Vendor: Queen Games
Type: Board Games
Price: 46.95

A re-issue of David V. H. Peters' SNCF (Société Nationale des Chemins de fer Français). Originally released by Winsome Games as part of its 2010 Essen Set, SNCF was subsequently licensed by Queen Games and rereleased as Paris Connection in 2011. This is a fast economic game with a train theme, with the objective of having the most valuable stock portfolio at the end of the game. Players can own and trade stocks as well as influence the value of each company.

There are 6 colors of wooden locomotives, each color representing a company. Players are dealt random hands of 5-10 (depending on number of players) locomotives, which are essentially a stock portfolio; the rest of each color are placed in a pool. On your turn, you can either increase the value of a single company by placing 1-5 locomotives from the remaining pool of that company, or you can trade one locomotive in your portfolio for one or two locomotives from the remaining pool in a company.

The game board is a map of France, with cities worth anywhere from 1-4 points, and rural hexes worth 0. Connecting to a city adds to a company's value.

The game ends when Marseille is reached by a company, or when there is only one company with locomotives remaining in the pool. Players' scores are determined by the value of each company at the end multiplied by the number of locomotives the player has for each color.

SNCF expansions may be used with this game.

Vendor: Queen Games
Type: Board Games
Price: 70.95

Vendor: Queen Games
Type: Board Games
Price: 49.95

As members of merchant families the players marry into other wealthy merchant families. They expand the trading routes of these families and establish trade relationships with other families. The player having gained the most victory points with relationships and goods will be the winner at the end of the game.

Each turn the players either marry into a merchant family or expand the trading route of a family (they are already married into).

To marry into a family, the player pays the cost of the family. Only two players may marry into each family.
To expand the trading route of a family, the player must be married into the family and may pay for the route with the money of the family. The goal is to meet other families not met before (gaining trade relationship markers) and reaching goods spaces first (gaining good tokens).

If all families have established at least one trade relationship OR one family has established 5 trade relationship, the game ends.
Each player scores his good cards with the corresponding good markers he has acquired, the trade relationship markers he has collected and his money.

Samarkand is a family game with its simple to understand rules and fast access to play.

This entry has been split from the Winsome Games publication Age of Scheme: Routes to Riches. As the rules have been altered, number of players differs and updates to the artwork have been made, the two games are regarded as separate entities.