Have you ever wanted to test you skills at building a railway infrastructure worthy of making you the next president? Well the futuristic country of Traintopia is looking to name their next President, and they want the best conductor for the job. Traintopia, designed by Przemek Wojtkowiak and published by Board and Dice, is a tile laying & route building that is on the lighter side of the weight spectrum from the games that you are most familiar from seeing from this publisher. If you are a fan tile laying games like Carcassonne, you will want to stick around for this review to see if this is one worth checking out.
Setup and Gameplay
In Traintopia there is no board like many other tile-laying games. Each player is building there own board using various tiles they get, creating a “traintopia” in front of them. Each player receives a starting map tile with a train track and train staition, along with a player aid and places these in front of themselves to start them off as they look to build their city and score points as they go. For the setup shuffle and place the 50 Map Tiles into a facedown drawn pile and lay out the 10 Bonus Map Tiles face up for all players see. Shuffle the 8 Objective Cards and deal on out to each player. This objective is something that players are trying to complete to receive end game bonus points, so keep it secret from your opponents. There is an end game bonus card that you fill with various components, that you place out on the table as well. Shuffle and place a the Round Cards into a facedown pile. This pile is either 8 or 9 cards depending the number of players in the game. Fill the draw bag with the Commuter Meeples and place the Tourists Meeples, Train Meeples, and Mailbags into a pile on the table. Also make a pile of Money Tokens and Victory Point tokens and you are ready to play.
The game is split into rounds, where in each round you draw the top card of the Round Card deck and populate it with the pictured components. These various components range from, train Meeples, mailbags, tourists, and different colored commuters. The round card also indicates how many map tiles are drawn from the facedown draw pile and revealed into a pool depending on the number of players. Now players take turns drafting from the created pool of these components or map tiles to start building their city railway system, populating the city with tourists, placing commuters on your rail lines, and scoring points. When placing tiles, unlike in Carcassonne for those familiar with that classic, your tiles only have to have at least half of their sides touching. You are still placing tiles orthogonally adjacent and so that when sides are touching the railways are legally placed (ie. you cannot have a train track leading into a field or a infinite looping track. Along the rail lines you will notice various color districts and landmarks. The district colors match the different colored commuters in the game, which will factor in when we talk about scoring. The landmarks are places that tourists want to see during their train rides through your city. Now when you draft a commuter you must immediately place them onto one of your tracks. One you place the commuter you look at its color and see how many matching color districts are along the same track as the commuter you just placed. You then immediately score and collect the number of victory points equal to that number of matching districts. Tourists are scored similarly and look at the cumulative value of the landmarks along the train track that the tourist was placed and score victory points equal to that value. Mailbags and trains on the tracks score at the end of the game, unlike commuters and tourists. There are some other things you can do on your turn, such as discard a drafted component for one victory point, draft a different objective card, change the color of a commuter they draft for scoring purposes, or spend money you earn from specific money tiles you lay out to purchase one of the 10 bonus tiles laid out at the start of your turn. This continues until the last round and then end game scoring will take place.
End Game
After all the rounds are done, players get the chance to draft one final element from the end game bonus card. This could be a wild commuter, a train, a moneybag, or a station tile to close off one of your train tracks. After each player does this they proceed into final scoring. Players score points for there completed tracks (meaning a station at each end) according to its length. The more tiles it takes to make up the track the more points. Mailbags double the score players receive from their completed tracks. Trains score points dependent on the amount of money unspent that are left on their tiles along the track that the train is on. Once players have tallied their scores the victory goes to the player with the most victory points. That player is deemed the newly elected President of Traintopia.
Overall Thoughts
Let me just start off by saying that if you are a fan of the base game of Carcassonne, I think you will enjoy Traintopia. The tie laying strategies will come quick to you. I think that the added layer of drafting the tiles, commuters, tourists, and such is what makes the strategy of this game shine. This isn’t a full on take that style game, but it can become pretty tense when you know you need a certain tile or component to draft that benefits you, but you notice a tile or commuter that would greatly benefit your opponents. Do you go for what benefits you or do you block you opponent from drafting what they need. As a fan of open information drafting style games, like 7 Wonders Duel I like that about this game. There are a few strategies that I think are viable options to take and I looking forward to trying direct paths to victory. Each time I have played it the scores have been fairly close with no clear cut winner until final scoring.
Some takeaways that I do have from the game is the longevity of the replayability because of the set 10 bonus tiles that are alway present each game and the set number of round cards for the game. While the game has 9 rounds (8 in a 3 player game), there are only 9 round cards total in the box. I think that more experienced players with the game will know what cards are coming, potentially giving them a slight advantage over new players. I do think that the game is a great change of pace from other tile laying games and It is one I would definitely recommend to new gamers, but also one I think veterans to the hobby will find enjoyment out of if they are looking for a light game to enjoy with family and friends. In the end, Traintopia from Board and Dice is one that I think is worth a spot at your table during your next game night.