Railroad Revolution

EvEvanstar10.0

This game requires the expansion for the gameplay to shine. The base game had some good ideas, but it was saddled with unbalance issues. The expansion fixes all that and adds a rules-light depth of play that I am incredibly impressed with. I normally don't take the attitude of waiting for an expansion to fix gameplay issues, but in this case the wait was well worth it. In this game you get a personal action board with four primary actions. These actions have different options for bonus effects when you use a meeple of the matching color. As you play you build our your network of rails, cities, and telegraph stations, and in doing so you are constantly building and tweaking your own customized endgame victory point conditions. Since worker placement happens only on your personal board, and players can share locations, the player interaction comes primarily from racing to be first to your goals, as every location on the map has a powerful bonus for the first player to reach it. In this way, things are tense, but you are still able to accomplish the core elements of your goals. ★ Art, Iconography and components functional ★ Clever or interesting mechanisms ★ Reasonably low downtime between turns with mildly AP players ★ Multiple plays stay interesting ★ Low or mitigatable luck elements ★★★★★ Raw enjoyment

hahalbert82star5.0

Essen'16