Polar Rails

Polar Rails is a Christmas-themed game that uses the gameplay from Empire Builder with players creating rail networks that are centered on the North Pole.

Use your initial investment to build track, then pick up commodities where they are grown, mined, or manufactured and deliver them to a lucrative place of demand. Complete a delivery and make the money you need to buy larger, faster trains and expand your railroad empire. Win the game by building the most effective railroad empire!

In more detail, players use washable crayons to draw their train routes over a map of the North Pole, including North America, Greenland, Asia, and Europe. Players start with an initial sum of money which they use to build short lengths of track during their first couple of turns. For the rest of the game, players operate their trains over the track network drawn on the board to pick up and deliver loads to various cities, then have the opportunity to add to their track network or improve their train. The game uses demand cards which list three demands, each of a commodity to be delivered to a specified city for a given payoff. Each player has three demand cards to provide opportunities for income.

Each turn consists of an operations phase and a building phase. During the operations phase, trains are moved to cities where commodities are picked up at no cost and moved to one of the cities on that player's demand cards. When the commodity is delivered, the player receives the payoff and trades that demand card for a new one. Event cards are mixed in the deck with the demand cards. When an event card is drawn the instructions are followed. During the building phase, a player may pay to build more track or upgrade their train.

A player wins by being the first to connect their track network to six of the seven major cities on the board and acquire $250,000,000 in cash on hand.