Network is a 1970's German boardgame set in 1920s Europe, with players taking the role of managing the Imperial rail network in the aftermath of the Great War. The game is notable for being popular in England, France the United States despite the pro-German propaganda common with Imperial games. Unlike most German-style games that typically are based about luck and conflict
Network is positively compared to French-style board games as including much more of a strategic and in cases cooperative element. It is the only German board game to win the coveted French
Jeu de l'année award, cited as a factor for it's popularity outside the Empire.
Rules overview
The game takes place on a map of Europe, divided between Germany proper, allied states and neighbouring countries, with rail lines connecting major cities. There are four types of cities; Prussian, German, Allied and Foreign, the game rules encourages connections between Prussian cities and allied capitals, whilst connections to foreign cities are only allowed if the player has an international permit.
There are three types of infrastructure; stations (for passengers), factories (for goods) and barracks (for troops). These buildings are represented by cards and pieces on the board placed in each city. If a player has two of the same buildings in two cities and has trains on all the lines in between then they are productive. A city can only have one type of building in for each player. Stations can only be built by a player in international cites if they have a permit. Non-station buildings can only be built in Allied cities if they are open and in international cities only if they are annexed.
Productive stations produce money straight into the players inventory, the amount is determined by the value of the cities the stations are located in, any intermediate cities that have stations on have their value doubled whilst any that do not have stations on subtract their value from the total.
Example 1: A player has stations in Hamburg (40) and Bremen (20). If he plays a train on the intermediate line he will receive 60 RM at the end of the turn.
Example 2: A player has stations in Erfurt (10) and Dresden (30), and trains on the line Erfurt-Leipzig and Leipzig-Dresden. He would receive 40 RM at the end of the turn, except Leipzig (20) is on the route but not served, so he only receives 20 RM. If Leipzig had a station on he instead would receive 80 RM, 10 from Erfurt, 30 from Dresden and 2x20 from Leipzig.
Factories work similarly, except there is no double bonus for being in the middle of a route or penalty for not being served. However only money from factories (not stations) may be spent to buy new trains, at a cost of 30 RM (representing directing industrial profits back into rolling stock).
Barracks are only used in wartime (explained later), and so investing in them is a gamble. However in the event of a long war a player with many barracks will reap the profits.
The turn is usually split into four phases. Firstly the Network card deck is dealt. This deck contains two different types of cards: purchasing and event cards. Purchasing cards are either buildings (stations, factories and barracks) or permits. Permits may allow construction in certain international cities (grouped by countries, so an Italian Operating Permit will allow that player to build stations in Venice and Milan) or give bonuses for specific connections (e.g. for linking all cities in an allied state, or between the three Hanseatic ports). Event cards are not purchasable but give temporary effects to he entire board. For example, a Hot Summer event will give small bonus money from passengers to any of the northern cities on the sea, whilst a Ski Season event will provide bonuses for cities in the Alps. On the other hand the Cold Winter event may put certain lines in the mountains out of action due to snowdrifts. Other events may include a riot in an Allied city, where any player who has barracks in that city gains extra RMs. These events last for a certain number of turns or until a new event takes their place, so they can have a major effect on player's strategies. The most important event card is the War! event, which if drawn puts the game into the war state, explained below.
Once the cards are drawn, the second stage is the buying stage - where players exchange their RM to buy buildings or permits. This is done in forward order, and each player can only purchase one card. Players may also attempt to buy cards off other players who are not using them, they cost double their value.
The third stage is the utilisation stage. Players place their train pieces on routes on the board they would like to serve. This is done in reverse order, each player takes it in turn to place one train at a time. This continues round until each player has placed all their trains on the board.
The final stage is the profit stage. Each player revives money from their stations and either money or trains from their factories. The turns are then started again.
These turns continue until a War! event card is drawn. This places the game in the war state. At the start of the war state, and at the start of each turn along with the network cards, a number of War cards are drawn, equal to the War power on the War! event card (e.g. War against France has the highest war power of 3, War against Switzerland has only 1.) These cards show a certain number of troops required on each. If all the players have this number of barracks
and enough trains to transport them all to the front line then the war is won. If not then the war continues.
In the war state the buying stage still occurs, but the cost of stations is doubled (a waste of resources in these times!). The Network cards are still dealt, so events may occur even (in a worst case scenario) another war might break out! An additional option is that any factories may be converted into barracks permanently by paying their cost again, this is something of a last ditch effort. In the utilisation stage all players
must attempt to place their trains in order to connect barracks to the front line (cities with lines to the target country). In the profit stage stations make no money (even if they are connected by trains) and factories automatically pool their money into producing trains, with any excess money wasted (diverted to the military).
At the start of the next war turn new war cards are drawn and replace the older cards if they are higher (e.g. if France draws 3,2,2 on the first turn and 3,1,1 on the second the lowest cards are discarded, so the target is 3+3+2=8). Eventually the players should be able to get enough barracks and trains connected to overwhelm the enemy country, and the war is ended. The cities of that county count as annexed from now on (essentially they count the same as Allied cities). There is the small chance that all the players do not have enough capital to defeat the enemy even utilising all their trains and barracks (since there is no way of gaining money during the war). This is the only way for all players to lose the game.
The game is won when one player has used all of their train pieces on the board, representing the maximum extent of their network. At this point one more turn is taken and the winner is the player who at the end of this turn has the highest total capital (building value plus cash). A game that continues long enough for every neighbouring country to be defeated in a war achieves a "Fatherland" victory, where every player is considered winning. Options are given to either ignore this (so the only way to win is individually) or to have this as the only victory condition (so if a player runs out of pieces they just have to make do.
The game board:
There are plenty of other rules and such I haven't mentioned, but that should be enough for now. I should add a disclaimer that the rules above are probably not balanced in any way 
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