How to Play Railways of Mexico

Game Objective

In Railways of Mexico, you are a railroad magnate in Mexico in the mid-19th century, a time of great commercial expansion. Your goal is to build the best track system on the frontier, transporting goods to the USA and thus controlling the Railways of Mexico. The player with the highest victory point score at the end of the game will be the winner.

Preparation (Setup)

Prepare the game according to the basic rules of "Railways of the World", but with a specific alteration for 2 players:

• Board: The board is the map of Mexico.
• Base game components: You will need the track tiles, the income track, engines, bonds, money, goods cubes, abandoned city markers, new city tiles, and the locomotives from your Railways of the World.
• Cards: Use the Railroad Barons Cards and the Railroad Operations Cards. Some of these cards have a star on the bottom border and are optional; you decide whether to use them or not.
• Goods (cubes): For 2 players, reduce the number of goods cubes for each city by 1 (ensuring a minimum of 1 cube in each city).

Game Flow

Refer to the manual for details on this section.

Actions and How to Play

The game involves building tracks and delivering goods. The hexes on the board are classified as follows:

• Mountain hexes: Identified by a dot. If they contain water, they are still considered mountain.
• River hexes: If a non-mountain hex has water (blue), it is considered a river hex and building on it costs 3,000.
• Open terrain: Hexes without a dot or water.

There are also Main Lines, which are available throughout the game and are identified on the board. Once a Main Line is completed by a single player, it cannot be scored by any other player. It is recommended that the player who completed it places a locomotive of their color on the Main Lines board table to mark it as completed.

New Operations Cards introduce specific actions:

• Passenger Line: The first player to deliver 4 of the 5 goods colors earns this card and its bonus points. For control, players place a cube in front of them for each goods color they have already delivered. As soon as a player delivers 4 colors, all cubes are returned to the goods bag.
• Trading Depot: When a player chooses this card, they immediately place one of their locomotives (or a gas depot marker of their locomotive's color) on a connection of their choice that belongs to another player. When a delivery is made using this connection, in addition to the regular score, the player who placed the Trading Depot on this connection receives 1 victory point for its use. The Trading Depot does not affect the points of Barons, Main Line, etc.

End of Game and Scoring

The game ends when a certain number of abandoned city markers is reached, depending on the number of players:

• 2 players: 8 abandoned city markers
• 3 players: 9 abandoned city markers
• 4 players: 10 abandoned city markers

After the end-game trigger, players tally their victory points. Remember to reduce your victory points by 1 for each Bond Certificate you possess. The highest score wins the game. In case of a tie, the player with the most money is the winner.

Tips for Winning

• Pay attention to the Main Lines: Completing them first ensures that no other player can score on them, and marking them with your locomotive is good practice.
• Consider using the Trading Depot strategically: Placing a Trading Depot on another player's connection can generate additional victory points for you whenever that connection is used, without affecting the other player's score for Barons or Main Lines.