From: rbr@well.sf.ca.us (Bob Rossney)
Subject: Re: More Rail Games summaries, please!
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1992 17:25:42 GMT

In <KEITH.92Nov20235641@neuromancer.uchicago.edu> keith@neuromancer.uchicago.edu (Keith Waclena) writes:

>Thanks to all those who posted summaries of the various 18xx games!
>I was just thinking about buying one of these, due to their popularity
>on the net.

>But nobody has summarized the non-18xx rail games that I see
>mentioned: Rail Barons, Empire Builders, British Rails, Silverado,
>EuroRails...  Are these similar to the 18xx games?

The 18xx games share a common and otherwise unique set of mechanisms:  the
notion of railroads as operating companies independent of the players, the
use of stock to (among other things) determine which player controls which
railroad at any given time, the use of hexagonal track tiled to handle
track-building, and the emphasis on the establishment of routes rather than
the movement of trains.  (Actually, as we'll see, this last is not unique.)

Empire Builder, British Rails, EuroRails, and Nippon Rails all use a
mechanism of their own.  The board, which is overlaid with a pattern of dots
called mileposts, contains cities and resources (corn, oil, tourists,
textiles, etc.).  Players build their railroads by drawing them on the map,
and they build them in response to (or anticipation of) demand cards, which
state that a given city will pay a given price for a given resource.  Each
player also has a pawn representing his train, which moves (via the roll of
dice) along his railroad, picking up and delivering loads.  (Apparently
Mayfair has begun selling miniature metal locomotives for the Empire Builder
nerds out there.)  These games have been criticized for having a fairly low
level of player interaction--Empire Builder was described as "a solitaire
game for six players"--and to a certain extent you are playing more against
the game system than against the other players.

Rail Baron is the most Monopoly-like of the rail games.  The rail networks
already exist, in the form of individual railroads (the Seaboard Air Line,
the New York, New Haven, and Hartford, the Boston and Maine, or Southern
Pacific).  Players gradually acquire these railroads over the course of the
game as they run their trains--again, a pawn--from one city to another
according to the ministrations of a not-very-ergonomically-designed table.
Money comes in from completing runs; it goes out whenever your run your
train, particularly--and here's the Monopoly part--if you have to use one of
your opponents' rail lines.  It's a pretty fun game the first couple of
times you play, but it has a desperately dull endgame with a clunky and
totally unrealistic fix tacked onto it (the "bingo" rule, or whatever the
hell it's called).

Silverton is interesting because it combines surveying and prospecting.  Set
in the Colorado Rockies, the game has players searching for gold, silver,
and coal and then building rail lines to connect the mines they've
discovered with cities.  It also has an interesting supply-and-demand
mechanism:  the more silver gets delivered to any given city, the less the
city will pay for silver.  I haven't played it enough to comment on its
quality, but there are people here in r.g.b. who swear by it.

Railway Rivals, which was not mentioned, is somewhat similar to the Empire
Builder series, in that it involves constructing track by drawing it on the
map.  But its approach is more abstract and, I think, much more fun.
Players build their rail networks, and then two cards are turned up,
indicating a run between two cities.  Those players lucky enough to be able
to connect with those two cities then race their trains along their networks
from one to the other, and the first one there gets the payoff.  It's a much
faster game than Empire Builder and its ilk, and what it loses in realism it
makes up in excitement.  In addition, the Games Workshop edition (this is a
game that's been around since the early 1970's) comes with a two-sided
board, with the US on one side and Britain on another.  It's the only rail
board game I know of with a thriving PBM community, too.

There are a bunch of other rail games--Rails through the Rockies and Iron
Horse come to mind--but I don't know enough about them to give them justice.
Perhaps someone else can fill in those blanks.

Also, it occurs to me that the question "What's the difference between the
18xx games?" really ought to be in the FAQ, should it not?

Bob Rossney
rbr@well.sf.ca.us