Game Review – Trans America

Trans America
Number of Players	2 - 6
Play Time	30 minutes
Ages	8 years and up

I figured this week I would review a filler game.  Filler games are ones that can be played in a half hour or less.  They also generally played tactically instead of strategically because of their short duration.  During gaming events they are played towards the beginning of an event when people are waiting for others to show up to the event, when people are waiting for another game to break up, or towards the end of the event when there is not enough time to play a longer game.

The filler game that I am going to review this time is Trans America.

Trans America is a network building game that plays in less than a half hour and can be taught in five minutes.  The premise of the game is that the players are building rail networks across the United States and need to connect five cities in five different regions of the country before the other players do.

Game play is simple.  At the start of the round, players choose a face down city card from each color area for a total of five cards.  These will be the cities that they will need to connect.  The players, starting with the first player, then go around the board placing their starting post.  The starting post is where the players start laying track from.  Each player can lay up to two segments of track per turn.  There are terrain features on the board like mountains and rivers that require the player to use both track builds to place one segment of track.  When a player connects to another player’s track, they may then build off of that track as well as their own to make their connections.  The first player to connect all five of their cities wins the round.  The other players subtract the number of segments they are away from their cities from their score.

After the second round, the point two below the lowest score on the score chart is marked off.  When someone goes past that mark or if someone goes below 1 point on the score chart, the game is over.  This makes the game last around three to four rounds.  The player with the highest score wins the game.

Trans America is easy to learn and play, but that does not mean that it is easy to win.  One of the most important things you can do in a round is decide where to place your starting post.  Poor placement will guarantee you will lose the game every time.  A good rule to follow is to try to place your starting post evenly distanced from your cities and build to the north and south of it first.  This will make it easier to use other people track later in the round and the other players will connect up to your track and you will be able to use their infrastructure to get close to you cities on the cost without having to build the track.

I find Trans America to be a good game to use as a filler game.  It has a little more depth than your average filler game but still can be played quickly.  The fact that it is a 2 – 6 player game and plays well at all number of players makes it a great game to play while waiting on others.

I recommend it for any one is looking to use it as a filler game or as a game that can be played with family that are not avid board gamers.