Great Western Trail (German/English Edition)

Great Game! IMPORTANT NOTE: Instruction manual is in GERMAN. I was able to purchase the ENGLISH instruction manual by contacting the publisher: info at eggertspiele dot com

Our game came in May and it’s the English version both the box and game instructions. It’s in perfect condition. Such a fun game for the family! Fairly quick shipping as well.

A great game which has received great reviews I've the last year. Highly recommended

I really enjoy this game. It has defence and offence attributes to frustrate your opponent. The manual language was not in English as described. I had to search online, and print out my own. It take about 4 times playing through to fully understand the mechanics of this game. It is very fun game, and gives you several options to choose how you want to build your herd of cattle and add bonus poits getting them to market. Each game plays out differently from the last, however there are ways to give you an advantage over newer players. I don't recommend for kids under 14, unless they are really into board games. Game time can be up to 2 hours.

This is the German language variant. This was advertised as English. Zero indication it was not. Showed up and was all in German. Love the game, but returned this copy. Crappy seller.

Really well designed game. Lot's of detail in interesting decisions to make during the game.

The previous reviewer is right. I was sent the German version too as opposed to it being advertised in both languages. However, if you have had a hard time finding it like I did here in the States, you can just download the English instructions from the manufacturer's website. The Board, cards and game tokens don't matter what language they are in because they all use symbols. Some people I'm sure still won't like not having the back of the box in English, or having an original English instruction booklet. For me, it is ok.

This game is not correctly described on Amazon. This is a German only version NOT the German and English version of the game. If you have gaming buddies who are sticklers for 'rulebooks checks' then stay clear from purchasing this item unless you are fluent in German.

Arrived with significant damage to the packaging, however thought that would be ok if the game was fine. Unfortunately when I opened the package the game was unsealed, the game box had minor scuffing on corners, the internal cardboard partition was damaged and components incorrectly stored in the box. Looks like this is ex-display or had already been returned. Also the instructions are in German, which I missed when ordering so make sure you speak German! Very disappointed and will be returning.

sono rimasto sorpreso quanto hanno fatto presto ad inviarmi il pacco, ottimo!!!!

Nachdem ich mir vor kurzem die Erweiterung zu GWT zugelegt hab, ist mir aufgefallen, dass och noch nichts zu dieser Sternstunde der Brettspielgeschichte geschrieben hab. Dieses Spiel vereint eine angenehme Komplexität, die nie Überfordert mit einem relativ zügigen Spielflow. Es ist bei uns zu zweit sehr beliebt. Aber es geht doch immer an die 2 Stunden zur Sache. Aber angenehm, schöne Entscheidungen, toller Mechanismus, schönes Material (mit Ausnahme der etwas dünnen Playerbords) und eine durchdachte Ikonographie. Dazu kommt durch viele Variablen keine Langeweile auf. Nach unserer Erfahrung gibt es keine "beste" Methode. Extreme Spieleweisen können genauso Punkte bringen, wie alles ein bisschen. Wichtig ist, auf die Gegebenheiten richtig zu reagieren. Was vielleicht nicht jedem gefällt, mag der Punktesalat sein. Auch gibt es keine Zählleiste, so dass man erst am Ende weis, wer gewonnen hat. Ich mag sowas gerade beibsolchen Spielen (Rosenberg lässt grüssen) weil es zum Experimentieren einläd. Jetzt ist die Erweiterung da und was ich bisher sagen kann ist: GWT wird noch lange winen festen Platz bei uns haben.

Good strategy game with complexities, yet simple once learned. Not big on the cowboy theme but the game mechanics and design are great.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that a game set in the old west would involve shoot-outs, poker, prospecting and bounty hunters. Well, not this time! While technically we do see ourselves placed into the boots of a cowboy, this is meant in the most literal sense of the term as Great Western Trail is all about marching cows across America. Yes. Cows. The primary aim of the game is to march yourself and your herd from Texas to Kansas City where you will deposit your cattle onto a train bound for other cities. You herd is made up of cards representing different breeds of cows. Each breed has a different value. As you move across the board you have the ability to buy and sell cows from the cattle market. This market is represented by a shared pool of available cows. This is where we start getting into the deck building and hand management aspects of GWT. You would assume that replacing all of those lowly 1 cost cows with 4 cost cows is going to net you more money when you eventually sell them. Wrong! Only one of each breed can be sold at Kansas City. Any duplicates are worthless. This means you need to carefully manage your hand of cows as progress along the trail. So there you have it. It’s a glorified deck-building game about cows. Well…no. The cows and the deck building is only one method of scoring victory points. There are buildings you can build along the trail that can generate you money or hinder your opponents. You can also focus on improving your railroad so that your cows reach destinations further afield (and thus net you more points). Then there are the people you can hire along the way. All three varieties of them. Cowboys, Workers, and Engineers. Each of these specialises in helping you progress in whichever path you decide to take. Cowboys let you get access to the higher quality cows at a cheaper price. Workers open up the more advanced building options while Engineers assist you in moving your train further on down the line. It’s not all plain sailing in the old west either. There’s a multitude of hazards along your route that come in the forms of drought, landslides, and floods. Sometimes you may even be steered off your route and be forced to trade with Indians to progress further. You can start to see now that there’s a lot going on in this game. Yet, each turn all you do is move your cowboy, perform the action(s) of the building you end up on and draw cards back up to your hand limit. Other than a few more actions once you reach Kansas City, that’s it! It’s in this respect that I find Great Western Trail similar to games like Terraforming Mars or even The Castles of Burgundy. Initially, they look overly complex and technical, yet the simplicity of the steps you perform on your turn makes the game far easier to play and understand than it would first seem. This, along with the fantastic iconography present on the boards (that you will have memorised within 2 or 3 turns) means you won’t find yourself diving for the rulebook after every action. Even with the limited options you have each turn, there’s no shortage of strategy to be found here. There are multiple paths that can be taken along the route, personal buildings that can grant you more actions and also hinder your opponents as well as upgrades available to you via your player board in the form of increases to hand limit and movement range. As with the majority of “Euro” games, all of these different features award victory points in varying amounts at the end of the game. In fact, there are 11 different methods of scoring that need to be taken into account. Thankfully, at no point in the game do you ever feel overwhelmed with trying to keep track of what you’re scoring. Thematics are never the strongest point of any Euro game, yet in GWT they do work quite well. Each time you deliver your cattle to Kansas and start the journey over again, you do get the sense that over the last year the once desolate journey is slowly becoming more and more built-up. Hazards have been cleared away making room for more buildings to be developed, your cowboy is becoming more skilled at what they do and your railroad infrastructure is able to carry your cows further than ever. There really is a sense of development which creates quite the engrossing experience. The game tends to last between 1-2 hours depending on the number of players. Once everyone is used to the rules and has learnt the symbols, play starts to progress a lot faster. Each game I’ve played has felt like if I’d just had 1 or two more turns I’d have been perfectly set up. However, this isn’t a detriment to the game as generall this means that it’s balanced very well. Ending the game before players are fully set up allows for improvement in your technique as well as the ability to force the game to end before your opponents catch up. For the first few games, you’ll be playing with 7 neutral buildings placed in set locations throughout the trail along with 10 personal buildings. After you are used to the game, the neutral buildings locations can vary and the personal buildings can be switched to use their alternative version. This adds a good amount of variation to the game that keeps it from getting stale. There’s no getting around the fact that there’s a lot to take in here, in terms of scope this is a huge game. Yet it manages to bring all of these parts together and offer an experience that is one of the best I’ve ever played. The gameplay is sleek, the theme solid, and it has yet to disappoint when it’s made it to the table. Highly recommended!