Union Pacific

Union Pacific
 
Players:  2 – 6
Playing Time: About 2 hours with 6 people.
Publisher:  Rio Grande Games/Amigo
Designer:  Alan R. Moon
Date played: 7-8-04
Location:  Alan’s house of games
Players:  Alan, Mark, Todd, Brock, Joe and John
Drinks served: Coke, Coffee (and if I remember correctly alcohol for Brock!)
Times bathroom used during playing of game: 0  (world record?)
Times bathroom used after conclusion of game: 3
Times coffee cup almost knocked over on table by Joe: 1
Times cell phones/home phone rang: 5
Time spent after the game in discussion: 45 minutes (minimum)
Winners (in order): Mark, John, Alan, Brock, Todd, and Joe
 
Ok, now that we have the statistics out of the way let’s talk about the game.
 
Union Pacific, as its name implies, is a game about Trains.  The premise of the game is to invest in as many as 10 train stocks during the game.  There are 4 dividend payouts during the course of the game.  After the fourth dividend payout the game ends automatically, which in my book is somewhat anti-climatic.
 
However, let’s talk about the game play itself.  There is a nice big colorful board with tracks running between cities in the United States.  Between these tracks you have 1 through 4 spaces for “train engines”.  The game comes with multiple small plastic train engines which are probably about 7/8 of an inch long.  You have engines in 10 assorted colors (only issue here was that black and purple were sometimes hard to distinguish).
 
These train engines correlate to 1 of the 2 deck of cards provided in the game.  This deck of cards is called the “shares” deck.  In the shares deck you have 10 different companies’ shares.  The basic premise of this deck is the person who has the most shares laid on the table is first place in whichever company he has invested in and thus gets the 1st place monies.  The person in second place would get the 2nd place monies.  You get nothing during a dividend round if you do not hold first or second place.
 
The second deck of cards shows a type of track (which there are 4 different types of tracks in the games).  On the board is printed 4 different types of tracks, some have dotted lines running through them, others have a single solid white line, one has a solid black line, and one looks like a plain railroad track.  You use the “track” deck to put an engine out on the board.  Of course, you have to have the corresponding track card that shows which track you want to place an engine.  In other words, if you wanted to place a track between Fargo and Marquette you’d have to have a track card that showed a dotted white line track on the front of the card.  If you don’t have one?  Too bad, you don’t get to place an engine in that area.  There are a couple of “wild” cards in the train deck which allow you to place an engine anywhere on the board.  What’s so good about placing an engine?  It allows the stock you possibly might control to rise in value.
 
This sounds all well and good, but some companies are bigger than others and thus there are more shares available in these companies.  Thus the competition might be higher for some of the larger companies than the smaller companies. 
 
So, you have the “shares” deck and the “track” deck.  However, there is another type of card available and this is called “Union Pacific” stock.  We’ll get to that in a moment.
 
At the beginning of play each player is dealt 3 track cards and 4 shares cards and given 1 Union Pacific stock card (out of 20 available, all UP stock cards are the same).  Everyone selects one of the shares cards from his hand and flips it up simultaneously.  This is the player’s initial investment into the companies running trains on the board.  
 
The shares deck is then placed to the side of the board and 4 shares cards are turned face up next to the deck.  If at anytime the shares deck shows 4 of the same stock face up, those four are immediately discarded.  The track deck is placed next to the side of the board also with the remaining UP stock cards.
 
On a players turn he always draws a track card and then has 2 options:
 
1)      He can either lay track (place a colored engine on the board) and then draw from one of the 4 face up shares available (and replace the one selected with one from the deck) or draw from the top of the shares pile (which is  only known by the player drawing the card).  And either keeps all the shares cards in his hand or discards one and chooses a Union Pacific share card.  Or
 
2)      He can invest.  To invest you simply lay down up to 2 share cards that are different from each other or you can lay down 3 types of the same share cards. 
 
Remember, at all times the players hands are kept secret.
 
In this way the game can proceed very quickly.  Built into the shares deck is 4 dividend cards.  When the fourth dividend card is drawn the game automatically ends.  There isn’t a dividend card in the first six cards that are drawn.  However, in the next 18 share cards there is 1 dividend card.  After those 18 cards the rest of the dividends are shuffled randomly into the remaining cards.  So, the game could end quite quickly after the first 24 share cards drawn, or the game could go long with the last dividend card being the last card in the share deck.
 
When a dividend card is drawn you earn money from your investments (in denominations of millions).  First, you have to have the majority or second majority of stock in a company to get paid.  You get 1 million for the main station of a company and an extra million per engine on a track connecting different cities.  The first place finisher with the most amount of stock in a company gets the full amount.  So, for example if there is a company out there with 5 engines on the board connecting different cities the person with the majority of the stock would get 6 million (5 for the engines and 1 for the station).  The second place investor would get 3 million.  If the total had been 7 million, the second place finisher would still receive 3 million (always round down for second place).  However, in order to get paid you have to invest in these companies, which becomes important after the first 6 share cards (since there is not a dividend card in the first 6).  If there is a tie for first place you would add the full value and half value of the company and divide by 2 and split between the players tied for first place.  If there is a tie for second, the second place value is simply split between all players tied for second (rounding down).
 
Then you score the UP stock.  On the first dividend no one gets any money for the UP stock.  However, during the next 3 dividends millions are paid out to the first thru fifth place finishers.  On the second dividend the player in first place with the UP stock gets 10 million, 2nd place gets 8, 3rd gets 6, 4th gets 4, and 5th gets 2 million.  If there is a tie, the two totals are combined and split between the players that tied.  In other words, if 3rd and 4th place tied you would add 6 + 4 which would equal 10 then divide by 2.  So, both players would get 5 million.  What’s interesting about the UP stock is that the value goes up with the 3rd and 4th dividends.  On the third dividend 1st place gets 15 million on the second dividend payout and drops by multiples of 3 to each player finishing behind 1st place.  On the 4th dividend 1st place gets 20 million and it drops by multiples of 4 to each player finishing behind 1st place.
 
As stated, when the fourth dividend card is drawn the game ends after scoring.  The person with the most millions wins!
 
Opinion:
 
Great game and very interesting.  However, I like to play games where you can see clearly who is winning and who is not.  In our game it was a complete surprise to me that Mark had won.  Some people like this, but to me I’d rather know who is leading and who is not.  Also, there didn’t seem to be enough player interaction.  I like games with a lot of player interaction.  However, in this game by playing a certain way you could affect other players’ play.  Although the UP stock was nice to score, I think it is more important to invest in companies than UP stock.  You are caught in a dilemma on your turn though, do you invest hoping the next share card is a dividend card or do you press your luck hoping you can get one more turn in (I liked this mechanic!).  Sometimes almost a nail biter if you decided to press your luck.  The game was fun and I would love to play again now that I know how to play.  Hopefully I didn’t miss anything in my review and is easier to read than I think it is!  J
 
Rating:  7 out of 10.
 
Alan Ray