Strategy guide
Posted: 20 March 2026, 17:33
Most of this game is about performing the good actions rather than the bad ones.
The best action in the game is loading, it doesn't particularly matter whose trains you load, the important part is that the more of your crates that ends up on trains, the merrier. The exception is that at some point during the second round, you will have to shift focus to making sure that the goods you have loaded actually gets delivered. Loading a crate that doesn't get delivered is sometimes still useful, but to a much lesser extent.
When loading beware not to leave too few crates for your next loading action, in general the safe thing to do is to always complete a contract if possible.
The other best action is moving your tokens up on the market track, it doesn't particularly matter when you do so, but you should always aim to have all 3 at the top of the track by the end of the game. In particular, if you don't get a lot of cards with the market track symbol, you should prefer to spend your leftmost card slots getting the logistics actions that let you move 3 spaces on the market track. For the second round you should plan in advance exactly how you are going to get the final spaces. Remember that the markers drop back to your lowest position between the rounds, so you really want a balanced position between rounds. Occasionally letting the financial advisor take a bonus, drop back, and take it again may be worth it, but getting them all to the top at the end is worth much more.
During the first round you generally do not want your own goods to be delivered, it is better to delay delivery until the second round where the value will be greater.
In a game between competent players, by far the most contested resource will be free slots in trains where goods can be loaded. For the first 9 turns or so, you do not want to complete any deliveries, unless you can immediately load the newly emptied wagons on the same turn. Otherwise you simply provide empty wagons for your opponents to exploit. When you have the option to combine move and load actions, this is one of the most powerful things you can do.
During the second round, there is some politicking around who should do the moving of trains, it is watered down quite a bit as everyone will have to take some movement actions in any case, and tucking on en extra train when you move a whole line of them is generally free. However, it is still good to know the value of a train. In most cases the value gained by the owner of the wagons is a pittance, relative to the value gained by the owner of the cargo. So if the other players have filled your train without leaving a spot for you, you'd probably rather not push it. On the other hand in a 4 player game you would at least consider bringing along any train with at least 1 of your goods.
During the second round, try not to create wagons that no other player would move in both cities.
When you move on the asset value track, you should get all values to at least 3, even if you don't have any of the corresponding assets this helps you maximise your "secret investor bonus", sometimes it may be worth focusing on specific asset types beyond this point, but the difference is marginal, going for balance is always a decent strategy, and it leaves you free to ignore the asset type when picking contracts. Don't be too fussed about the balance during the game though, you'll gain a bunch of ticks at the end that you can spend restoring the balance or advancing your favoured asset.
When choosing contracts, you should pretty much always pick the 3 crate ones. The 3 crate commercial ones are great because completing them gets rid of another crate, accelerating the number of contracts you can complete. On top it is a convenient way of getting at least one crate on the ships so that you gain a briefcase at the end of the round. The 3 crate strategic contracts offer a bonus that is generally slightly lesser than the 4 crate ones, but not so much that you wouldn't rather churn through some more contracts.
During the investment phase, remember the secret investor bonus, at a glance it looks like the top spots are better value, but with a flat bonus per token placed, the bottom spots are actually quite competitive. Also remember the quite low value of asset value ticks, the leftmost spots with more plain points are usually better.
Finally, here are some approximate marginal values of various stuff, expressed in points, assuming decent play:
Coins: 1.2 points
Asset value ticks: 2 points
Assets: 4 points
Deals (briefcases): 8 points
Deal value multipliers: 6 points
Loading a crate that won't be delivered: 5 points
Loading a crate that will be delivered during round 1: 12 points
Loading a crate that will be delivered during round 2: 17 points
Performance ticks (gear): 2 points
West agencies: 0 points (You'll often get them anyway because the x2 is better than 3 asset value ticks, as soon as you have 1 West agency the chance of not making the bonuses is basically 0.)
The last few market track ticks are easily worth more than 10 points each on average. This can't really be expressed as a marginal value, as you should always just get them all, at which point the value of any further ticks is 0.
The marginal value of movement is often 0, simply because you have enough to get all your crates delivered. On the other hand if you don't have enough it can be quite devastating, being just one move away from getting a train with 3 of your crates to the destination would imply a marginal value of approximately 36 points.
The best action in the game is loading, it doesn't particularly matter whose trains you load, the important part is that the more of your crates that ends up on trains, the merrier. The exception is that at some point during the second round, you will have to shift focus to making sure that the goods you have loaded actually gets delivered. Loading a crate that doesn't get delivered is sometimes still useful, but to a much lesser extent.
When loading beware not to leave too few crates for your next loading action, in general the safe thing to do is to always complete a contract if possible.
The other best action is moving your tokens up on the market track, it doesn't particularly matter when you do so, but you should always aim to have all 3 at the top of the track by the end of the game. In particular, if you don't get a lot of cards with the market track symbol, you should prefer to spend your leftmost card slots getting the logistics actions that let you move 3 spaces on the market track. For the second round you should plan in advance exactly how you are going to get the final spaces. Remember that the markers drop back to your lowest position between the rounds, so you really want a balanced position between rounds. Occasionally letting the financial advisor take a bonus, drop back, and take it again may be worth it, but getting them all to the top at the end is worth much more.
During the first round you generally do not want your own goods to be delivered, it is better to delay delivery until the second round where the value will be greater.
In a game between competent players, by far the most contested resource will be free slots in trains where goods can be loaded. For the first 9 turns or so, you do not want to complete any deliveries, unless you can immediately load the newly emptied wagons on the same turn. Otherwise you simply provide empty wagons for your opponents to exploit. When you have the option to combine move and load actions, this is one of the most powerful things you can do.
During the second round, there is some politicking around who should do the moving of trains, it is watered down quite a bit as everyone will have to take some movement actions in any case, and tucking on en extra train when you move a whole line of them is generally free. However, it is still good to know the value of a train. In most cases the value gained by the owner of the wagons is a pittance, relative to the value gained by the owner of the cargo. So if the other players have filled your train without leaving a spot for you, you'd probably rather not push it. On the other hand in a 4 player game you would at least consider bringing along any train with at least 1 of your goods.
During the second round, try not to create wagons that no other player would move in both cities.
When you move on the asset value track, you should get all values to at least 3, even if you don't have any of the corresponding assets this helps you maximise your "secret investor bonus", sometimes it may be worth focusing on specific asset types beyond this point, but the difference is marginal, going for balance is always a decent strategy, and it leaves you free to ignore the asset type when picking contracts. Don't be too fussed about the balance during the game though, you'll gain a bunch of ticks at the end that you can spend restoring the balance or advancing your favoured asset.
When choosing contracts, you should pretty much always pick the 3 crate ones. The 3 crate commercial ones are great because completing them gets rid of another crate, accelerating the number of contracts you can complete. On top it is a convenient way of getting at least one crate on the ships so that you gain a briefcase at the end of the round. The 3 crate strategic contracts offer a bonus that is generally slightly lesser than the 4 crate ones, but not so much that you wouldn't rather churn through some more contracts.
During the investment phase, remember the secret investor bonus, at a glance it looks like the top spots are better value, but with a flat bonus per token placed, the bottom spots are actually quite competitive. Also remember the quite low value of asset value ticks, the leftmost spots with more plain points are usually better.
Finally, here are some approximate marginal values of various stuff, expressed in points, assuming decent play:
Coins: 1.2 points
Asset value ticks: 2 points
Assets: 4 points
Deals (briefcases): 8 points
Deal value multipliers: 6 points
Loading a crate that won't be delivered: 5 points
Loading a crate that will be delivered during round 1: 12 points
Loading a crate that will be delivered during round 2: 17 points
Performance ticks (gear): 2 points
West agencies: 0 points (You'll often get them anyway because the x2 is better than 3 asset value ticks, as soon as you have 1 West agency the chance of not making the bonuses is basically 0.)
The last few market track ticks are easily worth more than 10 points each on average. This can't really be expressed as a marginal value, as you should always just get them all, at which point the value of any further ticks is 0.
The marginal value of movement is often 0, simply because you have enough to get all your crates delivered. On the other hand if you don't have enough it can be quite devastating, being just one move away from getting a train with 3 of your crates to the destination would imply a marginal value of approximately 36 points.