Railway Rivals

The best game for postal/email play.

Many hours spent on multiple maps. Best low complexity railway game of its time (1829 was the best complex railway game of this period). Surpassed by later games.

The components are a bit woeful. You will want to supply some small wooden trains, some more averaging dice and a set of cards to determine races (preferable to rolling dice). Money is useful rather than pencil and paper as cross payments can get fiddly. Great game with lots of different maps which accommodate differing number of players. Simple mechanics but still a reasonable amount of strategy in building your lines. The way races are determined is very luck orientated and can throw a wrench in your plans. You can avoid this by having each town race twice but this can make the game too long.

I have played many face-to-face games and several postal games. I have 6 maps for this edition: maps B, F, G and K, plus China and India. Map K has had most plays.