Pacific Rails Inc.

I had come across it as a draft design a few years ago, and its central idea had stuck with me: after cube rails come square rails. The combination of worker placement and track laying within a network-building game felt genuinely original to me—at least I cannot recall anything comparable, and if there is one, then I have a serious gap in my collection that needs fixing.

Its core is worker placement, with an emphasis on action efficiency. It is not enough simply to choose an action; you need to squeeze the best possible value out of it, and if you want to play it more “professionally,” it has the requisite brain-burn. The flow stays pleasant and the length feels right, so that pressure never turns into a chore.

At the same time, you lay routes and build your network, with the track laying fitting organically into the rest of the systems. Still, the network-building part did not convince me as much as I wanted it to: the little scoring that comes up each time feels somewhat forced. I find myself thinking that someone could play almost as well without a map at all, as a completely abstract game—which, oddly enough, also makes it easier for me to recommend to someone who dislikes train games.

It looks like a euro, but there is no mercy in the scoring, nor when it is time to cut down the player who quickly built a powerful production engine. Ketchup/catchup elsewhere, folks: this is Canada. Fans of the genre should give it one or two chances, but I cannot shake the feeling that Pacific Rails Inc. is ultimately a missed opportunity for something truly great. Still, after a beer, it is perfectly capable of serving as the main course.