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?
Trick of the Rails, themed on the rise of the American railway period, combines 18XX-like portfolio management and a trick-taking card game. Players collect stock certificates and make the companies more valuable by laying the rail network.
Core mechanisms
Key systems that shape the decisions players make.
Read the full game description
Trick of the Rails, themed on the rise of the American railway period, combines 18XX-like portfolio management and a trick-taking card game. Players collect stock certificates and make the companies more valuable by laying the rail network. The game alternates between stock rounds and operating rounds. In stock rounds, the cards played become shares for the players. In operating rounds, the cards played become track for the companies. The companies get trains, which determine how many track cards they can count for their profit (the trains have costs as well, which may lead to companies not making any profit at all) and in the end, players simply count the value of their shares and highest value wins.