Tips & Strategy

Teach the shared railway and plan around cargo, city values, and investment timing.

How to teach it

Start with the central loop: contracts create Crates, Load actions put them on cars, and Move actions carry shared trains to a city or Ship. The Freight Car owner receives delivery income and advances Performance when their car reaches a city, even when another player moved the train. Any player may use an eligible car, so the railway is a shared tactical space.

Show the six Company-board spaces before explaining the cards. Each turn fills one space and pairs the card action with the Company action left visible. Complete each action block before the other unless the table agrees to the designer’s optional interwoven-actions house rule.

Explain Administration as the economic reset between action rounds: shipping sets next-round order, stranded cargo affects city Markets, deliveries pay the Treasury, Markets adjust, and Profit discs buy Investments. Round 1 then refreshes the cards and Crates while trains stay on the railway.

Your first game

Use the base rules for a first play. Each player’s Setup card and starting token give a different opening, so read those benefits aloud before the first turn. Keep both city Markets in view: the higher value city pays more per delivered Crate, while shipping offers a route to rewards and turn-order priority.

Before ending a turn, check for completed Contracts and replace each one. During Administration, follow the printed order; money received during delivery can change what you can invest. For the last scoring, multiply each Good count by its Asset Value, add Deal tile and Agency scoring, Performance points, and Investment points.

Sources and edge cases

The FAQ answers designer clarifications about mandatory movement, optional loading and bonuses, action blocks, and Concession triggers. It labels those clarifications; they do not replace the final core rules.

The Cards & Components page summarizes all ten Setup-card faces from page 28. The full individual Contract deck and English card reference booklet were not recovered, so the guide does not present its sample images as a complete card-face audit.