Pipeline Board Game - Rules Overview

capitalize the opportunity in the oil industry this is pipeline what is it about in this video we're going to show you what to expect from pipeline and if you watch till the end we hope that we can help you get a feel for the game coming up [Music] hi it's turned now let's find out some more about pipeline designed by Ryan Courtenay and published by capstone games released in 2019 pipeline is an engine building and commodity trading game based on the oil refining industry the game plays two to four players competitively in 60 to 120 minutes and is of heavy complexity in pipeline players aim to earn as much money as they can by building up their oil refining networks and delivering refined product to market as efficiently as possible oil is purchased for between 5 and 13 dollars a barrel and then sold for as much as $55 a barrel after being refined meaning that strong margins are on offer for players who can refine well the central puzzle of the game is each player's construction of a personal network of colored pipelines this represents the size and complexity of their refining infrastructure this table which is randomized at the start of the game shows the amount of refining capacity required to convert the three different grades of crude oil into the three different qualities of product and the length of unbroken lines of one color within your network represents your refining capacity for that grade of crew for example this network contains a teal pipeline of length ten refining using this length of line could take teal crude all the way up to level two or could take level one teal products all the way up to level three designing an optimal network is critical to your success for a single action a player may activate all of the pipelines which run through a single 2x1 tile and so running several long pipelines through a single Junction point is much more efficient than spacing them out later in the game players may instead connect their pipeline to machines thus allows you to run the pipelines at a cost of $15 but without expending an action and players need to place those machines carefully to avoid splitting their long pipelines in half and reducing their capacity all of these choices will heavily influence how efficiently players will be able to refine their crews as such the purchasing of pipe tiles some of which aren't replenished until the end of each year of play and some of which are never replenished is one of the most critical and competitive elements of the game on each turn a player may take one action from the ten available in the game and if choosing from the eight actions shown on this central cross of the board the player may also pay $10 to take the other action on the same arm of the cross the four market spaces allow the players to purchase crude or sell into the refined markets the crude cubes and market spaces are limited and the prices are less favorable the longer you wait the shops allow for the purchase of machines pipes or tanks which are needed to hold inventories of product players can purchase upgrade cards improving the strength of their actions and sometimes triggering once-off bonuses and they can take contracts these allow certain refined products to be sold to market without expending an action but it always comes at a weak price and with the requirement to fulfill that contract every year for the rest of the game decisions in pipeline particularly early in the game come down to optimizing money against actions players have only 18 turns and therefore 18 primary actions in the game but every decision which saves you action is going to cost you money whether its buying upgrades to make your actions more efficient buying machines to save you actions on running pipelines paying to take to actions in a turn or using low paying contracts to sell products without visiting the market however money is also extremely tight in the game particularly through the first two years of actions and this makes your decisions hard this also makes competition for the cheaper actions such as buying crude earlier in the round or buying from the limited supply of Cheaper government tiles instead of the more expensive ones from the shop particularly fierce if players ever run out of money it will take an action plus an end of game penalty marker to take a fifteen dollar loan so it's worth avoiding if you can players need to keep a constant eye on the endgame as money is not just game from the simple act of selling into one of the markets the order tiles in the display are difficult to fulfill but can be fulfilled as a free action and unlike the contracts these will sell for top dollar players also need to target the for valuation cards which are drawn at the start of the game and these yield handsome rewards for achieving certain combinations of pipelines contracts and other assets these objectives can easily account for more than half of your final score so your strategy needs to consider them players then lose an increasing amount of money for any penalty cubes they've taken for loans or failed contracts and the player with the most money after the end of the game is the winner and that's what to expect from pipeline we hope you enjoyed this video and we hope it helps you if you enjoy this video please help us by hitting the like button subscribe to us you can also hit the nipple in the corner - deucer and hit the bell icon so you'll be one of the first to know when we post new videos and you can also follow me on instagram for bottom photos everything and finally if you have any questions comments or feedback please feel free to write them in the comment section below until next time [Music]