How to speed up a game of Empire Builder?

Question

Are there any rules variants that I can use to speed up a game of Empire Builder? I love playing Empire Builder, but the fact that it takes so long tends to put off some of my friends.

Answer 1

One dis-recommendation: don't lower the amount of money for the win condition. The game advances through phases from initial building (limited range) to networking to running those few big deals that are finally possible late in the game. By reducing the win condition you'd be cutting out that last phase and that can be a lot of fun.

Some ideas occur to me, all untested:

Increase starting money by 20 and add one more round of initial building. (Edit: Since posting this answer I've tried this with one game of Iron Dragon with experienced players. The effect was to increase the value of those first early runs, thus jump-starting track building. It didn't make a huge difference in elapsed time (maybe 10%), but it did cut down on the early feelings of angst and futility that can come with unfortunate cards.)

Allow each player some small number of "I hate this card" redraws, without the cost of a full-round flush. I would limit this to the early stages of the game -- maybe up to three uses while your money remains under 100. The idea is to soften those "aw, crap, I guess I could go there for 10" runs that don't really help you except to flush the card.

If time is being lost because inexperienced players can't plan their turns in advance, consider some scheme for parallel turns. Play is largely non-interactive, after all. Maybe a player and the one opposite him at the table can go at the same time so long as they aren't competing for the same pip, goods token, etc? (If so, turn order wins.)

I don't think any of these would damage the spirit of the game, unlike, say, removing some calamities from the deck would.

Edit: oh, and do check BoardGameGeek for player aids. It can be hard to study the map to plan your move without getting in the way of the active player, but a copy of the map can help (not so much with detailed track planning, but with "where the heck is $city on this map?" planning. Granted that should be less of a problem on a map of one's own country, but it still helps.) And alphabetize the goods if you haven't already so "banking" is fast.

Answer 2

We find the disaster and taxation cards prolong the game unnecessarily. Remove them before play starts.

Answer 3

This isn't really a house rule per se, but it's especially helpful in speeding up the game when playing on a new board (or unfamiliar one).

Whenever a new demand card is drawn, read off and find all of the cities as quickly as possible. Everyone "competes" to find and point out each city first. This helps everyone learn the map better, as well as whomever just drew the card evaluate which (if any) demand to attempt to fulfill.

Answer 4

Untested, but I don't think it would be too disastrous: increase the speed of the trains. Instead of 9 and 12, try 12 and 15.

The idea is that you'll get where you are going in less turns, so your game should take less turns.

Possible problems: You might not be able to build track at the beginning fast enough to keep your train in motion. If a bridge disaster catches you, you'll spend more "movement time" waiting to get to rebuild. And ferries become more costly to use, as the "half movement" penalty is now half of a bigger number.