Some say that Railroad Ink is a board game about trains. I say that it’s actually a graphic design game about attempting to make infrastructural maps that don’t look like a spider has just fallen out of an ink pot and walked all over the page. Regardless of your interpretation, here’s a quick guide on how to play.
The setup is simple – each player takes a board and a pen, then places four route dice and up to two matching expansion dice in the middle of the table. If you have a dice tray, make sure to place it where all players can see. If you’re on a train or plane, I’d recommend taking the tray out of the Railroad Ink box and using the box itself as a dice tray (believe me, it’s a nightmare looking for your dice on a plane floor).
The game is played across seven rounds (or six if you’re using any of the Deep Blue expansion dice). At the start of each round, all of the game dice are rolled, and then each player simultaneously draws the routes from the face-up side of those dice onto their board (preferably alos marking the round number in the corner of each square so that you can easily work out which tiles you placed when). At the end of each round, I also make a tally of how many rounds I’ve completed somewhere on the edge of the board, so that there’s never any confusion over which round I’ve reached. Then, the next round starts, and all of the dice are rolled again.
All four dice from the base game must be drawn (if possible) when rolled, but it is optional to draw the expansion dice. Once drawn, a route cannot be erased. A route can only be drawn if at least one of its edges connects to a matching exit on the board or a matching existing route. Highways (roads) and railways (tracks) cannot connect directly, unless there is a station (black square depicted on the dice) tying them together. They can be drawn in any rotation or mirror image of the dice. However, beyond that, the dice face cannot be altered.
Up to three times per game, and no more than once per round, a special route can be placed. Each individual special route can only be played once per game – feel free to cross them off on the player board so that you can keep track of which ones you’ve used so far. They consist of four-way junctions that can be a great asset for connecting awkward routes or forming large junctions. They follow all of the normal route placement rules.
If the river dice are being used, rivers can be created as a third kind of route. They can’t directly connect to any roads, railways or exits. However, they can connect to other edges of the board, and some of the river dice faces do act as bridges with roads or train tracks passing over the river.
If the lake dice are being used, lake tiles and connecting pier tiles can be placed on the map. Each lake tile has up to three “open sides”. If any space on the board has three open lake sides surrounding it, that space is filled with water immediately. Any network connected to the same lake (by piers) are also considered as being connected to each other (which is very useful for scoring networks).
Drawing the expansion dice is always optional.
Scoring
Scoring takes place at the end of the game. There are six different scoring criteria: networks, highways, railways, centre square, errors, expansion dice.
The greatest possible number of points comes from networks of connected exits.
Each network scores separately, but the number of points received scales dramatically based on the number of connected exits, so it is strategic to have one large network rather than multiple smaller ones.
The longest consecutive highway and longest consecutive railway (each including stations) each score one point for each square that they fill. Beware not to count an overpass (when a road passes over a railroad, but they are not directly connected) as if it were a junction.
Players also score 1 point for each route in the three-by-three-squares central zone of the board.
Unfortunately, players must also subtract a point for each “error” they have made. This means that they lose one point for every open end on their route (e.g. any road, rail or river that doesn’t connect to another matching route correctly or connect with the board’s edge). Open lake sides do not count as errors.
Finally, if expansion dice are being used, they also receive points. Lake dice receive one point per tile for the smallest lake on the board. River dice receive one point per square that a single river runs through plus an additional three points if both ends of that river connect to the outer edges of the board. No more than one lake or one river can be scored.
If players tie, the player with the fewest errors wins. If there is still a tie, victory is shared.
Now you know everything you need to know in order to play the game. It’s time to draw, connect highways and hope your scrawling doesn’t look like spaghetti… Good luck!
