Beginner's Primer to Age of Steam Part 1
Why Money Is So Tight In Age of Steam?
Money is a fundamental commodity in any rail-based games that we play. In AoS, it is no different. Money is used to bid for player order, build tracks and pay your expenses.
Age of Steam starts each player out with expenses of $3 (2 shares + level 1 locomotive). Each share gives the player $5 to play with, so, each player starts out with $10. Expenses must be paid out every turn and in the first turn, your expense is already $3 if you didn't increase your expenses by :
a) Issuing more shares
b) upgrading your locomotive.
Also, in AoS, each link you deliver will only net you +1 income (unlike in railroad tycoon, where the first link you deliver in the first turn nets you $3).
To make things even tighter, shares can only be issued at the beginning of each round!
Let's see where the $10 (starting money) goes to in the first turn :
a) Bidding for turn order - Money is used to bid for turn order. The highest and second highest bidder pays in full, while the rest pays half of their current bid (round up) and the last player (first one to pass) pays nothing. Remember you cannot take out more shares at this point to pay for your bid as you can only issue shares at the beginning of each turn.
b) Building tracks (up to 3 hexes, unless engineer role is selected) - During this phase, the highest bidder builds first (unless someone takes first build, then he/she preceeds the highest bidder). Track costs are as follows (price are per hex) - Simple tracks - $2 for normal green hexes, $3 for rivers, $4 for mountains. Complex crossing tracks - $3 for normal, $4 for rivers, $5 for mountains. Complex co-exist tracks - $4 for normal, $5 for rivers, $6 for mountains. Upgrading a simple to complex (counts as track laying) - $3. Building through towns - $1 + $1 for each track leading out of town. Upgrading town hex - $3. So, if you want to build a 3 hex link using simple tracks on green (normal) hexes - it would cost you $6 and that is the bare minimum. Most AoS boards are loaded with mountains and rivers.
c) Pay expenses - At the end of every turn, you must pay $1 for each share taken and for each level of your engine. For example, if Player A has taken out 4 shares and owns a level 3 locomotive engine. He must pay $7.
Doesn't sound much does it? Well, there is one more thing. Delivering cubes to their respective cities using your own tracks (ala Railroad Tycoon) is the only way to generate income. But you can only do this twice a turn.
So, on the first turn, if you didn't take out any additional shares, didn't upgrade your engine, bid $3 to start second, build 3 tracks only on green hexes, and managed to maximise your delivery (2 cubes delivered) (a very unlikely scenario actually), you would end up with no money : +$10 (starting money from the 2 shares) -$3 (your bid) -$6 (track building cost) +$2 (Good delivery income) -$3 (Your expenses) =$0.
So, you are left with no money and laden with an expense of $3 to foot in your next round (and every round after, unless you increase your debts, whcih means, you have even more expenses to cover). Looks like you have to issue more shares and get laden in more debts. Sounds very promising, doesn't it? 
Also, when you reach a certain income point on the income track, an income reduction will occur. Anywhere from -2 income reduction ($11-$20) to -10 income reduction ($50+) will be deducted from your income track every turn as long as you land on the income reduction track.
Next article : How do you break even towards the last few turns? Or must you enter a spiral of debts until the end?