Players place track and cities, create routes, and deliver goods. Bonuses are awarded to players who deliver multiple types of goods. This game requires careful management of steam to move your train as well as hand management to thwart other players as well as enable your own route.
500 copies manufactured for Essen 2008.
Days of Steam is #5 in the Valley Games Modern Line
Preußische Ostbahn is the second game in Winsome's Historic Railroads System and was initially released at Essen 2008 and was reprinted in January 2010. Queen Games is scheduled to release this game in July 2011 as "German Railways", which will be the first in their Iron Horse collection.
The Queen Games version will have considerably improved components, and the rules will not be modified from those of the original release.
Harry Wu's Preußische Ostbahn builds upon the system established in Chicago Express, and takes the game series to Germany, 1840-1870. Preußische Ostbahn (Prussian Eastern Railroad in English) introduces an innovative new Player Order mechanism to the system.
In addition, each Railroad now has a special characteristic, based upon its history:
Preußische Ostbahn - May build up to 4 track; 20 black track; Königsberg start.
Niederschlesische - No City Penalty; 17 brown track; Breslau start.
Sächsische - May build up to 2 track; 11 orange track; Leipzig start.
Bayerische - Track cost -1 per hex; 16 blue track; München start.
Main-Weser - Double one City Income; 14 yellow track; Kassel start.
Badische - One free rural track/build; 15 red track; Mannheim start.
Köln-Mindener - $5 maximum expediture/build; 12 purple track; Essen start.
Berlin-Hamburger - Must connect both to receive Dividends; 13 green track; Wittenberge start.
In the 19th century, shortly after the industrial revolution, railways quickly spread over the world. Japan, importing Western culture and eager to become one of the Grand Nations, saw the birth of many private railway companies and entered the Golden Age of railways. Eventually, as a result of the actions of powerful people and capitalists, many of these smaller companies gradually merged into larger ones.
In Trains, the players are such capitalists, managing private railways companies and striving to become bigger and better than the competition. The game takes place during the 19th and 20th century in the 2012 OKAZU Brand edition, whereas the 2013 AEG/Pegasus edition is set in modern times, with bullet trains, freight trains and more. You will start with a small set of cards, but by building a more effective deck throughout the game, you will be able to place stations and lay rails over the maps of Osaka, Tokyo or other locations. The trick is to purchase the cards you want to use, then use them as effectively as possible. Gain enough points from your railways and you will ultimately manage the most powerful railroads in modern Japan!
For years prospectors, speculators, and frontier folk flocked to remote areas of the American Southwest in search of their fortunes. Makeshift towns cropped up around rich mines of copper, silver, gold and other precious commodities, only to fade away as the resources ran out. Now only ghost towns are left as testament to the community that once lived there. While the lucky ones made their fortunes; most folks barely scratched out a meager existence in these harsh and lonely towns. Some died lonely deaths in these places far from home, and now their souls wander around these ghost towns haunting them until the day when their soul can return home to achieve final peace. The ghost trains are these lost souls’ ticket to rest. These spectral trains glide majestically along ethereal rails looking for lost souls and give them passage homeward. You are the engineer of a ghost train. Your job is to find lost souls in various ghost towns and deliver them to their home towns so that they can achieve final peace
Players are Engineers of Ghost Trains traveling through the American Southwest. Each player uses their standard set of Ether cards (1-4) to move, picking up souls and delivering them to Ghost Towns. As you move, you expend Ether to lay track behind. Other players can move along on your Ether track for free, but you may never travel along your own Ether.
As you lay down more track, your old Ether disperses -- you can pull up your track to clear the way for yourself or to leave someone in the lurch.
A portion of the game revolves around managing your discard pile, as you only get half of your ether cards back each turn. But most of the game comes down to proper planning along with timing your movement to take advantage of what other people have left you, while trying to disallow easy passage for others.