In this historically accurate offering, the designer clearly took great pains to retain the impact of the steam train on the central Rocky Mountains and the surrounding areas.
Players buy trains, send out surveyors to build new track, give prospectors goals for claims, purchase and operate mining claims which can offer coal, lumber, silver, copper and gold, or even haul passengers around this turn-of-the-century map. Once a player finds a claim, builds track to the location, and pays the operating expenses, that player will still need to contend with hauling the material to market as well as the always-present possibility of the claim running out of materials. If that weren't bad enough, there's always the distinct possibility that another player will reach the market first and make the unique supply- and demand-oriented prices drop right before goods delivery.
With the advanced rules, players can expect to add track-grade issues and winter snow fall to the list of problems encountered, but can select teams of Prospectors and Surveyors suited to their own style. There is also a balanced assortment of trains for Advanced barons, and can employ snowplows to clear track for winter deliveries.
Availibility : The original Two Wolf version is long-since out of print, but the newer-released Mayfair has a wider distribution. The New Mexico expansion is available for the Two Wolf game, but the Mayfair version has the expansion included with the base game.
I found chips or money a cumbersome way to keep track of all the different expenses and payouts in the game. Yet having one player spreadsheet it is odd, and all players having laptops is well strange, so using this worksheet players can easily keep track of their expenses and income without lots of expensive technology sitting around.
Updated! Excel Runtime Aid; keeps track of turns, seasons, and calculates all end of turn commodity market changes, plus a graphic chart representation of same, with the added abiltiy to "Undo Last Turn", a "Short Game" init option, and some added graphical improvements.
At this point, mine and snoozefest's BGG version (SilvertonCombinedAid.xls) have drifted far enough apart that we basically have two separate code streams, and I don't want to try to merge them, so, use whichever one you like best. My feelings will not be hurt ;^)
This variant adds gunmen attacks in one additional phase in an attempt to mitigate any 'run-away-winner' situation at the expense of length of game-play. This is an untested player variant or house rule. Any input, improvement, or innovation is very welcome.
I just started playing this game solitaire and I love it. I was surprised not to find a rules summary or game aid sheet listed here, so I attempted to come up with one myself. My goal was to get it to fit on one page. This should be a useful reference tool when teaching new players and playing the game. Corrections and suggestions are welcome. This is version 1.
For those wanting a less crowded board for Silverton, this enlarged board (approx 32"x26") was made with a vector-graphics package, in full color, with 5 levels of contours color-keyed to give you a feel of the terrain. It also includes the entire commodities market table set, and a turn track keyed for price index, and arrival of both new locomotives and snowplows (for the advanced rules). For a snapshot of the board, check my gallery. NOTE: This map uses the costs found in the original, Two Wolf production of the game. The Mayfair edition looks to have arbitrarily divided all original costs by five (such 160 where you formerly saw 800). When using it with the Mayfair mines and such, you will need to adjust accordingly.
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