Stock Holding

The station is jam-packed full of excited people ready to ride the rails. Mason is off to Chicago, Ashley to Denver, and Hunter is going all the way to San Francisco. The train arrives, and passengers start detraining the sleeper cars with the red-capped porters expertly loading their luggage onto the baggage carts. Enthusiastic travelers crowd the doors, anxiously anticipating their adventure cruising across America in style!

In Ride the Rails, you will invest in railroad companies, build railway track across the United States, and deliver passengers to as many cities as possible. Each round, a new railroad company is introduced to the game, and each railroad company has its own special placement rules! Deliver passengers to as many cities as possible to earn the most points. Be cautious in your travels as shareholders of railroads that you use will also earn points!

Ride the Rails is the second title in the Iron Rail series by Capstone Games.

—description from the publisher

Mini Rails distills the essence of the stock-buying and track-laying game genre into a tight experience that can be finished under an hour.

The game includes only two types of actions — "Buy Shares" and "Build Tracks" — and you must carefully decide how to best use them. You must do each action exactly once per round, and which company you choose affects the turn order on the next round.

1846 is an 18xx game set in the Midwestern United States. Differences from other 18xx games include scaling the number of corporations, private companies, and bank size to the number of players, fewer restrictions on actions such as raising money and using private company powers, the initial distribution of private companies, and paying for virtually all track builds.

From the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 to the beginning of WWI in 1914, there was an amazing development of bigger, faster, and more modern steamships. Whereas in 1870 there are still many clippers around and the good old paddle steamer "Scotia" sails the North Atlantic, sea trade is dominated by the end of this era by huge vessels like "Mauretania"(Cunard), "Olympic"(White Star), or "Imperator"(Hapag).

In Transatlantic, 2 to 4 players lead their own shipping companies, which transport freight, mail, and passengers around the globe. They purchase new steamships from the market, each of them historical with their individual technical data (tons, knots etc.). Competition is tough, especially in the North Atlantic where winning the "Blue Riband" is not only a matter of prestige, but may also be a profitable investment. In order to let a shipping company flourish, purchasing the best steamships is not enough, if one fails to acquire enough coal bunkers and trade posts as well.

The game is driven by cards; on each turn, play one card and execute the related action. As new cards enter the game, build your individual deck of cards with new or improved possibilities. The task is to manage your merchant fleet most efficiently. It's a maritime strategy game with low luck, lots of interactive choices, and tough decisions.

Description from the publisher:

With the driving of the golden spike in 1869, the first transcontinental railroad was completed in the United States — but really it was only the beginning of a rapid expansion of railways that would crisscross the entire country.

In Whistle Stop, you make your way west across the country, using your fledgling railroad company to build routes, pick up valuable cargo, and deliver needed goods to growing towns, creating a network of whistle stops that you and your competitors can leverage as you continue to expand your networks. Along the way, you gain shares in other railroads and watch your reputation soar with each successful delivery before making a final push to complete long hauls to the boom towns of the West.

This design is a new twist on pick-up-and-deliver games. As players move their trains west and pick up goods, they can deliver those goods to small towns to gain shares in railroads, or hold on to them for a bigger payout when they reach the west coast. At the same time, they try to optimize their actions (and gain extra ones), lay down new track tiles, block the other players, gather and use valuable whistles for special moves and abilities, and carefully manage their coal resources.