Rail Line Review — A simple yet "Track"tical game to blow off steam

I like trains. Something about the majesty of a 40,000 ton solid steel beast, fed by fire and propelled by steam, carrying along unyieldingly upon tracks that can tie continents together... Yeah, trains are cool. Rail Line by Albi games attempts to place you in the cutely stylized boots of a Railroad tycoon in the middle of the 19th century competing against your rival railway companies to see who can build the most profitable track. 

Let me start by saying that Rail Line isn't sparking a new Industrial Revolution for tabletop games, but its simple play style and quick to pick up strategies leave plenty of fun to be had. Designed by Martin Dolezal with art from Petr Stefek, Rail Line is a brisk family style card placement game where players take turns playing a "Railway" card extending both their own  and all other players tracks and then simultaneously moving their locomotives along the track, accumulating resources along the way.

I admit the English translation of the Czech instructions did trip me up at times with some confusing wording and structure, but a quick jaunt over to the publishers how to play on YouTube quickly sorted that out. Set up is super simple: a randomly chosen starting player chooses which side of the starting station card to start on. Leave space for 8 track cards in between and place a corner track card at the end. Connect another corner rail underneath to loop the track back and repeat, ending the final row with the ending station. Refer to the image below for how to set up your gameboard.

Each player chooses a different color of train and starts with four A type rail cards. You don’t replenish these cards so use them wisely or discard them for coins with an optional action. From here gameplay is very simple. Each player chooses which station they want to start on beginning with the starting player, and marks the resource at that station on their score card. Beginning with the starting player each player then takes turns in clockwise order playing a rail card either from their A cards in their hand, or from the B card pool at the top of the board. Players must always play a rail card each turn. Then all players will move their faster locomotive (the one in front) to the end of the track and must accumulate a resource on their scorecard for every station passed by their locomotive. Some cards will have 2 stations on a rail, as long as it's your first time passing those stations you will accumulate both resources.

Players also have the opportunity on each turn to perform an optional action:

• Discard a type A railway card and gain 1 coin
• Pay 1 coin Move your slower locomotive. (the slower locomotive can be moved 1-5 cards forward to any station on their line and accumulate only the resource they land on)
• Pay 1 coin to play a second rail card of either type
• Pay 2 coins to accumulate any resource in the leftmost unmarked section of their scorecard. This can only be done once per game!
• In 3 player games you have access to a special optional action. 4 times per game you may choose to not accumulate a resource gained on an opponent’s turn. In return you receive 1 coin. 

You can also gain coins by filling all spaces of a given resource out on your scorecard. Accumulating more of that resource will instead give a coin.

Rinse and repeat until the game ends once enough rail cards are played to reach the ending station or you run out of type B railway cards. At this point beginning with the starting player everyone will have the opportunity to perform one last optional action and then scoring begins.

Scoring is where the flavor and strategy of the game really come from. This depends on what resources you accumulated, how many you have, and if you have other complimenting resources you will gain an amount of victory points. The game offers a dual sided scorecard with side 1 being more straightforward in terms of scoring, and side 2 offering riskier but more rewarding paths to take. Add up all points earned in the rightmost filled resource space on the scorecard. I wont go too far into the score conditions for each resource because this article would get too long, but there are some interesting strategies to be had, and some pitfalls to avoid. Here are a few things to pay attention to:

• Not all resources are worth more points the more you accumulate
• Some resource chains are locked until you accumulate all resources needed to keep scoring in that chain.
• Some resources can only be scored if you have an unbroken chain of other resources
• Some multiply the value of coins or the value of each other

And there you have it, the basics of getting out of the station and onto the winners podium in Rail Line!

Overall Thoughts

Rail Line is a straightforward barebones game with a lot of untapped potential. First of all I think the 2-3 player category is limiting and could be opened up to more players easily which would up the level of interaction and strategy considerably. This game has a family friendly feeling to it, with rules that could easily be picked up by younger players, but the 3 player max cuts out much of that family game potential. The inability to turn the cards from their upright positions could also be done away with allowing for more ability to push your score ahead while also strategically leaving other players with resources you want (or don't want) them to have. In future iterations I would love to see an ability to switch tracks, instead of being stuck on the line you started on for the duration of the whole game. You know, like trains do.

In some ways I feel like they see where Albi and Rail Line's designers were going. A straight to the point quick to pick up game that powers forward without too much to fuss over, and in those things it certainly succeeds. However, I feel like in many ways that forces you to play a multiplayer game alone. At times it feels like you're just stuck on the rails, and have a limited ability to interact with not only the game, but your rival players. That said, this game could hold a lot of appeal to those players out there that want to play with a couple friends in a very laid back, quick to the point, and quick to the finish line casual game. In terms of components, the game is fairly well made. Robust cards, and a generous booklet of score sheets are a boon, plus who doesn't love some included tiny pencils! Resource symbols offered some mild confusion at times with symbols of very similar design, but it's not overly distracting to gameplay. The trains themselves aren't anything to telegraph home about.