RDTN Episode 191: Age of Steam, Egizia Shifting Sands and Lawyer Up

Age of Steam gives RDTN a strong opening for its planned year of train games: a ruleset the hosts describe as simple, paired with decisions that reward looking several turns ahead. That tension is the appeal. The game may be easy to explain at the table, but making a plan and following it through are different challenges. The hosts hope to play it again before the rules slip from memory, which should give them a better chance to explore how its choices develop over a full session.

A year on the rails begins with Age of Steam

The show’s train game focus is a recurring plan for 2020, rather than a one-off look at a single title. Starting with a classic gives the hosts a useful reference point for later discussions: they can return to its planning demands and compare those with other train games as they play them. This episode supplies the first entry in that project, though it doesn’t lay out a full schedule or name the next game.

For players considering a return to Age of Steam, the hosts’ practical observation is straightforward: don’t let the apparent simplicity of the mechanics stand in for a short-term game. Planning ahead matters, and a refresher session may be especially useful after a long break. The episode doesn’t provide a detailed rules explanation or describe a particular strategy, so the most reliable takeaway is about the experience they report: the game asks players to think beyond their immediate move.

Egizia Shifting Sands revisits a familiar kind of progression

Egizia Shifting Sands came to the table after listeners recommended it to the hosts. When they discussed Francis Drake in episode 30, players pointed to its progression track and suggested Egizia as another game worth trying. More than 160 episodes later, the hosts followed that lead and played the newer edition from Stronghold Games.

The feature that stood out was movement along a track where pawns progress and don’t move backward. The hosts found that restriction rewarding. It gives forward movement weight: choosing where to advance becomes a decision that shapes what options remain, rather than a position players can casually revise by stepping back. That’s the specific point of comparison the episode offers, and it’s enough to explain why the recommendation connected the two games for these players.

Still, the show doesn’t settle which title handles that kind of progression better. The hosts acknowledge the long gap since their Francis Drake session and suggest playing it again before comparing the pair. That’s a sensible distinction: a fresh impression of Egizia can make a compelling case for its pawn movement, but a fair comparison depends on having both games in recent memory. A later session could turn the listener recommendation into a more direct discussion of how each game uses progression.

Egizia Shifting Sands is listed in the episode alongside the other featured games. The source doesn’t give player counts, play times, prices or detailed turn rules, so there’s no basis here for adding those specifics. What it does offer is a clear account of why the hosts wanted to try it, what mechanism they noticed, and what they’d need to revisit before reaching a verdict.

Prototype talk and the wider episode

Lawyer Up appears on the running order as a prototype discussion. The episode places it at 32:55, before segments about The Broken Token and Egizia Shifting Sands. The source doesn’t describe the prototype’s rules or the hosts’ assessment, so the listing establishes that it was part of the conversation without supporting a deeper account of how it plays.

Listeners can use the timestamps to move between the episode’s other subjects. The schedule begins with an introduction at 00:29 and a home update at 02:14, then turns to Tantrum Con at 03:00. Sorcerer City follows at 08:01. Later topics include On Mars at 15:28, Phase 10 at 24:20 and hopes for Gen Con at 28:08. An Instant Pot discussion is listed at 29:56, just ahead of the Lawyer Up prototype segment.

After the game discussions, the running order points to a conversation about what catches the hosts’ attention in games at 1:11:45, followed by Switch news at 1:22:15. The episode also links to The Broken Token, Age of Steam Deluxe, Portal Games and Miniature Market. These references help map the hour and its topics, while the substantive game notes remain focused on Age of Steam’s forward planning and Egizia’s pawn progression.

The show closes its notes by pointing listeners toward the Secret Cabal’s 200th episode, where the hosts say their stinger will make sense. For this installment, the clearest next step is a return to the table: another Age of Steam session can test whether its planning stays satisfying after the rules come back, while a fresh play of Francis Drake could sharpen the comparison with Egizia. Those follow-ups would give both discussions more to work with as RDTN’s year of train games gets underway.