In Railroad Tycoon: Rails of Europe, it’s your job to build railroads and to ship goods from city to city.
You start with no money; the only way to get starting capital is by selling shares, which give you $5,000 immediately but cost you $1,000 per turn for the rest of the game. You spend money on laying railroad connections on the map, on upgrading your train, and on urbanizing small towns to accept new goods.
You earn money by shipping goods from city to city. You move up the score track one space for every link you move a good: move it next door, and you get a point. Move it three links over, and get three points. As you get more points, you get more money at the end of each turn—until about forty points in, when the money you earn starts to go down as your points go up.
It’s a game that’s all about careful expansion. Since you can’t pay back shares, they are a permanent drain on your cashflow. If you take too many shares, you can actually get to the point where it’s impossible to make money any more. And if you don’t have enough money when your cash flow starts to fall off near the end of the game, you can be forced to take a lot of shares.
The game ends after a certain number of cities are emptied of goods. You take your points, subtract the number of shares you took, and add any points for Tycoon Cards (which give you a bonus if you completed a certain condition by the end of the game, like “have the most money” or “have the best train.”). Whoever has the most points wins.
The European map has a lot of tiny chokepoints where only a couple of train tracks can get through, so there’s a lot of competition for space. (By comparision, the American map is wide open and not as well balanced, or so I’m told.)
It’s a fun little game, definitely worth giving a try.
