I have always loved trains, since I was little. When I was little, if my parents drove over train tracks and a train was coming, I used to tell them to turn around so we could see the train go by.

It is likely this enthusiasm for rails that made me interested in Railroad Tycoon in the first place. I picked it up in early 2007 at a FLGS in Seattle, even knowing I would have to deal with warpring and blue/purple issues, and amidst discussion of a possible reprint soon to be hitting stores. I have not once regretted that decision.

Components

This is the game by which every other game's components are to be measured. You begin with a large and wonderful looking map which will end full of visually pleasing pieces.

A MASSIVE board in three pieces, hundreds of quality tiles to lay on the board, trains to place on these tiles for easy reference to ownership while keeping the theme at the forefront of the players' thoughts, empty city markers which sound useless on paper but create a quick count as to the game's progression and remove any doubts that you are playing anything but a game about trains. A ton of cubes with the cloth sack included (something many games needing one simply don't supply), thick train cards easily differentiable from Ops cards and Tycoon cards, which themselves are very nicely done and still show zero signs of wear after a fair amount of use.

The boards do indeed warp, but this only causes frustration when you pull the boards out of the box - once everything is set up, it is hardly an issue (aside from the Action 1 circle, which is in between two boards). There is also the blue/purple problem, as well as a potential problem when you have three or more people on the scoring track in the same place. But you work around these things quite easily, and experienced players do not have problems.



Rules/Gameplay

The rulebook is perfectly fine, a little difficult to find a few things but short enough for that not to be too tricky. Aside from the number of Empty City markers to use each game, I haven't needed to reference anything after the second game or so.

This is an engine-building game. You will start out small, and get much larger and more complex as the game progresses. You will be having to choose between improving your network, upgrading your train, or moving goods. The latter will help you fund the first two, but you can also create an infinite amount of money for yourself through Shares.

Shares don't work the same way they do in real life. Instead, you get an instant $5,000 to spend on anything you want. The catch is that you can NEVER pay this back to the bank, and each share is -$1000 each turn, as well as -1 point at the end of the game. But you can use them to get an advantage over your opponents, and have a better-functioning network even while paying for it with higher share costs.

By midgame, you need to be paying attention to what cities are likely to run out of cubes, as well as when the empty city markers will reach the game-ending number. Make sure you have enough cubes to move for that time, and upgrade your engine if necessary to keep the points flowing in. New players will often run out of cubes about 2/3 of the way into the game, and be forced to make costly improvements to their networks for only a few points while the other players continue moving goods more efficiently. Keep your networks ready for the long run!

There is some randomness in the game, a by-product of the streamlining of some of the mechanics in AoS. Each turn, players bid for turn order, typically fighting over a powerful card or being able to build first into desirable territory. As you are bidding solely for first turn, if you do not want to pay money for the opportunity to go first, whether you go 2nd or 6th is not up to you at all. This bit of chaotic randomness can hurt you on the rare occasion, but there is a variant of making this more similar to the AoS turn order - i.e., the order players pass in is your turn order (first to pass is last to play).

The second bit of randomness, which affects the game more than the first, is the placement of cubes onto the board. While the initial placement simply creates a game that is different each time, you will sometimes be pulling random cubes out of the bag, which can be either really good or really bad for you.

Finally, there is a large bit of randomness in which cards come out. First, you receive a Tycoon card which can net you some bonus points if you accomplish the goal described. You can play with the variant of each player receiving two Tycoon cards and keeping one to help keep the randomness manageable. The operations cards can be completely random as well, and if you are counting on getting bonus points for completing a route between Baltimore and Atlanta, but the card never surfaces, and you do not get points you were otherwise counting on.

I might perhaps be making them sound more random than they really are in a game, but they are certainly factors which can affect the game - and be the decisive factor in a close race!

A word on the areas:

Many people think that the NorthEast is the strongest area of the board, but it is often an area I stay away from unless there isn't much interest. With 2-3 people getting involved in the NE and surrounding areas, it can often be difficult to build out of there efficiently. If you find yourself looking at the NE, make sure you look what's happening in the SE as well - a player undisturbed down there for a large portion of game can quite easily win, as there are often many great connections to be made even though it looks like you will be building more track than the NE. The west, if open, is also a valuable location to build - but watch out for people trying to get into Chicago, it can ruin any strategy you might have, and leave you far behind!

I have seen the SW used once, and on that one occassion, it was nowhere even near to Dallas. The game probably could have had a 2/3 size reduction by changing the perspective to have a 30-degree off-North top of the board, but everything else would have looked so weird it is probably better just to have included the area. Perhaps a few more small towns in that area would have been nice to keep it active, but as things are I have no complaints.



Fun

A word on “fun.” By fun, I am referring to how enjoyable the game is in the time that it takes to play. Some games would be fun if the game took half an hour, but since they take 3, they are no longer any fun. Some games are so fun, they would continue being fun for 3x as long as it takes to play. Sometimes this is characterized by the desire to play again immediately.

RRT falls much closer to the latter. Although with 5 or 6 players, the game can take too long and exhaust players such that they aren't immediately up for another game, nearly everyone wants to play it again the next time they see the box. The desire to see what happens if you start in the West, money-be-damned, or to build up to a level 4 train very quickly and take off with a ton of 4-point deliveries while everyone else is delivering 2, can be very strong with this game, and constructing a good cube-moving engine is a great goal that most people enjoy.

That said, the game can drag on if you have more than 4 players, and a new player put into these circumstances will probably have fallen behind long ago and wanted to quit half an hour before the game finished, frustrated at the lack of options they have by the end of the game. Keep new players to 3-4 player games for best results. I generally believe 3-5 is the best way of playing the game anyway.

Note: 5 stars is if you finish and immediately want to play another game - something which probably won't happen with games longer than an hour.




Best Played with:

As I was discussing above, the game can tend to drag with more than 4 players, 6 players can be particularly slow with players taking a long time/new players. The game doesn't play too well with 2 players, either, as there is very little competition on the board, and you will be making runs of 8 for a long time before the game is over.

Another note: 5 stars means the game plays best with this, all other stars are relative amounts.

2:
3:
4:
5:
6:

Conclusion:

Despite some petty problems with production/design, the components help to make this game an immersive experience and a challenging and fun game which can be played in a reasonable amount of time. The sense of completion you get when staring at a finished board can be quite satisfying, and the gameplay itself tends to be both tight and fun. There is little downtime (aside from aforementioned slow players with 5-6), and things keep flowing fairly smoothly. There is a small chance for a new player to be almost completely knocked out of the game early on, but the game tends to be relatively forgiving and this shouldn't be too much of a problem.

In the end, I don't know if I will ever get sick of this game, and am usually quite excited to play it. Rails of Europe has recently come out, but I haven't yet gotten to play it - soon!

I know there is talk of making a "Rails of... (Eastern US?)" sometime soon, but that could still be a while. The international version of the game is fairly easy to find right now (although one of the oddest editions I've ever heard about, and would sincerely suggest reading more on it before grabbing), and if you don't want to wait/don't like the Rails Of name, you should grab this game as soon as possible - I can almost assure you that you will not regret it.



Railroad Tycoon is more fun, but Age of Steam is the better game

(for more info, see here: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/2176519 )