At last year’s GenCon my friend and I couldn’t wait to get in to Rio Grande’s demo room as we’ve found it to be one of the convention’s highlights every year. It’s nice to get away from the crowd on the main floor and sit in a large room dedicated to one company and just sit and play games with friendly denim-shirted volunteers teaching you the rules. This time didn’t disappoint and the highlight was learning a game I probably would’ve overlooked while browsing Board Game Geek: Airlines Europe from Alan R. Moon of Ticket to Ride fame.

The graphics for Airlines Europe hark back to a time when flying was a formal thing full of top-notch customer service. The mid-century look isn’t one that immediately screams, “play-me!” but I’m always willing to give a game a shot, especially from a proven designer. Actually, now that I think about it, since medieval farming and managing a factory floor are the themes of a couple of my favorite games, I probably should stop and give a second look to games like this. I’m just waiting for that pulling weeds deck building game to hit the market, then it is on.

When you first look at the board set up, you’ll immediately want to associate the map and routes with those of Ticket to Ride and when you’re dealt your hand of colored share cards, you’ll think, “oh great, it’s just the Train Game again.” But really it's not. Stick with me because I will now proclaim that I like this better than Ticket to Ride.

There are some similarities but the play and end game are quite different. You’re goal is to score the most points at three different scoring opportunities during the game, the final scoring round occurring at game’s end. You score buy holding shares in airlines, naturally you’ll want the most stock in the more prolific airlines and you’ll want to build those airlines up. The numbers on the share cards tell you how many shares are available in the deck, and how many routes that airline can build. For example, Red has 13 shares available and can place 13 airplanes on the map claiming 13 different routes. Each route added will add to that color airline’s value.

So, how do you play stocks and build up airlines? I knew you’d ask that. At the beginning of the game each player is given 8 million Euros and dealt 8 share cards from the deck (yeah, I know they didn’t have Euros until ‘99, but it’s better than Elektro Dollars). 5 share cards are dealt face up in a community supply for players to draw from if they choose. The remaining cards in the share deck are then prepped with 3 scoring cards. The rule book will lay out the procedure for setting this up, so I’ll just summarize. The first scoring card is about a quarter of the deck down, the second is roughly half way through and the final one is shuffled in with the bottom 11 cards of the deck. When a scoring card is revealed, the round of play is finished and players score their points earned from shares in the airlines earning victory point chips.

Each player will then choose 2 different colored share cards from their hand of 8 to start the game with and place them face down. When everyone has chosen, they will all be revealed and the game can begin. On your turn you will get to take one of four different actions.

If you want to play a red airplane on a route from Paris to Frankfurt, you need to place it on the lowest number, 3, and pay 3 million Euros to the bank. A color has to start from its airport and it has to connect to established routes after that. Now that it's connected to Frankfurt, red can expand on routes from that city as well. Any one else wanting to use the same route will have to use the 4; the routes always fill up lowest number first. You will also move red’s tracker up 3 spots on the stock tracker:

As an airlines gets more routes, it’s value in points will grow. When a scoring card is revealed and players collect their victory points it’s done by checking their stocks against the tracker. On the picture above if Sally owns 4 white shares and Fred owns 2 whites shares, then Sally will score 7 points and Fred will score 4 points for white. If they owned the same amount, they would split the combined value of first and second place rounded up; 6 points each.

Since some airlines have stock that is more rare than others, there are connection bonuses available to the 4 airlines with the lowest number of planes. The white airlines only has 7 airplanes (and shares) availble. Its home airport begins in Moscow. When white connects Moscow to Madrid, the Bonus connection is made and white will move up 9 spots on the stock tracker.

This is how you grow your airlines and the only way to draw more share cards.

We’re still learning how important Abacus is and figuring out when it’s better to fight for it or ignore it. When you first start playing, it always seems that the leading share owner in Abacus is probably going to win. It’s going to take us many more plays to see what other strategies can be used to battle this.

All in all, this is currently my favorite game to put on the table. The turns are quick with little downtime as players only get one Action and you usually have that figured out before it comes back around to you. There’s not as much conflict on the board for routes as there is in Ticket to Ride, which is good or bad depending on whether you like that or not. Personally, I like it better and enjoy the ease of analysing your opponents’ strategies and improvising your own accordingly. This feels like a deep game but without the analysis paralysis can come from similarly deep games that are more complicated like Power Grid.

If you haven’t checked it out yet, it’s my number one recommendation right now. It sure beats a kick in the Titan (I'm not even trying anymore).