Gone Cardboard: Railways of England and Wales, Coming from FRED

FRED Distribution will debut Railways of England and Wales, a Martin Wallace-designed expansion for its Railways of the World series, at Origins 2009 in June. Railways of England and Wales includes a basic and advanced game, with the basic game playing like Railways of the World (née Railroad Tycoon); building costs remain the same, and players earn bonus points when they’re the first to complete one of the five major lines connecting two cities. the game includes a few new operations cards, including a “passenger line” bonus that’s awarded to the first player to deliver four of the six types of goods.

The advanced game does away with the Baron, Operation and Train cards as well as the New City tiles and introduces a share system in which players buy shares of six companies but do not own any particular company. The game opens with a series of auctions for shares, with the first person who takes a share in a company controlling it until another player holds more shares of that company than its controller. Money paid for shares is placed in the company’s possession and used to pay for track-building. If a company runs out of money, it can issue bonds, for which interest must be paid each round.

During three company rounds, a company can build track, move goods, or pass. Links built between cities can be of any length and two can be built by each company each turn, but each link must be completed on the same turn it’s started. When moving goods, a cube can be moved over any number of links, but it must be moved on the active company’s link first and at least half of the links used for the move must be owned by the active company. A company earns income each round, then its income marker is reset to zero; this income is used to pay dividends to those who owns shares in the company, with a company’s controller deciding how much to pay out.

After dividends are paid, companies that are connected on the board can merge if the shareholders of both companies agree to the merger. The target company that’s taken over in a merger can return to the game during the shares phase at the end of each round, a phase that works similar to the auction that opens the game. As with basic Railways, the game ends once a certain number of cities are empty.

Railways of England and Wales, which retails for $33, is for 2-5 players, ages 10 and up with a playing time of 120 minutes. This game has been added to Gone Cardboard.

Comments:

< Back Home