Railways of Australia

Gekocht op Essen 22

Railways of Australia shines with its ability to scale perfectly for 2-6 players on the same map, so it might be the map to rule them all. I think you should keep Australia in the base game box. Almost a must!

Played this once with the full set of rules at 5p. If you want more detailed comments, see my entry for "Railways of the world" or "Railways of Europe".

The advanced rules for turn bidding made the turn order more balanced, but a drag to get through. The game runs just too long. The nature of this game is such that early good plays beats mediocre-openings-into-good-play consistently. Whoever is winning usually wins more, and whoever is behind very rarely can come back. For a game this long, this is really painful. What you gain in very open gameplay, you lose in people who have to sit through 3h+ of game that they know they can't win. It's very all or nothing, and being first on the first turn of the game is way too powerful. Sure, you'll have to pay for it. But a strong early position beats you the game usually. There's also way too much AP. Because getting things wrong or playing sub-optimally is so penalizing, people don't want to make mistakes and there's a lot to analyze in terms of cost/opportunity. When someone does exactly what you wanted ahead of you, it can be crushing. Interaction is still very euro-y. Build ahead of others, ship ahead of others. The problem is that, while it's fun to analyze, it becomes very solitaire and brain burner. As a result people are thinking a lot, but you're not playing the players or interacting meaningfully with them.

Having said this, this isn't a bad game - it's a fun, unforgiving, very competitive euro. But for the amount of time it takes, the egregious setup and tear down, the fiddly-ness etc.. there's just many more I'd rather play. But the main issue I see is that it's very all or nothing. A great opening will ride the game for you provided you don't make big blunders. People who are behind won't be able to catch up.

With regards to the Australia map in particular:

• The regions are a bit meh. It feels like a rule for more brainwork, but I don't think it makes the game better. Feels like something needed to funnel players through yet-to-exist cities so that there can be more emerging interaction in a very big map.

• Desert on the west sees way less use than the east coast - accurate to historical reality, but usually very empty

• Rules on switches sounded convoluted - perhaps it was the teach. Having a limit of 2 is a good thing in my opinion.

• Refueling - seems like something very rarely used, that will depend on the distribution of goods in the map. In our case, nobody ever felt the need to build anything.

• We played with the normal point/income track. The track for the australia map feels like it peaks and withers very quickly. Might have dragged the game substantially.

Overall, a fun game that I feel reluctant to play because of the drawbacks mentioned above. I'd rather spend 3h+ with more meaningful interaction and not with such a crushing sword hanging over my head in order to make the best decision possible at all times. While I like the very open strategy, the flow of the game and the theme, even, I think it's just too much AP prone, too long, and too all-or-nothing for a game of this length.