Railroad Tiles

Railroad Tiles is from the same designer duo who also brought us Railroad Ink and Dragon Castle. A quick way to describe the game is advanced Carcassonne. This is a tile laying game, and you get to place meeples. But this is not a fair way to introduce the game at all. Say this to people who already like Carcassonne to hook them. This game has its own place and in many ways is different. 

First of all, you don't add tiles to a central map and grow that map together. Instead, everyone has their own little map before them. Every round, several sets of tiles will be set up (see above), and in turn order, you claim one set to add to your own map. The sets don't have the same number of tiles. The tiles have different features. Players will value the sets differently. When choosing a set, you are also deciding the turn order for the next round. Whoever takes the leftmost set goes first next round.  

When you add tiles to your map, you can choose to do it in any order. Roads and railroads must line up. The various features on the tiles allow you to score points in different ways. I played this game with the electricity expansion added, so this is not the standard basic game. Railroad Tiles has many expansions and offers many ways to play. One way electricity helps you score points is if you power every tile of a city, which is three connected building tiles, the city is worth more points. The electricity expansion introduces one more way you want to connect tiles. You want to connect the corners of tiles which show electric cables, because that's how you supply electricity. 

The meeples you can place on your map are cars, trains and pedestrians. The general rule is the first meeple you place gives 1 point, the second one 2 points, and so on, up to 5 points per meeple. Every game round, players are allowed to place some types of meeples to help you score points, but whether you can place them depends on whether you have taken tiles that allow you to do so. 

The three tiles above are special scoring tiles you have in hand from the beginning. Everyone has the same set. In specific rounds, you are allowed to add one of them to your map to help you score points at game end. 

This special tile on the left scores points if its road is connected to two cities at both ends. The one on the right scores if it is next to a fully powered city. 

Every round there will be one set of tiles unclaimed. It stays while the other columns are refilled, and it gets a star token, making it more attractive. Star tokens are worth 1 point each. They can also be used to place a different meeple type from that specified for the current round. 

When the game ends, you need to find the largest rectangle on your map. Every tile in this rectangle scores 1 point. This incentivises players to build their maps in a neat, rectangular way.  

The windmills are from the expansion. They generate electricity.

I am surprised that the tile placement is more challenging than I expected. I wonder whether it is because we played with an expansion. That means an additional layer to consider. Every round when you consider which tile set to claim, you need to imagine and calculate how you will place them. If you are the first player to choose, there is a fair bit of mental work to do. It is interesting to puzzle out how to fit the tiles and how to maximise scoring. You need to consider several scoring criteria concurrently. When you evaluate which set to claim, it is not just about calculating how many points the set will get you now, you must also work towards several longer term goals.

Turn order for the next round is an important consideration. If the sets remaining for you to choose from are about the same, you probably want to choose the one nearer to the left so that next round you'll go earlier. It can be painful to see that perfect tile you want being claimed by someone else. You can try to persuade them not to take what you need, but whether that works... it depends. Maybe you can promise to be nice to them next round. 

Railroad Tiles is a decent tile laying game. I enjoy it enough to be happy to play, but it's not something I seek out to play. It must be doing pretty well, since it has so many expansions. If this is the kind of game you like, you will have lots of fun content to explore.