Almost essential and other than a couple of grumbles about the production, completely superb.
Great Western Trail: Rails to the North (Second Edition)
Designer: Alexander Pfister
Publisher: eggertspiele
2022
How to play:
A nice and easy one to wrap your head around with not much explanation needed (famous last words!)…
The new expansion board (dual layered and about a third of the size of the original board) nestles at the top of the original board from Great Western Trail (Second Edition) - reducing the amount of stations that can be delivered to between Kansas City to New York and instead scattering some new stations that can be discovered to the North. Via Rails. Hence the name, Rails to the North.
How do you discover / reach those new stations in the North? Pretty straightforward – a new auxiliary action lets you places small buildings called ‘branchlets’ from a station that you have previously delivered to (or the starting Kansas City station) outwards. Those branchlets are stored on a small extension to the original player board and your new branchlet auxiliary action works identically to the original ones: take a single auxiliary action to place one branchlet / clear the disc on the second auxiliary action space and start using the double auxiliary action to place two branchlets – crawling slowly but surely outwards.
As you place those branchlets on the new board you will often be placing them on spots that offer bonuses, station master tiles or perhaps even finding yourself branching out on paths that do not lead to stations to deliver cattle but have other options such as end game VP. Lots of food for thought.
In short: deliver cattle as usual, use a new auxiliary action to start branching out from the station you previously delivered to, grab bonuses along the way, reach a new station, be able to deliver to that new station for a future cattle delivery.
The End.
….well apart from some new objective cards that get added into the original deck but offer some ‘Rails to the North’ specific objectives.
The End.
….oh and a new set of optional orange Brahman cows much like the new Simmental Orange Cows in the second edition of GWT. Here though instead of ageing when they get delivered, these cows award 4 extra coins when delivered. Play with one or the other set of orange cows. Or neither. Just not both.
Ok, definitely now…
The End.
Solo Headlines:
I’ll not dwell on my wider thoughts and feelings about the solo mode of Great Western Trail here - instead have a read through the ‘solo’ section in my review of Great Western Trail: Argentina if you want my thoughts. While of course Argentina is its own game, the mechanics of its Pedro solo mode are largely identical to that of Sam, your solo opponent in the Second Edition of the original game and my views are identical there / Argentina / here.
You’ll be replacing Sam’s deck of cards with a fresh Rails to the North deck. They are generally the same (if not all but identical - I haven’t scrutinised each and every card), the only real difference is that some of the cards now also indicate that Sam should place a branchlet. In addition to the deck of cards that determine what Sam does on his turn – there is also now a separate, very small deck (perhaps 3 or so cards) that tell you where Sam will choose to place a branchlet (a very simple ‘place in spot number 1, if that is full then put at number 2’) and then a very straightforward priority list of where Sam will deliver his cattle to when he reaches Kansas City. This is perhaps the only additional ‘think’ to have to mull over – in the base game Sam just moves incrementally from left to right. Here though, if he has branched out far enough North to reach a station then he will try to get to one that gets him the most juicy points and if he hasn’t branched out then he will move along the original track as usual. I say ‘additional think’ like it is cumbersome – it really isn’t, it’s still ‘at a glance’ stuff that doesn’t really add any bloat or time or worrying flowcharts. The solo section of the rulebook though didn’t really include any visual examples so it did take me a couple of reads to understand what I was meant to do, but again nothing more than a short paragraph or two to wrap my head around.
Much like the Sam of GWT Second Edition, Sam of Rails to the North can be played on Easy, Normal and Hard modes (branching out and delivering to more tasty spaces as the difficulty increases) and blimey, even on Easy I found him to be a challenging opponent much like in the base game - so if like me you’re just a bog standard average player then you’ve got an opponent here that is going to make you work hard to eventually beat it rather than just giving you an easy ride on the default setting. I enjoyed the challenge and didn’t feel too deflated by the fact I lost more often than I won!
Simple straightforward ‘flip a card, take a quick action or two, perhaps have to place a branchlet, quickly glance at a separate card when he delivers cattle to see which station he will prefer’ stuff.
Excellent.
General Headlines:
How I got here…
I arrive at GWT: Rails to the North Second Edition the long way around. I was a first edition owner of GWT in the days before I was all but exclusively a solo player. It didn’t come officially solo-able, I played it a handful of times 2p, liked it but didn’t love it, probably hadn’t played it enough for its depth to hit home, picked up a copy of the first edition of Rails to the North and had another few 2p games and thought that it lifted the game nicely – giving me some new options and being quite easy to integrate. Onto the shelf it went, I morphed into that exclusively solo player, knew that the first edition had a respected ‘Garth’ solo variant, promised myself at some point that I would look at it, never did. It was enough though for Alexander Pfister to make my list of designers who I wanted to explore further – and broadly speaking having now played Skymines, Boonlake, Blackout Hong Kong (particularly good solo), Maracaibo and Port Royal – I know what I am going to get and what I get is some rock solid mid-heavy euro designs.
So when Great Western Trail: Argentina was released and I saw that it came solo-able out of the box I was keen to play it. Over repeated plays the depth at the core of GWT revealed itself, nudged me to pick up a copy of GWT: Second Edition (now solo-able out of the box) and I’m seeing it in a brand new light and understanding its depth more clearly. Remembering that I enjoyed what RTTN brought to the first edition and it was then a no brainer to pick up the 2nd Edition.
And here we are, dear reader…
What I like:
RTTN is such a quick expansion to add - no major rule changes, no real changes to game play, nothing that feel separate or added on or ‘now you get to do this brand new stuff that feels totally different to everything that you have ever known about the game’. Here it’s just a case of lay the expansion board down, know that you have a new auxiliary action that lets you branch out to reach other stations for delivery and you are good to go.
I also like how it’s still possible to win the game without even focussing on the branching out northwards. You might want to, indeed some of the objective cards that you gain might steer you towards doing so. But you don’t have to, much like I don’t have to follow a building strategy or a cowboy strategy. I can just focus as before on getting as far eastwards to New York as possible. Each game will just depend on the layout of the board, station master tiles, starting objective cards. I played heavy ‘rails’ games and other games where I barely used the rails at all.
The expansion board is excellent quality and dual layered and the artwork between the two boards merge seamlessly (first edition expansion owners will recall that this wasn’t the case and there was a very clear mismatch in the design. No issues here however).
The expansion may not add much bloat or heaviness to the ruleset but it does give the player new things to think about - the spatial puzzle of where to branch out from and where to try and reach. This extra dynamic tips the game generally into my preferred amount of ‘stuff going on’ at any one time weight. It also adds a new tension: In the base game I feel solely focused on not only reaching the end of the trail with the highest value delivery as possible but as I am only allowed to make one delivery to each city (other than the first and last) then I find myself in a boom or bust situation – I HAVE to reach the next highest station or else my plan fails. There is no pivot, no other option, if I don’t hit the value needed to reach the next city - everything unravels. Man that feels tight at times as I slog my way through hand management, praying a higher numbered cow comes into my hand, increasing my available certificates etc. In RTTN I feel that I have some other options – I can branch out and reach some other cities of lower delivery values and possibly (and very slightly) pivot my plans if Plan A doesn’t come off. That said, I now have an additional thing to contend with - I still have the panic of trying to ensure that I reach my delivery number by the time I deliver, but now I also need to make sure that I am even able to deliver to the city in the first place. Have I branched out and reached its via its rails to the north?!? If not then I might have the numbers but won’t be able to deliver! That duel element of running out of time to reach the city AND needing to ensure that I have the right number of cattle by the time I deliver is excellent.
The rails to the north also have bonuses littered along their tracks. Again lots of nice food for thought – “I wasn’t going to go that way but if I do I can possibly get that bonus”. Nothing new to learn or different to what you would get from the base game - just more bonuses to grab. I also like having to ponder the pros and cons of branching out to a new station or instead branching out to a location that instead offers VP or other larger bonuses. – “is this going to be good in the long run or should I focus on reaching a station instead.”
What I don’t like:
I really enjoy a big footprint – seeing a game sprawled out across a table and having a real wow presence. There is one practical issue which is a curse of the solo player and that is the inability to turn to the player next to you and say “stick that cube over there for me, I cant reach the space!” RTTN extends the board by about a third vertically and many of the spaces on the new board literally branch out to the far corners. I often found myself having to stand up / reach awkwardly to place my cubes and discs and to see distant icons. It’s not a deal breaker – maybe I just need to get my glasses worn and the exercise of getting off my backside will do me good I suppose. I make light of it but I can see it being a struggle for less mobile solo players.
I moaned about it in my review of GWT: Argentina, I will moan about it in any review I do of GWT Second Edition and I am going to moan about it here – the gloss finish of the board is incredibly shiny and I don’t think I am alone in thinking too shiny. At least however I have not been impacted by what I hear was a discrepancy between the matt finish of an early printing of GWT Second Edition and the gloss finished of the RTTN expansion. This will be resolved now that all printings are gloss. But if you were an early purchaser of GWT second edition then you might want to do some reading about this issue before purchasing the expansion.
New objective cards, and the new cattle variant are all welcome additions in this expansion. What a shame however that the back of the cards in the expansion can be told apart from those from the base game. Some may argue the difference is subtle but once seen it cannot be unseen. I had to force myself to try to ignore it. It’s not game breaking but it’s not great.
And finally, less a complaint and more just a note to say that even though I played with the new Brahman cattle variant mixed in, I never felt compelled to use it – indeed I don’t believe I did at all. This might speak more to my personal game style – others may find they love the additional coins that they bring. And given that they are optional, I am happy to leave them out and instead use the new Simmental orange cards from the base game instead (you aren’t able to use both at the same time).
Is the expansion essential?
Almost. My benchmark here is Lost Ruins of Arnak and its Expedition Leaders expansion – I could never imagine actively choosing to play Arnak without that expansion. Similarly to RTTN it felt simple to add with no changes to the core ruleset. A seamless integration and it immediately felt that it should have always been part of the base game.
RTTN, almost feels the same. I don’t think I would ever actively decline to play a game of GWT with the RTTN. But l do reflect back on that very slight change in tension that it brings – a tiny bit more freedom and that race to branch out far enough to make deliveries before you reach the end of the trail. That tension feels different to the tension of the base game’s “just keep pushing forward and grinding your cattle value up as high as possible and if you don’t then your whole plan will crumble to dust.” And you know what? Sometimes I think I am still going to want that more restrictive, tight, straightforward push to New York. I prefer Rails to the North. But I think I might still occasionally visit GWT Second Edition on its own.
Another thing to reflect on is that RTTN now sits within the wider context of being part of a trilogy. For those that have zero interest in purchasing Argentina or (the yet to be released) New Zealand and are more casual and infrequent players of GWT then they may well be content just sticking with the base game. For those that are planning on purchasing the entire trilogy then I suspect that not owning RTTN and having the collection incomplete would be unfathomable.
At a glance:
+ Easy to integrate into the base game – no major rule changes
+ Gives more options for delivery, more bonuses to consider chasing, slightly more opportunity to pivot your plans if Plan A doesn’t pay off
+ The race against the clock to try and branch out sufficiently in order to make a delivery to your chosen station gives an additional thing to juggle and puts this in my mid-heavy sweet spot.
+ Solo mode remains easy to run with only minor new additional considerations
+ New objective cards, and a new cattle variety are welcome additions.
- The gloss finish on the board is very shiny!!!
- The cards from the base game and this expansion are very slightly different colours.
Final score:
8.5 out of 10 (I would have nudged it up to a 9 but the production issues leave a bit of a sour taste)
Reviewed after 5 plays (in addition to a smattering of plays of the first edition) .
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