Playgridia
Iron Rails
A connect-the-cities railway game (a Ticket to Ride–style alternative): collect coloured train-car cards, spend matching sets to claim routes between towns, and secretly race to complete your destination tickets before the trains run out. 2–4 players + bots, free in your browser.
Heartland
★ 4.7 / 5 — 88 ratings
Rules
- 2–4 players; everyone starts with 30 train cars and 4 cards
- You draw 3 destination tickets at the start and keep at least 2 (they stay secret)
- On your turn do ONE thing: draw 2 cards · claim 1 route · draw 3 new tickets
- Draw cards from the 5 face-up market or the blind deck; a face-up Locomotive (wild) is your whole turn
- Claim a route by spending a matching-colour set equal to its length, place your trains and score
- Gray routes accept any colour; a Locomotive substitutes for any colour
- Route points by length: 1→1, 2→2, 3→4, 4→7, 5→10, 6→15
- When a player's trains drop to 2 or fewer, everyone takes one final turn
- At the end tickets score ±their value and the longest continuous path scores +10
How to Play
- 2–4 players, everyone starts with 30 train cars and 4 cards
- Keep at least 2 of your 3 starting destination tickets (link city A to city B)
- Each turn is ONE action: draw 2 cards, claim a route, or draw 3 new tickets
- The first player down to 2 trains triggers the final round; then points are counted
Cards & Routes
- Draw from the 5 face-up cards or the blind deck — 2 per turn
- Taking a face-up Locomotive (wild) uses your whole turn, but it plays as any colour
- Claim a route by paying its length in one colour (gray accepts any colour)
- Locomotives fill in for missing colours; a claim places trains equal to the route length
Scoring & Winning
- Longer routes score much more: a 3-car route is 4 points, a 6-car route is 15
- A completed destination ticket scores +its value; a failed one scores the same as −
- The single longest continuous railway earns its owner +10
- Most points wins — hidden tickets keep the result a surprise to the end
Online Train Route Game — Collect Cards, Claim Routes, Connect Cities
Iron Rails is a 2–4 player connect-the-cities railway game and a free, browser-based alternative to Ticket to Ride: collect coloured train-car cards, spend matching sets to claim routes across a hand-drawn map, and build the network that links the cities on your secret destination tickets. No download — play instantly against bots or friends.
Every turn is a single clean decision: draw two cards to build your hand, claim a route to score and place trains, or draw new destination tickets for bigger goals. Short game, deep choices.
Destination Tickets: The Secret Race
Each destination ticket asks you to connect two cities by rail. Complete it and you score its value; leave it unfinished and you lose the same amount — so every ticket is a bet on the route you can actually build before the trains run out.
Because tickets are hidden, you never quite know what your rivals are chasing. A route you claim for yourself might also cut off the exact link an opponent needed — blocking is part of the game.
Easy to Learn, Hard to Master
The rules fit on a card: draw, claim, or take tickets. But choosing which routes to race for, when to draw locomotives, and which parallel line to grab first is where good players pull ahead.
When one player runs their trains down to two, everyone gets a final turn and the game ends. Then destination tickets and the longest continuous path are scored — and the lead can flip on the very last count.
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