Route Building and Network Building Games Explained

The Short version – TL;DR

Getting from A to B requires building the road first. Route and network building games task you with laying track, roads, or connections across a map, racing to claim the best paths before opponents can block them. Ticket to Ride made the format accessible to millions, its colour-matched card collection feeding into route completion. Brass: Birmingham complicates it with an industrial-era economy where connectivity drives income. Blocking is often as important as building, which turns a geography game into something with real strategic bite. Gateway picks: Ticket to Ride and Kingdomino. Mid-weight: Concordia and Power Grid. Experienced tables: Brass: Birmingham and Nucleum. Recent releases: Ticket to Ride Legacy: Legends of the West (2023/2024) and Nucleum: Australia (2024).

There is a specific kind of dread that sets in when someone takes the route you needed. You watched it happen. You knew it was coming. You had one more turn before it would have been yours, and now it is gone, and your entire plan has to be rebuilt from scratch. That moment is what route and network building games are designed to create.

The mechanic is deceptively simple. Lay connections across a map, claim routes between locations, and build a network that serves your objectives. What makes it interesting is that you and everyone else at the table are working on the same map with the same limited routes, and the decisions you make about where to build – and when to build – affect everyone else directly. Blocking is not an afterthought. In many of the best games in this category, it is the whole game.

Below I cover what route and network building actually means as a mechanic, where it came from, why it works, and which games I would recommend at every experience level – including some strong recent releases.

What Route and Network Building Actually Means

Route building and network building are the same BGG mechanic, described as the development of connected routes and nodes across a map, usually with some functional in-game effect beyond simply scoring – such as triggering actions, providing income, or allowing resource transport.

What distinguishes these games from simple area control or tile placement is that the connections matter, not just the locations. Claiming a single city on a board is usually worth very little. Connecting two cities creates a link. Connecting five cities across a continent creates a network that scores points, generates income, or enables further actions. The value is in the chain, not the individual piece.

Route building games tend to be goal-directed: players draw objective tickets and race to complete specific connections. Ticket to Ride is the clearest example. Network building games tend to be more open-ended: players build infrastructure whose economic or strategic value emerges from how well it connects to other things. Brass: Birmingham is the clearest example. Both live under the same BGG category and share the same basic question – where do I build next, and what does connecting these two points enable?

The blocking dimension is what separates these games from standard territory games. In most area control games, grabbing a space denies opponents that space but does not actively damage their existing plan. In route and network games, claiming the single connection between two cities that your opponent needed can completely invalidate several rounds of their preparation. That asymmetry between building and blocking is what gives the category its strategic bite.

A Short History of the Mechanic

Train games have been at the heart of route and network building since the earliest days of the modern hobby. 18xx games – a family of stock market and railway games beginning with 1829, designed by Francis Tresham in 1974 – asked players to build rail networks for competing companies, managing track placement alongside share ownership and stock manipulation. They remain some of the most complex and rewarding games available.

The mechanic reached its widest mainstream audience with Ticket to Ride in 2004. Alan R. Moon’s design stripped the train game to its most essential form: collect coloured cards, spend matching sets to claim routes, complete destination tickets for points. The rules fit on a single sheet. The map is immediately readable. The competition for shared routes generates tension without requiring any knowledge of economics or stock markets. Ticket to Ride won the Spiel des Jahres in 2004 and has sold tens of millions of copies. It is one of the most important games in the modern hobby.

Brass: Lancashire and Brass: Birmingham (Martin Wallace’s original, revised and expanded with co-designers Gavan Brown and Matt Tolman) took the concept further, adding resource interdependency that made the network functional rather than merely geographical. In Brass, you cannot build without access to coal and iron from adjacent or connected locations. Your network serves your production, and its shape determines what you can do. The 2018 revised edition of Birmingham topped the BoardGameGeek rankings and reintroduced the mechanic to a generation of hobby gamers.

Concordia (2013, Mac Gerdts) brought a Roman trading network into the genre, using a card-driven action system where the routes you build between cities generate scoring opportunities based on the goods produced there. And more recently, Nucleum (2023, Simone Luciani and David Turczi) has been widely praised as one of the finest modern network-building Euros, drawing comparisons to Brass while adding a continuous action system and technology trees.

The mechanic has evolved to suit every weight and theme. Train games sit at one end of the complexity spectrum. Casual map-filling games sit at the other. The connecting thread is still the same question Tresham was asking in 1974: where do I lay track next?

Why It Works

Maps are immediately legible

Most people can look at a route-building board and understand the situation within thirty seconds. Cities are nodes. Lines are connections. Gaps are opportunities. Full routes are lost ones. This visual clarity means that even players who struggle with abstract point-salad scoring can read the board and form a plan. The geography does the teaching.

Every placement affects everyone

In many game types, your turn primarily concerns your own board or position. Route and network games use a shared map, which means every connection you make is visible to your opponents and potentially affects their plans. That direct interplay – building while watching others build, calculating what you can claim before they do – creates a different kind of engagement than games where players mostly operate independently.

Blocking feels fair

There is a specific satisfaction in claiming a route that you know your opponent needed. And there is a specific frustration in watching someone else do it to you. What makes this work better than it sounds is that, in well-designed route games, the blocking was visible before it happened. You could see the route they were building toward. You chose to prioritise something else. The frustration is fair because the information was there. That feeling of “I should have moved sooner” is more interesting than “the dice were against me.”

The theme writes itself

Train games, trading networks, Roman roads, electrical grids, canal systems – the theme of connecting nodes across geography is so naturally mapped to real human infrastructure that almost any historical or economic setting can borrow it. This thematic flexibility means the category includes games that feel wildly different from each other despite sharing the same underlying mechanic.

There is genuine depth beneath the accessibility

Ticket to Ride teaches in fifteen minutes. But the decisions about which routes to claim first, when to commit to a long destination ticket, and when to block a competitor’s most obvious path have real strategic depth that takes many games to fully understand. That layering – immediately fun, increasingly skillful – is what keeps games like this on tables for years.

Who Are These Games For?

Route and network building games work well for players who enjoy spatial thinking, planning ahead, and the satisfaction of a completed network. They are also excellent for groups with mixed experience levels, because the map gives everyone a clear frame of reference and the basic objective – connect your destinations before the routes run out – is easy to understand.

They suit competitive players who want direct interaction without dice-driven combat. Claiming a route someone else needed is a clean, strategic form of aggression that tends to produce less table conflict than direct attack mechanics.

They are less suited to players who prefer games without direct confrontation. In a tight route game, it is sometimes correct to block rather than build toward your own objectives, and the player on the receiving end will notice. If your group prefers games where everyone develops independently, this category will frustrate them.

Heavy network builders like Brass: Birmingham and Nucleum add economic and resource layers that suit players who want more than geography – who want to understand why their network produces what it does and how to make it more efficient. These are genuinely complex games and not appropriate gateway choices.

Families and newer players should start with Ticket to Ride, which remains one of the best gateway games in the hobby for a reason. The map, the trains, the colour-matching – all of it works immediately.

The Different Forms Route and Network Building Takes

Destination ticket completion: Players draw destination cards requiring them to connect specific cities, then race to build those connections before they are blocked or before trains run out. Ticket to Ride is the defining example. The tension comes from not revealing your destinations to opponents and committing to routes while reading what others might be building toward.

Functional network building: Routes exist not just to score points but to enable economic activity. In Brass: Birmingham, rail links transport coal and iron between production and consumption sites. A network that looks geographically impressive but does not supply the right resources is less useful than a smaller, better-connected one. The value of a route is determined by what it enables, not just where it goes.

Trading and commerce networks: Players build networks of trading posts or commercial routes, with the income or scoring generated by the density and coverage of the network. Concordia and Hansa Teutonica use this form. The question is not just where to build but how the territory you cover scores relative to what opponents are building.

Tile-based track building: Players place tiles that contain partial track sections, building routes by fitting them together. 18xx games use pre-printed track tiles placed on hexagonal spaces. The track must be legal – connected to existing track – but the exact routing involves choices about which directions to develop. This is the most fiddly form of the mechanic and also the most thematically immersive for fans of the train genre.

Infrastructure networks with resource flows: Electricity, water, steam power – games like Power Grid ask players to build supply chains where the geography of the network determines the cost and efficiency of operations. The route is not the destination. It is the means of production.

Legacy and evolving map building: Ticket to Ride Legacy: Legends of the West lets players add stickers to the board, permanently determining route colours and unlocking new territory across a twelve-game campaign. The map changes state permanently, which adds a layer of consequence to route decisions that standard games cannot provide.

Games Worth Playing

Family and gateway players

Ticket to Ride (2004, Alan R. Moon, Spiel des Jahres 2004): Ticket to Ride is the route building game I recommend most often to groups new to the hobby. You collect coloured train cards and spend matching sets to claim routes on a map of North America. Destination tickets – secret objective cards showing city pairs you need to connect – score points if completed and penalise you if they are not. The rules explain in fifteen minutes. The map is immediately understandable. The tension of watching a crucial route go to someone else builds quickly. I have never seen it fail to engage a mixed group, including people who claim they do not enjoy board games. Ticket to Ride: Europe is also excellent and adds some useful rule variations (tunnels, ferries, and train stations) for groups who want a next step. Also crosses into: Competitive Eurogames, Hand Management.

Kingdomino (2016, Bruno Cathala, Spiel des Jahres 2017): Kingdomino is a lighter tile-drafting game where players build a 5×5 kingdom by matching terrain types on domino-style tiles. The route-building element is spatial: connected terrain regions score based on the number of crowns within them, so the value of a tile depends entirely on what it connects to. It is quick, plays in about fifteen minutes, and works for families from around age seven upward. Also crosses into: Tile Placement, Family Games.

Ticket to Ride: London (2019, Alan R. Moon): The condensed, thirty-minute version of Ticket to Ride set on a London bus map. Players collect route cards and claim bus routes, completing destination tickets across the city. An excellent entry point for groups who find the original slightly too long, or a strong filler game for groups who already know the main game well. Also crosses into: Competitive Eurogames.

Medium-experienced players and groups

Concordia (2013, Mac Gerdts): Concordia is a peaceful Roman trading network game that uses a card-driven action system combined with route building across the Mediterranean. Players build colonists and trading houses across cities, scoring based on the gods represented on their hand of cards at the end of the game. The network building is gradual and strategic – every city you reach opens access to adjacent territories and generates resources from that region. What I enjoy most about Concordia at our table is how the scoring works: the cards you play throughout the game are also the scoring mechanism, so how you build your deck determines what kind of network is worth building. It rewards planning the whole arc of the game, not just the next move. Also crosses into: Competitive Eurogames, Hand Management.

Power Grid (2004, Friedemann Friese): Power Grid is a route and network building game wrapped in an auction and resource management framework. Players build power stations and connect cities across a map, paying to add each new city to their network. The network determines how many cities you can power. The auction system for power plants and the resource market create economic layers on top of the geography. It is not the most immediately accessible game in the category, but it remains one of the most interesting combinations of route building with genuine economic depth. Also crosses into: Competitive Eurogames, Resource Management, Auction and Bidding.

Hansa Teutonica (2009, Andreas Steding): Hansa Teutonica is the route building game that most surprised me the first time I played it. Players are medieval merchants building trade routes across the Holy Roman Empire, claiming control of cities by filling their trading post slots. The mechanic is simultaneously about building your own network and bumping opponents off theirs. Players who are displaced from a city receive compensation – they are not simply blocked – but the jockeying for position and the timing of when to push and when to consolidate creates a tense, interactive game that rewards reading what other players are actually trying to do. Also crosses into: Competitive Eurogames, Area Control.

Recent releases (2024 and 2025)

Ticket to Ride Legacy: Legends of the West (2023, Rob Daviau, Matt Leacock, Alan R. Moon, Days of Wonder): The Ticket to Ride franchise got its first legacy treatment in this twelve-game campaign set in the American West. The map starts small – just the eastern coast – and expands as players unlock new regions, add stickers determining route colours, and uncover new rules and objectives. Nominated for the Kennerspiel des Jahres in 2024. At the core it is still Ticket to Ride: drawing cards, claiming routes, completing destination tickets. But the permanent changes to the board and the introduction of money as a resource add just enough to make each session feel like part of something larger. At the end of the campaign you are left with a custom, permanently altered Ticket to Ride map that can be played as a standalone game. Also crosses into: Legacy Games, Hand Management.

Nucleum: Australia (2024, Simone Luciani and David Turczi, Board and Dice): The expansion to Nucleum that adds a new map set in colonial Australia, introducing new building types and thematic transport options including boats. Nucleum itself (2023) is one of the most praised heavy network builders of recent years, drawing comparisons to Brass: Birmingham while running continuous rather than turn-based. Players build railways to transport uranium and coal to nuclear power plants, converting fuel into electricity and powering buildings to score. The Australia map requires the base game but offers experienced Nucleum groups a fresh set of routing problems with modest additional rules overhead. Also crosses into: Competitive Eurogames, Resource Management.

Experienced players and groups

Brass: Birmingham (2018, Martin Wallace, Gavan Brown, Matt Tolman): Brass: Birmingham is the network building game I would recommend first to any experienced group looking for something to sit in the collection long-term. You are an industrialist in the English Midlands during the Industrial Revolution, building coal mines, iron works, cotton mills, potteries, and ports across a map of Birmingham and its surrounds. Every build requires specific resources – coal and iron – that must be available at adjacent or connected locations. Your network serves your production, and its shape is everything. The game runs in two eras: Canal and Rail. Everything built in the Canal era is removed at the transition. Planning for what survives that reset is the game’s central strategic puzzle. In my experience, the first time a group fully internalises the two-era structure – and plans their Canal builds for what they need in Rail – is when Brass: Birmingham stops being confusing and becomes one of the best games on the shelf. Also crosses into: Competitive Eurogames, Resource Management, Economic and Trading.

Concordia (2013, Mac Gerdts): Covered in the mid-weight section, but worth noting here that experienced groups should consider the Salsa expansion, which adds the senator mechanism and increases strategic complexity considerably. Concordia scales well upward from the mid-weight tier.

Nucleum (2023, Simone Luciani and David Turczi, Board and Dice): Nucleum is a heavy Euro with clear nods toward Brass: Birmingham in its DNA. Players are industrialists in an alternate-history Saxony powered by nuclear reactors, building railway networks to transport uranium and coal, energising buildings, and securing contracts. The action system is tile-based and continuous – no rounds, just actions until the game ends. The tiles you use as actions are the same tiles you place as railway track, creating a constant tension between getting things done now and expanding your network later. The learning curve is steep (BGG complexity rating of 4.13 out of 5) but the payoff for groups who commit to it is substantial. In my experience it rewards the same skills as Brass but in a different enough structure that they complement each other rather than competing. Also crosses into: Competitive Eurogames, Resource Management.

18xx games (various): The granddaddy of the route and network building genre. 18xx games ask players to manage railway companies – buying shares, building track, and running trains to generate income for shareholders. They are long, complex, and demanding. Not appropriate as a first game in the category or even a fifth game. But for groups who want to understand where the entire genre came from, and who are prepared for sessions that can run five or six hours, they remain extraordinary designs. 1830, 1846, and 18Chesapeake are common entry points recommended for the unfamiliar. Also crosses into: Economic and Trading, Stock Market Games.

Common Mistakes

Ignoring what opponents are building. Route and network games are interactive games played on a shared map, not solo optimisation exercises. Watching what your opponents are building toward – and whether their intended routes pass through your territory – is as important as planning your own network.

Committing too early to long destination tickets. In Ticket to Ride, the temptation to hold many high-value long-distance tickets is strong because they score more. But a long ticket requires many routes across the map, and any single one can be blocked. Groups who draw aggressively and then fail to complete tickets often finish below players who completed fewer, shorter destinations reliably.

Building a network without understanding what it needs to do. In Brass: Birmingham especially, players who build tracks before understanding the resource flow requirements often discover that their coal mine has no canal access and their cotton mill has no coal. The map should serve the economy, not the other way around.

Undervaluing early route claims. In most route and network games, the best connections are the ones that serve multiple purposes – useful for your own destinations and blocking for opponents. Taking an awkward but strategically important route early is usually worth the inefficiency.

Forgetting that blocking is also building. A route claimed primarily to prevent an opponent reaching a destination is not wasted. In competitive route games, every route that denies an opponent’s plan is points scored in the negative direction – and that arithmetic matters.

Treating the first era of Brass like a warmup. The Canal era in Brass: Birmingham is not a rehearsal for the Rail era. Decisions made about which industries to develop and where to build canals directly determine what you can do when the Rail era starts. Groups who coast through the Canal era without a plan for the transition almost always regret it.

Is Route and Network Building for You?

Route and network building games work for almost any group that enjoys spatial planning and direct map interaction. The entry level is genuinely accessible – Ticket to Ride takes fifteen minutes to explain and produces immediate engagement. The ceiling is as demanding as you want, from Power Grid’s economic management through to Brass: Birmingham’s dual-era industrial planning and the full complexity of 18xx.

They are less suited to groups who prefer games where players develop independently without direct interaction, or who find it genuinely frustrating when opponents claim routes they needed. The competitive edge of this mechanic is inseparable from what makes it interesting.

If you are looking for a starting point: Ticket to Ride for any group new to the hobby, Concordia for groups ready for something with more strategic depth, and Brass: Birmingham for experienced players who want a route-building game that will still be rewarding in five years. All are widely available from UK retailers including Zatu Games and Amazon.