I like trains, and I like train games. Ticket to Ride has a train theme and is a fantastic gateway game but doesn't really give the satisfaction of building a train line and running it like a business. Euro-rails is the other train game I've had on my shelf for a long time, getting dozens of plays. It is a really good train game, but only for two people. With more there is so much down time that the fun factor really drops. So, looking for a real train game that was more playable for a group I purchased Railroad Tycoon. I haven't played Age of Steam, which also looks like a good game. I settled on Railroad Tycoon because it looked more accessible to my gaming groups.

1. Introducing...

Railroad Tycoon is quite a massive game. On the huge board, you place your track in the form of hexes. You build up your links, trying not to go too deeply into debt. The gameplay is simple enough. Competition is fierce. You get the satisfaction of seeing a network of railways snaking across the map. Railroad Tycoon has a huge toy factor with the little trains that are used to mark the links. When a city is emptied of cubes it receives a marker in the shape of a roundhouse, a water tower, etc. In the end you have quite an impressive display, which adds to the satisfaction of building. RT takes about 2 hours to play.

2. Opening the box.

The board is huge. It comes in three pieces. Some people hate it, others love it. I'm somewhere in between. The board adds to the spectacle but it isn't the most practical if you have to build track on the other side. The empty-city markers are neat, but then I'm a sucker for miniatures and little layouts. My hobby is painting Warhammer, Battlelore, War of the Ring, etc, so I love anything that even somewhat resembles a miniature layout. The track is supplied as hexes. You don't want to bump the board because then you can really screw things up. I have seen some gripes about the components on the threads here. I quite like the look of RT, and I'm not usually one to make a fuss, though I really like a good-looking game. The components are good enough for me and help bring the game to life.

3. Playing the game.

For anyone who is used to playing the kind of games that find their way into the top 100 on BGG, Railroad Tycoon is a snap to learn. New gamers might take a turn or two to get into the game, but the learning curve is not steep. That having been said, we are certainly looking at a different level of game than Ticket to Ride.

Players bid for starting player. Then, in clockwise order, players have three actions to use on building track, delivering merchandise, bringing new industry to a city, upgrading their train or selecting a bonus cards from the ones available. Those options just listed tell you basically what you will be doing in Railroad Tycoon. You will be making links between cities. Once the links are made, you will be delivering the coloured cubes to the cites of the same colour, scoring points for the number of links that cube passes through. (If a blue cube passes over three of your links - a link is a connection between two cities - it scores you three points). Once delivered, a cube is removed from the game. In order to make the deliveries, you need to upgrade your engine. A level 1 engine can only make 1 link deliveries. A level 2 engine can make 2 link deliveries etc.

Players begin the game with no income. You will need to issue shares in order to generate capital. One share gets you $5, 000 cash, but each turn your income gets docked $1, 000 per share that has been issued. Shares can never be bought back; you have them for the game and they count against your final score. Thus, it is important not to have too many. Yet, players who don't get enough will fall behind quick. Income is determined by your current score. RT has an interesting feature in that your income peaks after a certain level and then begins to drop. To me this represents the beaurocracy of business. Smaller business tend to be more efficient.

Players also get a secret objective. The objective is not a win or lose, make or break thing. Completing the objective will usually get you between 5 and 8 points, the same as a longish delivery. If the objective doesn't fit in your plans, you can often make up those points elsewhere.

The game continues until a certain number of cities have run out of cubes. Then the person with the highest score wins.

4. Here's what I think...

i. Railroad Tycoon is obviously a step up from Ticket to Ride. But, for me, it does not completely replace Euro-rails from the Empire Builder series. RT is certainly more accessible to a group of players, since there is less down time and the game runs cleaner and faster. But there is a level of detail in Euro-rails that I miss. The goods cubes in RT are so generic. I find it more fun to deliver coal, or lumber or something more concrete. I suppose I could make the cubes represent something, but the distribution wouldn't necessarily correspond to the locations where those goods could actually be found. One of the other things I miss in RT is actually driving your train. Is this something you get to do in Age of Steam?

ii. The generic goods cubes take away from the detail of the game, but they do increase the replayability, since every game will set up different.

iii. The rulesbook gives some strategy tips, including a warning against any one player monopolizing the Northeast. Under the right circumstances, I can see how getting control of the Northeast would be a sure-fire win. However, in our games, the NE is by no means a guarantee of success. So far I see the board as being fairly well balanced. I have won twice, once in the SE and once in the centre of the board. Haven't seen too much activity in the SW, though.

iv. The auction for starting player is a bit awkward. In 2 player games we do away with it altogether. With new players, it is difficult to give advice as to what others should be bidding (this is a common problem in any game that involves bidding/auctions). I would have been happy to do away with this rule completely; we will have to experiment.

v. The appeal of railway games is the building and the delivering. RT does a fair job of letting you do both, and I don't regret buying the game. It will get a lot of use, since it fits well with the gamers that we regularly play with. At the same time, I can see that fans of railway games might want something more. It might be that I will have to try Age of Steam yet. Not that I expect Age of Steam to replace RT, but it will maybe give a fuller representation of the fun of railway building.

vi. My overall impression of RT is good, and I have rated it high. RT has found the middle ground, providing a satisfying game without ratcheting up to a difficulty level that scares players away. If you're tired of Ticket to Ride, give RT a try. If you're a Age of Steam or Empire Builder fan, RT might be redundant. Or it could be a way to get others into the fun of train games.

vii. One last little comment: I like the historical background that has been included on the various engines.