The Empire Builder Series tournament offers play of all of Mayfair's "Crayon Rails" games. Empire Builder and Eurorails will be offered in each of the three Round 1 heats. Players may choose to play variants instead if their choice is shared by at least three other players. Variants include: original Empire Builder [without Mexico], North American Rails [with Mexico], Australian Rails, British Rails, China Rails, India Rails, Iron Dragon, Lunar Rails, Martian Rails, Nippon Rails, and Russian Rails. If you would like to play one of the variants, it is recommended that you bring your own copy and appear early to set it up and recruit players. Variants that do not get four willing participants will be shelved in favor of the default games of either Empire Builder [with or without Mexico] or Eurorails.

To encourage faster play, we will allow players to choose the best "three out of four cards" opening. At the start of each game, deal one extra demand card to each player. (Event Cards are reshuffled into the deck.) Immediately before each player builds track for the first time, he must discard one of his four cards to the discard pile. The player with the single highest payout from his four cards may discard one card and begin building track as soon as he is ready.

The semifinal games will feature Empire Builder with Mexico. The Final will compete on the newest edition of Eurorails [v4; MFG#4507; © 2009].

If there are 50 or more total entrants, we will advance 25 players to five 5-player semifinals. If there are between 40 and 49 entrants (inclusive), we will advance 20 players to five 4-player semifinals. If there are between 32 and 39 entrants (inclusive), we will advance 16 players to four 4-player semifinals. With fewer than 32 entrants, we will advance no more than half the entrants to four semifinals of approximately equal numbers of participants. In each case, only the semifinal winners (or 1st alternate) will advance to the Final.

REMEMBER: If we have more individual Heat winners than semi-final slots, a single Round 1 win will NOT in itself guarantee advancement. We will be using the following tie breakers for advancement and seeding:

1. Most Wins (e.g., total in all heats entered)
2. Win in first Heat entered
3. Win in second Heat entered
4. Win in third Heat entered
5. Player's highest winning score
6. Repeat Rules 1-5 substituting Second Place finishes for Win(s)
7. High dice roll

A set of seven hand-painted, detailed pewter locomotive miniatures in colors appropriate for both Empire Builder and Rail Baron will be given to the winner.