Game Review – Lunar Rails

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

Lunar Rails is one of the games that use the Empire Builder system.  Unlike most of these games which are set in real world locations, such as North America, Europe and India to name a few, Lunar Rails is set in the fantasy setting of the moon.

People who consider themselves fans of the Empire Builder system generally stick their noses up at Lunar Rails and the other fantasy based games of the Empire Builder series as inferior to the games that are set in the real world.  I would argue that they are wrong that they Lunar Rails is an inferior game.  I would argue that the game requires a style of play that is different than most of the other games in the series.

The theme of Lunar Rails is that the players are running railroad companies that are setting up service between the cities on the moon of the future.  Game play is similar to all of the other Empire Builder style games.  The player start with a small amount of money to build their initial track based on a set of demand cards that they receive and they fulfill a demand on the demand cards they discard the card and get new card to replace it.  The player then uses the money they get for fulfilling the demand card to build more track, upgrade their locomotive so they go faster or carry more loads, or save it to meet victory conditions.

In most of the Empire Builder games you want to complete the locomotive upgrade and track building requirements as quickly as possible even at time running yourself out of money.  You cannot be as aggressive in Lunar Rails, as it has some disaster cards that can do a lot of damage to the players’ track compared to the other rail games.

All of the other rail games have rivers that can flood and take out the bridges that the players build over them.  They require the players to rebuild them if they want to cross the river again or maintain major city connectivity.  In order to rebuild a bridge it usually costs 3 – 4 dollars

Since the moon does not have rivers, the designers replaced this hazard with meteor strike.  A meteor strike can damage up to 4 lengths of track and can cost on up to 8 dollars to replace.  If you get stuck on the wrong side of a meteor strike with too little money, you are almost guaranteed to lose the game.

If you play Lunar Rails in a slow and steady manner instead of aggressively you will have a more positive outcome.

The other differences to the game are there are 4 stages of upgrades instead of two stages, but the cost of the upgrades in Lunar Rails is 10 dollars versus the 20 dollars of the real world games.  The other this is the board itself.

The board is divided into two circles, one representing the near side, on representing the far side.  There are points all around the circles that connect up the sides of the map and the players must use these points to connect their track between the sides.

Lunar Rails is a solid addition to the Empire Builder series.  The problems that the series has, like the learning curve on knowing where the cities and loads are and the best way to connect them up.  Even with these problems.  I like it because you need to play it differently than the other Empire Builder games.  I give it a B overall, but would recommend new players try to get someone who knows how to play the game to teach them some of the strategy and tactics in the game before they play their first game.