BOX
OF
DELIGHTS
RICKY
ROYAL
Age of Steam Custom Solo Map
- Brunel's Great Western Railway - Wales and South West England -
GWR South West is an Age of Steam solo game map designed by Richard Wilkins, aka Ricky Royal, of Box of Delights Games, playtested by Gabor Kiss. The rules are based upon the Barbados map designed by Ted Alspech of Bezier Games. Brunel's reputation as a skilled engineer means the Engineer bonus is permanently in effect on this map, and there are some discounts on laying complex track and replacing track. However, for experienced AoS players, there are some navigational challenges to overcome on the map, and a "harder" variant that sees you having to pay back your initial investors with some stock dividends on the red turns.
Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806 - 1859), civil and mechanical engineer, is one of Britain’s most well renowned and celebrated names, and a prominent figure of the industrial revolution. Brunel was chief engineer on the Great Western Railway. Designed for speed and efficiency, the GWR linked London to Bristol, and then further to Exeter in the South West. Brunel’s legacy was continued by the GWR company with their takeover of the West Cornwall Railway in 1876, developing the line to Penzance, and then later with the opening of the Severn Tunnel in 1886 which shortened the route from London to Wales.
NOTE: you can either download the three PDF files and print them at actual size, cut them out and stick them together, or download the JPEG and print that at 100% scale over as many pages as you need.
Setup
Remove the purple cubes and the New Cities E, F, G, and H from the game. Randomly place cubes in the top row of the (left) light section of the Goods Display 1-6 and A, B, C, and D (if a red cube comes out for A or a blue cube comes out for B, replace them with another cube.) Additionally, randomly place cubes in the first two boxes in all three rows of the (right) dark section of the Goods Display 1-2.
Place one cube in each of the yellow Cities, pulling from a pool of 2 yellow cubes and 1 each of red, blue and black, for Cities 2-6, and then place 1 random cube from the bag on City 1.
Issue Shares
One one share may be issued per turn.
Determine Player Order
This phase is skipped when playing solo.
Select Actions
The only actions that are available are Locomotive, Urbanisation, and Production. When an action is selected, place a player marker on it; that action may not be selected again until the marker is removed. When all three actions have been selected, remove the markers. One action must be selected each turn.
Build Track
A player may build up to 4 track each turn. Building any Complex track costs $1 less. Replacing Track costs $1 less. The Severn Tunnel can only be built on with a simple straight track in the direction shown, costs $6 to build, and cannot be replaced.
Goods Growth
Roll 2 dice for each side of the Goods Growth board each turn. Cities 1-6 receive Goods from both the light and dark sides of the Goods display.
Advance Turn: Expert players may use this OPTIONAL rule as a "Hard" variant
PAY STOCK DIVIDEND: at the end of turns 6, 7, 8 and 10, you must increase the Issue Shares track by 1, but receive only $1.
Game End and Scoring
After the 10th complete turn, spend your cash to buy back all of your shares at $5 each. If you cannot buy back your shares, you lose! Any money you have left over is your final score, ignoring all other scoring rules. All 6 yellow Cities must be connected to each other or else you lose the game.