Railways of the World
Welcome to the age of railroading! You are a railroad baron making
profits by delivering passengers and finished goods! The potential
earnings are great, but who will be the most successful?
You decide the best routes and build the track. You run the railroad
and deliver the goods, thus capturing that share of the market
for your railroad. As your network of rails expands across the
countryside, you invest in newer, better locomotives to deliver the
goods faster and farther.
Can you rewrite the annals of history and engrave your name
alongside the world’s greatest Railroad Barons?
Number of players: 2 - 6
Game duration: 70 mn
Complexity: 3 / 5
Play Railways of the World and 943 other games online.
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With your friends and thousands of players from the whole world.
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Play Railways of the World and 943 other games online.
No download necessary - play directly from your web browser.
With your friends and thousands of players from the whole world.
Free.
Rules summary
Link to Combined Rules (2022)
Interface Info
Preferences
- Top right of the page lets you set preferences that will be remembered from game to game
- Preference option for Track brightness and contrast. 6 styles to choose from with a variety of contrast and brightness values
- Preference option for Cubes brightness and contrast. 6 styles to choose from with a variety of contrast and brightness values
- Track building now has an optional visual aid to help you understand which tracks you are currently building.
- Optional display for colour blind folk.
- Cubes are replaced with letters representing the original cube colour.
- • R - Red
- • B - Blue
- • G - Black
- • Y - Yellow
- • P - Purple
- Cities have a tooltip stating the colour of the city.
- Link tokens showing ownership of a link now have the name of the colour instead of the engine image.
- Cubes are replaced with letters representing the original cube colour.
In Game controls
- Ctrl Mouse Wheel zooms the map when you are over the map, otherwise it will zoom the web page.
Game Options
Maps
- • Eastern US
- • Mexico
- • Great Britain
- • Western US
- • Portugal
Bidding Style
- Traditional
- • Winner pays full value of their bid and is First Player, all other players pay nothing.
- • Then turn order proceeds clockwise around the table.
- • If all the players choose to pass, then the player to the left of the previous First Player becomes the new First Player
- First to pass
- • Winner pays full value of their bid and is First Player.
- • Each player who passes, pays half their bid rounded up.
- • First player to pass becomes the last player.
- • Second to pass becomes second to last etc.
- • If all the players choose to pass, then the player who passes last becomes the new First Player.
- Worst is First
- • There is an initial bid for game starting position then
- • at the start of a new turn, the player order is determined by the current score.
- • Worst score becomes the new First Player.
- • Second worst is the new Second Player etc.
- • In case of scoring ties, the player with higher (worst) turn order wins the tie.
- • All "Railroad Executive" operation cards are discarded.
City Rotors
- Cities with Rotors always act as their base color (the color on the upper section of the city) and will often provide a second color showing on the bottom of the city.
- Cubes matching either color that arrive at a City Rotor must be delivered there.
- After every delivery to the city, the City Rotor will rotate to a new color.
- The City Rotor Color Wheel describes each color transition.
Mines
- The Place Mine action is available to each player two times in the game during the player action round.
- The active player may pay $10,000 to place a Mine.
- They immediately choose a gray city and begin drawing cubes from the goods bag until they draw a cube that matches the color of a previously drawn cube (maximum of 5 draws).
- Place the cubes drawn on the gray city, after discarding the matching cube.
- A city may only be mined once in a game.
Empty City Markers reduction for faster games
- The Empty City Marker count can be reduced to speed up the end of the game.
Playing the game
- Turns and Player Action Rounds. RotW is played in a series of Turns. Each Turn consists of the following 3 phases:
- • 1 - First Player Auction to determine First Player
- • 2 - Player Actions (1 per player in Turn Order in each of 3 Rounds)
- • 3 - Income and Dividends
- These three phases are repeated until the End of Game is triggered (see below), at which time the current Turn is completed (all 3 phases) and then one additional Turn is played.
Phase 1 - First Player Auction
- Players bid to determine First Player for all Rounds of Phase 2 this Turn
- The First Player from the previous Turn bids first
- Minimum bid is $1k
- Bidding proceeds clockwise (down the list in player status table)
- If a player chooses not to bid higher than the current bid they Pass and are out of the Auction
- The player with the winning bid takes the First Player marker (golden engine in the player status table)
- Turn order is clockwise from First Player
- If all players pass with no bids, First Player marker moves 1 spot clockwise
Phase 2 - Player Actions
- Each Turn the Phase 2 consists of 3 Rounds of player actions, in Turn Order
- On each Round each player may take 1 of 5 available actions (same action may be taken on subsequent Rounds within the same Turn)
A - Build Track
- Place from 1 to 4 track tiles, starting at any city or open track tile that you own
- Cost to build track:
- • Build on plains (no symbol): $2k
- • Build on water (water drop): $3k
- • Build on mountains (grey dot): $4k
- • Cross a mountain ridge (dark red/brown line): + $4k
- A series of tiles that connect one city to exactly one other city is called a Link
- At the end of Phase 2 any open tracks (i.e. a series that is not a Link) will be removed from the board
B - Urbanize
- Player pays $10k to place an available New City tile on a gray city hex and add two random Goods Cubes to the new city
C - Upgrade Engine
- Upgrade your player Engine one (and only one step) by paying the cost of the next upgrade
D - Deliver One Goods Cube
- Deliver one (and only one) Goods Cube from one City to a City matching the Goods Cube's color
- May travel over as many links as the strength of the acting player's Engine
- May not move a Cube without delivering it (final Link must move to a City of the Cube's color)
- May not skip over a City of the Cube's color without delivering it (even if a City further down the line is the same color)
- First Link over which the Good travels must be owned by Player taking the action
- Each player who owns a Link over which the Good travels scores 1 point per traveled Link that they own
E - Select a Railroad Operations Card
- Take one of the available Railroad Operations cards and either execute it immediately or place it in front of you (depending on the type of card)
Phase 3 - Income and Dividends
- All players collect the income shown on the space of the point track / income track occupied by their marker
- THEN all players must pay $1k per held Bond (including taking new Bonds to cover this cost, if necessary)
End of Game
- When the last Goods Cube in a City is moved out, an Empty City marker is placed in the City
- The game end is triggered when the last Empty City marker is placed on the board
- The turn is completed normally and then there is one more complete turn before the game ends
- It is possible to remove an Empty City marker from the board via Railroad Operations Cards or the Urbanize action
- If End of Game has been triggered and an Empty City marker is removed from the board it does not "un-trigger" End of Game
- When the game finishes, in addition to the standard Income Phase, each player loses 1 point for every bond issued
- Rail Baron cards held by each player are now tested and if their goal has been achieved, points will be awarded