Steam FAQ
273 questions players ask · Updated Nov 11, 2026 · Full rulebook
Components
Base Game
- What does the Maine hex on the Northeast US map represent?
- How do you build the Central New England map as a larger board?
- Can Age of Steam expansion maps be used with Steam, and do they need extra rules?
- What happens if a random goods cube lands on a city of its own colour during setup?
- Can you bid $0 in the Base Game turn order auction?
- What counts as a link in Steam: a single hex or a whole run of track?
- How many goods cubes go on each Goods Supply space and city at three players?
- What do the numbers on New City tiles mean?
- Is a dark-edged blue river hex on the Ruhr map different from a purple-edged canal?
- Can City Growth add cubes to a city that already has goods on it?
Playing the GameExpansion
Phase 1 — Select Action Tiles
- Can you upgrade your locomotive twice in one round with the Locomotive action tile?
- Can you take the Locomotive action tile when your locomotive is already at level 6?
- Do you pay for the Locomotive action tile when you take it?
- What does the Turn Order action do for the current turn?
- Can you choose the Urbanization action when there are no New City tiles left?
- If you pay for the Urbanization action tile, can you still pass on the build later?
- Is the Goods Display refilled during the game?
- Can you select City Growth or Urbanization when the goods display is empty?
- What does the First Move action tile do?
Phase 2 — Build Track
- Can you build track that forms a loop, or one that starts and ends in the same city?
- Must all of a player's track form one connected network in Steam?
- Must each track tile be traceable to a city when it is placed, or only once the building phase ends?
- Where can a new link start: from any city, from a town, or only from your own track?
- If you build a town tile with track stubs, do you own those stubs, and do you mark each one?
- If you own several incomplete links, do you have to complete them all on your next turn to keep them?
- When do you lose ownership of an incomplete link you did not extend?
- How do you claim an unowned incomplete link, including one that starts at a town?
- Can you build track that runs into or joins another player's track?
- Can you build track that blocks, runs beside, or dead-ends against another player's unfinished link?
- Can you place a town tile to complete another player's incomplete link into a town, or build into their track at a town?
- When a town is urbanized, what happens to the track and stubs already on it?
- Can you urbanize a town that has no track on it, or when no goods cubes are left?
- Does a New City tile need to connect to your track, and do its sides become yours?
- Can a town track tile go on a hex with no town, or a non-town track tile go on a town hex?
- Does track that runs up to a town count as a complete link without the town tile?
- When track enters a town, who chooses the town tile, and what does a later player pay to swap in a different one?
- Can you improve or cross another player's track by adding your own track to their hex?
- Can you upgrade a town tile to add exits, including on a link someone already completed, and what do you pay?
- Can you redirect track on an incomplete link, and can you redirect a town or a completed link?
- Can you swap or rotate a tile you already placed, and what does it cost?
- How many track builds do you get in a turn, and must you build any at all?
- Can you build a track shape whose tile has run out?
- Can you build two links between the same pair of cities or towns, or more than one link into one city?
- Is the Goods Display ever refilled, and does a City Growth marker limit the supply?
- Does a hex with only part of a river, lake or canal add the river cost to track built on it?
- Do white-bordered coastal hexes or hills-and-river hexes add extra track cost?
- Can you build a complex crossing or passing tile on an empty hex, and must every path of it be legal?
- Can you build track that connects to nothing on one side, or leave a dead-end into an unmatched side?
Phase 3 — Move Goods (or Improve Locomotive)
- Can a goods delivery pass through the same city or town more than once?
- Are goods deliveries and end-game points counted per link or per track tile?
- Can a delivery use other players' links, and how much of the route must be your own?
- How many times can you upgrade your locomotive in one turn?
- Does upgrading your locomotive during Move Goods cost money or victory points?
- Can you upgrade your locomotive without taking the Locomotive action tile?
- If you hold the First Move tile, do you act first in both Move Goods rounds, including when upgrading the locomotive?
- Can a cube be delivered back to the city it started from, or pass through that city?
- Must a cube stop at the first city of its colour on its route?
- Can you move a goods cube that has no legal delivery?
- Can a grey cube be delivered before a grey city has been placed?
- Must a cube be delivered by the shortest route?
- How many goods can a player move in one turn?
- What happens to a goods cube after it is delivered?
Phase 4 — Income & Expenses
- Can a player's income go above +10, and what happens to extra income?
- Can you be eliminated early by going bankrupt?
- Do you receive money when your income marker is positive?
- Does a town in the middle of a link split it into separate connections for income?
- Can you pay cash to raise your income level?
- On the final turn, do income and expenses still apply before final scoring?
- When you pay off debt, does your income marker return to zero?
End of the Game
Standard Game
- In Standard Steam, can you decline City Growth or Urbanization once you have taken the tile?
- What breaks a tie in Standard Steam, since the action tiles have no values?
- How does the Standard Game differ from the Base Game?
- In the Standard Game, do Urbanization, City Growth or a Locomotive upgrade cost anything extra?
- How much is locomotive upkeep in the Standard Game, and is it paid on top of income?
- In the Standard Game, can you lower your income marker at the start of a turn to raise cash?
- In the Standard Game, what happens if you cannot pay expenses in full?
- In the Standard Game turn-order auction, can you bid more cash than you have?
- How is turn order set in the Standard Game, and who pays what for it?
- In the Standard Game, what does the Turn Order action tile let you do in the bidding?
- Do the numbers on action tiles matter in the Standard Game?
- In a Standard Game auction with two players left, must the other player outbid to stay in when the leader takes the Turn Order tile?
- In the Standard Game turn-order auction, can the current high bidder raise their own bid?
- Does a map's special auction rule, such as California's, apply to other Standard maps?
Steam BaronsExpansion
- In Steam Barons, do you need a town track tile to move goods out of a town?
- In Steam Barons, can a company pass instead of moving goods?
- In Steam Barons, can track be built across thick borders or thick black lines on a map?
- In Steam Barons, can a player buy shares in more than one company in the same turn?
- In Steam Barons, when the CEO sells shares and the remaining players tie for most shares, who becomes CEO?
- How many track tiles can a company build per turn in Steam Barons?
- In Steam Barons, who owns a town tile and its track once it is built?
- In Steam Barons, can your company's track connect into another company's track or link, even under the same CEO?
- In Steam Barons, can track be built across lakes or other water?
- On the Steam Barons Northern England map, do you pay $3 to connect two adjacent cities?
- Is there a cap on how many links one delivery can use in Steam Barons?
- Do links left by a bankrupt company score points when cubes move over them?
- In Steam Barons, does CEO status change hands as soon as a player gains the majority of shares?
- In Steam Barons, can a company sell its shares, and can the president sell his own?
- Is the Steam Barons CEO bonus paid from the bank or from the company treasury?
- Where does a Steam Barons company's treasury get its money, and how are new shares issued?
- Do you use the printed city numbers when setting up the new Steam Barons maps?
- Do company markers on the Victory Point track carry over from turn to turn?
- Are share prices adjusted by winning bids in the share auction?
- What happens when the goods cubes run out in a six-player Northern England game?
- Does a cube earn more points for crossing a longer link in Steam Barons?
- How many black cubes go into the bag when playing Steam Barons with base Steam?
- After a company goes bankrupt, can its shares still be sold in the same turn?
- Does an existing link from an adjacent city survive when a town next to it is urbanised?
- Does leftover company treasury cash count at the end of a Steam Barons game?
- Does the first-player marker pass on if only some of a company's shares are sold?
- Can a city or town start a Steam Barons game with no goods cubes on it?
- How many shares does each Steam Barons company start with, and is the starting share part of its total?
Steam: Map Expansion #1Expansion
- What did the revised rules for Steam: Map Expansion #1 change?
- Does Map Expansion #1 work with the basic ruleset, or only the standard game?
- In the two-player Map Expansion #1 map, can an opponent be forced to outbid himself at the #1 tile auction?
- On the Belgium map, when do Lille and Maastricht receive new goods cubes?
- On the Belgium map, can you connect two adjacent cities with a link token?
- On the Belgium map, does an existing link between two adjacent cities still score at game end after urbanization?
- On the Belgium 2-player map, does urbanizing a town next to a city destroy the existing link between them?
- On the Brussels Metro map, does building your own track into your own town urbanize it?
- When does a positive income level drop on the Brussels Metro map, and is the drop compensated?
- When you build track with positive income, does the money track step still apply if you borrow to pay?
- Can you connect your track into another player's unfinished link in Steam?
- On the Mid-Atlantic map in a 4-5 player small game, is Philadelphia used?
- What does 'do not use the Delaware Peninsula' mean in a 3-player Mid-Atlantic game?
- On the Mid-Atlantic Civil War map, how is the delivery penalty applied across the Union/CSA border?
- Do towns on hills in Map Expansion #1 cost extra to build into?
- Can the large map in Map Expansion #1 extend the original northeast US map?
- Can track tiles from an expansion, including the extra 7-player tiles, be mixed into the base track supply?
- How many players is Brussels Metro for?
- How many turns does a two-player game last on the Map Expansion #1 maps?
- What does the Mid-Atlantic Ferry cost to build?
- If a town exit you built is left unextended, can another player connect to it and claim it?
- On the Belgium map, can goods be delivered to or through the foreign cities?
- On the Belgium map, can both players import goods from the same foreign city?
- On the Belgium and Luxembourg map, can a player pick the same action twice in a row?
- On the Belgium map, can you City Growth a newly urbanized city?
- Can you build a fifth track into a town on the Brussels Metro map?
- Is a canal on the Belgium map played differently from a river?
- When does the first goods cube get added to each foreign city on the Belgium map?
- How does urbanization work on the Brussels Metro map?
Steam: Map Expansion #2Expansion
- Can the Flood Relief Fund yuan go into a flood city connected only through other players' track?
- When a flooded city's Flood Relief Fund is down to its last yuan, does it still work?
- In Steam, does a Docker action require your own rail connection to the port you ship from?
- What makes a town or city count as built for a Docker shipment?
- Does a Docker cube that passes through a port flip that port's marker?
- Can a cube be moved by track to a port and then docked on to another port?
- Does a Docker action let a level 4 locomotive run canal links plus rail links?
- Can anyone use canal links, and can a harbor-to-harbor delivery be made without a Docker action?
- Does a flipped port marker stop goods moving by rail or canal into or through that port city?
- What is the building cost for track through a canal hex on hills in Steam?
- In a 2- or 3-player Steam auction, how much does each player pay?
- On the California map, does the SF-LA 5 VP bonus apply once or every turn?
- Do special track costs on the California map apply without the 2090 Disaster scenario?
- Does track on a town hex block a canal that ends at that town?
- In a 3-player game on the Great Britain map, how many cubes go on a city that starts with 1?
- Do the reordered roles on the China and Great Britain maps apply to the Standard game too?
- On the China map with three players, how many red goods cubes are needed at setup?
- On the China map, must the far end of a ferry be built or urbanized by the next turn to keep the ferry?
- Can goods sitting on an unbuilt town be moved?
- On the California map, does a track stub into San Francisco or Los Angeles count for Prestige if it does not connect to another town or city?
- On the California map, are cubes for a newly urbanized city taken from the Goods Supply spaces?
- Does track built over a Great Britain canal block that canal?
- On the California 2090 map, is there any build cost beyond the +$3 across the San Francisco hexsides?
Steam: Map Expansion #3Expansion
- On the Japan map at three players, how many goods cubes go on each supply space?
- With an Express locomotive in Japan, do you score points for the links you jump over?
- In Westward Ho!, does City Growth trigger in a city connected to Chicago through another player's track?
- On the Japan map, does the Uchiura Bay hex count as a river hex for building cost?
- In Steam: Map Expansion #3, should scenarios follow the ten-supply-space wording or the printed cube numbers?
- What do you place on the Seikan Tunnel when you build it, and does the standard building rule apply?
- On the Westward Ho map, can a railroad town be founded on any empty terrain hex?
- How does urbanization work on the Singapore map?
- Which towns on the Hokkaido map can be urbanized?
- On the Singapore map, which hexes are rivers?
- On the Hokkaido map, what does the First Turn rule in Phase 1 refer to?
- On Singapore, do you earn income if you do not take the additional action?
- On Singapore, how many dollars do you pay for incomplete links?
- On Singapore, what triggers the end of the game when players pass?
- On Singapore, who wins when the end game is triggered?
- How many turns should Westward Ho! be played with 6 players?
Steam: Map Expansion #4Expansion
- In Poland, does the purple New City urbanization rule apply to three- and four-player games?
- On the Southern Africa map, do terrain costs stack when track goes on a mountain hex with a river?
- How many goods cubes go on each city at setup on the South Africa map?
- How many goods cubes start on a city hex on the Poland map?
- When does urbanization happen on the South Africa map?
- On the South Africa map, must there be track on a town before you urbanize it?
- On the Poland map, when and at what cost can you convert a link to standard gauge?
- On the Poland map, can you convert only part of a mixed-gauge link?
- On the Poland map, is the orange border the edge of the board?
- Can a Build Track action's Private Mining Exploration also develop a mine in South Africa?
- During Build Track in South Africa, must you select two different mining discs?
- On the 2-player Poland map, when can the first player take two action tiles?
- In South Africa, can you use Private Mining Exploration more than once in a turn?
- In two-player Poland, is turn order re-sorted immediately after an action tile is taken?
Steam: Map Expansion #5Expansion
Age of Steam Expansion: 1830's Pennsylvania / Northern CaliforniaExpansion
- On the San Jose cities in the 1830's Pennsylvania / Northern California map, do goods moving between San Jose cities cost a link or pay income?
- In San Jose, are the hexes separate cities, and can goods pass through the same city twice?
- How much does the Californication bridge score in 1830's Pennsylvania / Northern California?
- Santa Cruz to Sacramento: when does Sacramento take the colour of a cube during a multi-link delivery?
- How do black goods ship in 1830's Pennsylvania?
- Can the southern bridge be built before both of its ends are urbanized?
- In the 1830's Pennsylvania / Northern California setup, do the black cubes mean the grey cubes?
- Does a bridge count as track for income and locomotive purposes?
- Does a bridge count as one section of track for the building limit?
- Can you resupply Santa Cruz on the Northern California map?
- What happens to a black cube on a grey town when it is urbanized?
- Can you link two towns or cities with no track pieces on either side?
Age of Steam Expansion: 1867 Georgia Reconstruction, South Carolina & Oklahoma Land RushExpansion
Age of Steam Expansion: African Diamond Mines & Taiwan Cube FactoriesExpansion
Age of Steam Expansion: Alabama Railways, Antebellum Louisiana & Four CornersExpansion
- On the Antebellum Louisiana map, which actions are available and who pays when dropping out of the auction?
- Do the Antebellum Louisiana and Alabama maps roll three dice for goods?
- On Antebellum Louisiana, do you pay the extra leg cost when creating a town on existing track?
- In Alabama Railways, can you choose an action tile even if you cannot carry it out?
Age of Steam Expansion: Amazon Rainforest & Sahara DesertExpansion
- On the Sahara Desert map, is a straight-track town in the desert built at standard cost?
- What counts as a standard build in the Sahara Desert rules, and what does it cost?
- On the Sahara Desert map, must you urbanize before building track in your turn?
- In basic Steam, where does the Water Import player sit in turn order?
- Does the number of links in a delivery matter on the Amazon Rainforest map?
Age of Steam Expansion: America / EuropeExpansion
- In America / Europe, must the production action's cubes come from the top of the chart?
- On the America / Europe setup, do cities added by urbanization get a cube in the top row of the production chart?
- Can the America / Europe maps be played with the basic Steam rules?
- On the America / Europe map, does the Production action replace normal production?
Age of Steam Expansion: Australia & TasmaniaExpansion
Age of Steam Expansion: Barbados / St. LuciaExpansion
- Does the owner of an unfinished track get extra income when a cube resting on it is delivered?
- Does a partial link count as a full link when delivering goods in Barbados / St. Lucia?
- Can track in St. Lucia run off the map edge into the sea?
- On St. Lucia's first turn, can a player urbanize a town and build several stubs to block the opponent from building?
- On the Barbados map, can the Production action place cubes beyond the first row of the goods display?
- In Barbados, is the final score income track plus victory points?
- Does the St. Lucia map start with any cities, and can track be built before one exists?
- In St. Lucia, who gets the first option to pay to go first on each turn?
- In St. Lucia, can a player use the Turn Order action when the normal turn-order auction does not apply?
- On the St. Lucia map, which city color decides where a delivered cube may go?
- On the St. Lucia map, must a town have track on it before it can be urbanized?
- On St. Lucia, can a cube be delivered from track that sits on a hex with a cube placed on it?
- In Barbados, does the game end on the turn the marker reaches the End space?
- In Barbados, are the initial shares repaid before counting ending cash?
- On the Barbados map, can cities be converted into new cities, and do they need yellow cubes?
- How many turns does the St. Lucia game last?
Age of Steam Expansion: Disco Inferno / Soul TrainExpansion
- On Soul Train, can goods on a town be moved as soon as track connects to it?
- On Soul Train, can new cities left unused in Phase 1 be urbanized in Phase 2?
- On Soul Train, must each track link be complete in one turn, with no stubs left over?
- On Disco Inferno, can a dancer move back along the same track it used in a chain reaction?
- Can you start a new link out of a burned-down discotheque in Disco Inferno?
- On Soul Train, can souls move from one Earth City to another during Phase 1?
- Can you build multiple links in the same turn on Soul Train?
- On Soul Train, in what order do players place new cities in Heaven?
Age of Steam Expansion: Jamaica / Puerto RicoExpansion
Age of Steam Expansion: Mississippi Steamboats / Golden SpikeExpansion
- On the Mississippi Steamboats map, is there bonus income for moving onto or off a steamboat?
- On the Mississippi Steamboats map, do you need track to a dock to move goods between a town and an adjacent steamboat?
- On Golden Spike, what happens to the face-down setup tiles as goods are delivered?
- On Golden Spike, can player-defined track be built directly to Promontory?
- In Golden Spike, are the two players starting in Sacramento on the same team?
- On Golden Spike, does a boat's U-turn at the river end count as a free move?
- On the Mississippi Steamboats map, can goods move from one steamboat to another, or pass through a steamboat?
- On the Mississippi Steamboats map, can goods be placed on a steamboat, or moved onto one to be delivered later?
- On Golden Spike, can a delivering player's marker go on any unclaimed revealed track, even if it does not connect to their starting city?
- On Golden Spike, can the 5-point bonus for delivering through Promontory apply before the final turn?
- On the Mississippi Steamboats map, how much does it cost to build track through Baton Rouge toward New Orleans?