presentation

Take a Train

powerful engines, valuable commodities

You invest money in freight trains. In Phase I you bid for engines and then add cards to the engine in Phase II to transport the most valuable commodities possible. If you have added five cars to your engine, you end the round and all players score money equal to the value of the cars at an engine times the power value of that engine. Whoever has most money after three rounds, wins.

There are three kinds of engines - Steam, Diesel and Electric, and cars for Food, Cattle, Coal, Oil, Luxury Goods and Passengers.

In Phase I, one randomly selected tile of six auction tiles is revealed and determines the type of auction for the round - pass, blind, double blind, pre-emption, open or twist; auctioning continues until every player owns three engines. If you have not enough money to bid - minimum bid always equals the power value of an engine - you receive one of the remaining engines at the end, which is then turned over and has a power value of Zero and no multiplication factor for scoring.

In Phase II, players take actions in the order of their engine power: either add a car - only one kind per engine - or replace a card in the display against payment or pass a turn. Three secret goal tokens for each player earn them money for meeting goals during the game, for instance 800 $ for four cattle cars at one of your engine.

Those goal tokens turn a nice family game into a nice game for experienced players. Six auction method options for three rounds provide many different games. Clever decisions when to take/use one of the five special cards among the car cards for once-only use and a bit of card memory provide additional challenges.

Players: 2-6

Age: 8+

Time: 60+

Designer: Violetta Kijowska, Marcin Ropka

Artist: Sylwia Smerdel

Price: ca. 20 Euro  

Publisher: ST Games / G3 2015

Web: www.g3poland.com

Genre: Auction, collecting

Users: With friends

Version: multi

Rules: de en + pl

In-game text: no

Comments:

Nice filler for frequent players

Good family game for experienced casual gamers

Attractive mechanism details

Compares to:

Set collecting with selection via auctions

Other editions:

G3 (pl)

Chance (pink): 2

Tactic (turquoise): 2

Strategy (blue): 1

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 0

Communication (red): 0

Interaction (brown): 3

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0