Board Gaming - Russian Railroads

Russian Railroads

This is a game involving trains and worker placement, so I was always going to be interested in playing it. I really like worker placement mechanics, especially when their are actual choices on where and when you place a worker. In Russian Railroads, you only get to make 1 placement on your turn. You then have to wait for all the other players to make a placement before you can place another worker. Because all the placement locations are restricted to 1 placement, you need to work out what's important to you, and what you think the others will take before your next placement.

You also only have a few workers, starting with just 3, with the possibility of earning 3 more through the game. And then some of the placements cost more than 1 worker to use because they're better or more powerful.

^{Main board about two thirds of the way through the game}

So what are you actually doing? You're building some railway lines, buying engines, and probably constructing some factories too. The building of the railway line is done by moving different coloured railway blocks along the tracks on the player board. There are 3 that can be advanced, Moscow to Kiev, St Petersberg, or Vladivostok (The last being the Trans Siberian line). As you expand the line further and further, you gain additional benefits. At the start of the game you can only build the most basic (black) rails, but as you extend the Trans Siberian line, you gain access to the more advanced rail types, which are each worth more and more points.

When you extend the line towards Kiev, you score bonus points at each scoring round, which happens after everyone has placed all their workers each round. There is also access to one of your additional workers on this line (and there is one on the Trans Siberian too).

The main thing the St Peteresberg line provides is multiple locations to place special tiles that give you a special benefit, some of which are really good. Gaining rail advancement, gaining end game bonus cards, modifying your scoreboard and others.

^{My player board late in the game.}

You want to expand the lines to at least the value of the engine you're running on that line, as you only score points for the track you can reach on the engine. You also need to upgrade the track, as black doesn't actually score anything (without a bonus/modification), so 1 copper is better than 6 black. The trick there is that black has to be moved forward for the others to follow, keeping the track pieces in the order that you get access to them.

The factory track mostly scores you points. And you can advance it a bit without buying any factories, but there are gaps in the line that need factories to go through, but they all give you a benefit when you move the marker onto them. the 2 I've got showing above allow me to do a 1 worker action again (so one that I've already done this turn), and the other gives me 2 2x multipliers that can be used to increase the value of some track locations.

I enjoyed this game quite a lot, and would certainly play it again if the opportunity came up. I'd focus more on some of the other aspects of the game earlier if I'm not blocked out of them, but the Trans Siberian was certainly good to be leading in.

It plays 2-4 players, and takes over 90 minutes for a game (they suggest 90-120, but first game especially can be at least another half hour while you remember rules and question what you can do). Not an entry game, but certainly one that experienced game players can move into fairly quickly.

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