Age of Steam Expansion: 1890 Berlin

(Colour, American edition)

1890 Berlin has two major twists, the colours of the cities are randomized at the start of the game (from a set mix to insure there are some of each colour) and the cities always start the round with 4 cubes on them, but only the one furthest right in the line can be delivered.

The map was originally included as an insert in Fairplay, so it's a smaller, half-size map that restricts the amount of track you're able to build. There are no towns, but the normal number of cities. As is common in maps that restrict track building, track sharing is much more common in the early game than might be expected. The tight map also encourages this.

In practice, I quite like this map for about the first 2/3 of the game, but in the back half I don't care for the state of affairs where players can't build track (literally, no open edges left) and hence, just ship for a couple of rounds. I understand this is a function of the map's size, and the size is because it was originally an insert, but I still find it problematic, as this blemishes an otherwise interesting and fun design.

I would probably not like to play this with more than 4 due to the player-generated chaos in the goods shipment phases as well. Seems good with 3, but I would prefer the Irish Loco to the standard one if I played this with 3 again, as the auction deflates because of the high value of Engineer throughout the early game.

Another excellent AoS expansion!