On the Right Track: Trains Games on Dicepen.

2024-10-11, DicePen Dicepen

Whether you’re a seasoned gamer or a newbie, train-themed board games offer a ticket to adventure. From building rail networks to delivering cargo, and managing shares and expansion of various companies these games keep players on track for fun and strategy. At dicepen we really love this theme, and as for today there are three games with this theme on our shop. We focus on them in this article.

by DicePen


Roll and Rails. This is the game that kick-started the DicePen initiative. It was our first kickstarter project, so successful that we decided to try to go this way making more roll and write games in print and play format. Roll and Rails is easy to prepare as you just need to print game map and a player game sheet for every player.

In Roll and Rails players take the roles of railway entrepreneurs. Each player develops their own network of railway connections to transport as many goods possible, to earn the most money and glory. Investing in your rolling stock and carefully choosing the path for your iron trail will bring you funds for further expansions, and precious victory points.


Roll and Rails is a rolls write game, but it is different from typical games of that genre. The rules are more complicated, this is not just rewriting the score into tables. It is a more challenging game for more demanding players, but it also gives lots of satisfaction. Game consist of map game sheet and player game sheet.


At the beginning of the game there is a dice draft, which is crucial as every value of the dice gives you a specific opportunities during the turn, so you must plan your moves long before you will have a chance to execute thee. During the turn there are various actions to choose from like track building, upgrading your rolling stock and shipping goods.
Player can benefit from help of one of the specialists: Logistician, Manufacturer, Engineer, Mechanic, Banker, and Urban Planner. After making actions and using the help, every player can ship one piece of goods and receive the victory points or funds for future investments.

by DiceTiki


Rolling Trains. This one is the game with a little lighter approach. Rules are simpler than in Roll and Rails, but there is still lot to think about as you make the decisions. You have your own company here and you want to transport best value goods in the best way possible. The game is played on one game sheet so this one is even easier to prepare.

You play on a map without any railroads built. It is your job to construct them and use them for delivery. Focus of this game is on the action sheet, where you will assign your dice, and then on the map where you will build your tracks according to costs on various terrains. Players will play in turns. During each turn, player will gather funds to build railroads, factories and stations. Each turn you roll 3 dice and assign them to actions. Each die result allows you to choose 1 of 3 actions. Available action types are: building railroads, factories or stations and gathering funds. If you do one type of action more, you will do the other types less.

So simplifying - in this game you have to gather funds, build the factories, connect the right factories to the right cities by building tracks and transport the goods to earn points, but as you may use your a track only one time, you must think differently than on most trains games.

by Polterdice


Dice of Steam. It is the newest, and is really unique as it’s focused on gaining and optimizing your shares value without owning your specific company. It’s really exciting as even if the company is at great value it can fall later, and you try to gather shares where they are cheap than make them gain value. Game is also easy to prepare as you have to print one map sheet, and some smaller game sheet for each player.

You will become a railroad investor to build your fortune during the railroad development boom. At the turn of the 20th century, many railroad companies are fighting to expand their tracks and stock values. That is a golden moment to turn the opportunity to your advantage! You have the power to influence track expanding strategies of various companies and acquire their shares.You will lay the tracks for them, gain investment from the cities that you reached and exchange them into train companies shares.

By controlling the growth of railways, you influence stock values. Try to predict which companies will be worth the most and invest in their shares while they are still cheap! Help your favorite companies to expand, so your shares will reach even higher value. Watch out to not overinvest as the shares can lose value at some point if the company overgrows.
Forge your destiny to wealth. Outsmart your competitors, and watch your fortune rise with Dice of Steam, an economy game of strategy and tactics.

 


Each of these games has multiple expansions, mostly in the form of maps from different regions of the world. New maps are still being released monthly for Rollin Trains and Dice of Steam, so if you like the games you will have the reason to come back to them every month.

 

Solitare modes

Moreover, each of them have solo variants each made in a different fashion. Roll and Rails has dedicated maps and differences in the mechanics, this one feels really great as an advanced solo game. In Rolling Trains you have score to beat and challenges to fulfill which is also fun and will teach you how the game works, and finally Dice of Steam where you control each of the companies from the game, but with a twist - your success is measured not by the strongest companies you create, but by the most balanced growth. Your goal is to make the most sustainable expansion of all companies there. You don’t want to have a situation where some reached really valuable states, because it will probably undermine some of the other ones and it will lead to a lower final score.


So each of them is unique in its own way. Pick the best one for you or try them all! Have fun playing train games!

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