Steam Barons: A Short Review

I had the opportunity of the last couple of weeks to play Steam Barons twice. Steam Barons is the "new" and first expansion for Steam (Mayfair Games revision of the awesome and spectacular Age of Steam). Steam attempts to expand on the system by not only adding some nice expansion maps for Steam, but by adding an entirely new share based game that you can play with Steam's components. If you own Railroad Tycoon and Railways of England and Wales, than you are already familiar with this concept.

How did Martin go about adding shares to Age of Steam?

Instead of owning their own individual company, each player vies for control of any number of the 6 companies. The first phase of each turn is an auction for available shares in those companies. Each company starts with 6 (or 8 on one of the maps) shares. At the start of the game, one of these shares is available. But, since selling these shares for $5 is how the companies earn money to buy track, more shares will become available as the game progresses.

In the second phase, companies build track in company turn order. This turn order is RANDOMLY determined at the start of each turn. Yes, you heard be correctly. Company turn order is randomly determined. Basic Steam rules apply here concerning track costs. However, each companies track must be continuous. Further, a company may only build 3 pieces of track. There is no urbanization or engineer action here to help a company build additional track.

The third phase is the goods shipment phase. It's the same 'ol thing here, with only a few minor changes. There is no such thing as a locomotive limitation in this game. If you have a 20 link shipment on the first turn (impossible except for this example) then you can make it. But you cannot ship over other company's track. This actually makes it quite difficult to make shipments in the game.

The last part of the turn involves adjusting company value based on the sum of their shipments. This is actually quite novel, as the most important adjustment factor is the number of different sums that the companies achieved. If there are 3 different stacks of shipment lengths, than the calculations will be different than if there were 6 different stacks on the shipment/income track.

After values are determined, players have the opportunity to sell back as many shares as they want via a simultaneous closed hand in the center of the table mechanic. Players and companies earn money based on the length of their shipments, but this, right here, is one of the major ways that players can get some money for the next turns auction.

Note that there is no goods growth phase. The cubes that start on the board are the only cubes that will be available during the game. This makes it very difficult to come up with shipments as the game progresses.

So...what did I think?

I didn't really like it. Or, to be more precise, this game doesn't hold much salt in comparison to other shares based railroad games like Wabash Cannonball, Baltimore & Ohio, or Pampas Railroads.

One of the major reasons involves the total lack of player alliances that develop when other shareholders have a real opportunity to help or hurt the company. In Steam Barons, another player may own shares in a company, but this has absolutely no influence on the company unless they become the majority shareholder/director. They cannot build track nor can the ship goods. And the amount that they won the share for has no factor on the companies ability to build track. Money paid for stock goes to the bank.

Another problem is the random company order. Turn order is very important in this game as the builds are tight and the number of good shipments is limited. Perhaps we should have played a more fluid game with our company ownership, but going first, or at least going before another company close to you can have a huge impact on your ability to gain access to cubes. And since turn order is determined after you have the opportunity to sell back shares, your decision cannot be based on this important decision. I don't know what Martin could have done to fix this, but something should have been altered or done. It's really not excusable for a strategic no-luck game to have this bit of total ranDAMity in it.

I still think that the game is worth the purchase. For the price, you get 2 new maps for Steam and an entire new game with 2 maps as well. But if you want a really good share based 18xx experience, try something else. If you are going for the short family friendly game, try Wabash Cannonball. If you want something a bit longer, try Baltimore & Ohio. If you want the really long and really deep and really real thing, go the 18xx route.