Game Review – Trans Europa

Trans Europa
Number of Players	2 - 6
Play Time	20 Minutes
Ages	8 Years and up

There are games that are quick and simple and there are games that are long and complex.  Then there are games that try to combine elements from both.  Most of those games fail because they are not able to provide the game playing experience that the players of each type of game are looking for.  Fortunately Trans Europa is not one of these.  It is one of those games that can capture the interest of the players of high strategy games as well as those that are looking for a quick game.

In Trans Europa, the players are required to connect up five different cities in different regions of Europe.  The players select these cities from a set of cards.  Each player must take one card of each color.  These colors represent each of the five regions on the board.  During the first round of the game the players place their starting post on the board.  The starting post is where the player will start building their track from during the rest of the round.  It may be placed anywhere on the board except where another player has placed their starting post. 

In the following turn, the players start building track from their starting post.  On their turn each player may place up to two pieces of track on the board as long as it connects to their starting post.  If they connect up to another player’s track, they can build off of that player’s track as well as their own.  In this way players can end up helping each other out while trying to achieve their own goals. 

A round ends after the first player reaches connects all five of their cities to their starting post.  All of the other players reduce their scores, which start at 13 points, by the number of spaces they missed hitting their cities by.  Then the game continues to the next round.  The game ends when one of the players loses all 13 of their points.  The winner is the person who has the most points remaining.

There are a number of different strategies that can be followed when playing Trans Europa.  All of them focus on the placement of your starting post. 

The first and most basic strategy is to place your post in the center of the board.  This works well if the other players in the game are placing their post towards the edges of the board.  The number of players that are in the game is also a factor.  If there are four or more players in the game it works better.  The idea behind this strategy is to rely on the other players to build close to the cities that you need so when you connect to them you can quickly connect to those cities.  When you use this strategy you want to focus on building to the cities that the other players are not building letting them do most of the work on the other cities for you.

The second strategy is to place your starting post in the middle of your three cities that you are closest to.  The idea is to build out to those cities while the other players get you closer to your other two cities as they are building towards you.  This strategy works best when the other players starting posts are close to yours except for maybe one.  Otherwise you may be helping the other players more than they are helping you.  It is best to use this strategy when you are not the first player to place your post.

The third strategy that I have used is what I call the north – south strategy.  In this strategy you place your post evenly between you northern and southern most cities.  You then spend most of your early effort building to these cities while the other players are working from east to west.  It works best when the cities are directly opposite each other and you can get to your central city easily from your line.  This strategy works well in two or three player games and it does not matter where you are in the turn order when placing your starting post.

Since Trans Europa is an older game the artwork in the game is not as good as most of the games produced today.  The bits are nothing to get excited about they all made of wood and consist of six sets round posts and six trains in different colors and a bunch of black wooden rectangular prisms that are used as track.

If there is one complaint that I have with the game it is the city cards.  Unlike the Trans America city cards, the city cards in Trans Europa have a landmark from the city they represent instead of a mini map showing where they are located on the board.  It makes it more of a challenge to players that are unfamiliar with Europe.

Trans Europa is a good game to get if you are looking for a filler game and like network building, race to complete, or strategy games.  Even if you do not like those types of games it can be enjoyable to play and you should give it a try.