Game Review – India Rails

India Rails
Number of Players	2 - 6
Play Time	180 minutes
Ages	10 years and up

India Rails is one of the games from the Empire Builder family of games.  The theme of the game is the players are building railroad companies in India and its neighbors Bangladesh and Pakistan.

Since it is set in the real world, it follows the conventions of those games.  There are only two levels of train upgrades that cost 20 million each.

India Rails is different from its predecessors in that it introduces a new terrain type, salt flats or swamps.  This new terrain type costs 3 million per space to build on but other than the additional cost for building through the area adds no new issues to the game.

The other thing that India Rails adds to the game is the Pilgrim load.  Pilgrims are not a load that show up on the load sheet, but are available at any small or medium city in India and can be delivered to any major city in a different region of India for 2 million.  While they are there they should not be used very often if at all.  If a player need to fill up space on a train with a load with that little yield, they should be discarding their hand for a new set of cards.

India Rails plays much like the other games in the Empire Builder series.  It does have a smaller board than the rest of the games so the player needs to seek load cards that have deliveries that have high pay outs and get them track to the major cities as quickly as possible.  If a player does not have 60 – 100 million in deliveries in a set of cards going in one direction on their track, they really need to consider discarding that hand in favor of replacement cards.

The most recent edition of India Rails came out before Mayfair changed over to the color coded load chips so there is a bit of set up involved before the first game is played because the stickers with the load types need to be added to the load chips.

There is also the problem that all Empire Builder games have with the storage try in the box not being able to hold the load chips securely for game transport and if someone turns over the box to read the text on the bottom of it, you will spend some time sorting your bank before your next game.

I like this edition to the Empire Builder family of games.  The game can be played faster than most of the other Empire Builder games because it is a smaller board.  I recommend that it not be player with more than 4 players at a time, even though Mayfair recommends it for up to 6 players, or the board gets too congested.  The drawback for beginning players is unless they are familiar with the locations and names of Indian cities from 50 years ago, it will be difficult for them to find things on the board even with the city/load guide.

I give the game a B.  It is the type of game that I enjoy to play, but it is not an easily accessible game for new players.  It will take a number of plays for a new player to become proficient in the game but it is worth it if you like delivery and efficiency games.