Economic

From the ZuGames website:

In the year 1338 the Siena’s Town Council charged the famous artist Ambrogio Lorenzetti to paint a fresco showing the town and its commerce. You will play the game above the painting that he made. You will start as Peasants, sowing the ground and selling your crop along the Via Francigena. If you will save enough florins you will be more comfortably off, trading in cloth and spices throughout Tuscany. But your dream is bigger: to enter the Council of the Nine, the town’s government. Therefore you will have to change into Bankers and use your money to obtain the Senesi’s consent: will you finance the artists of that time or contribute towards the construction of the new Torre del Mangia? Be careful, the florins that you have saved could not be enough! Behind every corner of the town other players’ pitfalls hide themselves: beggars, thieves, pretty women inside the inn...
Be prepared for a unique game experience.

From the publisher, Rio Grande Games:

Seehausen am See. For many years, more and more people visit this idyllic village during the annual summer fest. In these three weeks, the breweries and beer gardens in the village make more money than during the rest of the year. So, you and your opponents become hardened businessmen, who rush to Seehausen am See to invest in the businesses there with an eye toward the large profits that come during the festival. During these three weeks each will invest in the businesses and try to get his people in management positions in the breweries and beer gardens where he owns stock. The players also work to increase the size of their favorite beer gardens so that they can earn more money. In the end, it is not the size of the beer gardens or who is in charge, but the amount of money in the players’ pockets...

Welcome, dear Imperialists. It's the year 2415. The interplanetary federation (IPF) has done a great job in the last centuries. All necessary precautions have been taken to conquer this planet named "Steam". The core of the planet consists of a 6,500º Celsius hot source containing different resources, including water. It has taken over one hundred years to complete the first block of 42 shafts from the surface to the core.

But now the time has come. From every shaft surges the hot steam that is the basis of the production of raw materials. To be able to use and process this steam, platforms have to be placed over the shafts. Later, we can use the platforms to connect the water purification tanks. By using several tank extractors, we can harvest other resources like energy, ore, and quartz from the steam. These resources are important. You will need them to grow your steam empires. You will need to increase the capacity of your landing craft to transport your harvested materials off planet. Buy and sell the resources at the Trading terminal for profit, as currency is – like on earth – always in short supply on Steam. To help you in your endeavours, the IPF has placed several specialists at your command – but getting the specialist that you require may not be easy.

Planet Steam is a board game in which two to five players take the roles of entrepreneurs in a steampunk boomtown, racing to assemble equipment, claim plots of land, extract resources, and accumulate riches. After harvesting resources using tanks and converters, players must buy and sell those resources in a volatile and ever-shifting market. The one who earns the most income will, in the end, be victorious. However, only through shrewd resource management and clever manipulation of supply and demand can a player reign supreme!

Nieuw Amsterdam was founded by the Dutch West Indies Company in order to encourage the lucrative beaver pelt trade with the local Native American hunters along the Hudson River. To establish a trading post there, they needed a town and a fort, which was built on the tip of Manhattan Island. To encourage European patrons – that is, settlers of means or noble birth – to populate the colony, they granted them both land and indentured servants. The patrons became the lords of a new feudal system not unlike that seen in Europe.

In Nieuw Amsterdam, players are those patrons, and they bid on action lots in order to build businesses, work land for both food and building materials, compete in elections, ship furs to the Old World, and trade with the Lenape Indians – a process that gets more complicated as players claim more land and push the Lenape camps farther up the Hudson River.

From the entry for Rail Baron:

BOXCARS is the predecessor of Rail Baron.

In the late 1960s or early 1970s, previously unknown designers R.S. Erickson and T.F. Erickson, Jr. began
boardgame development. In an era when both the railroad and board gaming industry was in flux, the Ericksons managed to combine elements from the two to create a game that has withstood the test of time. In fact, it provided solid footing for the whole "train gaming" genre.

The Ericksons decided to publish the game on their own, and released it as "BOXCARS" in 1974. It was billed as "The Informative NEW travel game of OLD-time railroading." For a first-time effort, the components of the resulting boardgame were surprisingly refined and professional.

The single-piece board unfolded to reveal a map of the United States on which routes of 28 historic railroads were traced. The rules of BOXCARS vary from those of Rail Baron in several ways. For example, BOXCARS has no restriction in the re-use of routes: this allows players to circle along the same track as long as desired. BOXCARS also allows a player to trade, sell or auction a RR at any time during the game. Furthermore, BOXCARS lacks the Express and Superchief locomotive upgrades that Rail Baron contains.

Before long, the Ericksons' game caught the attention of The Avalon Hill Game Company (AH). The original designers apparently sold the BOXCARS rights to AH and were obligated to quickly disperse the remaining copies of their game. It is estimated that there were only 1000 copies of BOXCARS ever printed.

AH scaled down the game's physical size to match the "bookshelf" style of many of its other titles, modified the rules, and released it as Rail Baron in 1977.

(Description adapted with permission from "An Illustrated History of Rail Baron")