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From: rick@ucla-cs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.games.board
Subject: Re: Rail Baron Strategies
Message-ID: <7016@ucla-cs.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 7-Oct-85 17:27:14 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucla-cs.7016
Posted: Mon Oct  7 17:27:14 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 12-Oct-85 05:18:03 EDT
References: <3275@pur-ee.UUCP> <1189@daemen.UUCP> <686@mmintl.UUCP>
Reply-To: rick@ucla-cs.UUCP (Richard Gillespie)
Distribution: net
Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department
Lines: 34

In article <686@mmintl.UUCP> franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams) writes:
>The first thing to buy in Rail Baron is a northeastern railroad.  Preferably
>the Pennsy, but the NYC and the B&O will do; the C&O is a last resort.  You
>can win the game locked out of any other region; if locked out of the
>north-east, forget it.  (By the way, the Pennsy is far and away the best
>value for the money in the game.)

I heartily agree. The PA is *the* best railroad on the board. Whenever
the NYC owner heads south (say, Philadelphia) or the B&O owner heads north
(say, New York) you can rake in a fortune. Throw in the NYNH&H and the B&M
and you can get every single northeastern city.

>
>After that, it is a bit less obvious.  The southeastern railroads are quite
>valuable, especially the SAL.  If I can't get it or the ACL, I will generally
>go on to the next step, which is getting a central connector -- the C&NW,
>CRI&P, CB&Q, or MP, generally.

I rather like the L&N. It gets a great deal of the southeast and close to
most everything else down there (except for the disasterous even-6 and even-8),
and it also is a good connector for the northeastern railroads to the south
and midwest.

As an aside, I decided to try the Superchief strategy this past weekend.
I couldn't get the PA so I got the Superchief as my first purchase. I was
fortunate that one player has poor purchase judgement and never bought the
B&O, so I never got shutout of the northeast. Consequently, I eked out a
victory by running over another player twice as he headed for home. A lucky
win, but I didn't roll well to begin the game so it was just evening out :-).
-- 
   Rick Gillespie
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