In City of Iron, 2-4 players compete to build a small nation in a world of machines, magic, and money. Become the leader of one of four rival nations: the industrious humans, the frog engineers, the scholarly Cresarians, or the inventive hogmen. Produce goods such as machine parts and bottled demons to gain wealth, or research steam age technology and hire mercenaries to control the continent. If you wish to establish new cities, you will need to build yachts or airplanes to reach distant lands and floating isles. Your cities have limited capacity, so you must decide what to keep and what to demolish when erecting advanced buildings. The future of a nation is in your hands. Build unshakeable foundations for an empire or vanish into the dust of history.

Differences from the first edition:

• Expert cards have new artwork and have been rebalanced.
• The city expansion card deck has been removed.
• The auction for player order has been simplified.
• The payment track for going later in the order has been removed.
• A bonus coin has replaced the pirates.
• The timing of scoring rounds has changed.
• Players have different end-game scoring goals based on their contracts and regions, rather than all competing for the same set of end-game bonuses.