Rolling Stock Stars

Rolling Stock Stars is a card game for two to six players. The players take the role of investors. They buy companies, which they may later turn
into corporations or sell to already existing corporations. In addition, they can buy and sell shares of those corporations. The player with the
most shares in a corporation becomes its president and controls its actions. Corporations may own any number of those companies (that
were sold to the corporations by players or were used as the seed to found a new corporation). Once a company is owned by a corporation,
it is called a subsidiary company. Corporations can even buy subsidiary companies from each other.

Note the nomenclature here: Corporations could also be called “public companies.” However, to avoid confusion, we want to keep the
meaning of the word “company” narrow and will not use it for corporations (but instead for the subsidiary companies they own).

Subsidiary companies owned by the same corporation may create synergies with each other, increasing the income of the corporation.
These synergies can be seen as a quite abstract representation of transportation networks. (Rolling Stock Stars has no board and therefore
lacks a more concrete representation of transportation networks, as you might know it from similarly-themed games.)

As more and more newer companies are brought into the game, older companies become less profitable and have to be written off eventually.
Corporations have to struggle to stand the test of time. Some may end up in receivership or even bankruptcy.

In the end, the richest player wins the game, measured by the sum of the values of privately owned companies, shares of corporations, and cash.

Thematically, the game starts in the 1830s in Prussia. The initially available companies are early Prussian railroads. Throughout the game,
the scope widens. First to Germany, then to Europe. Even some non-railroad companies enter the game; the last tier of companies represents
container ports and airports.

Playing with two players is a good way to learn the game, but the interactive aspects are more enjoyable in multiplayer games. The game
length increases with player count so high player count games should be reserved for when the players know the game well.