Europe hit the table. However, if you are looking for an experience for 5 or 6 players, you may actually be better suited to the Railroad Tycoon experience. The extra space can make for a better experience in larger games.

Rules

I felt that that the rules for Railroad Tycoon were incredibly simple. Rails of Europe adds virtually nothing new in that regard. The instruction manual is a couple pages long. Most of that is giving you the new victory point conditions (You now need less empty city markers than before), and outlining the couple new cards they have added to the game. Otherwise, the rules remain incredibly simple.

The one complaint I have in this area, is that the game seems to ignore the fact that 2 player games aren’t just possible, they are insanely fun. Since it ignores that, they don’t bother to include the victory conditions for a two player game. But given the way the game scales for higher players, simple math will tell you what you need. Hint: 9 cities should do the trick.

Components

For the most part, the expansion uses Railroad Tycoon’s pieces. This is another good opportunity to point out that the game doesn’t come with the pieces you will need to play the game. Buy Railroad Tycoon, Railways of the World, or make your own somehow.

However, what the game does have is the new board, and a few new cards. The cards are nothing special. They are the same as always. However, I have to give the developers credit for the board design. Railroad Tycoon got this aspect of the game wrong in a couple ways. The board warping and the bad color matching could actually effect your games. However, this board is fantastic. It doesn’t seem to even have the potential for warping because of how it folds. The colors are very vibrant and attractive. The one complaint I’ve heard on this matter is that the board has such a glossy sheen to it, that it reflects light too easily. This doesn’t personally bother me, but that is something to be aware of.

Overall

Rails of Europe is a game that we will be coming back to frequently. It  does tend to last about 2 hours, so you need a healthy chunk of time available in order to get the full enjoyment of it out. However, the overall experience is as solid as I’ve seen. It will probably be one of my favorite games for a long time to come. It has a lot of re-playability, just because things tend to shake out differently every time. Also, it isn’t the type of game where you can usually run off with the lead, or be completely knocked out of the game. There are some instances where that has happened in our games, but not many. Overall, the game is forgiving.

You should have an easy time teaching this game to new players. Chances are, they will be up for playing again after you get the initial game out of the way. Everyone I have played the game with has had a great experience. The came can get brutal at times as you rush for Major Lines, bid to prevent a player from taking a certain action, and come out of nowhere to claim extra points. However, it is the type of game where you can do that while having a conversation, laughing, and generally having a good time.

You can purchase this game at Thoughthammer:

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Credits:

Randy – Editor, Show host, & Written Review
Russell – Show Host
Ray – Recoding Studio, Lights, Sound, & Camera

Also, thanks to Thoughthammer for making this possible, and to Beatnik Turtle for the intro music “Beat People Up (Remix)“!