Railway Rivals
Railway Building Stage
Basics and Turn Sequence
All track is marked to and from the centres of the hexes. All track must be continuous. All builds will be mapped simultaneously.
Starting Points
Starting points are shown on each map. All players start with 20 cash.
Turns
Each build turn will comprise three rounds of building. Your orders must show your builds in order and build points cannot be carried over from one round to the next (e.g. if the dice are 4, 6 and 3 your orders must show 4 build points for round 1, 6 for round 2 and 3 for round 3 - you can't "save" a build point from round 2 to give you 4 points for round 3.
Build Costs
Normal build from one hex to the next costs 1 pip.
Forests cost +1 pip per half hex (so Forest to Forest = 1+1+1)
Swamps and Mountains cost +2 per half hex.
Rivers cost +2 to cross while wide rivers (where notes on a map) cost +3 to cross.
Ferries exist on some maps. A ferry costs £6,000 cash (not pips) from the player's treasury. A ferry can only be built once.
Lakes, Seas and River Estuaries are impassable.
Foreign connections
To build into a "foreign" country, you just need to build a line 1 hex over the border. On some maps connections are shown and these are the only foreign hexes into which a player may build.
On some maps players are permitted to build lines through foreign countries. These permitted routes are shown on the map. If a player doesn't build a permitted route it will be build by a foreign company and can be used during races (paying the foreign country £1,000 per hex as if it was a player).
Payment to Rivals
Except at towns, entry to any space already used by a rival means payment to him of £1,000 (this means crossing or forming a junction). Additionally to run parallel to another rival for half a hex costs another £2,000.
Because builds are simultaneous you may well end up joining or running alongside track which wasn't there at the start of the turn.
Joining or running alongside track which was built during a previous round of this turn costs half the normal cost (rounded up). If two railways build in a hex during the same round then no money changes hands. The £1,000 cost of building a junction is still paid in full.
e.g. this is the situation after the first round of building for this turn (let's assume the first round of this turn was a 3, just for the hell of it):
Blue and Red are clearly racing to Helm's Deep. The next two rounds of building are 4 and 6. Using his 4 points Blue builds south from Isengard and then crosses the river to 2522. Red builds from 2721 to 2522, then to 2523 and into Helm's Deep (gaining 6 cash for reaching Helm's Deep first). Blue and Red don't have to pay for the junction in 2522 because they arrived on the same dice roll.
Blue's orders for the 6 point roll see him follow Red into Helm's Deep but also carry on through Edoras and on to the southeast. Meanwhile Red also reaches Edoras and heads off to the southeast. Blue has to pay Red for running alongside into Helm's Deep, but only half the normal cost (so that's £4,000 cash - £1,000 for each half hex and £1,000 for the junction in 2523 - instead of the usual £7,000). There's no cost to either player for the parallel tracks leaving Edoras as they were built on the same round/die. Although Blue and Red both reached Edoras on the same round, Red arrives on the second pip while Blue doesn't get there until the 4th pip so Red claims the £6,000 prize for arriving first.
Build orders
Build orders are submitted by stating the starting location (either a hex number or a town) and then the hexes being built to in order (e.g. in the example above Blue's orders would have been:
Round 3: (2522) - 2523 - Helm's Deep; (2522) - 2924. Total 6
Note that 2522-2924 can be declared as one "move" as it's a straight line and there's only one way to get from 2522 to 2924 in 4 pips.
If Blue decides to carry on alongside Red's track in the next turn, he'll have to factor in cash, so if the first dice was a 2 his orders might say:
Round 2: ...
Rivals may choose to go overdrawn during the build phase but interest on overdrafts is charged at 20% per turn (rounded up) and is deducted from the treasury at the start of their next turn (so if your cash balance is -£4,000 at the end of your previous turn, it'll be -£5,000 at the start of your next turn).
Earnings
Apart from payment from rivals, the first player to enter a town receives £6,000 cash. This payment is only for arriving at numbered towns.
End of Building Stage
There are 6 turns of building, even if some destinations haven't yet been reached.
Underhand agreements and deals
Players are free to make (and break) agreements with other players throughout the build stage. This is (economic) war, after all.
Railway Operating Stage
Players now compete to carry goods from town to town, as much as possible on their own track, because they must pay to use a rival's lines.
There will be six rounds of races, each comprising six standard races and one 'special run'.
Normal runs will be between two towns at least 7 hexes apart (and will be between town in a different sector (e.g. a race from 11 wouldn't be to 12, 13, 14, 15 or 16).
Each town will feature in two standard runs over the course of the six operating rounds (once as the starting point and once as the destination).
A special run will be from a randomly determined town to a special destination. Towns featured in special runs will also feature in a normal run (and may even do so in the same round of races).
Special runs are shown on each map. Not all maps have special runs.
If a run cannot take place because none of the destinations has been reached then the run will carry over to the next round of races until it can.
Players can enter up to four races each round.
To enter a race, a player states his route, paying £1,000 to a rival for each hex of a rival's track used as part of the route. Players cannot deny a rival access to their network.
A player cannot enter a race if he'd have to pay more than £10,000 to any one rival (but see below for possible workarounds). Each entrant pays their race costs before the race starts.
Joint Runs
Two players may agree to enter a race as a team. They share expenses and winnings equally regardless of how much track of each player is involved. Their train runs over both rivals' tracks for free.
Exchange of Running Powers
This allows a player to pay more than £10,000 cash to a rival if that rival is also paying him something as long as the difference is still £10,000 or less. Each runs his own train and they don't have to follow the same route. Players are not obliged to exchange running powers but any running powers but must relate to the same race.
Racing
The GM rolls for each train and will report race results (note: each train does not 'share' dice as happened in the building phase).
Each pip on the dice moves the train 1 hex if moving into Plains, Forest or Swamp. Mountains cost 2 points per hex moved. Ferries cost 1 pip to embark/disembark and if a turn is spent wholly at sea this costs another pip. Using another player's ferry costs £5,000. Movement is simultaneous and the winner is the player who arrives at the destination first.
If two or more trains arrive during the same turn, they are separated by the number of spare pips they had left as part of their move.
A race's winner receives £20,000 and the runner-up gets £10,000. Each player gets £15,000 in the event of a tie.
Winnings are doubled for special runs!
Network expansion
After each round of racing rivals can expand their network, taking all costs from their treasury. After Turn 7 (the first races) each player may spend £10,000 to expand his network. This budget reduces by £2,000 each turn (i.e. £8,000 after turn 8, £6,000 after turn 9, etc.). All players expand their networks at the same time with costs incurred being paid for junctions/parallel builds unless players are building simultaneously.
Winning
The winner is whoever has the most cash after the last round of races. In the event of a tie, it's decided on the number of races won then the number of races entered.
"Leapfrog" optional rule (only applies to some maps)
This is a most important extra rule which should be used for any very mountainous map (e.g. Scotland, Wales, Austria, Switzerland). It will be confirmed at the beginning of a game whether this rule is in effect.
This rule allows a player to "leap" up to 3 hexes along another player's track. The player pays only for the two junctions at either end of the track. Each player is limited to two leaps over the lines of each other opponent. Thus, in a 4-player game, each can make 6 leaps, two for each opponent. If a later extension joins the two separated parts a player is not allowed to make an extra leap.
Using an opponent's track during a race costs the normal £1,000 per hex (so the shorter the leap, the less it'll cost for operating).
In this example of a leap Green has already built from Skipton to Keighley. Cyan wants to get across the Pennines but balks at the thought of paying Green £10,000 for the parallel track between the two towns. Cyan decides to use one of his leaps and can start building from Skipton - this works out very well for Cyan because he doesn't have to pay for a junction in a town and so the leap is free!
In this second example, Purple has reached Selby and has 6 pips left to get to York. Building the direct route (Selby - BF07 - York) would cost 7 pips (5 +2 for the river crossing) but Purple can take advantage of Cyan's track by building 4 pips to BD08 (paying £1,000 for the junction), leaping to BE06 (paying for another junction) and then spending his last two pips to reach York.