Version 3.0 (July 2021)

The COVID-19 pandemic cut off access to workplace printers, and we found that today's home setups often have trouble handling PostScript format files, leading to multiple requests to generate PDF instead. So now we do.

The form was simplified, removing the "Where to put results" option in favor of simply viewing the PDF, downloading PostScript, or showing Plain Text in the browser page.

We also added PDF versions of the payoff charts for the decks that came with each game.

Version 2.3 (December 2014)

Finished support for Martian Rails by adding the remaining pictures for goods, and in color! Also added a payoff chart for the cards that come with the Martian Rails game.

Changed the odds of the Taxes event to make it less likely to occur again after it comes up in the second half of the deck. The odds are reset as if the Taxes card were reshuffled into a deck half the size of the original deck. This replaces the earlier rule where the size was reset to a full deck only when Taxes appeared in the last 10 cards. The size is still also reset to a full deck if Taxes would have appeared twice in a row (with no intervening demand cards).

Removed support for reproducing decks from before 2005, when a change to the payoff calculation altered generating such decks. (See 2.1, below.)

Updated the list of Mayfair Games trademarks to include more recent games, and acknowledged the Empire Builder trademark on the main page.

Version 2.2 (October 2013)

Initial support for Martian Rails, still in "beta" as we get a feel for whether the payoffs require further tweaking. Also, we haven't gotten around to generating pictures for all the new goods, so some have no pictures while others use approximations from older maps (e.g. Sake for Pulcho).

The formatting of the payoff charts was adjusted to accommodate the plethora of long names for cities and goods.

Version 2.1.2 (August 2012)

Added an option to print backs on the cards (requires two-sided printing), making it less likely someone will see details of the next undrawn demands.

Version 2.1.1 (March 2008)

Fixed a bug that was preventing the "Larger game adds cards" option from working properly in many cases. If you generated a deck from before this was fixed, and want to generate it again (either as cards or a text-only listing), just specify "No" for that option to ensure you get the same deck as before.

Also fixed a few typos and broken links in the web pages.

Version 2.1 (February and July 2005)

Added support for Russian Rails. This turned out to involve making changes to our payoff formula that we decided to copy back into the earlier maps. This means that if you go back and ask to reproduce a deck that you printed before February 2005, you'll get a different deck. (Not only are the payoffs slightly different, but the demands get combined differently onto the cards, so the deck comes out significantly changed.) See details here. For several years we offered a way to reproduce decks from before this change, but we got rid of that hack in version 2.3.

Version 2.0 (August 2003)

Added support for Lunar Rails. (Modifying the program to be able to compute distances and costs for building between the two halves of the map was, um, interesting.)

Documentation changes (May 2003)

On the page discussing how to cut up the decks, added a link to GSView for use by people who don't have PostScript-capable printers.

Also added a section describing how you can incorporate random events (other than just Taxes) when playing with our randomly generated decks.

Version 1.9 (February 2003)

Added the 1999 edition of Empire Builder to the list of supported maps. This is the edition that includes Mexico. It is very similar to the map for North American Rails, but has some key differences that warrant giving it a separate entry in the list of maps.

Version 1.8 (December 2002)

Added pictures of the goods for each demand. A new option was added to give you the choice of whether to include the pictures.

This version also introduced this "What's New" page.

Version 1.7 (October 2002)

This was the first revision in rather a while. It added the wider margins option.