I finally got the chance to play Canal Mania recently. I had high hopes for the game, but a little bit of apprehension as well, since I’ve never been a fan of the Ragnar Brothers. I have little patience for games with downtime issues and tons of dice rolling, so I avoid History of the World (too bad, the theme is marvelous). Kings and Castles is better, but is still plagued by downtime, and the less said about Blooming Gardens and Where There’s a Will, the better. That’s not the kind of track record you want for the designers of a new game. But CM seemed to be based on German-style mechanics, while still retaining the Ragnars’ usual fidelity to theme, so I was optimistic.

I needn’t have worried, as the game is excellent, probably my second favorite game from last year (nothing was going to top Through the Ages). I think the game’s greatest appeal is that it’s very easy to get into (the learning curve is about, oh, two turns), but it’s apparent that good play requires experience. I spoke a while back about my love of games where it takes time to learn the nuances. Obviously, the optimal case is a game which has this, but is also fun to play right out of the box. It’s a hard combo to pull off, but it’s great when you find such a game, and Canal Mania fully qualifies.

From a design point of view, CM is a train game done right. (Yeah, I know we’re building canals, not tracks, but this feels more like a train game than most designs that have choo-choos running all over the countryside.) You’re building canals, but you also have a contract to make the connection between specific cities, so the network follows history to some extent without aping it. Limiting the number of links in each connection (a brilliantly simple idea — why hadn’t someone used this before?) means that the serpentine routes so common in most train games don’t occur. At the same time, the limits are loose enough that you have some wiggle room and can include a few intermediate cities along the way. Tying the goods production to the card draft is another excellent idea. Finally, the game encourages players to use opponents’ track when delivering goods, almost always a good goal, but not always achieved. It also makes building such commonly used track worthwhile, through the simplest of mechanisms (VPs are scored for cities, not links, so the minimum score for used track is 2, big enough to truly affect your score). Thus, through the use of a very basic rules set, it’s all here: realistic track building, pick-up-and-delivery, and sharing of track. Accomplishing so much with so little is a very impressive design achievement.

The key track building rule is requiring that no two consecutive tracks can be of the same sort. Even though this has a little bit of a realistic feel (mostly because of the necessity of using locks in real-world canals), it does feel somewhat gamey. However, far from criticizing it, I applaud the Ragnars for learning from the Germans and abandoning rigid realism when necessary. The resulting rule is far from outrageous, is easy to teach, and makes the track building much more interesting. That’s the sign of a well designed game.

The various options in each of the three phases of a game turn is also a very good idea, not particularly original, but well implemented. This structured approach means you have plenty of choices without them overwhelming you. Even so, all these options could have led to some hesitant play for newbies like me, but the game’s owner had printed out the excellently designed player aids from the Geek which had been thoughtfully created and uploaded by Geek user David Siskin. This made the game a breeze to learn. Once again, I wonder why more publishers don’t include such aids in their games. They greatly assist the learning process and really add to the enjoyment of the game, particularly the first time out. Get with the program, guys!

I was a little surprised that there wasn’t more shuffling of the Engineers in our game, but that may also increase with experience. But this is another fine idea in a game brimming with them.

In our game, I began in the northwest and quickly had more or less of a monopoly on the northern portion of the board. This meant that I could safely ship goods in that part of Britain, but it also meant that I got no additional VPs from others using my track. The latter proved to be too much of a handicap to overcome and, despite some impressive shipping points, I finished in last by a single point. But as with Tempus, this did nothing to diminish my enthusiasm for the game.

The components for Canal Mania are top-notch (other than the lack of player aids) and I can’t imagine anyone missing the tea towels. The cards and tiles are well designed. The barges are very attractive and work well on the board, but they’re too big for the scoring chart—I would have preferred less evocative cubes for that task. The board is solid and colorful and clearly labels the names of the quaint English cities and towns. In fact, my new life’s objective is to one day live in Leighten Buzzard (very much a real town) - I’d get a smile every time I addressed an envelope!

All right, back to the canals. Any problems with the game? Well, nothing’s perfect. Using drafting instead of a blind draw or an auction was a smart design decision, but it does leave open the possibility of a run of bad (or good) luck. I don’t think this is as serious a problem as it might be, because Dicken, Kendall, & Kendall (there’s a law firm for you!) have given you so many ways of mitigating such bad breaks (mostly through the judicious choice of engineers). Being careful with your canal building probably helps as well (so you’re better off if one canal will be building on clear terrain next and the other on difficult terrain). I think experienced players will deal with such bad runs of cards far better than tyros.

Other than that, my only concern is the game length. We took a little over two hours and it’s hard to see how this could be lowered too much. I think the game would be even better at the 90 minute duration indicated on the box and maybe we’ll be able to knock the time down with experience. Even at two hours, though, this is a quick playing, but very involving game, one that’s easy to play, yet has plenty of scope for skill. Right now, I rate it an 8, but that rating could easily rise, which would put it among my favorite train games of all time.