A long time ago (2002) a board game designer who specializes in half-finished and typically boring games that feel as if they were designed by spreadsheet came up with something called AGE OF STEAM.

It was a train game, and it was actually an extremely well-designed despite brutally unforgiving economics and sporting some of the most boring art direction ever in the history of the hobby. The game was a big hit among Eurogamers and still is with expansion maps and fan-made add-ons maintaining its popularity year after year. But AGE OF STEAM had at least one major problem. The game simply wasn’t any damn fun whatsoever and everything interesting about it was spoiled by gamey, artificial mechanics, ridiculously tight geography, and a ruthlessly fascistic sense of balance and process. I’m sure robots and human calculators love the game, but I don’t. I can’t. It’s a Tin Man of game—all creaky precision and metallic sheen, but it doesn’t have a heart.

Back in 2005, Eagle Games picked up the license for several Microsoft computer game properties and one of them was Sid Meier’s RAILROAD TYCOON. The AGE OF STEAM design was also licensed and Mr. Drover did a little redevelopment on it and the result was a game that had a lot of the core ideas of its predecessor, but with a hell of a lot more fun, excitement, and sense of scope.

It became a game that anyone could play and enjoy with easy-to-understand rules and a real sense of economic growth and development. A cardplay element was introduced that added some much-needed variety and unpredictability, and the game quickly became one of my favorites. Of course, the AGE OF STEAM faithful took to the internet and decried the game as “dumbed down” just because the boring and needlessly processional role selection mechanic was removed and the economics were loosened up a bit. Sorry, but if “dumbed down” means “funned up”, I’ll take it.

Due to some legal and financial transitions, Eagle no longer has the rights to RAILROAD TYCOON but the game is back in a new edition dubbed RAILWAYS OF THE WORLD, published by FRED Distribution. The new edition sports some new artwork, new component colors, and an extra map (Mexico) as well as rules revisions and card fixes. As if some tweaks and enhancements to the base game weren’t enough, a new expansion is also now available: RAILWAYS OF ENGLAND AND WALES that adds another map with the titular territories and an advanced game that focuses more on economics and introduces a stocks mechanic. If that’s still not enough RAILWAYS for you, there is also last year’s RAILS OF EUROPE, a great expansion that is still 100% compatible with the system. There’s a ton of gameplay to be had between the various maps, and I’m almost always excited to get in another game of this revitalized favorite.

RAILWAYS OF THE WORLD, as a system, is as easy to get into as any train game out there barring very elementary ones such as TICKET TO RIDE or TRANSAMERICA. I’d actually recommend RotW to TTR fans looking for something beyond simple set collecting and route planning. The jump in complexity from that game isn’t really all that far. Unlike some of the more complex train games, I find that RotW is very immediate and it’s easy for even the most inexperienced player to understand simple concepts like making a profit or expanding a network. There are no esoteric mechanics or highfalutin economic schemes to cloud up the game, and the result is that it is very direct, obvious, and engaging without the need for rules burden or brain-burning mathematics.

Each player represents a railroad tycoon that has a randomly drawn special goal that might net extra points or even a win at the end of the game. Throughout the course of a game, the players get to manage a rail company by investing in links between cities, delivering goods along established rail lines, and upgrading engines to be able to make longer distance deliveries. The map (representing the Eastern United States in the base game) is composed of hexes with three types of terrain and major cities.

Rails are simply hexagonal tiles laid on the board with a train of the player’s color to denote ownership. Building rails costs money, of course, and building over mountains and rivers costs more than over plains. Eventually, what happens is that each player will have a sprawling network of railroads and points and income increases are accelerated by making the more distant deliveries. Cities not only have a set number of goods they’ve produced based on size and importance (Chicago starts with more cubes than say, Mobile) but they also demand goods cubes as denoted by their color (New York will only accept red cubes, for instance) and when a set number of cities are emptied of goods the game ends and points are counted and the amount of debt a player has accumulated taken off the final point total.

The cardplay element is simple but it adds a lot of flavor and theme to the game. On each round, there is an array of cards that impart certain privileges or benefits. A hotel in a key city might net the owner an extra point every time a delivery is made there. Special objective cards might give a player points for completing a goal. City Charters might forbid any other player from linking into an important delivery point. The England expansion adds another card type, an inspector that can actually stop the delivery of goods. It’s fun, and adds just a little nastiness to the game as a whole.

There is also a lot of fun, simple theme and sense of progress in upgrading trains- at first you can only make deliveries on single-link runs. But as you make profit, you can spend it on upgrades that let you reach the more distant deliveries. Each link a good travels over nets the owner a point, which also increases income on a shifting scale. Deliveries can be made over other player’s rails as well, so sometimes you might have to decide whether making four points is worth giving two to another. There are also special objectives for each map whereby a player making a complete, contiguous network can earn some extra points. The game does a terrific job of providing both short and long-term goals that are very clear and rewarding.