Steam horse

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Steam horse
Game data
author David Watts
publishing company Rostherne Games (1973),
Bütehorn (1979),
Schmidt-Spiele (1983),
Games Workshop (1985),
Alga (1986),
Selecta Spel en Hobby (1986),
Laurin Verlag (1992),
Queen Games (1993)
Publishing year 1973, 1979, 1983, 1985, 1992, 1993
Art Strategy game
Teammates 2 to 6
Duration 75-120 minutes
Age from 12 years

Awards

Steam Horse is a strategic board game that the English teacher David Watts invented around 1970. The game has been sold over 300,000 times.

General

Steam Horse - a metaphor for steam locomotive - is a simple business simulation game . It is played on a map covered by a regular hexagonal network . Some hexagons represent cities, others different forms of terrain. Each player slips into the role of a railway company. As the game progresses, a network of railway lines gradually emerges on the map, on which the participants hold profitable competitions on their own or on third-party routes that are subject to charges.

The game consists of a construction phase and an operating phase. At the beginning of the game, each player receives start-up capital; the winner is the one who first generates a previously defined target capital in the operating phase.

Game flow

Construction phase

In the construction phase, the aim is to connect as many of the cities as possible with one another, starting from specified starting points with the largest possible route network. The building is done by connecting the centers of neighboring hexagons with a pencil on the washable game board. The construction costs are "paid" by dice points depending on the terrain. When building in fields in which there are already tracks of other players, additional money must be paid to these players.

Operational phase

The operation of the railway lines does not begin until all cities are connected to at least one line.

Races take place in the operational phase. Two cities are determined by rolling the dice . By alternately rolling the dice, the players then have to try to get from the starting city to the destination city as quickly as possible with a piece along the built routes. The winners of the races receive money. If a player uses a foreign route on his route, he must transfer money to the builder of this route. The route network can be further expanded with the income received.

Maps

In addition to a stylized map of Germany, there was initially only one map of France and several USA maps. Maps of many areas of the world are now available: Spain, northern and southern Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden, Russia, India, China, several smaller districts of England, Cyprus, Bavaria, West Berlin, etc. Each map requires a different strategy.

History and prices

The game was first self-published and distributed in Wales by the author David Watts, who developed it for geography lessons around 1970. His goal was to use this simulation game to impart information, knowledge and skills.

In 1973 the game appeared in the UK in Watts' self-published Rostherne Games as Railway Rivals . The German publisher Bütehorn first published it in German-speaking countries in 1979. A year later it also appeared on the selection list for the game of the year 1980. After the bankruptcy of Bütehorn, Schmidt Spiele acquired the license and in 1983 brought a revised new version to the market, for which Knut-Michael Wolf wrote the instructions and which then in 1984 for the game of the year was chosen. At the time, this led to some irritation in the gaming scene, as only new releases are actually selected. But the new version by Schmidt was so innovative that the jury ultimately prevailed with its vote. Afterwards it was also well received in other countries and appeared under the German name Dampfross in the author's homeland. In 1985 Railway Rivals appeared on Games Workshop . Around 1986 Schmidt Spiele produced a Dutch version of Tussen de Rails for Selecta Spel en Hobby and a Swedish version of Rail for Alga . In 1992 a revised version of Dampfross was published by Laurin-Verlag , which Queen Games continued to publish after the takeover of Laurin in 1993. 1,000 games of the Büthorn edition were sold. With the Game of the Year award, Schmidt Spiele was able to sell 300,000 copies of Dampfross 1 and 50,000 games of Dampfross 2 . The Dutch version sold 1,000 times, the Swedish version 6,000 times and the Games Workshop version 11,000 times. By 1994 Laurin / Queen Games could sell 5,000 copies.

Mathematical calculation of chances of winning

For a single race within the operating phase which can winning probability and the resulting expectancy of the methods with probability calculation are calculated. Approximations are possible with the help of the central limit theorem . This can also be used to assess whether it makes sense to use the tracks of another player as a shortcut.

literature

Web links

Wiktionary: Dampfross  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Railway Rivals: The History at gamecabinet.com (English)
  2. ↑ Review of the game of the year 1984 ( memento from September 28, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) at spielbox.de
  3. ↑ Dampfross at spiele-check.de
  4. ↑ Jörg Bewersdorff : Luck, Logic and Bluff: Mathematics in Play - Methods, Results and Limits. Vieweg + Teubner Verlag, 5th edition 2010, ISBN 3834807753 , doi : 10.1007 / 978-3-8348-9696-4 , p. 56.