In Iberian Railways, you start with nothing but hope and a willingness to take on debt in order to construct railways that connect towns and cities across the Iberian peninsula.

The game board depicts Spain and Portugal, with towns, "minor" cities, "major" cities, Lisbon, and Madrid (collectively called "urban hexes") being color-coded on a hex-based map. The board includes four action spaces — start, expand, merge, purchase — with all players starting on expand. On a turn, you must move your action marker to a new action, then either take that action or pass. The actions in brief:

• Start a new railway: Place cubes on the map to connect at least two urban hexes, increasing your income $1-6 for each urban hex that you connect to. All hexes outside of Madrid can have at most two cubes on them. Players can place at most three cubes at the start of the game, with this limit increasing by one after each build to a maximum of eight. Placing cubes costs $3-52 to place 1-8 cubes, with additional costs for building in river and hill hexes and a hex where someone else is already located — but you start with no money, so if you have no cash on hand, you must take loans (each worth $5) to cover these costs.