Great Western Trail Game Overview

 The plot of the game unfolds in the American Wild West of the XIX century. You are a simple cattle breeder who needs to feed your family in this difficult time. You won't find a lot of money and chances for development in your place of residence. Finally, having collected the last savings, you decide to take a risk and go with your herd to a large station in Kansas, where you can profitably transport it by rail for sale in other cities. Among other things, rare breeds of cows will be needed, and you have a serious task of how to get them. Unfortunately, this thought occurred not only to you. Other racers were not afraid to take risks and entered this race. The fight will be great, the path is full of bandits and other dangers, but when has that stopped you?

 The essence of the game. "Great Western Road" (VZP) is primarily an economic strategy. Our task is to build our engine so that the path brings more money and victory points than competitors. For this, the game simply provides a lot of opportunities that you must use competently.

 The game has a log-building mechanic - you need to select your herd so that not only the value of each cow is high, but also breeds are not repeated. In Kansas, each breed is paid only once. The way to get rich is to bring a diverse herd with rare species of cattle to the city. The cows themselves bring both money and victory points at the end of the game. One of the first tactics to achieve success opens before you — to be the best in the market and have enough cows, for which, of course, you will have to pay a lot of money.

 How can we manage to bring different and expensive breeds of cows to Kansas, if our path lies through sparsely populated areas, full of obstacles and dangers? That's right, develop infrastructure.

 The game gives us another way to develop - contributing to the infrastructure on a large map with winding paths. You can construct buildings that allow you to perform additional actions, hire workers and livestock, clean your deck, move around the field more, even charge other players to pass. You are given a wide choice of what to build and how. You can place your buildings without thinking, but it will bring minimal benefit. You have to design everything to move around the field, collecting all the necessary bonuses and actions that allow you to saturate your deck. But do not forget that you are not alone on this path, someone can overtake you and take a favorable place. Building in the game is an important part of the gameplay, but it is not the only one. It is not necessary to invest all the money, you can limit yourself to a narrow circle of buildings necessary for you and direct your finances in another direction.

 When you get to Kansas with the cows, you put them on the train. Here, in addition to the main one, a new field of struggle opens up. The further you can advance your train (each player has his own), the more profitable it will be for you to sell livestock.

 Railroad tracks are another way to score victory points. You need to move your train, stop at stations, overtake rivals and occupy advantageous seats. All this is possible thanks to the structures on the field and additional actions of the player. Every player will want to get profitable stations with bonuses, so you should hurry.

 Game components and details. I suggest you look at their number and variety:

 Impressive, isn't it? When showing this game to newbies, they may be horrified, but it's in vain, everything is not as scary as it seems at first glance.

 Design. As you might have noticed, the game is colorful and looks stunning. A variety of details, easy to understand infographics, great art on the cards, which depict the same cows, the setting of which scared me off at the introductory stage, even the box itself is made of high quality and I want to put it in a prominent place. In the process of immersion, you get pleasure from the design of the game. Just look at how it looks on the table:

 Random Any modern game should have an element of randomness that gives a unique note to each game. But many people do not like that sometimes it affects the outcome of the game too much. The WZP provided for this and gave players the opportunity to influence it. We can hire engineers, builders and shepherds from the labor market, which we put out of the bags ourselves, but not directly, but through a special "forecast" department. By filling out the "forecast", we can predict exactly who your competitor will send to the market, and who it is more profitable to send to you. It's a very interesting mechanic that adds that necessary randomness without making it all-powerful.

 Players' tablets. A big plus is that they are double-layered, this adds ergonomics (in the first edition, the games were single-layered, which brought a lot of inconvenience). In addition, your tablet is the tool through which you tune your engine. It stores your employees, certificates, displayed additional actions and reminders. When developing a tablet, you will find new opportunities, you should not forget about this.

 Other details and subtleties of the game:

 Objective maps. They allow you to choose a direction for development, bring bonuses, as well as victory points. But don't be in a rush to get too many of them, they'll wind up in your deck and clutter up your hand throughout the game.

 Robbers A monetary reward is given for their capture. The more robbers on the field, the bigger the reward. Don't miss your chance to be the first to claim the prize.

 Badge of station chiefs. To grab them first, you have to push your train to the station as fast as possible, pay some amount and replace them with your workers (until the end of the game) to get bonuses instead. This can only be done on the first visit to the station, be careful.

 Disadvantages Despite all of the above, the game also has disadvantages:

 Difficult to learn rules. The actions in the game are simple, but there are many of them, and the amount of nuance will make you go back to the rulebook for the first two or three games. I recommend watching the let's play, it's much easier to understand.

 The time per game is higher than average. When playing together, taking into account the average level of experience of the participants, the game can last more than two hours. Subsequently, parties will enter the time limit from 1.5 to 2 hours. When playing with a large number of participants, the game can take up to 3-4 hours.

 Average downtime. It all depends on the players. If those who like to think for a long time play, you will be forced to wait. But this time should be spent with benefit, working out your next steps.

 Bad organizer. In fact, it is in the box, but it is very inconvenient. Personally, I immediately removed it, there is no more useful space without it.

 Thin cards. It may seem to many that they will eventually begin to deteriorate. Protectors can solve the problem.

 Impression. "The Great Western Way" is a game that is incredible in terms of scale, elaboration, replayability, variability, and design. It intertwines many favorite mechanics that closely interact with each other. The game has no "proven tactics" and no imbalance. Each batch is individual. How the market of workers and cows will develop, the starting positions of standard buildings, on which path there will be more obstacles and dangers, when your rivals will overtake you, and when you will overtake them, who will choose some development tactics - no one knows. Thanks to this, you want to return to it again and again. And thoughts about the same "dubious setting" disappeared without a trace. Moreover, he began to like it. You look at the cards in your hand with delight during the journey, and when you receive your well-deserved reward for them, it brings double pleasure.