Frequently asked questions

Yes. FourCities is free to play in your web browser, with no ads. Open play.fourcities.app and start a match.

No. FourCities runs in the browser, so there is nothing to install, and you do not need an account. Online rooms use a four-letter code instead of accounts.

A railway tycoon strategy game. You lay track, buy trains and build supply chains that feed your home city. Four companies compete, and when the match ends in a set year, the highest score of net worth plus city population wins.

Not yet. FourCities needs a computer with a mouse and keyboard, in a current desktop browser. Phones and tablets are not supported for now.

Yes. Choose Online with friends, host a room and share its four-letter code. Up to four people can play. Empty seats are taken by bots, and if you drop out you can rejoin your seat while the match carries on.

Yes. In single player you face three bot companies, each set to Idle, Easy, Normal or Hard. The bots follow the same rules and costs as you do.

At normal speed, a Short match ending in 1900 takes about 38 minutes, a Sprint ending in 1870 about 15 minutes, and a Full match from 1850 to 2050 about 2½ hours. Solo games can run at up to 4 times speed. Online matches run at normal speed.

In single player, yes. You can save to your browser and load later, and the game autosaves every New Year. Saves are kept in your browser, so they stay on that device and browser. In online matches the server keeps the room, and you can rejoin it if you drop out.

When the match ends, the company with the highest score wins. Score is net worth plus your city’s population, where each resident is worth the average net worth per resident across the companies. To grow your city you must deliver the goods it needs.

Yes. On your first visit the start screen leads with a short guided tutorial, a practice match on a friendly map with idle rivals that ends with your first working supply chain. You can skip it with Skip, start a normal game, and a normal game shows a Your first train checklist until your first train runs. The how-to-play guide on this site covers the same ground.

The map is 256 by 256 tiles of 250 metres, so 64 km across, with hills, rivers, lakes and mountains. Each of the four companies owns a territory around its home city.

FourCities belongs to the railway and transport tycoon genre, where you build networks and run supply chains. Unlike open-ended sandboxes, each FourCities match is a competition with a finish line, a fixed territory for each company and rivals that cannot share your track.

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