Railroad Ink: Underground Expansion Pack
Railroad Ink: Underground Expansion Pack Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Expansion Mode
Difficulty: Hard · 14 rounds
To play with the Underground dice as an Expansion, you need two boards for each player: one board for the Surface and one for the Underground. Think of them as two layers, one on top of the other. You will play with the basic white Route dice on the Surface board (following the normal RRI or RRI Challenge rules) and with the Underground Expansion dice and rules on the Underground board.
There are 4 Underground dice with 2 different types of Routes: Subway Routes (depicted with a single line) which may also have Subway Stations on them (depicted as an empty circle) and Water Pipes (depicted as a double line with interfaces at the ends). Some results contain a combination of the two. Note that these two types of Route can never connect to each other.
Icons on the dice: Subway Route with Station; Water Pipe; Water Pipe and Subway Route.
Setup
- Give each player one board (you may choose either the classic or the challenge version, but every player has to have the same kind of board). This will be the Surface board.
- Give each player a second board (you may choose both the classic and the challenge versions. In this case it doesn't make any difference, players could even have boards of different versions). This will be the Underground board.
- Put the 4 white Route dice and the 4 Underground dice on the table, but don't mix them.
Gameplay
- You will play alternating between Surface and Underground rounds for a total of 14 rounds: 7 Surface rounds and 7 Underground rounds.
- Start with a Surface round.
Surface Rounds
- These rounds are played following the normal rules of the Railroad Ink version whose boards you chose as the Surface boards.
Underground Rounds
- Roll the Underground dice.
- Every player must draw the results of these dice on their Underground board, following the Underground placement restrictions (see below).
- At any point during an Underground round, you may choose to use a duplication power to duplicate one of the Underground die results for the current round. Mark it by crossing off one of the Special Routes at the top of your Underground board. You can only use a total of 3 duplications per game and a maximum of 1 per round. Using a duplication power does not count as using a Special Route on the Surface board.
- When playing with Railroad Ink Challenge boards as Underground boards, ignore all of the Special Buildings.
Example of the duplication power: Hannah decides to duplicate her "T" shaped water pipe. She marks one of her Special Routes as a reminder. She now only has 2 duplication powers left.
Underground Placement Restrictions
- When drawing a Route on the Underground board, it must be connected to a preexisting Route or Exit. A Subway Route can only be attached to a Railway Exit or to another Subway Route. A Water Pipe can only be attached to a Highway Exit or to another Water Pipe.
- You can never connect a Water Pipe to a Subway Route or Railway Exit and you can never connect a Subway Route to a Water Pipe or Highway Exit.
Interaction Between Surface and Underground
There are two types of interactions between the two boards: you can create Hubs and gain points by matching the positions of Subway Stations and surface Stations; additionally, you will break a pipe and lose points if you draw a surface Station above a Water Pipe space. Follow these rules for these two types of interactions:
- To keep track of the interactions between Surface and Underground, you should follow this courtesy rule: Whenever you draw a Subway Station on the Underground board, draw a circle in the bottom right corner of the corresponding space on your Surface board. Whenever you draw a Station on the Surface board, draw a circle in the bottom right corner of the corresponding space on your Underground board.
- If a Station on the Surface and a Subway Station on the Underground share the same space on their respective boards, fill the Subway Station (make it a filled circle). This is now a Hub.
- When you draw a Station on your Surface board, check if there is a Water Pipe beneath it. If there is, it becomes a Broken Water Pipe: draw a zig zag line in the Water Pipe (as seen in the picture to the lower right) to mark it as broken. Drawing a Water Pipe underneath an already-built surface Station will not break the pipe.
Example of the courtesy rule: Draw a circle in the bottom right corner of a space to remind you of what is underneath or above it.
Creating a Hub: If a surface Station and an underground Subway Station share the same space, fill the Subway Station: it is now a Hub.
Breaking a Pipe: Drawing a Station "on top" of a pipe will break it, but not vice-versa.
Stand Alone Variant
When playing the Standalone version, you only play with the Underground board. Follow the rules of the Expansion Mode with just a few changes:
- Play only for 7 rounds.
- Don't use a Surface board and the white Route dice.
- Ignore all the interaction rules between the Surface and Underground boards.
- When you draw a Subway Station, if there is no Hub in the same row and/or column, you must immediately transform that Subway Station into a Hub.
Scoring
After 14 rounds, use the following rules to calculate your Underground score:
- Networks:
- All Exits connected to each other by Water Pipes form a Network. The size of the Network is equal to the number of connected Exits. You score points for each of these Networks according to the Network Values track.
- All Exits and Hubs connected to each other by Subway Routes create a Network. The size of the Network is equal to the number of connected Exits and Hubs. You score points for each of these Networks according to the Network Values track.
- Mark the resulting total in your Network scoring space.
- Longest Water Pipeline: Use the rules for calculating Longest Routes to calculate your Longest Water Pipeline. Double that score and write it in the Longest Highway scoring space. Broken Water Pipes do not interrupt your Longest Water Pipeline.
- Longest Subway Line: Use the rules for calculating Longest Routes to calculate your Longest Subway Line and write that score in the Longest Railway scoring space.
Add up all the points you earned and write them in the Total score space of your Underground board. Then, also write this total in the Expansion scoring space of your Surface board.
Calculate the points for your Surface board as usual and add the Expansion points to the total.
Network Values track (size of Network to points, as printed on the track): 2 = 4, 3 = 8, 4 = 12, 5 = 16, 6 = 20, 7 = 24, 8 = 28, 9 = 32, 10 = 36, 11 = 40, 12 = 45.
Worked example: Hannah managed to create a size-3 Network with Water Pipes and a size-10 Network with Subway Routes (4 Exits and the 6 Hubs connected to each other). She managed to create a Longest Water Pipeline with 13 spaces for a total of 26 points and a Longest Subway Line with 15 spaces. She gains 6 points for the Center. Unfortunately, during the 5th round, she broke 1 pipe on the left side of the board for -2 points; added to the 9 Errors this is a total of -11 points. The final score for her Underground board is 80 points.
The Surface board: The Surface board is calculated as usual. In the Expansion scoring space there are the 80 points from the Underground board. The total score accounts for both the Surface board and the Underground one.