Empire Builder was designed by Bill Fawcett and Darwin Bromley and released in 1982 by Mayfair Games.

[1] All of the Empire Builder games operate on the same principles of construction of railroad track and delivery of goods.

The first player to amass both $250 million and have railway connecting six of the seven major cities is the winner.

[4] In the September 1982 edition of Dragon (Issue 65), Gary Gygax gave a favourable review, saying, "Empire Builder is the best boardgame to come out in a long time.

In my opinion it is the best available, being more complex and challenging than the simpler sort and not as tedious and complicated as those at the other end of the spectrum.

"[5] Eleven years later, in the December 1993 edition of Dragon (Issue 200), Allen Varney considered Empire Builder a classic that "rewards careful strategy and offers lots of replay value.

"[7] In the October 1994 edition of Pyramid (Issue #9), Scott Haring complimented Australian Rails, saying that both this game "and its brothers don't have the romantic thrills of other games -- there are no armies to defeat, no damsels to rescue, no dragons to slay.