This game is another of my all-time favorites that I should play more often. Age of Steam is the best known game by designer Martin Wallace and falls under the genre of train games or railway games. If you’re a eurogamer who loves economic games and are curious about this genre, Age of Steam (AoS) is a good introduction. This is by no means a gateway game but compared to the 18xx games, AoS is relatively light. However, compared to euros it’s on the heavy side.
In most true train games (unlike, say, Ticket to Ride, which is essentially an abstract connections game), players control railway companies expanding their business by creating railroad connections between cities. The 18xx games also have a stock market where players can invest or divest in these companies. Generally, these train games are economic/business games in the sense that you start small and then through the course of the game build up your network and thus increase revenues. (As an aside, Power Grid has some of the characteristics of railway games, even though it’s not about railways.) If this is a kind of game that interests you, read on.
Overview of gameplayIn Age of Steam, 3-6 players compete to build the most profitable railway empire in the industrial age Midwestern United States. The board depicts a map with 12 major cities, from Kansas City in the west to Pittsburgh in the east, with Chicago in the center. These cities are color-coded red, yellow, or blue. Various towns are also scattered throughout the map.
At setup, wooden cubes representing goods are distributed to each city (two per city except for a couple cities that start with three). The goods are colored red, yellow, blue, and black. The color of a cube indicates that it must be delivered to a city of the same color.
During the game, you spend money to build tracks that connect cities to each other. Tracks that connect a city or town to another is called a link and each link has a specific owning player. Goods transported over a link will increase the income of the owning player by 1.
Players also start with trains with a locomotive level of 1. This level indicates how many links you can travel in a single delivery. During the game you can increase your locomotive level, enabling you to deliver goods farther and generating higher income. The tradeoff is your locomotive level is an expense that you have to pay per turn.
Players start with 2 shares issued and $10 in cash. At the start of each turn, you have the option to issue more shares and gain $5 per share. However, you have to pay $1 per share issued as expenses per turn and you can never issue more than 15 shares. Also, at the end of the game each share is worth -3 victory points.
After issuing shares, there is an auction for turn order. Turn order not only determines the order of building track and delivering goods, but also the order in which players choose among a set of special actions, namely:
Urbanization – Allows you to upgrade a town into a city. This is the only way to create black cities that demand black cubes.
Locomotive – Allows you to immediately increase your locomotive level by 1.
Engineer – Allows you to place 4 track tiles this turn (the normal limit is 3).
First Build – Allows you to place track tiles first before everyone else this turn.
First Move – Allows you to move goods first before everyone else this turn.
Production – Allows you to draw two random goods cubes and place them anywhere you wish on the Production Chart (more on this below).
Turn Order Pass – Allows you to pass once during the next turn’s auction without being eliminated from the bidding.
Once players select their special actions, they take turns placing track tiles and then delivering goods and increasing income. Income is recorded on a track which indicates how much cash you gain per turn. Expenses, which are shares issued + locomotive level, are subtracted from your income to get the net amount of cash you earn. So the goal is to constantly increase your income every turn while keeping your expenses at a manageable level.
Then goods growth is checked. Dice are rolled for the western and eastern halves of the map. The Production Chart is consulted to see where new goods cubes appear. After that, a new turn begins.
The game lasts for a set number of turns depending on the number of players. At the end, you earn 3 VPs for each point of income and 1 VP for every track tile that’s part of a completed link, and get -3 VPs per share issued. Highest score wins.
My takeI love economic games and Age of Steam is one of my favorites in this genre. The rules are not that hard to learn but becoming competent takes a few plays as you realize how everything comes together.
One of the things I love about this game is the tight money management. Expenses are brutal at the beginning; $3 right off the bat and 0 income so you can’t survive without issuing at least a couple of shares to start off. Wrong early moves can really screw you up. This threat of early bankruptcy makes the game very tense from the get-go. Add the important auctions and the limited track routes and what you have is a tough, highly competitive game.
This is definitely not for the faint of heart. If you prefer a more forgiving game, you should stay away from Age of Steam. Instead, you can try the more friendly version known as Railroad Tycoon from Eagle Games (a new edition to be renamed Railways of the World is coming from FRED Distribution).
The game has a few minor flaws. The production values are not that high and my copy (first edition) has a typo on the board, but it doesn’t affect gameplay and is very easy to remember. Mechanics-wise, the Production special action seems very weak but I can live with it.
In terms of replayability, the random cube setup adds variability but sadly the game comes with only a single map. And this map is best for 4 or 5 players. However, there is an enthusiastic community of fans who have created both free and officially licensed expansion maps, some with their own unique special rules, and being designed for the full range of 3 to 6 players.
This is nothing to do with the game itself, but it may be good to know that availability of copies of Age of Steam may be a problem. AoS is the subject of a rights dispute between designer Martin Wallace (Warfrog Games) and developer John Bohrer (Winsome Games). Though the third edition with improved components from FRED has become recently available, Wallace has made known that this reprint was not approved by him and is guilty of copyright infringement. Meanwhile, Wallace himself is coming out with a re-implemented version, with changes in the mechanics, through Mayfair Games entitled simply Steam.
So if you’re even thinking of picking this up, I recommend you try to find a copy now, whether it’s second or third edition. Thankfully, all the editions (except Railroad Tycoon) are compatible with each other and with all expansions. Even the new Steam will work with AoS expansions. However early impressions from the BGG faithful are that Steam will be more forgiving and therefore more accessible to family and eurogamers, and that doesn’t sound promising to me.
Anyway, pardon my rambling. As you can tell, I love this game and I strongly recommend Age of Steam to anyone who likes heavy economic games that force you to make tough decisions. And if you do try AoS and want more, then you can step up to the 18xx games which are more complex but also take a lot longer to play. If you want to take that step, let me know and I’ll gladly join you.
I rate Age of Steam a 9 out of 10.
Pros: Deep strategy; high player interaction in a competitive environment; tough money management; many expansion maps available (some are free to download)
Cons: Merely functional production values; error on board (my edition); only one map
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