Overview
At a glance
Is this game right for my group?
ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.
Harder to teach
High replayability
Highly interactive
Scales well
Deep strategy
How it plays
How does it play?
In The Last Spike, players must cooperate to build a continuous railway from St. Louis to Sacramento.
Core mechanisms
Key systems that shape the decisions players make.
Read the full game description
In The Last Spike, players must cooperate to build a continuous railway from St. Louis to Sacramento. Different routes are possible and some towns never get a railway link. Each player competes to accumulate the most money from land speculation before the "last spike" is laid. Each player has a hand of four track tiles, with each tile showing a particular location on the game board and a cost. The game board depicts nine cities in a diamond shape, with St. Louis at one tip and Sacramento at the other, and locations where track can be built are marked on the game board. On a turn, a player places one of their track tiles in the appropriate space, paying the cost while doing so. (If a player can't afford to place track, they must sell one or more of their train deeds to raise cash.) If the player is the first to place adjacent to a city, they gain a deed to that city for free. After placing a tile, a player can purchase one deed for a city. Whenever two cities are connected, all holders of the deeds for those two cities receive funds from the bank based on the number of deeds they hold. A city will pay out 0-4 times depending on where it is and how track is built during the game. When a player places a tile that creates a contiguous track from St. Louis to Sacramento, this player receives a $20,000 bonus, everyone receives a deed payout for the cities just connected, then the game ends. Whoever has the most cash wins.