Players: 3-5*
Playing Time: 90-180 minutes

* Unlike the original Railroad Tycoon, this one works very well with three players.

The Components

Rails of Europe comes in a shallow box containing just the new bits you need to play the original Railroad Tycoon game in Europe.

Board: A six-panel board depicting the cities of Europe. Where I found the original Railroad Tycoon gameboard absurdly large, this one is just big, the first of several improvements in this expansion. This new board also makes it a lot easier to figure out the costs of building through hexes by very clearly showing which ones are mountains. Beyond that it's what you'd expect from Railroad Tycoon: a high-quality heavy cardboard board attractively produce.

My one complaint with the board is color, unfortunately a recurring problem with this series of games. In the original Railroad Tycoon the blue and purple were too similar. This time it's blue and black which I always had to look really carefully at, even in great light.

Cards: the game also comes with two sets of cards: new Railroad Baron cards to offer variant victory conditions in Europe and new Railroad Operation cards to give various in-game bonuses and special effects. These are all printed on medium-weight glossy cardstock.

Overall, the components in Rails of Europe are high-quality and relatively attractive. I've given them a "4" out of "5" for Style.

The Gameplay

Rails of Europe plays the same as Railroad Tycoon, with the variations that you'd expect from the new board and new cards, plus a few additional rules.

New Rules: There are four major rules changes of note.

First, you now get to select among two Railroad Barons at the start of the game, allowing you to somewhat determine your endgame victory conditions, thus reducing the luck.

Second, the rules for building tracks have been slightly changed to no longer have the confusing rules for building along a river. Instead, all water hexes cost $3000.

Third, shares may only be issued as they're required--which is really a non-change that just seems to stop players from making bad moves.

Fourth, the major lines, which gives players rewards for being the first player to connect two cities, are now always available. (They used to be in the Railroad Operations deck.) This seems to make them a more constant part of the game, and again reduces the randomness.

New Cards: The Railroad Baron cards are much like the Railroad Tycoon cards in the original game. There are bonuses for connecting certain cities, for having the most cities connected, for having the least shares issued, etc. There is still some imbalance among them, but it's not major.

The Railroad Operation cards no longer include the major lines, as noted, but do have some new card types:

• Passenger Lines is a new starting goal which gives whoever first delivers 4 types of goods a bonus. It's better balanced than the old 4-train goal because it's a potentially different path to victory.
• Capital Charters give players points when connections are built to a specific city.
• City Charters keep other players from building into a specific city.
• Tunnel Engineer makes it cheaper to build in mountains for an action.

New Board: The new board is probably the most notable change to the game because it's very different. The biggest difference is that it's very cramped. This is a good change because the other board was overly spacious, especially if you had a small number of players. Here, even if you're playing with three, you'll be getting in each others' ways, perhaps early on, but definitely by the end of the game.

I've also seen some people comment that the new board seems more balanced. I don't have enough experience to say for sure, but in the original Railroad Tycoon, it did feel like there were some notable sweet spots, while here much of the board seemed equally valuable.

Relationships to Other Games

Rails of Europe is an expansion to Railroad Tycoon, which is itself a variant of Martin Wallace's train game, Age of Steam.

The Game Design

Rails of Europe is a superb expansion for Railroad Tycoon that really highlights how subtle changes to a gaming system can improve it.

First up, the four minor changes to the game system all improve it. As I've already noted, they decrease randomness and decrease complexity without giving up any notable game elements. The constant availability of the major lines is the one that improves the game most, in my opinion, because now you have a real alternative if goods become too scarce.

Beyond that, the map is an excellent alternative to the original. One of my real concerns with the original Railroad Tycoon was game length. If you played with 5 or 6 people, it could easily take 3 or more hours, but if you played with less, the map was much too open. Conversely, Rails of Europe seems ideally sized for 3 or 4 players, which I think is also the ideal player number for the game. My two 3-player games have both come in around 90 minutes, and they've both had some level of competition for resources in the game.

Overall, Rails of Europe is not just an alternative to the standard Railroad Tycoon play, but it's a notable improvement, to the point where I'd suggest buying this the moment that you buy the main game.

Conclusion

Most of the time alternative maps like this European map for Railroad Tycoon exist solely to offer variety to a well-loved game. Rails of Europe does that, but it also provides much improved game play, making it a better choice than the original map for all but the games with 5 or 6 players.

Help support RPGnet by purchasing this item through DriveThruRPG.