Ultimate Railroads Review: Trains and Worker Placement Spaces Excite Me

[@greginfla_1]

I am always on youtube, 40-50% of the time watching board game reviews.....and somehow, there are popular content creators that never show up in my feed. 6k subscribers and have never seen your channel...... What a great channel.... production, conciseness, content

[@BoardOfItReviews]

Thank you for the kind words! We do pride ourselves on being concise in our reviews and we hope you come back to watch more.

[@robertaustin6302]

Never got a chance to play Russian Railroads back in the day but I preordered this bad boy and can’t wait for it to come in. Stoked!

[@BoardOfItReviews]

We hope you love it just as much as we do!

[@geraldgerund]

Nailed it! Every time I play Russian Railroads I'm amazed at how compelling the game is, given that you're essentially pushing tokens along paths for the whole game. Also, I'm usually not a fan of games in which you're trying to make powerful "combos", but here every single action feels so precious and every decision is so excruciating, that whenever I get a bonus that lets me advance by a couple of extra spots on a track, it is SO satisfying! The main complaint I heard about this, that you didn't mention in the review, is that if you don't get sucked into the worker placement frenzy, it's a game that feels very dry and abstract, and some people really bounce off it for that reason.

[@BoardOfItReviews]

Exactly! Such a satisfying game. It's rare to play a game where every single option is equally enticing, and even when a player takes your spot you're like ah well this one will do just as well. Yea that's a fair claim. It is extremely dry so people will defo bounce off of it. I guess we never thought about that lol as we were having so much fun with it!

[@geraldgerund]

@@BoardOfItReviews I'm also not bothered at all by how abstract and dry this game is compared to other worker placement or "train" games (I mean, the routes are not every drawn on a map or anything), but if you take a step back it's amazing how captivating the gameplay manages to feel! Anyway, great review as always!

[@BoardOfItReviews]

Thank you!!

[@TeutonicSpeedracer]

I've already purchased Imperial Steam, but have yet to play it and was also looking at Ultimate Railroads. Do you prefer Ultimate Railroads or Imperial Steam? My favorite games are Brass Birmingham, Barrage, and Clans of Caledonia.

[@BoardOfItReviews]

I'd say we both prefer Ultimate Railroads. They are fairly different, but UR is quick to get out, quick to play, comes with a lot of fun content, and you generally enjoy every moment of it. As someone who would also count Barrage as one of their favourite games, Imperial Steam has the same kind of brutal vibe, whereas UR is mean, but not too mean and most of the annoyance is more indirect.

[@pipstevenson5146]

You guys have fantastic coverage. Really seem to have your finger on the pulse for all the new stuff coming out and also great coverage and playthroughs for older games that match my interests. I just saw this was coming the other day and really want to get a copy. How did you find the component quality?

[@BoardOfItReviews]

We like what we like ;)! The component quality is...fine. Honestly, it's dead in the middle. Solid chunky wooden pieces, lots of thick cardboard, and okay cards. It's basically generic euro components 101 in that they are ugly but of average quality.

[@rafiweiss3915]

I’m curious, a lot of elements here seem similar to Lost Ruins of Arnak. The research track is similar to the personal railroad tracks, the worker placement sites. The assistants and the engineers. Does it feel that way for you or does it feel completely different? Like when you’re in the mood of a worker placement efficiency game, how would you decide between which to play?

[@BoardOfItReviews]

I think our opinion would be that they are both completely different, and we'd almost certainly always get this out over Lost Ruins. There's more to see, it plays quicker while being crunchier, and is a bit meaner. But yea, I wouldn't compare the two at all because UR is a straight up classic worker placement euro, whereas LR is more of a resource conversion puzzle with some light worker placement elements (for me).

[@rafiweiss3915]

@@BoardOfItReviews Awesome! I’ve not played too many worker placement games, and the only ones I have in my collection right now that are somewhat related are Lost Ruins and Red Cathedral and maybe PARKS. I’ve got a lot to learn in how games are compared it seems.

[@Javaslinger7730]

Something I found on BGG. "The tiebreaker isn't arbitrary-- the engineers are not even in strength nor are the numbers (completely) random. The lower number engineers are, generally, stronger than the higher numbers within their letter class. For example, #7 (1 black move and 3 points) mostly sucks and the value is just being the highest of the A engineers. Engineer #2 (industry and 3 points) is quite strong and gives you a lot more flexibility on the board. So, to compensate, the engineer bonus tiebreak at the end uses the numbers. Also, the numbers are all known and the engineers face-up at the start of the game, so it isn't "arbitrary" as you know well in advance which engineers will be important. e.g. is #15 is out, you know that is effectively the trump card so try to be first player before that. Here's a good discussion of the engineers I found just now. boardgamegeek.com/thread/1107365/engineer-engineer-r... Yes it's a disadvantage to not have the engineer win, but it hardly decides the game. Especially in 2p where the actions are very tight and cutthroat, I think it's often not correct to zero in on engineers when, say, 2-for-3black can enable a bonus tile or something."

[@BoardOfItReviews]

Thanks for the link it was a great read - We'll have to agree to disagree though! While I agree the engineers aren't random, I personally think it's one of those things where it's all well and good to say this is better than that, and make sure you're first for this round, but in practice games don't work like that, particularly with the chaos of more players. Many things can be outside your control unless you sacrifice everything else, and we've had very unsatisfying games where somebody has won because they had engineer 15 over engineer 14.

[@pendergastselim]

Hi, awesome video. Can you speak on a alternative way to score a tie with the engineers? Maybe share the 40 points? Or both get 30?