2025
Keystone Connection is a fast network-/portfolio-building train game with the objective of having the most valuable stock portfolio at the end of the game. Players must start new railroads, they may expand existing railroads, they are able to trade stocks in the railroads, and they may acquire coal by exploiting Pennsylvania’s anthracite and bituminous mining reserves.
There are 5 colors of wooden locomotive tokens, each color representing a railroad, as well as 1 set of black tokens, which represents Coal and is placed on specific locations at setup. Players are dealt random hands of 5-10 (depending on number of players) locomotives, which are essentially a stock portfolio; the rest of each color are placed in a pool. On your turn, you can start a railroad, increase the value of a single railroad by placing 1-5 locomotives from the remaining pool of that company, trade one locomotive in your portfolio for one or two locomotives from the remaining pool in a railroad, or you can increase the value of a railroad by removing Coal from a railroad’s connected coal hex and placing it in an industrial City or into the railroad’s reserve.
The game board is a map of Pennsylvania, with cities worth anywhere from 1-4 points without Coal, and certain cities will increase in value upon receipt/railroad acquisition of Coal. Connecting to a city adds to a company's value. The game holds 3-6 players for about 30 minutes.
The game ends when all but one Railroad Box is devoid of cubes, only a specified number of total cubes remain in Railroad Boxes, or when a certain number of Coal cubes have been acquired into railroad Coal boxes. Players' scores are determined by the value of each railroad at the end of the game, multiplied by the number of stocks the player has for that railroad.
—description from the designer
