It's my first Empire Builder game(or in other words a rail game from amyfair) and it is great. It seems like a great place to start as I read reviews for Iron Dragon and Euro Rails and it seems to me that they are all more complex with bigger maps and more cities. I try to play this at least once a moth to once every 2 months. The only priblem is that it takes a long time for one game> 2 player games are the fastest. Also, i reccomend that you always use the fast trains rule.

So if you want to get used to the Empire BUilder System, this is definately the game to start with.

I've recently become a big fan of the crayon-rails games, having cut my teeth on Empire Builder and Iron Dragon.

India Rails is a fine addition to the series, using the same basic rules while offering a very different and challenging terrain. The natural shape and prominent features of the sub-Continent present unique new strategic challenges to those already familiar with other games of the genre. For one thing, the prime north-south and east-west geographic axes are roughly equal, and cross in the center of the board, while the 5 major cities (Karachi, Delhi, Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay) lie mostly around the perifery, four of them being on the coasts. This makes it very challenging to connect the 5 major cities, which is p[art ofthe conditions for winning. There's also the ferry to/from Sri Lanka, the only source for indigo and providing big payoffs to those who deliver goods from the north and far east. India Rails is a great game, even if, like most crayon-rails, it takes several hours to play.

I highly recommend this game.

Similar to the other Mayfair [page scan/se=0197/sf=category/fi=stockall.asc/ml=20]crayon rail games (so I won't mention the rules) with a few minor additions.

The map is smaller than usual, assembled from only 4 pieces rather than the 6 of Eurorails et. al. and includes parts of Pakistan, Bangla Desh and Ceylon in addition to India. The Himalayas are on the north edge, but no one ever has to build in them. Compared to the other games, there are more sole source commodities, so there are no parts of the map which don't get used.

The city names can be really long, but you get used to them after a few plays.

There is a new terrain type (salt flats) and a new rule about transporting pilgrims for a couple dollars (rarely worth doing; in the play test version it was easier and paid more, but now a whole game can pass without anyone doing it).

The rules suggest starting with faster trains for a 5 or 6 player game, be we found the standard rules work just fine. If you build in the Ganges river valley, make sure to keep some cash on hand to rebuild your bridges.

If you enjoy the other Empire Builder type games, you'll enjoy this one as well.