2016 · Animals
Great Western Trail
Players act as 19th-century ranchers driving cattle from Texas to Kansas City to load them onto trains for profit and victory points. Gameplay centers on managing a hand and deck of cattle cards to assemble higher-value herds, while moving along a shared trail and using buildings to access actions and bonuses. Players hire and deploy workers — cowboys to improve cattle, craftsmen to build personal buildings, and engineers to enhance rail connections — and balance route movement, deck management, and timing of deliveries. Scoring rewards valuable cattle, efficient use of buildings and workers, and development of the railroad network over multiple trips.
- Players
- 2–4 best 3
- Playing time
- 75–150 min
- Age
- 12+
- Complexity
- 3.7 / 5
About the game
- Design
- Publisher
Expansions
See them in Ludoya
Great Western Trail: Rails to the North2018
Great Western Trail: Promo Station Master Tiles2017
Great Western Trail: The Eleventh Building Tile2017
Great Western Trail: 13th Building Tile2019
Great Western Trail: At the Poker Table Promo2018
Deutscher Spielepreis 2017 Goodie Box2017
Brettspiel Adventskalender 20182018
Super Power2019Photos from Ludoya tables
All photos in Ludoya
Where to buy it
Shop prices and second-hand copies, checked every day.
On Ludoya's tables
Full stats in Ludoya- 1,093
- Plays logged
- 942
- Players
- 2h 5m
- Average play
- 231
- In collections
- 31
- On wishlists
8.1/10
from 159 Ludoya reviews
By player count
Mestremuten10.0 Rating: 5/5 Production value: 4/4 Is the game in my collection/Love to have?: 1/1
Played it 30 times
Garfield9.0 #57 Metallmünzen im Dach Thematic strategic game with the right amount of decisions to make. [c] Theme: ★★★☆☆ <!-- size 7]Good --> Gameplay: ★★★★☆ <!-- size 7]A lot of decisions but not too much --> Interaction: ★★☆☆☆ <!-- size 7]Not that much --> Artwork: ★★★☆☆ <!-- size 7]Good, nothing special --> Luck: ★★★☆☆ <!-- size 7]Card drawing --> Strategy: ★★★★☆ <!-- size 7]Very strategic --> Components: ★★★☆☆ <!-- size 7]Nothing special --> Play duration: ★★★☆☆ <!-- size 7]Ok --> Easy to teach: ★☆☆☆☆ <!-- size 7]A lot to teach --> Setup time: ★★☆☆☆ <!-- size 7]A lot of things to setup --> No downtime: ★★★☆☆ <!-- size 7]Still ok --> Replay value: ★★★★☆ <!-- size 7]Different strategies --> [/c]
No plays logged
Carlos9.0 Easy to play and hard to master. Long term strategy is key.
No plays logged
Rules questions
Answered from the rulebook by Ludoya's rules assistant.
Do empty spaces on the trail count as movement steps?
No. Only locations—Kansas City and spaces with a building, hazard, or teepee tile—count as steps; empty spaces are not locations. You must move at least 1 step, and you may not pass over Kansas City. (p. 6)
Do I have to pay the fees on hands if I only pass over a tile, or if I can’t afford them?
Yes, fees apply when you move to or pass over a location with green or black hands. If you can’t pay the full fee, pay what you can and continue; you never pay those fees retroactively. (p. 6)
Can I use an auxiliary action as well as the local actions on my building?
No. On a neutral building or your own building, you may use its local actions, or—only if you use none of them—perform one single auxiliary action instead. On another player’s building, a hazard, or a teepee tile, you may perform one single auxiliary action. (p. 7)
When I get income in Kansas City, do duplicate cattle cards count more than once?
No. Add the breeding values of the different cattle types in your hand, counting each type only once, however many copies you have. You may add temporary certificates, and permanent certificates add automatically; then take that many dollars and discard your hand. (p. 8)
Can I deliver to a city I’ve already delivered to, and do I always pay transport costs?
You can’t choose a city where you already have a disc, except for the local town, Kansas City, and San Francisco. You pay transport costs only if your engine is behind the chosen city: pay $1 for each crest between your engine and that city. (p. 9)
Official score sheet
Great Western Trail score sheet
Every scoring category, from the Ludoya kit. On your phone the totals add up by themselves.
Free, on web, Android and iOS
Play Great Western Trail with Ludoya
- Keep it in your collectionTrack your copy and its expansions, lend it to friends, or put it on your wishlist and get told when the price drops.Add it to your collection
- Log every playScores, winners, timers and photos, then your stats: win rate, favourite player count, best score.Log a play
- Settle rules questionsAsk anything about the rules and get an answer from the rulebook, with the page to check it on.Ask the rules assistant
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Game facts (players, playing time, age, credits) from BoardGameGeek.