Kris Hall: Walter Hunt and New England Rails

I think that train and rail games are one of the more interesting sub-genres in the boardgame world, and so I snapped to attention when I learned that Walter Hunt and Gregory Pozerski had designed a game called New England Rails.  As a former inhabitant of Little Rhody, I was interested in any game that would let me build a train network into and out of Providence.  I soon contacted Walter Hunt and he agreed to an e-mail interview, and graciously sent me a copy of the rules.

I was pleased to learn that New England Rails is actually part of a small sub-sub-genre of games that deal with the way businesses interact with a transportation network (Brass, Indonesia, and Container are similar games that spring to mind).  Railroads actually aren’t the primary businesses that players own in New England Rails, but a rail network is essential to generating the most revenue from a player’s holdings.

But I should let Walter speak for himself.

Kris: The railroad genre is one of the most-overcrowded sub-genres of board games.  What made you want to create a type of game that will have to compete with all of Martin Wallace’s train games, the 18xx series of train games, and Mayfair’s crayon-based train games to say nothing of simpler games like Ticket to Ride?  In other words, what is special about New England rails?

Walter: We didn’t start out with the intention of competing with this genre; when we first started working on it, we were trying to introduce some more interactive mechanics to a crayon-rail game set in New England. More terrain; cards to use on other players and to change the distribution of goods; that sort of thing. This was the mid-1980s; 18xx was still just a few games mostly designed by Tresham, Age of Steam and Ticket to Ride didn’t even exist. One of our inspirations was the FASA game “Noble House”, based on the James Clavell novel. That’s a business game, but it’s all about pouncing on a rival at the moment of weakness. We didn’t want to be that vicious. Well, we did, but a lot of that has been written out of the game.

The big change came a little later on when I decided that it would be more interesting to have a game like Silverton.  Sometime in the early 1990s I had a sudden epiphany, and replaced the Empire Builder-style cards with product cards like Silverton’s mines.

I should note that “train games” are a rather all-encompassing category, spanning games like TransAmerica and Ticket to Ride to more brain-burning exercises like Age of Steam and the more baroque forms of 18xx. It’s hard to decide what constitutes a train game. In a way, ours isn’t a train game at all: it’s a business game. Trains are only part of it, though obviously train gamers are a good target audience; they’ll be in familiar surroundings.

Kris: Can you explain the basic mechanics of the game?  What are players trying to accomplish and what do they do in their turn?

Walter: Each turn, players seek to expand their holdings--businesses throughout New England, mail contracts, special routes and their rail network, to earn the most profit. There are three economic conditions, and businesses perform differently depending on whether the condition is Normal, Depression or Prosperity. The game shows what the next two turns will be, and each turn the condition for the turn-after-next is forecast, so players can plan.

There are three sections to each turn. In the first section, events and economic condition forecasting takes place, and new businesses and action cards are made available (by drafting: twice the number of cards as players are drawn from the current business deck, and each player may select one to keep or put into play.) In the second section, players may take two actions; these are either card actions (play a business, play an action card, claim a special route or state subsidy, claim a mail contract) or building actions (build depots, Power Grid style). In the third section, players pay interest on loans and collect income.

In some ways, the game is sort of a love-child of Silverton and Power Grid; the businesses look a little like Silverton mines, except that there’s no dice rolling and there is an increased income if a player’s rail network includes a market city; and building is done Power Grid fashion, counting the distance between an existing depot and the target one and paying the cost plus a fee for the depot itself. Unlike Silverton, however, and like Power Grid, the player owns the depot and not the track: indeed, the idea of “connection” (for a larger profit) has nothing to do with either distance or a specific series of track segments, but merely a depot in the business’s location and a depot in one (or more) market cities--Boston, New York or Montréal.

Kris: So players acquire various businesses.  How is a business different from a depot?  What is the function of a depot?  Do players simply draft business cards or is there a price involved?

Walter: A business is a card with a product type, a location, and a price. Each business has two income levels for each economic condition, depending on whether it is connected or unconnected. See http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/683085/new-england-rails for a sample. Players can have eight businesses in play.

A depot is a marker on a location. For a business to be connected (and thus receive the higher income), the player must have a depot in the location where the business is located, and a depot in one or more market cities.

Kris: Do businesses generate income every turn, or do players have to fulfill certain conditions to make businesses profitable?

Walter: Businesses generate income every turn, but players may alter their portfolio depending on game conditions and as better businesses appear.  Also, builds on the board affect income by connecting businesses.

Kris: How complex will New England Rails be?  How many players can it accommodate?  How long will it take to play?

Walter: It’s no more complicated than a medium-weight game like Power Grid, though it does require players to do some advance planning--watching out for economic change, guarding against events and other players’ actions, having enough money to pay for loans and to do what they want to do.

It should be about 30 minutes per player, and can accommodate 2-5 players. It’s received the most play with four, but works well with as few as two.  Each player starts in one of the five New England state capitals other than Massachusetts; in the four-player there’s no Rhode Island player, in the three-player there’s no Maine player.

Kris: How much playtesting has the game received?  How did Rio Grande Games come to publish it?

Walter: The game has been in development for more than twenty years. There are friends who have played many different versions, and we have a big notebook of rules ideas and questions, a dozen sets of older business cards and numerous versions of the economic model. It’s nice to see it come out in this form, but it’s changed a lot over time.

Rio Grande is not the first company to take an interest, but Jay Tummelson believed that the game would resonate with some part of his audience. He also demonstrated that he believed in the game and in our ability to get it ready for market. I can’t speak too highly of him, and give him credit for his insights and advice on how to streamline the design to make the game successful. He made an offer on the game last year and we’re now starting the final approach to publication.

Kris: When will New England Rails likely be published?

Walter: It’s really up to Jay Tummelson, but we hope to see it later in 2010.  Since the art is nearing final, I’m expecting that production can’t be far away.

Kris: A lot of historical and regional flavor has been baked into the business, event, and special route cards.  What books did you use to research American businesses of the period?

Walter: Too numerous to mention, but the rail lines are based on a Hammond atlas with actual train routes (it predates the Interstate Highway System), and the cities are placed and chosen based on my copy of the Ninth Census of the United States (1870). For example, Rockingham VT is now called Bellows Falls--but it wasn’t then.

Kris: I’ve got a feeling that New England Rails will impress the kind of gamers who enjoy Power Grid or Brass.  And I could easily imagine that the game engine could be used for games about other regions.

Walter: I sure hope so.

Kris: I kept picturing a game about Pennsylvania oil fields, Ohio steel mills, West Virginia coal mines, and Chicago stockyards.  If New England Rails is a hit, do you have any plans to create one or more sequels?

Walter: I have thought about the Pennsylvania oil/coal style game, but we currently have a New York game under development. It features the Erie Canal system and some aspects of a legislative game that we pared out of the New England game. I’ve already got a pile of prototype set of business cards and a sketch map, but we’re a ways from even discussing details yet.

Kris: What other kinds of projects would you like to work on?

Walter: Greg and I have kicked around a spice trade game set in the 16th and 17th century, and he’s very interested in King Philip’s War. We’re waiting to see if the new game on that subject is satisfying--if not, we may dive into that.

It’s a little strange to have the prospect of a new project--this one has been in the works so long that it’s hard to imagine it being in the past rather than the future.

Kris: Thanks for the interview.

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