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On The Underground: London/berlin box art
2019 Ranked #2,256

On The Underground: London/berlin

Transit-building game where planners create successful underground lines in London or Berlin. Passenger movement creates the score, so every connection must serve a network that riders will use while keeping it ahead of competing routes.

Strategy Games Trains Transportation Action Points Action Queue

Players

2-5

Play time

45-60 min

Age

14+

Complexity

2.33/5

Rating

7.22

Harder to teach Highly interactive Deep strategy

Overview

At a glance

Is this game right for my group?

ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.

Teachability 2.3/5

Harder to teach

Replay value 4.0/5

High replayability

Interaction 3.8/5

Highly interactive

Player scaling 4.0/5

Scales well

Strategic depth 4.5/5

Deep strategy

See all 5 specifications

How it plays

How does it play?

The London Underground is the world's first underground passenger railway, having opened in 1863. Its 11 lines move about 5 million passengers a day to 270 stations, along 400 km (250 mi) of track.

Core mechanisms

Key systems that shape the decisions players make.

Read the full game description

The London Underground is the world's first underground passenger railway, having opened in 1863. Its 11 lines move about 5 million passengers a day to 270 stations, along 400 km (250 mi) of track. The massive network of London Underground stations makes up one of the most complex transportation systems in the world, and On the Underground challenges you to develop it. Build the most successful lines, connect them to landmarks, and attract passenger traffic! Gameplay OverviewIn On the Underground, the players build the Underground lines in London or the U-Bahn lines in Berlin. Each player controls 2-4 different lines, depending on the number of players. On each turn, four destination cards are available, corresponding to stations on the map. You can take up to four actions; an action is either building track by placing one of your track tokens on the board or taking a branch token. A player may use two branch tokens to branch out of an existing line (whereas normally lines can be extended only at the endpoints). After each player's turn, a passenger token is moved along players' lines, avoiding walking as much as possible, to reach one or two destinations determined at the beginning of the turn. The destination cards corresponding to the visited stations are then replaced by new ones, then the next player takes their turn. Players score points in two ways: By building track and connecting their lines to various types of stations, by building a circular line (in London), or at the end of the game if they have collected tiles from specific landmark stations (in Berlin). By having the passenger use their lines when moving. After all destination cards have been drawn and all players have taken the same number of turns, the game ends. Differences from the First Edition of On the Underground For their first turns only, the player first in turn order takes three actions, and the player last in turn order takes five actions. (Previously, everyone other than the start player had a few points added to their score as a balancing mechanism.) The passenger is no longer removed from the board immediately when the draw deck is empty. There is a new Berlin map, along with its corresponding cards and tiles. On the London map, these single connections have been made double connections: Paddington-Shepherd's Bush, Shepherd's Bush-Goldhawk Road, Goldhawk Road-Hammersmith, Waterloo-Borough, London Bridge-Bank, Stratford-West Ham, and West Ham-Canning Town. On the London map, this double connection has been made a triple connection: Borough-London Bridge On the London map, the New Cross station has been removed, as has the connection between Aldgate and Canada Water.

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Editions

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Game and edition data

All specifications (5)

Play and group

Players
2–5
Best with
1–4
Play time
45–60 min
Age
14+
Complexity
2.3/5
Credits and catalog connections

Credits

Designers

1
Sebastian Bleasdale

Artists

1
Viktor Csete

Publishers

1
LudiCreations