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Great Western Trail: Second Edition
#31BGG8.3RATING
Updated Sep 12
1–4
PLAYERS
75–150
MINUTES
3
BEST WITH
3.7
HEAVY
DESIGNER CLARIFICATIONS5
Forfeiting the card removal on the fifth auxiliary actiondesigner
- CONTEXT
- The fifth auxiliary action moves your engine 1 space backward and grants both 1 Dollar and the removal of a card from the game. Players disagreed over whether removing the card is part of the requirement or part of the reward, and therefore whether it can be declined.
- RULING
- Removing the card is a reward, so it may be forfeited while still taking the Dollar. The designer confirmed the ruling set in this thread with "Patrick is correct!"
AUTHOR: AlexP (Alexander Pfister, designer)SOURCE: boardgamegeek.com(8 replies, 13 thumbs)DATE: 2022-01-10Paying a station upgrade with the Dollar from the same auxiliary actiondesigner
- CONTEXT
- Using the fifth auxiliary action to move the engine backward into a train station raises the question of whether the immediate station upgrade happens before or after the action's reward is collected.
- RULING
- The reward is gained first. The immediate train station upgrade resolves at the end of the entire auxiliary action, so the Dollar just gained may be spent on the upgrade cost. The designer confirmed the ruling set in this thread with "Patrick is correct!"
AUTHOR: AlexP (Alexander Pfister, designer)SOURCE: boardgamegeek.com(8 replies, 13 thumbs)DATE: 2022-01-10Certificate advance resolves before the station upgradedesigner
- CONTEXT
- The third auxiliary action moves the engine backward and advances the certificate marker. Players asked whether an accompanying station upgrade could first clear the fourth-certificate disc so that the advance would not be capped.
- RULING
- The reward is gained first, so the certificate advance is capped at your current limit and any excess is wasted. You cannot upgrade the station first in order to raise the limit and then apply the advance. The designer confirmed the ruling set in this thread with "Patrick is correct!"
AUTHOR: AlexP (Alexander Pfister, designer)SOURCE: boardgamegeek.com(8 replies, 13 thumbs)DATE: 2022-01-10Turnout spaces and backward movement for extraordinary deliverydesigner
- CONTEXT
- The extraordinary delivery action on building 9a counts the number of spaces your engine moves backward, and turnout spaces sit off the main line, so it was unclear whether entering or leaving one contributes to that count.
- RULING
- Moving into a turnout space is allowed as the final step of the backward movement but does not count toward the total. Starting from a turnout space and moving backward does count. The designer's original wording on this point: "Yes, you can take the turnout space (as last step) but no, it does not count as step backwards."
AUTHOR: AlexP (Alexander Pfister, designer)SOURCE: boardgamegeek.com(8 replies, 13 thumbs)DATE: 2022-01-10Reaching a station siding past an occupied switch spacedesignerlinked official source
- CONTEXT
- The rulebook describes a turnout space as branching from two switch spaces, so players concluded that an opponent's engine sitting on a switch space blocks access to that station's siding. The designer's answer, originally given for the first edition and unchanged in this edition, resolves it.
- RULING
- "That is 100% correct. And yes, you can move from any space into a station siding." An opponent's engine on the switch space does not block access. You may enter a turnout as often as you like, but you may upgrade any given station only once, and the choice of whether to take its station master tile exists only at the moment you place your disc.
Q&A4
Adding cattle beyond the market's player-count sizecommunity high-engagement
- QUESTION
- When a cowboy is used to draw 2 cards from the market cattle stack and add them to the cattle market, may the market end up holding more cards than its player-count total of 7, 10 or 13?
- ANSWER
- Yes. That total is the size the market is set to at setup and the level it is refilled up to when the job market token crosses a yellow arrow — it is not a cap. Cowboys may push the market above it, and no cards are removed to bring it back down.
Simmental cattle count as a single cattle typecommunity high-engagement
- QUESTION
- For an action that requires discarding exactly 2 cattle cards of the same type, do two orange "Simmental" cards of different breeding values qualify?
- ANSWER
- Yes. Simmental is one cattle type regardless of stage, and the action's iconography includes orange cattle, so two Simmentals of different breeding values may be discarded together. This matches how two Simmentals in hand count only once toward total breeding value at Kansas City.
Where end-game objective cards may be taken fromcommunity high-engagement
- QUESTION
- At the end of the game, may unplayed objective cards be scored only from your draw deck, as the rulebook's wording suggests, or also from your hand and discard pile?
- ANSWER
- From all three. Any unplayed objective card in your hand, draw deck or discard pile may be moved into your personal objective area and scored. You do not gain its upper-left bonus, and once placed there it must be scored, penalties included.
Repeated deliveries to Kansas City stackcommunity high-engagement
- QUESTION
- Kansas City and New York are the only cities you may deliver to more than once. If two of your discs end up on the Kansas City space, do the penalties add up?
- ANSWER
- Yes, both sides stack. Two discs on Kansas City cost 12 victory points at the end of the game and earn 8 Dollars across the two deliveries.
EDGE CASES3
Moving your herder forward ends Phase B at the old locationcommunity high-engagement
- SITUATION
- A building offers several actions that may be taken in any order. A player uses one of them to move the herder forward, performs Phase B at the new location, and then wants to return to the original building's remaining actions.
- RULING
- You cannot. Phase B is the use of the local actions of the tile your herder occupies; once the herder has moved away, those actions are no longer local and any unused ones are forfeited.
Building 6b cannot repeat the building it copiescommunity high-engagement
- SITUATION
- A player uses building 6b to copy another building, then moves the herder onto that same building later in the turn and attempts to use its actions a second time — a combination that was legal in the first edition.
- RULING
- Not allowed. The appendix entry for 6b states: "By using this building, you may not perform the same actions of the same building (same number and letter) during the same turn." Because 6b adopts the number and letter of whatever it copies, the copied building is locked out for the rest of that turn. Note that printed copies of the appendix carry differing wording for this restriction; the wording quoted here is the one to apply.
Using two exchange tokens back to backcommunity high-engagement
- SITUATION
- Exchange tokens may be spent at any moment, each drawing 2 cards and then discarding 2. A player holding two tokens spends the first, draws 2, and spends the second before discarding anything.
- RULING
- Legal. The two tokens may be nested: draw 2, draw 2 more, then discard 4. Reported in the thread as a designer clarification — that allowing it was not the designer's preference, but prohibiting it would have required a longer rule — though no source link for that clarification was provided in the thread.
Last researched: 2026-08-10
CATEGORIES
American West·Animals
MECHANICS
Deck, Bag, and Pool BuildingHand ManagementOwnershipSet CollectionSolo / Solitaire GameTagsTrack MovementVariable Set-up
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