Capstone Games, which has always liked to launch heavy strategy games, launched a train-themed economic game, Imperial Steam, in 2021.
This high-intensity German-style strategy game, with its complex rules, diverse elements, brain-burning calculations and extremely low fault tolerance action mechanism, brings players quite a difficult challenge, but it is undoubtedly the favorite of the "old German sticks", and has been selected as the annual Top3 of many German-style bigwigs!
Returning to the nineteenth century, commercial competition begins
Empire of Steam is set in the mid-19th century, when the mighty Austrian Empire was building a railway network centered on Vienna.
In this tide of railway construction, the most prestigious is the "Semerling" railway, which connects Vienna to Trieste in the south. After 6 years and the unremitting efforts of more than 20,000 workers, the 42-kilometer "Semering" railway, which spanned the lofty mountains, was finally completed and opened to traffic in 1854.
This is the first time in the history of human railway architecture that a challenge has been launched to the mountain, and the "Semering" railway has become the first railway to be selected as a world cultural heritage.
In Empire of Steam, players will take on the role of Austria's industrial giant, expanding the rail network on a large main map of lines and cities, and repairing the Semmering Railway.
With the help of the railway network, players can build factories, hire workers, transport and buy goods, attract investors, and compete with other industrial giants to make more profits. When the railway is fully connected, the person who makes the most money becomes the winner.
Diverse action options to reach the target city
Empire of Steam takes place in 8 rounds, and when any player repairs the railway to the end of the Riast, the game will be scored early after this round is completed.
Each round of the game is divided into eight stages, the first six stages are mainly for various settlement and alignment adjustments, and the eighth stage is used to check whether a player has won.
Stage 7 is the stage where the player focuses on actions. During this phase, the player chooses between 11 actions by placing a "palm" token into the action zone. The number of palm tokens is unlocked as the game progresses, allowing the player to perform more actions, but performing the same type of action in a single round comes at a cost of weakening their influence.
The 11 actions are: building a railway; hiring workers/engineers; building a station/factory; producing goods; buying/booking goods; buying/upgrading trains; obtaining contracts (attracting investors); charitable donations; manipulating stock prices; raising funds; and finally skipping one's own actions.
In addition to these 11 actions, players can also repeat three free actions.
The first is to sell stocks, according to their own stock prices and the position of investors on the personal map to sell stocks to make money; the second is to sell goods to ports that need different materials, need to have factories that produce corresponding materials, and pay for the fuel costs of train transportation; the third is the road belonging to the state in the privatization map, that is, you can directly spend money to buy roads without spending resources to build.
Whether it is after 8 rounds, or if the player repairs the road and repairs the finish line, the game will end with scoring.
The elements are interlocking, and the planning is endlessly evocative
It's not easy to complete the goal of building the road to the end and making as much money as possible, and the game's many action choices and rich gameplay elements affect each other, interlocking, and moving the whole body.
Roads need materials and engineers, materials need to spend money to buy or build factories to produce, although it is more cost-effective to build factories to obtain materials, but the investment in building factories itself also needs to spend money, but also to hire and upgrade workers to efficiently obtain materials.
If you want to meet these expenses, you must have income, you can go to the port to sell goods, sell stock to investors, or turn the truck into a bus to make money, but these means of making money need to invest a certain cost or finally divide the profits, and face the risk of loss.
So "Steam Empire" is not the kind of board game that can take different routes to brush up on points. Money is the nature of the score, making this game more akin to doing business, in order to connect to the end point and make money to score, the money must be spent in the right place, so that the money can run and circulate to continue to make money.
Whether it is the acquisition of materials or the acquisition of money, it takes a long chain of actions to make it work, and the number of actions of the player is actually very limited, so from the first action, the player must begin to plan his overall strategy.
After the game is set up, there is no longer a luck element, theoretically, players can calculate all their own action processes in each subsequent round, how to efficiently run funds, build railways, and achieve their goals.
As you learn more about the mechanics of the game, these action plans become memorable. Not only does it need to be decided which action to take in each round, but in many individual actions, different branch choices must be made, such as building a factory or a station, where to build a station, what kind of factory to build, and so on.
Route grabbing interaction, scrambling everywhere
"Steam Empire" is not a traditional German-style brushing game that is sullen and calculated alone, and there is a strong interaction between players.
The most important thing in the game is to plan the route, players generally want to choose the shortest path from the starting point to connect to the end point, while trying to give priority to connecting the port city to facilitate the sale of goods to make money, but in practice, it is not so simple.
Because the game has a setting similar to the "card slot", if the player first built a railway on a certain route, then the subsequent player if he also built a railway on the same route, he would have to give the previous player 10 yuan. Players can build two roads every time, and it is still easy to get stuck to others.
10 bucks may not seem like much, but if you keep taking the same route, or if two or three players preempt the route before you during multiplayer, those extra expenses are huge. And this money is handed over to competitors, and it is easy for opponents to build a positive cycle with abundant funds, throwing themselves farther and farther away.
Therefore, the order in the game is very important. At the beginning of the game, the player will decide the order by secret auction bidding, and during the game, the influence can be adjusted by paying money or receiving rewards. If the route is stuck, then the player in the back position needs to open another detour, or break the next round by preempting the order, but with strong planning and execution.
In addition to the route card slots, other aspects also need to be competed for. For example, when buying resources starts to be cheap, the price of goods will rise as supplies are scarce, and the same is true for building factories and hiring workers. When taking the contract, it is also one less sheet, which will not be replenished, and the preferred person will have the advantage.
Therefore, when planning their own development route, players also need to act according to the actions of their opponents, especially the preemption of the position, and it is easy to accidentally lose everything.
If you are not familiar with German board games and play this game for the first time, it is likely that in the end, it will not only be completely difficult to build roads to the end, but even fall into the situation of getting stuck in yourself and stagnating the economic cycle.
Although not suitable for all players, for German board game enthusiasts, "Steam Empire" has a fatal attraction, from front to back every action planning and execution, shine with the brilliance of strategy, in the interactive game with other players to come up with the best solution, the sense of satisfaction and achievement after deep thinking to achieve the goal is really incomparable.
This easy-to-use but charismatic Steam Empire will bring incredible challenges and fun to players who love strategy and challenge, and it is also the top 3 game of the year recognized by many Detze masters!
If you have the patience to build the "Semerling" railway, you must now go to the "New Thing" to participate in the pre-sale of the Chinese version of "Steam Empire"!
Tourist Terminal has specially provided it with sincere unlocking gifts, including 8 metal keys exclusive to the Chinese, factory and market 3D panels, and official PROMO, and look forward to the construction of this powerful railway empire with your bricks and tiles!