From: davidf@HQ.Ileaf.COM (David Fristrom)
Subject: Re: More Rail Games summaries, please!
Summary: Santa Fe
Reply-To: davidf@HQ.Ileaf.COM (David Fristrom)
Organization: Interleaf, Inc.
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 92 21:20:09 GMT

There's a new Rail game out to add to the growing list: Santa Fe.
Santa Fe is designed by Alan Moon, and published by his company White
Wind (strangely, although Moon lives in the States, his games are
produced in Germany, with German and English rules and import prices
(ouch!)).  I just bought it today (at Games People Play in Cambridge,
MA), so I haven't played it yet, but here's a description.

The map shows the Western US, from Chicago and New Orleans west.
Cities, of value 2-7, are marked on the map, connected by potential
rail lines, some single, some double.  Other components include a deck
of city cards (some cities are represented by a single card, others by
two), Double-Turn and Branch Line cards, plastic coins (for cash), and
track pieces.  The latter are long, narrow pieces of cardboard,
printed with the standard map symbol and color-coded for one of five
railroads (Santa Fe, Southern Pacific, Great Northern, Union Pacific,
and Kansas Pacific).

Players start the game with five city cards.  Each turn, players first
play one card face down.  These are then revealed simultaneously.
City cards played in this way are left in front of the player for the
rest of the game; at the end of the game the player will earn points
for a city card equal to its value times the number of railroads which
have a route into the city.  (Obviously, a major part of your strategy
will be to get the railroads to build routes into your cities, and not
into your opponent's cities.)

There are then two rounds of track laying, where players take turns
laying one piece of track each round.  The railroads don't belong to
the players -- a player can lay track from any railroad.  In general,
it takes several pieces of track to connect two cities.  Usually, the
track for a given railroad must be extended from its single railhead;
you can't branch freely, even at cities.  However, each railroad does
have two Branch Line cards, and by playing them a player is allowed to
create a new branch for the railroad.

At the end of the turn, players refill their hands -- most commonly
with city cards, but they may also take a Double-Turn card or buy a
Branch Line card.  Playing a Double-Turn card means you don't play a
city card that turn, but allows you to lay twice as much track and
earn double bonuses for the turn.

In addition to points earned for city cards at the end of the game,
players also receive points for money, which is earned by being the
first to bring a track into a given city ($2), with an additional
bonus for some cities for bringing in particular railroads ($4) --
this encourages historical development.  These awards are doubled if
you played a double-turn card.

Advanced rules add a cost for building in mountains or over rivers,
and engineer cards to reduce the cost.

The game is less complex that the 18xx games (my favorite of the RR
games, followed by Silverton), and should play a lot faster (the box
claims 60 minutes, for 2-5 people).  It's obviously less of a
simulation.  Where in 18xx players are stockholders, and in most other
games they are railroad owners, it's not clear who they are in Santa
Fe.  But it looks like it could be fun, and useful when you don't have
the time required by one of the other games.  I'll report back once
I've had a chance to play it.

David Fristrom		|
Interleaf, Inc.		|	"If the end is right,
davidf@ileaf.com	|	 It justifies the beans!"
Newsgroups: rec.games.board