Rails of the World, For Sale and Looting London – Coming from FRED

Keith Blume at FRED Distribution says that the company’s supply of Glenn Drover’s Railroad Tycoon is nearly sold out, but rather than renew the RRT license and print more, FRED will divide the components into two stand-alone items: Rails of the World and Rails of the Eastern U.S.

Rails of the Eastern U.S. will be a stand-alone expansion in the style of Rails of Europe, which was released in February 2008. Says Blume, “We’re taking some tweaks from Rails of Europe and backloading them onto the Rails of... engine. Dots on the map will denote mountains. You’ll be dealt two tycoons from the 12 available and will choose one.” Players will no longer have to track whether they’re following a river or crossing it to determine building costs as any tile built on a space that contains water will cost the same.

The gameboard has also been altered slightly, such as adding a hex between Mobile and New Orleans so that only one space separates them. The scoring track, which previously wrapped around the playing area, will be a separate board, which will allow the map of the Eastern U.S. to have the same footprint (and same box size) as that of Rails of Europe. The lack of a scoring track or border trim on middle America leaves open the possibility of a Western U.S. gameboard down the road.

Rails of the World is the new base game for the system and will include the engine placards, railroad tiles, train tokens, money, bonds, and other items that will be needed in almost all Rails of... games. The gameboard depicting the eastern half of the United States, now broken out into a standalone item, will be replaced by a paper map of Mexico. (Blume has already considered how to make this map available on its own for current RRT owners, but no plan is in place yet.)

“[The Mexico map] doesn’t use tycoon or operational cards and is designed so that new players can learn the basics of the game,” says Blume. The paper map will keep the price point well below the $60 tag on Railroad Tycoon. “We want to let people buy the base game, and then whatever expansions they might want.” Both Rails of the World and Rails of the Eastern U.S. are due out Q4 2008.

Two other items coming from FRED Distribution are Stefan Dorra’s For Sale – which will be part of FRED’s Gryphon Games line, along with Money!, Gem Dealer and High Society – and Reiner Knizia’s Looting London. The name of this last title isn’t definite yet, but what is fixed is that this is an English-language version of Tatort Themse, which Pegasus Spiele is publishing in German in September. In Looting London, players are detectives trying to catch a thief in London who has made off with the crown jewels. No release dates have been set for either title.

These games have been added to Gone Cardboard.

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For Sale too? ...I would have preferred that Rio Grande take the rights… Well, now wait for the new artwork… Posted by Javier Barón on Jul 4, 2008 at 12:26 PM | #

Very interesting. I look forward to trying the Mexico map and altering my base RRT map to follow the Rails of Eastern US. Posted by Jason Spears on Jul 5, 2008 at 10:16 AM | #

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