The objective
Finish with the greatest personal wealth: your cash plus the market value of your shares. The railroads have separate treasuries. A profitable company helps its shareholders, but its cash is not part of a player’s personal wallet.
Railways · Investment · Network building
1846: The Race for the Midwest
The Race for the Midwest · GMT base game
Build the railway. Invest in the right future.
Follow a complete four-player game of 1846, from the private-company draft to the final portfolios. See how track, trains, dividends and share prices connect, with original strategic commentary for every recorded decision.
- 382 checkpoints
- 1,095 explained consequences
- A complete recorded game
Your seat at the table.
4-player playthrough · GMT base game · Guided, at your pace
See the game unfold.
The complete interactive tutorial, in your browser.
First load: up to approximately 79 MB · Best on a laptop or desktopOpening the tutorial. Its loading screen will appear below.
This detailed game table is best on a larger screen. On a tablet, use landscape mode or open the tutorial in a new tab.
How to use the table
Use A− / A+ to change the size of text and controls. Open Text panel to adjust Width and Height, or choose Reset to restore the defaults. Your preferences are remembered for each game.
Use Next step to advance one consequence immediately, Previous to revisit it, and the round or action menu to jump through the game. Play/Pause controls the current animation; Skip this move completes it and Skip remaining finishes the current action. Left-drag to pan, right-drag to orbit, and scroll to zoom. Inspect and enlarge cards, search the Glossary or Components guide, and choose a player perspective.
These are guided playthroughs with authored moves and outcomes. Use the checkpoints to explore how the game develops.
If the table does not appear, try opening it in a new tab. A WebGL-capable browser is required.
How to play 1846: The Race for the Midwest
How a turn works
After the private-company draft, stock rounds alternate with sets of operating rounds. Investors buy and sell shares; presidents then run the railroads in share-price order. A railroad builds track, places stations, runs trains, decides how to distribute revenue and buys trains. New trains change the phase and can make older trains obsolete.
The ending and this tutorial
The tutorial follows bank exhaustion through the required final operating round, then values each portfolio. Watch both dividend income and share-price movement. The replay is the recorded four-player game 266765, retold using fictional names and original interpretations of the decisions.
Inside this tutorial
A complete game.
A clearer picture.
Learn the table and draft the privates
Begin with the map, certificates, company treasuries and exact four-player setup. Follow each draft choice and opening investment with fictional players Ada, Ben, Clara and Daniel.
Connect the railway to the stock market
Trace track upgrades, stations and 93 train routes. Follow every payment, train purchase and dividend, and compare the strategic alternatives behind each decision.
Finish the game and value each portfolio
Continue through bank exhaustion and the final operating round, then calculate personal cash plus shares. Jump back to any round or decision to see how the position developed.
GMT 2021 second-printing rules and clarifications
Rules and BGG Strategy discussions were checked on 11 September 2026. This four-player base-game replay preserves the recorded choices and results from 18xx.games game 266765, with fictional names and newly written strategic interpretations. It is a guided replay; alternative branches, bankruptcy and emergency funding are not demonstrated.
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