Grab Your Crayons - Empire Builder Is Back and Visiting Ireland!

Empire Builder: Ireland is live on Kickstarter and had already passed it’s $10,000 goal only hours into the crowdfunding campaigns launch. With the campaign not finishing until 5th November 2026 it coould certainly pick up a lot more steam before arriving at it’s final destination.

Published by Darwin’s Toyswhich is named after Empire Builder original designer Darwin Bromley, who sadly passed in 2019, and run by his wife Trella Bromley, Empire Builder: Ireland is billed as the 12th title in the series. Designer Bob Stribula began work on the title after a playtester after for an Empire Builder hame set in her family’s homeland. Five years of design, development, and playtesting later she has her wish!

The familiar challenge is to draw a rail network, pick up goods where they are produced and deliver them to cities that need them. Profitable deliveries bring in money to extend the network ad upgrade to larger and faster trains Players use their cards o weigh possible routes and deliveries against construction costs and time, racing to build an efficient railway emprie.

The campaign has brought in some changes to make play faster and easier to follow. Destination and source maps appear on the cards, reducing the need to keep searching the board. The deluxe edition includes double-sided plastic commodity chips, a dual-layer train board and reformulated dry-erase crayons. The campaign also offers deluxe money chips as an add-on. The precise new gameplay changes are not fully explained in the overview, so the campaigns “updated mechanics” will be interesting to see in the final rules.

Darwin’s Toys is expecting to begin fulfilment of the campaign in March 2027.

A Short History of Empire Builder

Mayfair Games was founded in Spring 1981 in Chicago by David Bromley, his brother Peter, and several friends. The companies initial releases were small zip-lock bagged military games but that changed the following year with a slate of boxed board and card games, one of which was Empire Builder.

The original Empire Builder, designed by Darwin Bromley and Bill Fawcett and published by Mayfair Games in 1982, set the template for the entire series. Build track by drawing on the map, then use the routes to haul goods between cities. Its US and Canadian map, demand cards and erasable crayons gave the series its enduring “Crayon Rails” nickname.

The system has been well travelled. Mayfair expanded it with real-world maps such as British Rails, Eurorails and Australia Rails, then took the railway building idea into science-fiction and fantasy settings with titles such as Iron Dragon, Lunar Rails and Martian Rails. The maps and details changed, but the core puzzle remained… where to build, what to carry, and how to make a route pay.

Empire Builder: Ireland is currently live on Kickstarter and is funding until Thursday 5th November 2026.