We bought this game looking for a fun 2 player game with plenty of interaction, and hopefully something that can be well balanced if one of us is much better than the other. We've only played a couple of games so far though.

Living as we do on the Central line (or rather the Pink line from Epping to Edgware in our first game), we were disappointed that Theydon Bois wasn't granted it's own stop (although we see the practicalities). Nether-the-less White City is, so at least I can get to work.

The first challenge was opening the board. It's a multi-way folding board that I still haven't mastered without turning it upside down a couple of times. After that was done, I left my other half to study the board while I set about assembling the pieces. It's the first game I've bought where I have to put stickers on pieces of wood. Also noticed that storage wasn't the greatest either, a couple of sandwich bags sorted that out, we have a bag for my pieces, a bag for the other pieces, and leave the unused colours in the boxes.

So, onto game play. Rules were fairly simple to explain (compared to games like In the Shadow of the Emperor), but others have covered those. To give an example to E, I went first. The first question was where to go. The passenger starts at Euston, and travels to all Yellow and White dots on the board (but not terminals, stations, or green squares). Looking at the passenger on one of the branches north of Camden Town (Hampstead), I decided to drop down from Camden, through Euston, and south towards the river.

We didn't have a hard time limit, but I was determined not to spend too long on each move. It's possible to calculate everything exactly for each of your four actions, but where's the fun in that?

About half way through the game, Putney came up. Having already connected to West Brompton, I figured that the only way the passenger will ever get there is using my line anyway. Why waste an action, and a track piece, connecting to it?

Having exhausted all of that colour towards the end of the game, I realised that the passenger wasn't going to Putney. It had been on the board for a long time, but another express station was always the better choice. How annoying.

My S.O had monopolised the West of the board with a single colour, however made the fatal mistake of only having a single connection to the network, via my red line through Shepherds Bush. As such, she never got a benefit of the passenger shooting over there and back, as we both gained a point.

Play progressed steadily, however we took a lot of time making sure the passenger was moving correctly, which slowed things down.

As the game moved forwards, I was worried we would run out of track before cards, the end came fast though. Neither of us built up a steady lead, with E taking early points for the green squares, but my connections won out in the end.

Overall took about 90 mminutes to play the game, which wasn't too bad. The second game took 80 minutes, and was tight until the end. The first game had 2 points between us, the second game had 1 point between us until my last move (as 2nd player in that game, I had a final track-laying move when the cards were exhausted, which I used to connect to 3 terminals, earning 6 points)

I'm not convinced of the use of the terminals, it seems a long way to go to get a couple of points, where you could be extending your network. On the other hand I do end up building a lot of redundant track that's never used towards the end of the game.

Although it's not necessary at the moment, I imagine that one of us could play with shorter lines, or even less lines, than the other, as a handicap.

Overall no show stoppers yet, although I like to have a dozen plays before deciding how good a game is. There are a a couple of problems so far though

1) Assembly
2) I don't like the "1 point for going second" idea. In Caylus you start with more money, but the end result is points. It seems better that way, you don't get a direct bonus for starting later, but you do get something. Perhaps the second-player should get 5 track placements on the first go? Or a branch token to start with?