Iron Routes

How to play

Score the most points by claiming railway routes, linking the cities on your destination tickets, and building the longest continuous line.

On your turn, do one thing

• Draw train cards. Take two cards, from the five face-up cards or the face-down deck. A face-up locomotive is wild, but taking one uses your whole turn, and it can't be your second card.
• Claim a route. Tap a route on the map. Pay as many cards of its colour as it has spaces. Grey routes take any one colour. Locomotives can stand in for any colour.
• Draw destination tickets. Draw three tickets and keep at least one.

Scoring

• Routes score as you claim them: 1, 3, 5, 8, 11 or 15 points for 1 to 6 spaces.
• At the end, each ticket whose two cities you've joined with your own routes adds its value. Each unfinished ticket subtracts it.
• The longest continuous line earns a 12-point bonus. Ties all score it.

Details

• Everyone starts with 40 trains, 4 train cards, and 3 tickets, and keeps at least 2 of the tickets.
• If three locomotives are ever face up together, all five face-up cards are replaced.
• Double routes: one player can't claim both tracks. With 2 or 3 players, only one track of each pair can be used.
• When a player ends a turn with 2 or fewer trains, everyone, including that player, gets one last turn.

Computer players

• Easy computers play loosely. Normal computers plan the shortest lines for their tickets. Hard computers also take on more tickets, and grab locomotives when they're short of cards.
• Computers' cards and tickets stay hidden. Use the speed buttons during their turns.

Controls

Drag to pan and pinch, use the mouse wheel, or use the + and − buttons to zoom. Tap a ticket to highlight its cities. You can also claim from the Routes you can claim list. Keyboard: D draws from the deck, 1–5 take a face-up card, T draws tickets, Esc clears a selection. The game saves on this device after every move.