Great Western Trail: New Zealand

Easily the best GWT after Argentina (that is also great variant but harder for the beginners because of boats). It's enough clear and still contains many ways for deck building, thanks for varying action cards.

Also tried solo gameplay one time. It is okay if you really want to taste some GWT experience, though AI is meh. Rated based on my multiplayer experiences.

Insert is from Etsy, made by inserty.cz Top notch quality

I was sceptical (how many different versions of GWT trail do we need?) In fact, this redesign is superb in refining the base game. Many aspects now evolve, giving a more satisfying game arc (4 neutral buildings upgrade mid-game; adding storehouses on the shipping board provides more delivery options) - whereas in the base game, you might have built a strong engine but still feel overly constrained. Although some players might dislike how much your deck grows with few options to trash cards, I prefer this to the base game where cycling through your deck was often slow.

There are now more sources of money, which enable you to build buildings, buy cows, and hire people whatever profession you decide to specialise in. It doesn't necessarily make it easier - you still can't do everything - just means you can tailor your engine to your strategy.

Several bits of fiddly admin have been removed (eg counting red crosses on train track to reduce delivery income; reducing foresight choices from 3 to 2).

The least important additions are gold, the bonus tiles, and pathfinder track - they sometimes give you additional options but are peripheral to your game strategy.

Cards are sleeved

Some might consider this a preliminary rating as I've only played it once, but I've played the original and second editions of GWT a couple dozen times and this is just an iteration on that.

GWT:NZ takes the already fantastic game of GWT and just elevates every bit of roughness out of that great design. No more stagnant hands, it's easier to get cows (well sheep), the whole station/train metaphor is so much more strategic. Those are the really big improvements but also now deck building actually matters and that you don't have to be first to any particular place because there are different paths for you to travel (along the waterway).

I think I HAVE to get rid of GWT in exchange for GWT:NZ.

This game of Pfister is so satisfying, the mechanics harmonize perfectly, eventhough this game is peaceful and solitaire, me as a competitive type player could still enjoy this game very well

Probably my favourite of the GWT's. A good bit more complex than the original. Lasts considerably longer and can be quite a bit of downtime between turns later in the game as people have many of the draw and discard free actions. But overall fun variant. 4 player realistically 4-5 hrs