How to play
Everything you need for a first game of Titans of the Line. It takes about ten minutes to read, and the app enforces every rule whether you have read it or not.
The game in a minute
Each player runs a railroad company on one big map. You draw your own track from milepost to milepost, buy bigger locomotives, and earn money by carrying goods from the cities that produce them to the cities that want them. Every stretch of ground takes only one line, so the railroads you race against shape the one you can build.
- Starting money
- 50Mplus a Freight locomotive (an Express if the game was set up as a fast game)
- Your hand
- 3 cardseach card lists three possible jobs; fast games deal four cards
- Spend per turn
- 20Mon new track or on one upgrade
- Goal
- 6 majorsjoined by your own track, with 250M+ in the bank
First, two rounds of building
The game opens with two building turns of up to 20M each and no trains on the map. Turn order goes forward for the first and reverses for the second, so the last player builds twice in a row while the first player waits. The app calls this the build phase; trains first move on Turn 1.
Your turn
Every turn has the same two halves in the same order: you move your train first and build afterwards. Anything you lay this turn is ready for your train next turn.
- 1 · Moving
Drive your train up to its number of mileposts. Along the way you can load goods where they are produced, unload them anywhere, and deliver a job on one of your cards when you arrive with the right cargo. Loading and unloading use none of your mileposts, and you can mix them with moving in any order.
- 2 · Building
Spend up to 20M on track, or spend 20M on one locomotive upgrade instead — an upgrade uses up the turn’s whole allowance. You can only build what you can pay for today.
Laying track
A section of track joins two neighbouring mileposts. Its price is set by the milepost you build into — the one at the far end — so the same section can cost different amounts depending on which way you draw it.
| Plain milepost | 1M | |
|---|---|---|
| Mountain | 2M | |
| Alpine peak (the region and world maps) | 5M | |
| Small city | 3M | |
| Medium city | 3M | |
| Major city — entering, always | 5M | |
| River or lake, on top | +2M | |
| Sea crossing to an island, on top | +4M |
One railroad, grown from one place · house rule
Your track is a single connected network. Your first section may start from any milepost of any major city. From then on, every new section must begin where your own track already reaches.
Reaching a major city gives you all seven of its mileposts to build from, since the city counts as one place. A major you have not reached yet is not a starting point — you get there by building.
Each turn you may lay at most 2 sections out of majors per turn, added up across all the majors you build from.
A line, not a web · house rule
An ordinary milepost can hold at most 2 of your own sections. In open country your track is a line, not a web: it can bend but not split. Split it at a city, or at a junction city’s ring (see below). A rival’s track through the same milepost does not count against your two.
Sharing the map
- Between any two mileposts there is room for exactly one section, whoever builds it.
- A small city can be entered by 2 players and a medium city by 3; each player may build at most 3 sections into one.
- Nobody builds inside a major city’s hexagon, and no section may shut another player out of a major city. The app simply refuses a section that would break a rule, so an illegal line can never be drawn.
Moving freight
A train moves one milepost at a time, so its trip is counted in mileposts, not money: a mountain costs more to build across but no more to drive across. The cheapest line to build is often the slowest to drive, which is why the app shows both the cost and the mileposts whenever it prices a route.
| Locomotive | Loads | Mileposts / turn |
|---|---|---|
| Freight | 2 | 9 |
| Express | 2 | 12 |
| Heavy Hauler | 3 | 9 |
| Titan | 3 | 12 |
- Partway through a move, a train can only turn around in a city; any milepost of a major counts. House rule: at the start of your turn it may also turn around wherever it stands, so a wrong heading costs you no more than the turn it was taken in.
- A major city joins every player’s track that touches it, so any train may pass through, and goods may be loaded or delivered at any of its seven mileposts. Each milepost you pass through counts against your movement, the centre included.
- Cargo does not need a buyer to be carried, and you may leave a load in any city for free. Trains never get in each other’s way.
- To deliver, arrive at a city named on one of your cards with the goods it asks for. You collect the payoff, discard that card, draw a new one straight away, and keep playing your turn.
Upgrading the train
Every railroad starts with a Freight: 9 mileposts a turn and 2 loads. An upgrade buys speed or room, and the top locomotive has both.
- Freight → Express or Heavy Hauler
The Express makes 12 mileposts a turn and still carries 2 loads. The Heavy Hauler still makes 9 mileposts and carries 3.
- Either of those → Titan
12 mileposts and 3 loads. Steps cannot be skipped: a Freight never goes straight to a Titan.
- Speed is 3 more mileposts every turn from then on. A trip of 24 mileposts takes three turns at 9 and two at 12.
- Room is a third load: goods for two cards aboard with space for the next, or two loads picked up at one city when two of your cards share a source.
- On the map each train is drawn as its locomotive: a steam engine at 9 mileposts, a streamliner at 12, one wheel per load, so a rival’s upgrade shows without opening their cards. (The ⋯ menu can draw every train as a plain dot instead.)
Junction cities
A small or medium city becomes a junction once 3 or more sections of track lead into it — all players’ track counted together, whoever built it.
In a junction, your ring — the far ends of your own sections into that city — is exempt from the two-section limit, so your line may split there. Nothing else about the city loosens: you are still held to 3 sections into it.
You still grow only your own network. Rival sections help make a city a junction, but you can never start building from their track.
All the usual limits still apply: the city admits 2 players if it is small and 3 if it is medium, prices are unchanged, bridges still add 2M, and you still have 20M a turn.
Winning
At the end of a round you qualify to win if both of these hold:
- Network
6 major cities linked by one unbroken line of your own track.
- Money
Cash at or above the bar, which begins at 250M.
The fast win, a choice when the game is made on a Short or Standard board (Easy mode picks it): 5 major cities, and a bar that begins at 150M. Everything else below is the same.
The round is always played out, so everyone gets the same number of turns. Then:
- No one qualifies: keep playing.
- One player qualifies: that player wins.
- Several qualify: look at the highest 50M line each one has reached (250, 300, 350…). A single player on the highest line wins. If two or more share it, the bar rises one line and the game goes on.
| 251 v 299 | both on the 250 line — bar moves to 300 |
|---|---|
| 251 v 301 | 301 reached the 300 line — that player wins |
| 251 / 305 / 310 | two players share 300 — bar jumps to 350 |
| 251 alone | that player wins |
How the app plays fair
- It never suggests a route or a target. It prices whatever you point at and refuses what the rules forbid, but it will not highlight cheap ground or mark the cities your cards want.
- Everyone’s cards are public — you just have to look. Tap a player to see their hand, locomotive and cargo. The app will not plot their jobs on your map or bring them up for you.
- Money is public, but not pinned. The turn recap tells you who earned and spent what, and standings are one tap away; the map keeps the screen.
- No random events. No storms, strikes or breakdowns: the game is decided by the cards and the players.