BOARD OF WONDER

Trambahn takes place in Munich when tramways are expanding, and you as one of the head of 2 local major tramway company trying to achieve victory by seizing the contract for yourself. In order to do that, you must prove yourself worthy to the city board by scoring the highest profit for the city at the end of the game. The profit itself are represented by the accumulated victory point throughout the game after the 10th tramway departed

The first time I play it, I just thought this was an easy game that depend on luck too much at card drawing and maybe I will get bored soon. But I was mistaken on both my earlier assumption because I’m not bored playing this quite often and second I can mitigate the randomness into certain degree, although it still have a certain luck involved.

Trambahn use a multi use card mechanism, where player have to carefully evaluate and choose spending their funds that represented by cards in their hand. The cards can be use to promote a certain tramway so you can have more passenger, or building stations so the city will profit more after the tramway departed, or maybe just saving your funds for later use. Maybe you’ll be wondering why we must saving the cards as money instead of spending it on 2 other actions, and that because in order to produce profit you’ll need the tramway and the best tramway cost a lot of money while the maximum funds you’ll get at the end of each round are only 6000 marks. With this you’ll be juggling on each action every turn while still have to keep a closer look on what your opponent doing.

Trambahn all about balancing our resources while taking chance to score 2 of your main colors. At the end of turn after refilling my hands, there will be dilemma on using those cards especially when those cards have the same color and you don’t have enough money to buy a tramway. I know it is rarely happening but that dilemma is real. After the dilemma the next thing I’ll confronting is my own greed whether to have enough stations or make longer so I can score better. I learn it the hard way in my 3rd play, in that game I have 2 long station but can’t score because I can’t put the 4th passenger.

The most interesting aspect in Trambahn is the conductor cards, these cards have the flexibility to be your liason either to be part as passenger and to be part in station for triggering the extra tour, but itself can’t become part of the score. For me if I draw it in the earlier game, I’ll be using it to become part of the money definitely

If you and your playing partner are really really competitive, you may choose your money to spent. By doing this you’ll halt your opponent ability to score because the card you’re not using will be still in your money pile, and in this matter a lot in the late game.

In my opinion after several play, Trambahn is great simple game because although light, it still have its tactical charm and have enough tense to keep us competitive while still having a blast playing it. I strongly suggest to give it a try especially if you’re a competitive couples like me and my wife.