Trains
- rank: 559
- rating: 7.2
- published: 2012
Print Status
- out of print (but not difficult to find copies)
Why It's On The List
- Similar to Arctic Scavengers (#88 on this countdown), Trains is a direct descendant of Dominion... but the addition of board play to build your track network makes it much more appealing to me.
Tips & Tricks:
- As with any deckbuilder, one of the most important skills is correctly assessing which cards and/or combos of cards will work the best to accomplish your goals. Randomly buying cards will not be a successful strategy.
- Waste management is really important in Trains - figuring out how to clean the gunk out of your deck to allow you to do more things is a matter of careful timing (and a bit of luck).
Extras
- There is one stand-alone game/expansion for Trains - Rising Sun - as well as the Coastal Tides expansion (which simply adds more cards).
- There are also two map packs which add alternate boards... one of them was relatively easy to find; the other was a multi-year search that was finally rewarded in the remainders bin of an aging game store.
- I strongly recommend using the route bonus objectives (which appear in Rising Sun & Coastal Tides)... they add additional objectives to the game which give other alternatives for players to pursue.
I really wanted to love this game. I love deckbuilding games and I love the train theme. But our group found that going for Apartments (I think that was the high victory point card) was an unbeatable strategy.
ReplyDeleteWe haven't found that to be an issue... and any of the scoring cards have a tendency to clog your hand if taken too early.
ReplyDeleteIt may also be an issue of the other cards in the particular set you played with - just like Dominion, some mixes of cards do screwy things to the game.