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All Aboard!!! Bruce's Top 25 Railroad Games
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Railroad games are perhaps my favorite genre of game overall. The silly little choo-choo game has evolved into a family of games which includes everything from fast-paced action to auctions to resource management to fairly complex economic simulations. Too bad real railways aren't flourishing nearly as well as rail games! It won't take many of you long to notice that the whole 1830 family of games is missing from this list. I've played 1830 just once, and didn't really get it to click, so I need to try again. Anyhow, I consider the top dozen or so of these games to be great games, and the rest at least very good.
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Posted Wed Dec 7, 2005 6:36 pm
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Anyone who knows me knew which game would be first on this list -- my all-time favorite game! For added challenge (die-hard fans of the game only!) see my description of Super Sadistic Advanced Empire Builder under the listing for this game. Play with the old metal trains if possible -- the cheap plastic pawns now sold with the game are junk -- you can't even tell which way your train is moving!
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British Rails is the only other Empire Builder series game to crack my top 25 rail games, and it does so with gusto. The map (in the old version of the game, which is all I've ever played) is challenging and fun. None of the later games in the series came close to recreating this level of excitement, in my opinion.
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Alan Moon's best game ever, very approachable for serious and casual gamers alike. It's a crisp, clean, easy-to-learn system with lots of tension and difficult decisions. Very deserving winner of the 2004 Spiel des Jahres award! Too bad about the 80-point score track in the first edition, though, which makes the scoring a bit confusing even for a math guy like me. (When will game companies learn that 50 and 100 are good, easy-to-use score track lengths?)
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The best of many very good railroad games from Winsome, and in fact, my current favorite two-player game overall. You and your opponent race to be first to build a transcontinental rail line in 19th-century North America, battling rough terrain, indians, derailments, disease, and everything else imaginable. The game goes slowly at first, but most of the bad cards are one-use only so eventually progress will be made. Play the Standard Game as opposed to the Short Game, because some of the strategies don't have time to pay off in the shorter version. Actually, my ambition now is to play the Campaign Game, which should take at least six hours. Thankfully, my wife likes the game too and will play!
By the way, John Bohrer at Winsome Games went out of his way to be extremely helpful in answering the many questions and comments I had regarding this game.
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A great game which I don't get to play often enough, nearly as good as Ticket to Ride, and a definite improvement over its predecessor (Airlines).
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This game added several strategic improvements to the original, yet I find myself choosing to play the original more often. Maybe I prefer its simplicity, or the more familiar map.
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This deep game offers the aspect of player roles, which is not something I'm usually that fond of. (Maybe that's why I rate Puerto Rico lower than many others do.) But this game offers a lot of depth for thinking players.
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A snappy, clever little bidding/race game, packing plenty of punch into its short playing time. By far the best of Michael Schacht's train game trilogy.
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An advanced economic game of railroad companies and conglomerates. Key decisions include when and how to merge railroads, and when to convert shares. Very involved; definitely not for beginning gamers.
Ya know, I really ought to give 1830 another go -- if I can handle Landerbahnen, I can handle that.
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In this game, players own locomotive factories and strive to produce the best, most modern, and most profitable locomotives. Lots of fun!
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And for something totally different -- a murder mystery set on board a moving train! A lot like Clue, but more fun. Randy and Rachel Cox taught me this on one of my visits to their house, and I greatly enjoyed it. The game comes with ten mysteries, so long-term replay value is limited.
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12.
Board Game: Metro
[Average Rating:6.46 Overall Rank:659]
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Tery Gaudet once told me this was her favorite game, so I asked her to teach it to me. Very nice, easy to play, a lot like Streetcar by the same designer.
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One of Alan Moon's several very good railroad games. I've only played once and somehow managed to sneak out a victory.
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Rails and the Rockies...what atmosphere! I have the original Two Wolf version of the game.
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An OLD classic, a lot like Monopoly on rails. Good fun, but it does drag a bit, and I eventually got tired of looking stuff up in all those tables, so I don't play this much any more.
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No elements of chance at all in Reiner Knizia's excellent rail game set in England. Plays well with three, which is a major plus for any game.
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Somewhat similar to Empire Builder in that players draw their rail lines with crayon and fulfill contracts, but beyond that it's much different. Also available on a map of Austria, which I've yet to play.
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Still another very good train game from Winsome, this one about fixing up locomotives brought into the shop ("roundhouse") for repair. Played at the 2005 Gathering of Friends.
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Alfonzo Smith taught me this at a Gathering of Friends a couple years back, and I've since bought a copy and look forward to playing it again.
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Moderately complex economic game set in Argentina. I enjoyed it the one time I played it.
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Very similar to Freight Train, and plays much more quickly than the two hours mentioned on the box.
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Really, really, REALLY cool dice!
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23.
Board Game: Mogul
[Average Rating:6.61 Overall Rank:952]
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A simple rail company/stock game. The other good one of Michael Schacht's little rail trilogy. (The third game of the bunch, Station Manager, is dismal.)
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Another good Alan Moon train game, later dressed up and republished as Santa Fe Rails. I prefer the smooth simplicity of the original, however, and sold my copy of SFR.
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Part of the Volldampf family of rail games. We played this at a KAGG meeting and my wife, Krissi, ran away with the game.
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Posted Wed Dec 7, 2005 6:10 pm
