| The game is based on a song text, written by the rock group Dire Straits. The song "Telegraph Road" from the "Love over gold"-album tells the story about the development of a city, from the first settler walking down a track, picking a spot to settle down, to the growing city with industries and traffic jams, and again changing as the factories starts to close down due to recession. The game is played in 8 rounds with each player performing 4 actions per round. The ultimate goal of the game is to score points by attracting citizens to the settlement. This is done by making sure there is enough food, housing and work for the people. It is up to the players to optimize the use of their pre-defined number of actions to out-grow the other players. There is several different strategies that can be pursued, but none that will definetely achieve victory. The luck factor is very low in the game, and is only present in the "Era-cards" that is used for attracting factories and get work. It might result in a player having to change the order in which actions are performed, but it is never decisive to victory. One innovative feature in the game that works very well and make the game stand out among optimization games is the way that the flow of the game works. There is a constant development going on, and the players get the feeling that they are part of it. The prices of the land increases continously as a purchase of a land space increases theaverage price of the remaining spaces. This result in an increasing urgency for aquiring land. Also the factories available are continously developing, and from the primary industry, it changes through secondary to tertiary industries. The players not keeping up with development will loose out in the end. |
