Australian Rails

Australian Rails is a board game published by Mayfair Games in 1994, part of the company's family of railway-building games in which players act as rail magnates. Each player draws track directly onto a plastic-coated map of the Australian continent with crayons, linking Perth and three of the cities of Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide, and the first to gather 250 million dollars in earnings wins. Terrain shapes the plan: crossing mountains and rivers costs more, desert mileposts are cheap but a sandstorm can wipe them from the map, and dry lakes and riverbeds may flood in the rainy season and raise building costs. Players draw cards that offer delivery runs of goods such as diamonds or Aboriginal artifacts, and longer deliveries pay more, so play moves from claiming efficient routes early to weighing reinvestment against saving for victory. At the 1995 Origins Awards it won Best Modern-Day Boardgame of 1994.