Metro: laying track for a Paris subway system

November 1, 1:30 PMBoard Game ExaminerSkip Maloney

Previous Next

Comment Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the Board Game Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

 

Game: Metro
Designers: Dirk Henn
Publisher: Queen Games (1997)
Age Range: 8 & up
Number of Players: 2-6
Game Time: 30 minutes
Mechanics: Tile Laying/Route-Network Building
Complexity: 3
Challenge: 4

       Here’s one that hadn’t come down off the shelf in a while. No real reason for this, it’s just that it took something of a back seat to newer titles as they emerged. It got to the table over the weekend, because a gaming friend, with an affinity for Carcassonne: The Castle dropped by on Friday night (http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-2590-Board-Game-Examiner~y2009m7d3-Carcassone-The-Castle--Knizia-improves-on-an-original). I rooted around in the collection for another tile-laying game and came across Metro. As it turned out, two members of the local gaming group here in Wilmington, NC came to play on Saturday and the box was still on the table when they arrived, so it was played twice in rapid succession. In addition to providing a more nuanced glimpse of it as a game, the separate sessions also allowed me to view the differences between a two- and three-player experience.

       Often compared to a tile-laying game called Streetcar (by Steffan Dora; 1995), which uses New Orleans as its thematic backdrop, Metro is ‘about’ laying track for the subway system in Paris. As one commentator on the BoardGameGeek site noted, however, any architectural engineer who developed a system that even remotely resembles anything that emerges in this game would have been fired on the spot. The emergent routes of track that develop on the board are convoluted, to say the least, and reward complexity, rather than any formula dictating the straight line as the shortest distance between two points.

Completed tracks

       The board is an 8 X 8 grid of square spaces, accommodating a total of 60 tiles to be played (four spaces in the center of the grid, house a ‘central station’). The perimeter of this grid features 32, numbered local stations onto which the ‘rail cars’ (wooden blocks) of a player’s given color are placed at the start. With two players, each will place 16 ‘rail cars’ on odd and even numbered stations. With three players, two of the stations will be left open. On your turn, you will draw a tile from a stack, or multiple stacks of them and place that tile on the board, either at one of the numbered local stations or next to a tile already on the board. Each tile shows a varied section of multiple tracks emanating from the four sides of the tile, and an arrowhead indicator, which must, in the basic game, line up with a similar indicator on each of the board’s spaces.

       There are two spaces on each of the 32 local stations; one houses your ‘rail car’ and the other, a space with a red roof. The four spaces in the center, are all red roof spaces, each with two ‘entrance’ possibilities. The object of the game is to create a line of track emanating from your ‘rail car’s’ position in any of the local stations to any red roof entrance of a local station on the board. When you have successfully done this (and you’ll do it numerous times as the game progresses), you are awarded victory points equal to the number of tiles you’ve used to complete the track. If you’ve managed to end that track at one of the central stations, your tile total will double, as a result.

       As you ponder your options in this game, you’ll look to increase the number of tiles you use to connect a given rail line; the more the merrier. The track sections on the tiles do a lot of things. They twist left, right and turn track around 180%, which not only gives an individual player ways to increase the length of his own track, but also (and this, as it turns out, is important) provides ways of frustrating an opponent’s best laid track plans. An opponent zeroing in on completion of a track at the central station, with double points in sight, can easily (and often) find himself at the mercy of a track segment, laid down by an opponent, which reverses his/her direction and heads the track back toward a rendezvous with fewer points.

Close-up of 'rail cars' - three-player

       While everybody starts this game with their primary goal in mind (lay tracks down for completion of your own routes), it doesn’t take long before the advantages of working against your opponent(s) becomes clear. Armed with a tile that doesn’t do much for your own route, you can often lay down a tile that completes a route for an opponent, which, though it scores points for this opponent, often reduces the number of points and takes one of the opponent’s ‘rail cars’ off the board. Any opportunity to reduce the number of chances an opponent has to score points works in your favor.

       The board can become rapidly confusing and visually difficult. Double-vision, as you try to follow an individual track line, can be an issue, along with a correlating tendency toward the dreaded analysis paralysis, but overall, it’s an engaging experience. It’s something of a deceptive gateway game, in that while its rule set is simple and process pretty straight-forward, it doesn’t really offer a ‘gateway’ experience to more complex and rich offerings. You wouldn’t, as an example, want to follow it among newcomers with Agricola or Puerto Rico. You’d want something a tad more involved to bridge such a gap.
       It’s garnered 2,616 ratings on the Geek over its 12 years in existence, and maintains a 6.44 average rating on the 1 to 10 scale. Queen Games has introduced a new version of it this year, called Cable Car, with a San Francisco theme, which has an even lower average (6.38), though with only 19 ratings, to date. It was a Spiel des Jahres nominee in 2000 (three years after its release?) and does carry the Mensa Select label, if that is of significance to you in your selection of board games.

       The decisions one makes in regard to a ‘gateway game’ are strongly influenced by personal preferences. If you’re not a fan of tile-laying games, Metro isn’t going to float your boat and you’re not going to bring it to the table to demonstrate to newcomers. On the other hand, if you’re a fan of such games, Metro is reasonably compelling and worth a look. There is also a nifty little freeware version of it that allows you to play against a computer opponent (novice, average, or expert; and I warn you, the expert is really good). You can find this on the game’s BoardGameGeek entry listed below under the 'Files' menu.