Post by Gilvan Blight on Jul 13, 2006 16:20:06 GMT -5
Quickly - very quick to learn, very simple rules but complex strategy, perfect balance, good 'gateway' game.
Summay: okay if you haven't heard about this one you are living under a rock. It only won like 10 awards. Basically each player plays a train company and you are trying to connect rails between various US and Canadian cities. The Routes you need to connect are determined by Ticket cards. The trains are played by playing a series of matching coloured train car cards. Certain colour combos are required for certain routes, and some legs are longer then others. Turn sequence is very quick, with only one action per player allowed. These include playing train cards, drawing new cards (one wild card, or two face up or face down cards) or drawing Ticket cards (draw three, must keep one). The most interesting aspect of the game are the ticket cards. If you complete a route you get the points on the card, but if you fail to complete the route you loose that many points. Points are also awarded for playing train cars, with more points for longer chains.
The Good: very quick game with very short player turns. This means it doesn't take all night to play and you won't be sitting for minutes at a time waiting for your turn. The board and components are very nice, well presented and very solid. I would have prefered wooden trains but I know that would have doubled the cost of the game. The strategy in this was suprisingly deep. There is the whole ticket aspect, where you want to complete as many routes as possible, but don't want to get too many cards and end up with routes unfinished. Also you often have the option of expanding your rails or interfering with others which adds a good cutthroat element. The rules are also very simple to learn. The game is very straight forward and doesn't really deal in too many gaming abstracts, so this would be the perfect game for family play or for non-gamers.
The Bad: I would have liked more then one map. Quite a few recent games (and a few old ones) give you two different sides of the board to play on, I think that would have been nice to see with this one. Though you would probably have to include alternate Ticket Cards. Perhaps combining the main game and the Europe game in one box.
The Ugly: it's an american game and it definately helps to know some US geography. It's pretty obivious where someone is thinking of playing when you watch them scour the map for a certain city. This is of course something that will improve with more play as the players learn the map.
Overall: an excellent game, both suprising in it's simplicity and level of strategy. Very quck turns mean you won't be waiting long and will probably end up feeling the game ended too soon, but that always leave room for another play.
Summay: okay if you haven't heard about this one you are living under a rock. It only won like 10 awards. Basically each player plays a train company and you are trying to connect rails between various US and Canadian cities. The Routes you need to connect are determined by Ticket cards. The trains are played by playing a series of matching coloured train car cards. Certain colour combos are required for certain routes, and some legs are longer then others. Turn sequence is very quick, with only one action per player allowed. These include playing train cards, drawing new cards (one wild card, or two face up or face down cards) or drawing Ticket cards (draw three, must keep one). The most interesting aspect of the game are the ticket cards. If you complete a route you get the points on the card, but if you fail to complete the route you loose that many points. Points are also awarded for playing train cars, with more points for longer chains.
The Good: very quick game with very short player turns. This means it doesn't take all night to play and you won't be sitting for minutes at a time waiting for your turn. The board and components are very nice, well presented and very solid. I would have prefered wooden trains but I know that would have doubled the cost of the game. The strategy in this was suprisingly deep. There is the whole ticket aspect, where you want to complete as many routes as possible, but don't want to get too many cards and end up with routes unfinished. Also you often have the option of expanding your rails or interfering with others which adds a good cutthroat element. The rules are also very simple to learn. The game is very straight forward and doesn't really deal in too many gaming abstracts, so this would be the perfect game for family play or for non-gamers.
The Bad: I would have liked more then one map. Quite a few recent games (and a few old ones) give you two different sides of the board to play on, I think that would have been nice to see with this one. Though you would probably have to include alternate Ticket Cards. Perhaps combining the main game and the Europe game in one box.
The Ugly: it's an american game and it definately helps to know some US geography. It's pretty obivious where someone is thinking of playing when you watch them scour the map for a certain city. This is of course something that will improve with more play as the players learn the map.
Overall: an excellent game, both suprising in it's simplicity and level of strategy. Very quck turns mean you won't be waiting long and will probably end up feeling the game ended too soon, but that always leave room for another play.