Mayfair games has published a number of translations of European
games. The initial group includes Modern Art,
Manhattan, Streetcar, and the strongest of
the four: The Settlers of Catan. Modern
Art and Manhattan have long been recognized as
classics by lovers of European games, but the best of these other three
games to this reviewer is Streetcar.
Streetcar is primarily a track-building game set in New
Orleans. The components are excellent: an attractive mounted board,
quality cards, cute little trolleys, three-dimensional car stop
markers, and nice-looking track tiles.
The board consists of squares in a twelve-by-twelve pattern. There are
twelve trolley stops scattered around the board. Around the edges are
twelve terminals, numbered 1-6 twice. The object is to build a route
from a given terminal, have it pass certain trolley stops, then go to
the other terminal with the same number. The winner is the first one
to actually run his or her trolley through the correct route - you
can't start running your trolley until your route is completely
finished, however.
The game is played in two phases: track-laying and trolley-car
running. The heart of the game is the track-laying phase, though -
running the cars is a bit of a denouement.
What makes the game exciting and not merely an exercise in blocking one
another is the fact that no one knows the other players' goals! There
are six trolley cards, with identical backs. At the beginning of the
game, deal one out secretly to each player. There are also two
different sets of six cards with route letters on them. (One set has
only two trolley stops, and the other has three. Use only one set,
depending on whether you want a shorter or longer game.) These are
also dealt out, one card to each player. A route card lists each
trolley number, and the stops it needs to make. You only look at the
stops for your trolley - other players will have different stops than
the ones shown on your card. Thus you may be trying to connect route 1
to the French Quarter and Tulane University and then to the other route
1 terminal in one game, but have totally different goals in another
game. This ensures a high replay value.
There are 126 track tiles, of twelve different types. Each player
starts out with three straight and two curved tiles, and each turn you
place two tiles anywhere on the board. At the end of your turn, you
randomly draw two more tiles. The rules for placement are simple and
logical: you can't have track going nowhere, or off the board, or cover
up a stop. A Car Stop token is placed on a the first tile placed
adjacent to a stop - any car using that stop must pass through
that space. (Although each player has a different terminal number,
it's likely in a multi-player game that two players will share a stop
along the way.)
The tiles include some interesting double curves, spurs, junctions, and
other useful (or frustrating, if in the wrong spot!) shapes. An
excellent rule is the upgrade rule: you may upgrade any piece of
track so long as it retains the original track position and doesn't
violate any of the track-laying rules. You could thus remove a
straight track and replace it with a piece that has a straight track
laid in the same direction, plus a curved spur going off to one side or
the other. This insures that you can't be blocked out of your route by
an opponent - though you may be slowed down as you wait to draw the
correct upgrade piece you need!
The trolley-running phase is pretty straightforward - you start when
you're ready, and the other players rush to finish their track building
so you don't get too much of a lead! The first trolley to move may
move one space. After that, a trolley may move up to one space more
than the previous trolley moved. You can thus slow down at strategic
times in order to prevent an opponent from reaching a car stop this
move - meaning he'll have to stop after only one space on his next
move. Obviously, the sooner you start your trolley, on the most direct
route, the better chance you'll have of winning - which is why the
track-laying phase is the heart of the game. The trolley running phase
is there merely to reward both speed in connecting your route and
directness of the run.
All in all, an excellent game for two to five people.
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