Age of Rail - South Africa

Age of Rail: South Africa, title #4 in the “Iron Rail” series by CapstoneGames, is a new version of 2011's South African Railroads, which was anextensive re-development of Pampas Railroads' sister game, Veld Railroads. Yourgoal is to have more money than anyone else, and you earn money by holdingshares and getting dividend payments from railroad companies.

After an initial auction for the first shares of these companies, playerstake turns, choosing from one of four different actions: build track, developsettlement, offer stock, and pay dividends. These actions are limited; only onedividend action exists, for example, so when a player chooses this, the actionremains blocked until that player's next turn, at which time they must choose adifferent action. Two “offer stock” actions are available, and three“develop settlement” actions; “build track” is an unlimited action andcan be repeated on the next turn.

When players buy stock, the spent funds go into the company's treasury andcan be used to build track. By developing settlements, you increase the value ofstations, and a railroad's income increases when it links to stations. Whendividends are paid, the company's income is divided by five (the number ofshares) and paid to the owner of those shares, which might be the company if notall the shares have been offered.

After the sixth dividend, the game ends — but that final divided includesbonuses based on the number of company links and is paid out solely based on thenumber of shares issued, not all of the shares in existence.

Features:

• 3–6 Players
• 40–60mins
• Ages 12+