Tabletop games
Next Station: London
Draw four Underground lines on your Map of London, one per round, that cross as many districts as possible, go over the Thames, serve the tourist sites and meet at interchanges.
- players
- 1–4
- minutes
- 25
You’ll need the game box. Marquoir sums up the rules and keeps score.
Setup
- Each player takes a Map of London sheet and a coloured pencil: purple, blue, pink or green.
- With three players, the spare pencil goes between two players; with two, the two spare pencils go one to the left of each player. They will be used later.
- For your first games, leave the Shared Objective and Pencil Power cards in the box.
- The first controller is the player whose last Tube ride is the most recent.
- 1 to 4 players, ages 8 and up.
How to play
- The game is played over 4 rounds. Each round, everyone draws the line matching their pencil's colour, starting from that colour's departure station.
- The controller shuffles the 11 Station cards (6 Street and 5 Underground) into a face-down pile. Each turn, they reveal one: everyone at the same time draws a section towards a station showing that symbol (square, triangle, pentagon or circle).
- The first section leaves from the departure station; the following ones leave from either end of the line.
- Each section is a straight segment, horizontal, vertical or diagonal along the grid, between two stations: it never jumps over a station and never cuts an existing line.
- A line never comes back to a station it already serves, and two stations are never linked twice.
- Nothing forces you to draw: you may let a card go by.
- Joker: everyone picks their own symbol. Railroad Switch: the controller immediately reveals another card, and everyone may draw from any station on their line, which gives it a new end; the Switch has no effect if it comes up on the first or second turn.
- The Central Station takes the symbol of your choice. Five stations are tourist sites, the Central Station included.
- From the second round onwards, a station may host several lines: that is an interchange.
- The round ends when the fifth Underground card (pink and yellow background) is revealed: draw one last section, then everyone scores their line.
- Then take the pencil of your right-hand neighbour, or the one lying to your right; the next controller is the player to the left of the previous one.
Scoring
- A line is worth the number of different districts it crosses, multiplied by the number of its stations in the district where it has the most, plus 2 points per section that crosses the Thames.
- At the end of each round, cross out as many circles on your tourist site score track as there are sites served by the line, up to 10 over the whole game.
- At the end of the game, the track scores the points of the leftmost circle not crossed out, 25 at most.
- Each interchange scores 2 points if two lines meet there, 5 for three lines, 9 for four lines.
- Advanced mode: each Shared Objective achieved scores 10 points.
- In Marquoir, enter at the end of the game the score of each line, the tourist site points and the number of interchanges of each kind: the counter does the multiplying.
End of the game
- The game ends after the fourth round.
- The final score adds up the four lines, the tourist site track and the interchanges.
- The highest score wins; on a tie, the best single-line score decides, and a lasting tie is shared.
House rules and pitfalls
- London has 13 districts: 9 main districts with several stations, and 4 secondary districts, in the corners, with a single station each.
- The five Shared Objectives (advanced mode) ask, for example, for six Thames crossings or for all five tourist sites to be served; two are drawn per game.
- The four Pencil Powers (advanced mode) stay attached to one pencil for the whole game and are used once per round: one of them makes a station on the current line count double.
- Solo, you play the four pencils in a random order; each advanced module used takes 10 points off the final score.
Frequently asked questions
How do you score a line?
Count the different districts crossed, multiply them by the number of the line's stations in its best-served district, then add 2 points per Thames crossing. Five districts, four stations at best and two crossings make 5 × 4 + 4 = 24 points.
How much is an interchange worth?
2 points when two lines go through the station, 5 with three lines, 9 with four.
What is the tourist site score track worth?
At the end of the game, look at the leftmost circle not crossed out on the track: it gives the points. Ten circles crossed out, the maximum, score 25 points.
Do you have to draw on every card?
No: if the card doesn't suit you, ignore it and resume drawing on a later card.
The box
- Released
- 2022
- Age
- Ages 8+
- Designer
- Matthew Dunstan
- Publisher
- Blue Orange
- Mechanics
- Paper and PencilNetwork BuildingSolo Play
- Contents
- 1 pad of Map of London sheets
- 4 coloured pencils: purple, blue, pink and green
- 11 Station cards: 6 Street and 5 Underground
- 5 Shared Objective cards and 4 Pencil Power cards