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The board depicts a map of the British isles, over which is laid a grid of dots, or mileposts, which the players use to layout their track. Players begin with 60million in cash, 3 Demand cards and a crayon and pawn in their chosen colour. The Demand cards are the crux of the game and determine what town demands what goods and how much revenue you will receive for delivering that cargo. As you can only deliver one cargo from each card, you need to decide which one to go for, although this normally means going for the demand which gives the best payout.
As players draw out their track, only one player can draw between any two mileposts, which makes the tracklaying of other players possibly more costly if they have to build through 'Mountain' mileposts.
Although there is some luck involved in what demands you receive, the game does have a certain amount of skill involved in trying to build the most efficient network. The faster you can deliver the goods, the more money comes rolling in. The player who gets 250 million first is the winner.
SUMMARY:
Empire Builder was the first of this type of game, with British rails following it. A rule used in Empire Builder, is that the major cities must be
built to, as well as having 250 million in cash, and this is also recommended to be used in British Rails, although the rule
is only listed as an option.
This is one of our favourite type of games, it is just so much fun to play. Besides Empire Builder, there is also Iron Dragon which uses a fantasy map and Euro Rails both of which are an excellent addition to the genre.
Review by Brian
ADDITIONAL NOTE:
British Rails has been modernised by Mayfair Games to be more like Eurorails. The board is now much smaller, being on only four boards instead of six. This has been done by reducing the scale which has caused only subtle differences to the coastline. The game seems to have been made much faster too, as there seems to be more high payment goods cards and the cards themselves have been completely revised.
This version hasn't stopped British Rails being one of my all time favourite games. My only real complaint being that the box really doesnt like being anything other than flat as this causes the new goods counters, first found in Eurorails, to migrate south. :) .A simple box design flaw.
I guess if I was to be peevish I would also have to say that I'm not overly thrilled about the increased game speed and revised goods cards. It was an exciting time in the old version when the game leader suddenly got a spate of bad cards allowing the other players to catch them up resulting in a very close race to the finish. Now though, if one player gets a lucky hand and gets a break away from the other players, there is little opportunity to catch them. This version is still thoroughably enjoyable and I look forward to the next game.
TOM
