Iberian Gauge Review

boardgamequest.com:

We review the 18xx board game Iberian Gauge from Capstone Game. This train game will have you buying shares of rail lines in the hopes of making the most money over the course of the game.

I remember the first time we went to Gen Con, well over a decade ago, as we took our first steps into the world of board games. We walked around the halls and ballrooms, taking everything in, and we happened upon a section of the 500 Ballroom that was nothing but train games. “Train games?” we thought, “What could be so interesting about trains that you would want to make a board game about them?” Oh, my sweet summer children, if you only knew…

Iberian Gauge is an economic “cube rails” game for 3-5 players that plays in about 60 to 90 minutes. We recommend playing Iberian Gauge with either 4 or 5 players for your best experience.

In Iberian Gauge, you are a train magnate trying to build railways across Spain and Portugal in the hopes of having the most valuable portfolio of stocks at the game’s end. Play is broken up into two different types of phases: the Stock Phase and the Building Phase.

During the Stock Phase, players can purchase shares of stock in five different train companies, each of which has a limited number of shares to buy over the course of the game. Share price is set by the initial buyer, but will fluctuate over the course of the game. Money used to purchase these shares is paid by the players to the company.

During a Building Phase, shareholders use their company’s money to build rail lines, with the goal to be to connect to a city hex by the end of the phase. Companies can either pay money to the bank to build rails on an unoccupied hex, or can pay other companies to lease existing rails. If a city hex is reached,