Railroad Tycoon

So you’ve reunited a fractured empire. Can you build one from the ground up? Take the role of one of history’s railroad barons and see if you have what it takes to become the next Railroad Tycoon in Eagle Games’ Railroad Tycoon: The Boardgame.

Revisit the early days of the Age of Steam as you begin with a locomotive (the venerable John Bull, the first locomotive to run in North America) and a vision (your Tycoon “mission” card). From there, build your budding railroad network into a vast empire. Connect New York to Chicago, earn the most money, develop bigger and faster locomotives and maybe even span North America and build the Transcontinental Railway!

You can issue shares of stock in your growing company whenever you want, but remember that shareholders expect (and will receive) dividends. If you build your network without delivering some goods to generate income you may find yourself struggling to make ends meet. Railroad Tycoon: The Boardgame rewards a phased strategy. Early in the game when cash is very scarce, make short deliveries to generate some income. Build your network and expand gradually to support your bigger engines and larger network. Once you have a strong network, look for the big payoffs.

Your choices are deceptively simple, build track, deliver goods, take an operations card, build an industry (urbanize) or upgrade your engine. That is it. What makes Railroad Tycoon: The Boardgame challenging is when to do these things and in what order.