Hello, Dice Tower viewers. Chaz Marler here from Pair of Dice Paradise. I apologize for the sparse nature of the set this week, but, um, a recent financial venture didn’t turn out exactly as I had anticipated, and, as a result, the budget’s blown and most everything has been repoed.

As you know, I recently did a couple segments on upgrading the train cubes in Trains. Anyway, since then, I’ve received requests for suggestions on upgrading the stations and maps in Trains as well.

First off, to upgrade the stations in Trains, you could use the stations in Ticket To Ride: Europe. In fact, upgrading Trains is the reason I own it... well, owned it. However, while Ticket To Ride: Europe works great for upgrading the trains, you’d need two copies of the game to give you the thirty stations you would need. And who wants that much Ticket To Ride? So, not very practical.

Alternately, you could use the Tatooine houses from 2005’s Monopoly: Star Wars Saga Edition. You can still pick up a pack of these houses off ebay for the price of a couple cups of overpriced coffee.

But what I did was to take a handful of houses from standard Monopoly, apply a little white spray paint, and wah-lah, thirty little white stations you can use in Trains.

And finally, the map. It’s possible to create a modular map for Trains using Settlers Of Catan hexes or even with the terrain pieces from HeroScape. I know HeroScape is out of print, and its terrain can be hard to come by, but being able to customize the map every time you play adds such longevity to Trains that it’s worth it if you can find some. Proving once again why HeroScape is the duct tape of board games.