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What TRAINS are you TRAINING?

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06 Dec 2016 14:41 #239951 by edulis
My wife and I play a lot of the deckbuilding board game by AEG Trains and Trains:rising sun. Not sure if it fits Southernman's definition of a train game, but its got the word train right in the title. It plays well with two players and has a great variety of cards and then with the addition of a board where you can block fuck with other's routes it is my favorite deckbuilder and train game.
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06 Dec 2016 15:00 #239953 by Mr. White

edulis wrote: My wife and I play a lot of the deckbuilding board game by AEG Trains and Trains:rising sun. Not sure if it fits Southernman's definition of a train game, but its got the word train right in the title. It plays well with two players and has a great variety of cards and then with the addition of a board where you can block fuck with other's routes it is my favorite deckbuilder and train game.


Tell me more.

I've recently dumped some family boardgames and was thinking about putting one under the tree. I was thinking Pandemic or a new Dixit set. Trains is good though? I guess I never gave it much thought when it came out.

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06 Dec 2016 16:29 #239962 by RobertB
Mr. White wrote:

Trains is good though? I guess I never gave it much thought when it came out.


Trains plays a lot like 'Dominion with a board'. I'm only being a little bit of a smartass, because the board makes Trains a better game than vanilla Dominion.
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06 Dec 2016 16:41 #239964 by RobertB
Jexik wrote:

I've played Railroad Tycoon/ Railways of the World, as well as Age of Steam. I liked the first okay, but the latter left a bad taste in my mouth, probably because of the company.


I like Age of Steam (well, did like it - I haven't played it for years), but it's a game where you can screw yourself out of the game on the first turn, or another player can screw both of you on the first turn. Tycoon/Railways is similar, but in those games you might not realize you lost at the start until halfway through the game. In both those games, start position is vital, and the goods cube layout is a key factor in that.

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06 Dec 2016 22:34 - 06 Dec 2016 22:39 #240001 by edulis

RobertB wrote: Mr. White wrote:

Trains is good though? I guess I never gave it much thought when it came out.


Trains plays a lot like 'Dominion with a board'. I'm only being a little bit of a smartass, because the board makes Trains a better game than vanilla Dominion.


Yup. The basic game comes with a double-sided board that you build routes on and most of your points come from station placement on the board. You can force others to share points by building into their stations and you can make routes more expensive by building in a spot first.... But yes Dominion with a board, a better theme and more interaction and just better.

As a family game my teenager and parents in their 70s all liked it. Even my very much a nongamer sister-in-law and boyfriend who only talks about fishing liked it and were competive after a few plays... Oh and it plays pretty quick.... Running out of trains, three stacks of cards, or out of stations all end the game. I suggest you get Rising Sun (stands alone or can expand) if you prefer more interaction.
Last edit: 06 Dec 2016 22:39 by edulis.

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07 Dec 2016 02:09 #240006 by Sevej
Replied by Sevej on topic What TRAINS are you TRAINING?
I've only tried (and have) Steam, and I like it *a lot*. It's simple, but the sandbox nature of it (here's a map, go build roads) is a big draw to me. That it has casual/gamer rules is also a plus.

Not interested (yet) on anything with stocks.

I like Ticket to Ride, but it's not a train game to me.
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07 Dec 2016 08:36 #240013 by Legomancer
The only train game I own is Steam, which is one of my all-time faves. I love everything about it, and I prefer the action selection determining turn order to the auction. I've played the other variants on this and they're fine, but this is the one I like the most.

Actually, I lied. I also have TransAmerica, which I think is a lot of fun, but too light for many folks. A step up from it is Santa Fe Rails, which I recently played that works on a similar route-building idea but adds a little more meat to it.

For stock markets, I like American Rails. It's a train stock game that has been shaved down to its essentials, and works excellently.

I've never played an 18xx game. I've played crayon rails once or twice and don't remember much about it.

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07 Dec 2016 11:11 - 08 Dec 2016 10:01 #240033 by Jexik
Replied by Jexik on topic What TRAINS are you TRAINING?

RobertB wrote: Jexik wrote:

I've played Railroad Tycoon/ Railways of the World, as well as Age of Steam. I liked the first okay, but the latter left a bad taste in my mouth, probably because of the company.


I like Age of Steam (well, did like it - I haven't played it for years), but it's a game where you can screw yourself out of the game on the first turn, or another player can screw both of you on the first turn. Tycoon/Railways is similar, but in those games you might not realize you lost at the start until halfway through the game. In both those games, start position is vital, and the goods cube layout is a key factor in that.


Yeah, my one game that I played of Age of Steam was at a small local con. I showed up late and all of my friends were already in games. "Fourth for Age of Steam?" I remember hearing that it was good, and long, but I thought I'd give it a try. I thought I had a decent understanding of the rules after the explanation. I had a really good first couple turns on some short deliveries, then realized by the third turn that the board and cube layout just wasn't good for me to get the mid and longer deliveries at all. So when I would have a turn, I felt like I was APing a bit, because I was trying so hard to figure out if there was anything that I could do that wasn't terrible or to salvage the mess, and there really wasn't. I didn't know the guys, and being totally out of a game that long that early made it pretty miserable. I felt like all I could do was play kingmaker or waste people's time, which didn't seem like such great options.

There was a sub-group that would play Railroad Tycoon nearly every week at one of my meet-ups, and they'd often get very pushy and practically play the new guy's turns for them. Sometimes that person would actually win, which was funny, probably because they had a committee deciding their moves, and then some other players would probably rush to make up for it. When there were no new players, they'd continue to offer 'helpful' advice. I saw some shouting matches for sure, and at least one guy that regularly played with that group just quit the club altogether.

By contrast, 90% of the people that I've met at Heroscape tournaments have been pretty great, sociable people.
Last edit: 08 Dec 2016 10:01 by Jexik.
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07 Dec 2016 14:13 - 07 Dec 2016 14:18 #240058 by RobertB
Jexik wrote:

There was a sub-group that would play Railroad Tycoon nearly every week at one of my meet-ups, and they'd often get very pushy and practically play the new guy's turns for them. Sometimes that person would actually win, which was funny, probably because they had a committee deciding their moves, and then some other players would probably rush to make up for it. When there were no players, they'd continue to offer 'helpful' advice. I saw some shouting matches for sure, and at least one guy that regularly played with that group just quit the club altogether.


- I think that the headache at the start of both AoS and RRT is trying to calculate how much you can spend in points (via shares) to get the first turn, so you can get the best start position. The cities* and goods aren't moving around, so you can sort of plan what you want the game to look like at the first turn.

- I hate helpful advice that I'm not asking for, especially from other players. I assume that I'm going to suck on my first play (or my latest play), and I'm fine with that. But sometimes the local game club's players play hard, and 'advice' is usually given with an ulterior motive.

- It might have been here at FA, but I've seen discussions about, "Offering well-aimed advice can turn every game into a negotiation game."

* If there's another player that really needs to get screwed over, Urbanizing a town in the middle of their game-winning route can take care of that. That 6-link Yellow route now turns into a 1-link Yellow route, and Johnny just lost 10 points he was counting on. If you really want to feel stupid, you can do that to yourself for an own goal.
Last edit: 07 Dec 2016 14:18 by RobertB.

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07 Dec 2016 16:43 #240082 by southernman

RobertB wrote: Jexik wrote:

- I think that the headache at the start of both AoS and RRT is trying to calculate how much you can spend in points (via shares) to get the first turn, so you can get the best start position. The cities* and goods aren't moving around, so you can sort of plan what you want the game to look like at the first turn.

* If there's another player that really needs to get screwed over, Urbanizing a town in the middle of their game-winning route can take care of that. That 6-link Yellow route now turns into a 1-link Yellow route, and Johnny just lost 10 points he was counting on. If you really want to feel stupid, you can do that to yourself for an own goal.


And that's why I seldom (never) win those games as I have no idea to do your first point and rarely think about point two.
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07 Dec 2016 17:01 #240083 by Cranberries
Chicago Express is a gold box special right now on Amazon. $20 shipped Prime.

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12 Dec 2016 18:59 #240403 by BlackGoat
We doubled down on trains at Meeplecon, a boardgame convention in Melbourne, Australia last weekend. On Friday we two simultaneous 4 player games of 1846. Saturday one long 6 player 1830 game, which was amazing. Difference between 1st and 2nd place was a measly $34 (less than 1% of our total assets). We played a few rounds of Trick of the Rails too, very nifty little 18XX inspired trick-taking game. On Sunday, we brought Rolling Stock to the table, all 5 of us new to the game. An intriguing take on 18XX. So much to explore. I got my artscow copy for next to nothing. I floundered miserably finishing dead last, and spent the next day reading the incredibly comprehensive strategy guide that the designer wrote. Everyone wants to play it again.
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13 Dec 2016 21:43 #240489 by dysjunct
I forgot to actually answer this.

I like train games because of the engineering aspect that JJ mentioned. Trains are pretty cool. Something about the massive social collaboration needed to make these enormous and powerful things zoom across the countryside. It's the closest to controlling a force of nature, and until there's a game of foreign strongmen manipulating our insecure and narcissistic president-elect, trains are the next best thing.

Favorite by far is Railways of the World. TTR is clearly a joke game. As Dear Leader says: "In fact, this game is evidence that if Candyland were released today, fat bearded men and their grotesquely obese wives would be hunkered over it declaring how "clever" and "elegant" the mechanics are- just like they do with TTR." Play rummy or shithead or literally anything else.

Past ROTW, there's an entire universe of train games. Steam and approximately a million 18XX games. They are all ridiculous and terrible. Super complex to appeal to people who love train schedules yet cannot bring themselves to hunker down and paint an entire diorama of model trains. Once I got the Mayfair reprint of 1830. I skimmed the rules and realized it was nonsense.

ROTW is the sweet spot. An actual game, as opposed to TTR, yet not obvious autistic like 18XX and its ilk. It has routes, maps, goods, and engines. The production values are great and you feel like a rail baron. All other train games can pound sand.

For the last question about murder games vs train games, there is no good reason. Murder games are better. But sometimes you cannot play a murder game, in which case a train game is better than nothing.

However, I would like the record to reflect that I am firmly on the side of murder. Thank you.
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