Love these cube rails playthroughs! I think I'm sold on this game. The turn order mechanism might be very frustrating, but on the other hand it feels very fresh. Basically you have to think like this: "How do I win if I might never get to act?", i.e you have to buy stock carefully.
I'm intrigued by the turn selection mechanism, but I think it'd be better if the leftover tokens persisted from round to round (with a max of [Player count] total tokens regardless). Just seems a little *too* luck based with it resetting each round.
Without the turn selection mechanism, you're not too far off from playing the original Chicago Express or a close variant like American Rails. Both great games that will stand up to hundreds of replays. Prussian Rails is a more experimental, next-step game that aims to shake up the way those games tend to play out. It poses the question, "if the only thing you can be guaranteed of in this game is the chance to participate in the auctions, how does that affect how you should bid?". For a lot of people it's just too weird and feels too unfair, but it is possible to win the game without ever taking a turn. So... you can house-rule it as you like, of course. But I think it's worth at least giving it a couple of chances playing it by the intended rules and getting a feel for the kind of experience Bohrer was designing, here. Many people who have played a lot of cube rails love it as-is.
I’m really intrigued by this. I love cube rail games and the turn selection mechanism here looks awesome - I generally don’t love randomness, but at least here it is based upon something tangible (player income). The chaos it can create seems really neat. How do you like the game, Jon? Compared to other cube rail games.
I've only played Prussian Rails once, and it was 5 players. I think I'd enjoy it more with less people, and with people who have played it before. These games require vigilant player attention to balance things and stop run-a-way leaders and in our play we were all new. I ended up getting a ridiculously favorable round with my action order and the decisions of my opponents, and I ran away with the game. In future plays, there are absolutely things that could have been done to stop this, but we didn't have it in that play. This is a long way of saying that I am curious to try it more with less than 5 players, but I haven't had a chance to try it yet.
Interesting idea with the turn... but the randomness of it is a dealbreaker for me. It feels like there are nonrandom ways to get the same desired effect, and I would have much preferred had the designers gone with that.
How many times have you played it as written? And how many times have you played Wabash (Chicago Express) and SCNF (Paris Railways I think it was called by Queen)? Because they're variations on the theme. They're super short focused looks at aspects of 18xx, and they're all super interesting for that reason. Once you've explored them, try changing the rules up--there's interesting stuff to explore there too. Cube rail games are so simple, they're easy to break out even if you haven't played in a year or more. But don't get me wrong, given equal circumstance, I'll play zero luck 18xx over any cube rail game...let me qualify further...over any other game.
Wow, Red and Orange stock cards look *really* similar in colour. Is that just the video's lighting? Also having some of the player colours matching company colours is screwing with my brain. :) Looks like a great game though, and I love the turn order mechanism; fascinating way of rubber-banding the income levels.
Love these cube rails playthroughs! I think I'm sold on this game. The turn order mechanism might be very frustrating, but on the other hand it feels very fresh. Basically you have to think like this: "How do I win if I might never get to act?", i.e you have to buy stock carefully.
Always excited to watch one of your cube rail tutorials!
I've been waiting for this video, thank you! 😀
I'm intrigued by the turn selection mechanism, but I think it'd be better if the leftover tokens persisted from round to round (with a max of [Player count] total tokens regardless). Just seems a little *too* luck based with it resetting each round.
Without the turn selection mechanism, you're not too far off from playing the original Chicago Express or a close variant like American Rails. Both great games that will stand up to hundreds of replays. Prussian Rails is a more experimental, next-step game that aims to shake up the way those games tend to play out. It poses the question, "if the only thing you can be guaranteed of in this game is the chance to participate in the auctions, how does that affect how you should bid?". For a lot of people it's just too weird and feels too unfair, but it is possible to win the game without ever taking a turn. So... you can house-rule it as you like, of course. But I think it's worth at least giving it a couple of chances playing it by the intended rules and getting a feel for the kind of experience Bohrer was designing, here. Many people who have played a lot of cube rails love it as-is.
I’m really intrigued by this. I love cube rail games and the turn selection mechanism here looks awesome - I generally don’t love randomness, but at least here it is based upon something tangible (player income). The chaos it can create seems really neat. How do you like the game, Jon? Compared to other cube rail games.
I've only played Prussian Rails once, and it was 5 players. I think I'd enjoy it more with less people, and with people who have played it before. These games require vigilant player attention to balance things and stop run-a-way leaders and in our play we were all new. I ended up getting a ridiculously favorable round with my action order and the decisions of my opponents, and I ran away with the game. In future plays, there are absolutely things that could have been done to stop this, but we didn't have it in that play. This is a long way of saying that I am curious to try it more with less than 5 players, but I haven't had a chance to try it yet.
Interesting idea with the turn... but the randomness of it is a dealbreaker for me. It feels like there are nonrandom ways to get the same desired effect, and I would have much preferred had the designers gone with that.
How many times have you played it as written? And how many times have you played Wabash (Chicago Express) and SCNF (Paris Railways I think it was called by Queen)? Because they're variations on the theme. They're super short focused looks at aspects of 18xx, and they're all super interesting for that reason. Once you've explored them, try changing the rules up--there's interesting stuff to explore there too.
Cube rail games are so simple, they're easy to break out even if you haven't played in a year or more. But don't get me wrong, given equal circumstance, I'll play zero luck 18xx over any cube rail game...let me qualify further...over any other game.
Wow, Red and Orange stock cards look *really* similar in colour. Is that just the video's lighting? Also having some of the player colours matching company colours is screwing with my brain. :)
Looks like a great game though, and I love the turn order mechanism; fascinating way of rubber-banding the income levels.
Unfortunately, those colors are quite similar yeah.
If you don't like the turn mechanism, you can always go around the table clockwise. Purists will howl, but I don't see anything wrong.
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Yep, it's great when my personal interests meets my professional interests :)