Trans Europa

About this board game

Trans Europa is a simple railway game for 2–6 players that takes about 20 minutes to play. Each player receives five cities across Europe and races to connect them by building rail lines.

On each turn, a player places one or two rails. The first player to connect all five of their cities wins the round, while every other player loses points for being too slow. After 3–4 rounds, the player with the most points wins the game.

• Players: 2–6
• Play time: about 20 minutes
• Core challenge: connect five assigned European cities before the other players
• Scoring: finish first in each round while avoiding penalties for falling behind

One version, TransEuropa+, includes the Vexation expansion. It adds colored rails: each of the six colors has three rails, and a colored rail counts only as part of the network belonging to the player who placed it, rather than everyone else’s network.

The 2018 edition, titled Transeuropa by the publisher even though the box suggests “Trans Europa,” uses a slightly different map of Europe. In this edition, the colored cities are rotated so that all yellow cities are in the UK and Scandinavia. Double-squiggly lines mark ferry spaces separating these cities from others.

The 2018 edition also gives each player three colored rails. A ferry space can hold up to two rails: two colored rails, or one colored rail and one normal black rail that any player can use. Players may place only one colored rail per turn, and both possible rail lines in a ferry space can be claimed. A ferry space is complete only when it contains two rail lines, adding another condition to the race.

With its quick rounds and direct connection-building objective, Trans Europa keeps the focus on timing, shared routes, and reaching your destinations first.