Railroad Tycoon (board game)

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Railroad Tycoon

Designer	Martin Wallace and Glenn Drover
Publisher	Eagle Games
Players	2–6
Setup time	5 minutes
Playing time	120 minutes
Random chance	Low
Skills required

Railroad Tycoon is a railway-themed board game designed by Martin Wallace and Glenn Drover. The game, published in 2005 by Eagle Games, resembles a lot of Wallaces earlier railway-themed game Age of Steam with more stylistic box art and simplified rules. Railroad Tycoon takes place in eastern part of the United States in the days of early railway. Game starts at year 1830 with players taking a role of a tycoon, a head of a pioneering railway company.

[edit] Gameplay

The hex-based gaming board presents cities and villages with random cargo boxes. Players score points by delivering cargo to cities, using their own railway links as much as possible. In order to do that, a player must build railroad tracks between cities, upgrade locomotives and find the best delivery lines to get the right cargo to the right city.

[edit] Money and Winning

Players start with no money. Any time needed a player may take a share, an action which immediately creates money for player. The setback is that for each share the player takes she must pay dividends every turn. Delivering cargo boxes gives a score or scores to the player and at the end of the turn players get money according their scores.

Game ends when a fixed number of cities have no more cargo boxes left. Players count their scores and the player with most scores wins. In addition to cargo box delivery, scores can be achieved by completing specific tasks detailed by action cards or making the vision of her own tycoon true.