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Tekopo
Oct 24, 2008

When you see it, you'll shit yourself.


I don't necessarily think it is due to groupthink, since different games can make it worthwhile for you to dump companies even if the game has only had a couple of ORs. There are games in which having a company at the start and making sure that it grabs all the good routes before anyone else can will win you the game, while in others it can be beneficial to simply dump a company. It's all about relative positions on the board and how hard/easy it is to reach the more valuable parts of the board.

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Orvin
Sep 9, 2006




I got to play a couple of games yesterday and actually remembered to take a picture of the final board layout. Please excuse the glare in the picture. There was a florescent light directly overhead and I have no idea who to take a decent picture without causing a major scene.

The first up was a four player 1844 which is set in Switzerland. I am not sure that I particularly care for the game, as there is a lot going on in the game, especially early on. It made it take almost an hour to teach to me and 2 other 18xx players that know most games. I could see the eyes of one of the other players start to glaze over while going over all the rules involving tunnels and mountains and everything else. It has some interesting ideas in it, but I think trying to cram all of it into one game was a bit of a mistake.

The owner of the game ended up coming in first. He wound up with the government railroad and most of the shares in it. The game didn't last long enough for the penalty for owning a bunch of 5% shares (smaller payouts) to catch up with him. I did manage to get second place, which I think is mostly due to the fact that I was able to run my minor railroads extra turns for a bit more cash, but was still able to leave them completely empty when the government formed.



I then played a round of four player 1880 and made way too many mistakes in that game. I am going to blame it on the fact that the first game ran long and by the time we started 1880 it was starting to get late. I managed to get the ocean ferry, the BCR, and the Rocket. The problem with that was that I payed enough for all of them to only have 90 left in my had for the first stock round. I couldn't get another share in it, and that was probably my first mistake. I probably should not have used the Rocket to get an early 2-train on the BCR when I only had 20% myself. It made it way too lucrative to not have it sold out really fast. By the middle of the game I had 50% of it, but the eventual winner had 30%, so it was helping him out almost as much as me. In the second or third stock round I had enough cash to start another company, so I started the CKR. It had a lot of local track, but was not able to get out of the area until late in the game. Every time I tried to build to the east to get around some of the bottlenecks I kept getting blocked by tokens. I eventually had to start the NXR to get some builds up towards Beijing.

What really screwed me that game was that I messed up buying trains for the BCR. It was the OR where 6-Trains were available, and I didn't buy a 6 train on the BCR because I thought I might be able to buy the first 6E Train. It was a stupid gamble when all I had on it at that time was a 3+3 Train. At the very least I should have bought a 2 train and then made up the difference out of my hand so I could keep going forward. I was poised to be in the top corner getting the +40 bonus 2 rounds before the rest of the lead companies, but instead I failed to operate and fell back onto the pile of the rest of them. It would not have given me the win, but I would have at the very least remained competitive instead of falling so far behind the pack.

Tekopo
Oct 24, 2008

When you see it, you'll shit yourself.


1844 really looks interesting to me. One of the people in my group has it, so we might give it a go. Group split into two today, since we had too many people. I lead the newbie group, playing 18MEX again: we managed to have a game in which the owner of the NdeM didn't win, but in this case it was me. I came a solid second, though, with the win going to one of the newly joined player. He had a company in the yellow that paid out loads, which I think won him the game. One of the newest members got the closest to bankruptcy without actually going bankrupt, ending up with only the president certificates for both of his companies left. Unfortunately he didn't want to stick around till the end and I can't really blame him, since he was dead last.

The game is much better with 4, in my opinion: the rush is faster but not unmanageable and there is plenty of interesting token placement to consider. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures, but 18MEX really seems like a solid 4 player game with a lot of 1830 flavour but with a lot of the annoying things about 1830 fixed.

Pierzak
Oct 30, 2010
I'll just leave it here:







Maybe it's old news, but I found a 1886 graphic remake by Carthaginian of BGG fame. As I have a pet peeve with good games with crappy graphics, this looks much better.

Mayveena
Dec 27, 2006

People keep vandalizing my ID photo; I've lodged a complaint with HR
Played 1846 last night. Love the game because it has a lot of strategy without a lot of complexity (for an 18xx). Unfortunately (not really) I was teaching the game to two newbies and there was also one experienced person. One thing about teaching these games is that I would prefer that they not go bankrupt in their first expedition into 18xx. So I end up having to help them in ways that I would not if I were playing against experienced players. I ended up with a poorly performing Illnois Central which I had to buy the Erie to help it out and the Erie didn't do that well either. In the meantime the New York Central owner won the game but only by $300 over the Grand Trunk owner. Neither of them owned two railroads. I'm beginning to wonder about the two railroad strategy....it's difficult to make it work in this game.

Tekopo
Oct 24, 2008

When you see it, you'll shit yourself.


1846 is actually the first game of 18XX I ever played and although I have some misgivings about it (the privates auction can screw you over quite substantially, and one of the privates, the MS, is overwhelmingly the best one), I do like it a lot. It really is a 1829-style game, in that you have to be a better engineer than a financier and usually having only one company, but a strong one, is a viable tactic. I even managed to make the C&O work, with tunnel-blasting and the C&WI, and I had an extremely strong early-game route, but unfortunately late game what I had wasn't great.

Mayveena
Dec 27, 2006

People keep vandalizing my ID photo; I've lodged a complaint with HR
Here is some discussion about the companies and the privates by Joe Huber, a friend who has played the game over 100 times:

quote:

Michigan Southern – cost, $140; can be bought in for up to $60; receives $60 and a 2-train, and runs as a minor company until purchased or closed. The Michigan Southern is perhaps the most valuable of the private companies, and thus has a correspondingly high cost - $80 of debt which cannot be recaptured. The benefits to the purchasing company are large, however – a token in Detroit, a 2-train, any remaining treasury in the Michigan Southern, and often an early, valuable route to Chicago. And the Michigan Southern makes good money for its owner, too – the dividends are split 50/50 between the minor company and its owner, and the company nearly always makes $60 on the first turn, and sometimes as much as $80 on the second turn. An additional option is available with the Michigan Southern; Detroit is very expensive to upgrade with a connection to Canada, and instead of heading West early, the company can build up its coffers and build a tunnel to Windsor instead. Overall, an excellent choice, and one I have a hard time passing up.

Big 4 – cost, $100; can be bought in for up to $40; receives $40 and a 2-train, and runs as a minor company until purchased or closed. On the whole, the Big 4 has the same disadvantages as the Michigan Southern, but fewer benefits. The token in Indianapolis is useful, offering quick routes to Cincinnati, Louisville, and Saint Louis, but Indianapolis isn’t itself as valuable as Detroit. And the less cash in the Big 4 generally limits the earnings for the company, to $40-$50 in the first couple of operating rounds. Valuable, but given the difference in price not in the same league as the Michigan Southern.

Mail Contract – cost, $80; can be bought in for up to $80; adds $10/stop to one train for the owning corporation; never closes. In 1846, as in most 18xx games, private companies eventually close. The Mail Contract, however, does not, and in fact becomes more and more valuable. However, the company brings no income until purchased, which has caused the group I most often play with to undervalue this private company. The advantage of the Mail Contract is simple – it can be bought in for more money than any other private company. The key, then, is extracting the full $80 for the mail contract; while the value to the company will pay off slowly, the additional money will quickly pay benefits.

Chicago & Western Indiana – cost, $60; can be bought in for up to $60; pays $10 per operating round to the owner; when purchased the purchasing railroad gets a bonus token in Chicago. This is a valuable company; once developed, Chicago is the most valuable city on the map, and this provides an opportunity to get in early and start building connections. And, it should be noted, also possibly close down one of the four paths into Chicago in the process, by building immediately towards the space East of Chicago. A very good private company, well worth considering as a first pick.

Lake Shore Line – cost, $40; can be bought in for up to $40; pays $15 per operating round to the owner; when purchased, the purchasing railroad may immediately upgrade the tile in either Cleveland or Toledo, making those cities more valuable. Of the three minor-line private companies (this plus the next two listed), this is easily my favorite. All three offer good income, but the Lake Shore Line easily offers the most valuable special ability, increasing the value of a city. It works well with any of the railroads near these cities – Grand Trunk, New York Central, Erie, Pennsylvania, or the Baltimore & Ohio. Overall, an excellent second private company, and worth considering as a first choice.

Ohio & Indiana – cost, $40; can be bought in for up to $40; pays $15 per operating round to the owner; when purchased, the purchasing railroad may immediately place two connected tiles in central Ohio. The tile lays are somewhat useful, but they don’t immediately get a company somewhere in most cases. Still, the income is great, so it’s a fine second private company.

Michigan Central – cost, $40; can be bought in for up to $40; pays $15 per operating round to the owner; when purchased, the purchasing railroad may immediately place two connected tiles in central Michigan. _If_ the game moves slowly, _and_ the owner of the Michigan Central owns the Grand Trunk railroad, this can be useful. As often as not, I tend to place two tight curves so as to make a Mickey Mouse ear. Still a fine second choice.

Tunnel Blasting Company – cost, $60; can be bought in for up to $60; pays $20 per operating round to the owner; when purchased, the purchasing railroad receives a discount on building through tunnels until the private companies close. And this explains, rather clearly, why my group undervalues the Mail Contract. The Mail Contract costs $80, gets $80 back to the owner (usually), and helps the owning company from that point forward. The Tunnel Blasting Company costs $60, gets $100 back to the owner if purchased in the second operating round, and gets the discount and $20/round into the owning railroad. In a slow game, the Tunnel Blasting Company is likely better, but most games I’ve played haven’t been slow (even when I’ve wanted them to be). Good company, but the special power really isn’t that interesting.

Meat Packing Company – cost, $60; can be bought in for up to $60; pays $15 per operating round to the owner; when purchased, the purchasing railroad receives a bonus token for either Chicago or Saint Louis which remains until late in the game. A very nice company – gets the owner most of what the Tunnel Blasting Company does, but with a far more useful special ability. If this can be turned into 3 or 4 runs out of Chicago – easy when combined with the Chicago & Western Indiana, or sometimes with the Big 4 – can be a game-changer. Excellent first pick, and unlike Michigan Southern leaves the owner with enough money for more interesting choices in starting companies.

Steamboat Company – cost, $40; can be bought in for up to $40; pays $10 per operating round to the owner; even before purchased, provides a token which increases the value of one of a number of cities by $20 or $40 until late in the game; the token is locked when purchased by a railroad. The Steamboat Company works exceptionally well with the Baltimore and Ohio, as it makes their home base worth $20 more than any other city in the early mid-game, and it’s easy to get three or four runs to use it. With any other company, it’s of much less value, and overall it’s generally a second private company rather than a first.

It’s also worth noting that, in generally, the time to buy in private companies is the second or even first operating round. There are exceptions – if the trains are being bought slowly, and with the right railroad, it can be worth waiting to buy in the Michigan Southern. And if heavily invested in private companies it’s sometimes necessary to put off the purchase of one until the third operating round. But it’s certainly something that should usually be done early, as that money is invaluable in the second stock round.



There are seven railroads in 1846, four of which are always in the game, with one, two, or three of the others available depending upon the number of players. These railroads play quite differently, and have different advantages and disadvantages.

Illinois Central – starts in Cairo, IL; receives one extra share of capitalization from the bank; may lay yellow track for free on five spaces in Illinois; may place a discounted token in Centralia, IL. Illinois Central has more special abilities than any of the other railroads, though the token in Centralia is rarely useful. The extra share of capitalization makes this a strong railroad, particularly when combined with Michigan Southern. It’s also nearly a must if looking to found two railroads in the initial stock round, because of the extra cash.

Grand Trunk – starts in Port Huron, MI; has one fewer token than other railroads. Grand Trunk is very well positioned for the early game, but is often cut off later, limiting the earnings and stock growth, due to the shortage of tokens. Works best, therefore, when combined with one of the private companies with a token; even with the Big 4, the Grand Trunk greatly improves its ability to create two effective late game runs.

New York Central – starts in Erie, PA. There is an inherent dichotomy in the New York Central; it can make more effective use of 2 trains than any other railroad, but purchasing more of them speeds their death. It’s very easy to create two routes to both Buffalo and Cleveland, which can give the railroad a hand up in creating two strong late game runs.

Baltimore & Ohio – starts in Wheeling, WV; may place a token in Cincinnati, at a premium if not connected, or at a discount if connected. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen B&O teleport to Cincinnati to start the game; I’m not sure why, as it’s a very reasonable strategy. Much of that is because of the strength of the combination of the B&O with the Steamboat Company; given that combination, B&O clearly wants to develop the Eastern side of the board.

Erie – starts in Salamanca, NY; may place a token in Erie, PA at a discount if connected. Erie is similar to the New York Central, but less valuable because of the need to place a token in Erie to take full advantage of the position.

Pennsylvania – starts in Homewood, PA; may place a token in Fort Wayne, IN at a discount if not connected, or a greater discount if connected; receives an extra token. A handy corporation, but can be a little hard to get started without a useful private company to mix with. Because of Homewood – worth a minimal amount for the whole game – wants the trains which allow cities to be skipped, but has to get tokens elsewhere to make this work (since at least one city counted in the run must have a token).

Chesapeake & Ohio – starts in Huntington, WV. While all six other railroads have their advantages, C&O is nearly always the last choice of railroads. It can be made to work with many private companies – but other railroads work better. It does offer exclusive access to an Eastern city – but a weaker one than any of the other railroads save Illinois Central (which starts out West, and has to work to make an Eastern connection). Avoid.

Tekopo
Oct 24, 2008

When you see it, you'll shit yourself.


I agree about the C&O: the problem with it is the late game routes, since otherwise it can run a double route from the red offboard near Cinci to Cinci with 2x2-trains that was raking in $200 per OR relatively early on, but the fact that both the IC and the B&O can do the same and they should have better end game routes (unless the IC gets shut out though) means that it isn't the best company to start. Still, I wanted to show my group that it was possible to make it run, since our groupthink was pretty negative about it.

Admin Understudy
Apr 17, 2002

Captain Pope-tastic
Got through our first full game of 1835. We ended up playing a variant that allows more freedom in the opening company selection. I ended up enjoying it a whole lot. It becomes a track laying game with huge importance on where the stations go down. It's neat how different it can play out...our first game we had all the trains purchased before the final 2 companies were available, and in this game every single company was sold before the 4 trains were gone.

Tekopo
Oct 24, 2008

When you see it, you'll shit yourself.


So this week's session I tried something different, 18GL. Based around the great lakes, this game is fairly standard but has a HUGE difference: until the very end, the trains you can get are not standard trains, but hex-trains! What are hex-trains? Well, instead of counting stations, you count hexes instead, scoring everything you manage to reach. It certainly makes the entire game slightly different.

I was the only one to start a company in the west in our 3 player game, which proved to be a major error, since I couldn't use the work of others in order to improve my network at the start and there weren't enough towns clustered together to take advantage of the hex trains. The other difference in the game is the creation of CONRAIL: it's only created if two or more companies have no trains once certain trains are bought. If only two companies merge, each CONRAIL share is worth 10%, but if three or more are merged, then they are only worth 5% per share: I somehow became the president of the company and it still managed to make a tidy profit.

We used some houserules since apparently there are a few bugs in the game, but it was still a lot of fun and I certainly want to try it again (with completely different strategies this time). These were to swap the order of the privates auction since the top one (it's an 1830-like auction) is actually really valuable as well as change the order of some of the trains as well or otherwise the E trains are worthless. Here's a pic of the end game, as per usual:

Tekopo
Oct 24, 2008

When you see it, you'll shit yourself.


Gonna get to play 18C2C this weekend. Will provide mega huge AAR and also pics of the end game.

Orvin
Sep 9, 2006




I have never actually played C2C, so I am interested in your report. Where are you going to play that has room for the giant board?

Tekopo
Oct 24, 2008

When you see it, you'll shit yourself.


It's a convention about an hour out of London: the planners already know about us so they will provide a large enough table. It's gonna be crazy. Will need to read the rules before Saturday but I should have enough time.

Tekopo
Oct 24, 2008

When you see it, you'll shit yourself.


Here's some pictures, AAR will be forth coming after I am slightly less tired than right now.
Eleven hours of game play in total:

Still early on in the game (3 hours in):





End game position (11 hours in):



East Coast:



West Coast:



More to come when I've had a chance to relax :P

Tekopo
Oct 24, 2008

When you see it, you'll shit yourself.


So, how about that 18C2C?

I kind of liked it, but my god it's a huge time investment and by the end I just wanted to get it over and done with. It's a lot about endurance and I suggest that if you do get a chance to play it, you have something to read/play with on the side because it might take up to half an hour for you to get your next turn. In the end, I enjoyed it simply because it did feel like a co-operative effort to build something and it was awesome to start with literally nothing and build this huge network of railways, building up America. There was something certainly rewarding about it from my end.

So, game details. We played a 7 player game, which I have to say was even slightly too much. We pretty much gathered everyone from our regular group to play it and we went to a convention outside London to do it (we reserved a table). We decided to play the D variant of the game: the main change is that instead of 6-8-10-12 trains, you replace them with 3D-4D-5D-6D, which only double cities in which you have a token (meaning that token placement is still very important). This certainly speeds up the game because you don't have to worry about finding long, intricate routes which we would have never managed to work out in time. It also makes mergers slightly easier, since you don't have to calculate as much. Other changes are how tokens are handled (if you par at 100 you get a bull token automatically), new privates, grey towns, changes to the board etc. One major game is how merger companies work, with shells causing two advances if both shells run trains, which considerably speeds up the rise of stock prices. All in all the changes are made to make the game run better, although they do have some important gameplay implications.

In terms of mechanism, 18C2C isn't too difficult, although it feels like it has a grab-bag of different features from different games. It has the same auction as 1830, although the privates are closer to 1870 (although some are also like 1830). Some of the privates affect the game deeply (like Mississippi Bridge Building and Colorado Engineers), while others are pretty much painted on and do nothing to the game at all. For example, cattle company, fishing and logging really do nothing: they add 10 to runs for a single city with a particular symbol, and that 10 is pretty much nothing in a game of this size. The mergers reminded me of 1861: although it isn't strictly necessary (especially in the non-D variant game), merging companies is almost necessary due to various advantages (being able to share tokens, being able to advance further up the stock market in the D variant).

One of the major advantages is that you can run a train in each merger shell, then shuffle one of the trains to a single company and force the other shell to buy a train: due to how much money you will get in hand, it's always worth doing this. Also, merging means that you have two companies that work under only one set of shares, which is necessary since the share limit decreases as the number of companies in the game decreases. Also, there is no limit to the number of shares you can have in a company, so buying out of hand is much easier if you have 90% of a company. This is helped by the fact that you can privatise, allowing you to get shares from your opponents for a cost. You can also internalise your shares back into your company, although very few people did this. Strangely enough, shares in the IPO pay into your company, which felt weird for a full capitalisation game and I got caught out by it. The effect of the above rules is that the game attempts to make the game more manageable by decreasing the number of single companies in the game.

Another rule is that when certain trains get bought, Amtrak/Conrail form, vacuuming up companies with no trains ala 1861 or 18GL. This didn't have too much of an effect on our game, really.

Now for the things I sort of disliked: first of all, there are things called bull tokens that allow you to place a token in a city that has slots filled already. It kind of made it easier to get into the 4 big cities (NY, San Francisco, New Orleans, Chicago) and since you have a limited number of these tokens it sort of works, but it means that pretty much everyone will have tokens in those cities (which is necessary to make big bucks in the D variant). The game has enough space and tile lays (you get a number of points of track building, with 2 points needed to upgrade), which means that any city in your way is usually bypassed, with the bigger worry being a tile being upgraded to something unfavourable to you. I guess there isn't much that can be done about this without making some of the companies way, way too strong, but I think this is a bigger problem in the D variant (although I don't think the normal game is playable in a day like the D variant is).

Another problem is the transcontinental bonus. It gives you a right shift on the stock market when you can make a run from the east to the west: with the way track building works, this is pretty much guaranteed so it basically adds nothing to the game, since every company will get this bonus easily.

One thing I liked, though, was destinations. Destinations allow you to run trains again if you get connected to your destination and have a train to run it, and it works well in making people join up cities that usually wouldn't get connected at all since they don't provide enough income.

Enough about rules, how did it actually go for me? Well, I started in the middle of the US with the Texas Pacific and it proved to be a BIG mistake. I was next to a few lettered cities (P cities) and i thought they became better at green: nope they only became better at brown, whoops. Also, I miscalculated my money and I could have started two companies at low cap instead of one at high cap: this created huge problems because two companies working together get a LOT more money than a single one since they can help each other develop routes. Also, my privates were pretty crappy, especially the cattle one. I pretty much thought I had it lost right at the start and there were still 10 hours to go. I managed to catch up by the end, though, although I never had a chance to win.

While people had 4 companies I struggled to open my second, at full cap price of course. I started the Katy and finally managed to pick up steam as my two companies complemented each other well. Someone started the Frisco and helped me build track as well which meant that by mid-game I was out of the gutter, although not completely. I did own 90% of my own company though when it merged, which meant that I was able to make good money in it. I also managed to normal token Chicago and New Orleans and bull token San Francisco, which meant that I wasn't in a bad position by the end of the game, although I didn't get a single company/token in the east, which meant I couldn't get the really big bucks.

In the end game I managed to get the Denver and Rio Grande which I then merged with the Milwaukee Road, which both had destinations to Seattle so they worked well together. I managed to get a respectable number of trains out there, but since my second merger didn't have tokens in the good cities, it couldn't run for very much.

I managed to go 5th out of 7th, which I think was alright for having had an awful start. All companies got made in the game (although the Amtrak didn't form) except for the two crappy companies in Florida that nobody wanted to start.

All in all I enjoyed the game, but I think this will be certainly a once-per-year thing since the game is so exhausting to play. A good time was had by all (except the guy that came in last that spent the entire game playing on his i-pod and didn't give a poo poo about the game at all).

silvergoose
Mar 18, 2006

IT IS SAID THE TEARS OF THE BWEENIX CAN HEAL ALL WOUNDS




Great AAR, lots of fun to read and see the state of the map.

Orvin
Sep 9, 2006




18c2c looks like it would be interesting to play once or twice. But it sounds like most 18xx games where you need a couple plays to be competitive. Did the game take so long because there were a lot of players, or because players were not thinking ahead? 30 minutes between turns seems a little extreme, but I don't really have much of a reference point.

If Deep Thought Games ever starts up production again, I have an order for 18West. I wonder if it plays similar to C2C, just without having to deal with the big money out East. Instead it looks like the Midwest is the big money area, but there looks to be a lot of incentives to build track east.

Tekopo
Oct 24, 2008

When you see it, you'll shit yourself.


I think the 30 minutes was mostly due to me having the highest and lowest stock price companies on the board, which meant an excessive amount of downtime for me. Also, it is important to do all your turns in advance, although this is not always possible.

I think it was a mixture of factors that made it take so long. We don't have anyone too AP prone in our group but there were stock rounds in which any single decision would have made a difference, so they tended to take a long time. I think with a lower number of players the game would go faster and would be more fun as well as everyone would have a higher stake within the game, instead of some people being clear forerunners.

I've asked my group about 18West but haven't heard good things about it. We have one guy in our group who is CRAZY About 18US and although I haven't tried it yet, the scale of it really doesn't appeal to me: the map just seems too small to really reflect the whole of the US.

Tekopo
Oct 24, 2008

When you see it, you'll shit yourself.


One last thing: Deep thought seems to be producing again, I checked my order and now it's down to 585 from 609. Hopefully the production speeds up.

Orvin
Sep 9, 2006




It's good to see that Deep Thought Games is producing again. I got the impression that it is a one man shop, and he only gets a handful of orders filled each week. My order is just over #500 in line currently, so I don't expect to hear anything until some time next year.

Tekopo
Oct 24, 2008

When you see it, you'll shit yourself.


There's apparently a new one coming out, which is why the queue doesn't appear to have gone down much even though the production has been ongoing. Can't remember which one though, although 1835 pops to mind.

Tekopo
Oct 24, 2008

When you see it, you'll shit yourself.


Alright, another weekend game of 18XX, one of the bigger ones that we can't fit in during the weekdays. This time it was 1822, which is currently a prototype (not by someone in our group, mind you, can't remember who actually designed it).

It's based in England and southern Scotland (Wales is just a big offboard), something refreshing since most of the current 18XX games set in England are very archaic and old fashioned (see 1829 or 1825). It brings to the table some very interesting mechanism that made the game as a whole very enjoyable. First of all, it has an innovative auction system. The game is partial cap as well.

Basically, there isn't only a single privates auction, with privates being available for sale in all the Stock Round within the game. The privates are also divided into three different kinds: Minor Companies, Private Companies and Concessions. In any given stock round only 4 minor companies, 3 private companies and 3 concessions can be bid on. Instead of buying shares in a major company (which are impossible to float in the first SR, since they have to wait until a specific train is bought before they can float), you can instead bid on any of the three types of privates, although you can't have more than a specific number of bids at once.

Minor companies float at half the price you bought them for and give you a 50% share within the company, with the other 50% always being part of the company. They can be folded in major companies when the major operates: you can exchange the minor company share for two major company shares, with the difference in price between the major/minor company being paid to you by the major or by you to the major (the can mean that you can go over the limit of 60% in one company, although you can never buy more than 60% otherwise). The only benefit of making a merger is that the major gets an extra token either in the home city of the minor or as a free token, which is actually more valuable than it sounds.

Private companies give special powers, they generally give revenue and can be bought by companies, but this is always done for 0 money, so you can't strip companies using them.

Concessions, of which there is one for every major railway, are the only way to start those railways at the start (once you reach phase 5 you can float majors in the normal way, although you have to get at least 50% to float them). They give 100 discount when you buy the presidency of that company and give a small revenue if the company is unfloated.

The implication of the above auction system is that two games are never the same: the minors and concessions could come out at completely different times, which means that no two games are going to be similar.

Some of the other rules present within the game are destinations, which for one train doubles per OR doubles the destination for that company, as well as always ensuring that the major company has a token in its destination. Also, majors have a limited number of tokens: they only get one home, one destination, one free token and three exchange tokens, the latter only being accessible when they merge a minor company (one token per minor).

Trains are L (which are 1+1 and are normally only bought by the minor companies), 2s, 3s, 4s, 5/5+ (plus trains ignore dot towns), 6/6+ and 7/E. E trains only count cities where you have a token (hence the importance of tokening up the larger cities), they have to have a legal route and they double their income, ignoring dot towns: also, the route the E takes can be used by other trains in that company.

All in all the game was very, very good and I think the auction system really adds to the longevity of the design, since every game will be different based on the minors that come out. The bank seems a tad small (I only got to run the E in my company once) and some of the town choices are weird (Newcastle, where I've lived, is a major center in the north of england and was important in the development of railways, but in the game it can't ever upgrade past a green 30 city).

Here's the pictures:



Admin Understudy
Apr 17, 2002

Captain Pope-tastic
We got in a few games of 1835 and have now switched to 1856 which is way more enjoyable. 1835 is a pretty neat experience but 1856 is a beast. With every 18xx, I keep taking a picture of the initial setup once we get done with the first operating round but forget to take a picture from the end before we start cleaning up so I don't have much to go on for an AAR.

Our 4th player was out sick this week but luckily was probably the most experienced with the game so it gave 2 of us a chance to check it out as a learning experience. I felt a new level of nerdom with this game...you know how in Dominion when sometimes you want to forgo strategy and just buy one of every card to play with all the new toys? I felt like that with the train companies. So many of them and I could see a bunch of little tricks each one could play with, but of course you can't buy every company.

I ended up playing way too conservatively and did not plan well enough around the capitalization of the CGR and simultaneously the 6 train rush. I had 2 companies I was pushing ahead and instead of dropping one I slowed way down to keep both going. While I came in 2nd place in the end, I went into the last operating round with severely less cash on hand than either other player.

Tekopo
Oct 24, 2008

When you see it, you'll shit yourself.


I generally haven't heard overwhelmingly good things about 1856 but I'd still like to give it a shot since it's been missing from the games I play. Recently I have played 18Mex, 4 player this time. Still love the game, it was a really tight game where three of us were in contention for the lead and I just screwed because the person that wasn't dumped his own company into the yellow and I had already sold their shares that SR. The final scores, though, were like 5000, 4800, 4700 (me in 4700) thanks to me managing to keep the game going for another SR, making them dump their extra shares and allowing me to dump the share price of their company. Still, an awesome game:



I also played a three player game of 18Neb. I really like this little game, it adds some interesting dilemmas that aren't present in other games. You want to scoop up small towns thanks to the + trains but doing so places you in danger of being tokened out because it's so easy to upgrade those towns into cities. The minor companies also work pretty well and I like the fact that token placement is very important, especially in the west where there are a few key towns that you really need to token in order to get a good east/west route:

Tekopo
Oct 24, 2008

When you see it, you'll shit yourself.


Managed to get some more games this week/last weekend, just Mex, Neb and 46 so I won't bother putting up picks. Mex was close as always: we managed to break the group-think that the NdeM always won and now we have a clearer idea of which companies are strong/not strong. I was kind of pissed because one of the players decided to really screw me over by not getting a 3 which meant I couldn't get out of my initial area since I couldn't upgrade/build any more track. Still, it was very close at the end and everyone had fun.

Neb was very fun again, I like this one more and more although I seem to be bad at partial capitilisation game. 46 was alright: I started the Grand Trunk and was last by a long shot, I never seem to do well with this game.

Orvin
Sep 9, 2006




I forgot to take pictures, but I played a game of 18EU and 1861 yesterday. Both were 3 players, and I came in second in both games.

In 1861, I got three of the private companies, and another player got the other two. This turned into a big mistake on my part, as it left one player with all his starting cash. We didn't try to get him to spend more of his money on minor companies, so by the time the time the Russian State railway formed he had 6 of the minor companies to my 4, and the other player had 3. The lead player ended up giving 3 minors to the Russian state, but there was no way he was going to be able to hold on to all of them. I think my best move was to get the first 6 train a little early (I had to buy a single share in my lead company, instead of two shares of other players companies). This caused the death of the last two minors. One was in position to grow into a public company but the player wasn't paying attention. The other minor wasn't quite far enough on the stock market to do so.

18EU always gives me a little bit of trouble because I play with people who have been playing it for a really long time. So I have a hard time figuring out when to grab a company when the bidding is going in the reverse direction. I did manage to get 5 of the minor companies, but I didn't run them well enough the first set of rounds to have $300 in hand to make a public company at $100 par. The only thing that kept me in the game because of that error is that the lead player had $390, and was only able to buy an extra share of my company. This gave it enough cash to buy two of the 3 trains when it operated (the same as the other companies). I eventually had 3 public companies running, and did a fairly decent job with them. I got really lucky with how the permanent trains came out in that I only had to pay half and stay in place with a single company. The other players had 1 or 2 companies that went backward due to no train in the company. In the end, I lost to first place by only $260. A pretty close game.

Admin Understudy
Apr 17, 2002

Captain Pope-tastic
Got through another 1856. To any of you who have played it before how much should the Great Lakes Shipping Company go for? It seems like a terrible advantage getting that one for any reasonable cost as any of GW, CA, or LPS can begin hitting that 20 pointer bonus twice, GW being the clear lead. We learned the hard way not to let someone ever get Great Lakes shipping and GW together as they can start off running for almost 15 when every other company is at best half that.

My quick observation is that it should be bid high enough so that the purchaser cannot afford a third share in their starting company and therefore cannot buy a second train to start.

Tekopo
Oct 24, 2008

When you see it, you'll shit yourself.


That's what I like about auction-style privates because it means that you can balance the game based on what the strategies within your group are. It's one of the reasons why I mildly dislike 1846, since the privates are selected in turn order and there are ones which are quite obviously better than others.

I've played 18MEX and 18Neb recently, no pictures because I am guessing that they are getting slightly old hat within this thread. Surprisingly, 18MEX seems to be getting better as we play it more: we managed to escape our original group-think phase and people are now having successful games with the Mexican Central, which originally we thought was awful. The NdeM which we originally thought was unbeatable has progressively become worse as all the players get more experienced with the game, mostly due to the fact that hardly any companies ever seem to fold in on it. I'm currently eager to try a new strategy in which the Tex-Mex works in conjuction with the A minor in order to quickly boost it's revenue and use the extra money to create an east-southern route into Mexico City, which would mean that it wouldn't need to rush for the town north of Mexico City.

'Neb, as fun as it is, has entered the group-think stage unfortunately. There seem to be only 4 viable companies in the game, those being the Union Pacific, the Denver and Rio Grande, the Colorado and one of the Missouri/Burlington/Northern Chicago. The Burlington especially needs to be careful early on, since if it doesn't token Omaha quickly it's almost dead in the water. Missouri hardly ever gets started (although it can have good routes depending on if it starts early) and the northern chicago can potentially get started if good northern routes develop, but it's shut out of the west if it starts too late (a problem the D&RG does not have, making it an ideal second company). It's still a good game, but we are starting to get into the 'you must do THIS to succeed' stage with it.

What are your feelings about group think? Do you find it beneficial within the game or do you prefer that 'new game' feel in which no one is quite sure of what you are meant to do?

Orvin
Sep 9, 2006




Groupthink is generally not a good thing. If every thinks a particular way to win is the only way, the games will get very stale quickly. It is then no longer a full 18xx game, you are then only playing the initial couple of rounds to see who gets to the target strategy first. After some gets those combination of companies, you might as well call the game at that point and play something else.

I think that may be why I am lucky with the group I play 18xx games with. There are enough people that it isn't the same people playing the same games. This mixes things up and tends to reduce the groupthink. There are a few games that are not played anymore, but I think it is more due to flaws in the design than groupthink.

Of course, some companies in 18xx games are going to be better, and some are going to be worse. I don't think that falls into groupthink, as there are usually ways to either hinder a generally good company, or at the very least tag along for the ride.

Tekopo
Oct 24, 2008

When you see it, you'll shit yourself.


Yeah, generally my group is the same 3-5 people. We do play new things so at least we have a bit of variety: I've been pushing 1844 that I know you didn't seem to like, but my nationality almost requires me to play it. I really want to play 1841 for the same reason, but my group really seemed to dislike the game since it's apparently overly complex.

I think groupthink is pretty much inevitable if you play the same game enough times. Of course, it is possible to win with pretty much any company in a game if you play your cards right: I actually think groupthink results from an inability to devise new strategies. The usual timeline is that at first you don't know any strategies, then the most obvious ones come to the fore and due to their relative simplicity are the ones that lead to groupthink scenarios. I do feel, however, that some games suffer from this more than others. Good examples of this are games in which a few companies are obviously superior to others, to a degree in which other strategies will pale in comparison. This is especially true in game that have a few, important towns. It's one of the reasons why I like MEX, it doesn't have any town which is overwhelmingly better than others.

silvergoose
Mar 18, 2006

IT IS SAID THE TEARS OF THE BWEENIX CAN HEAL ALL WOUNDS




This 4 day convention I'm going to has seriously 4+ games of 18xx being played every day. Two at a time sometimes. What is wrong with you people.

Mayveena
Dec 27, 2006

People keep vandalizing my ID photo; I've lodged a complaint with HR

silvergoose posted:

This 4 day convention I'm going to has seriously 4+ games of 18xx being played every day. Two at a time sometimes. What is wrong with you people.

Where/when?

blackmongoose
Mar 31, 2011

DARK INFERNO ROOK!

silvergoose posted:

This 4 day convention I'm going to has seriously 4+ games of 18xx being played every day. Two at a time sometimes. What is wrong with you people.

I know GenCon has that kind of frequency; I didn't know there were other cons with that much 18xx activity

silvergoose
Mar 18, 2006

IT IS SAID THE TEARS OF THE BWEENIX CAN HEAL ALL WOUNDS




It's a small (100 or so tops) invite only convention, eastern MA, but there's like ten people who when not trying out the new games and whatever seem to always be playing 18xx. I saw 1856, 18Neb, 18FL, and 1812 played yesterday.

It's just funny to me, is all. Usually have a laptop set up for bookkeeping and poker chips for the money.

Tekopo
Oct 24, 2008

When you see it, you'll shit yourself.


Why try out new games when 18XX are Objectively More Fun? :v:

To be fair, if I have a choice between 18XX and anything else, I'll usually go 18XX, unless I really want to play some of my wargames. One of the many reasons why I didn't go to Essen this year was because the upcoming board games didn't really appeal to me that much.

It's kind of weird because I was really sceptical of trying out 18XX because I had decided to hate the entire train-genre as a whole due to trying out Age of Steam and hating it, but now that I got into them I can honestly say that I can't wait to reach Tuesday nights, since that's my usual 18XX night.

Tekopo
Oct 24, 2008

When you see it, you'll shit yourself.


Anyone interested in taking a slot in our 1830 pbem game. We are a fair way into the game and the guy who left is not actually in a bad position. Let me know if you are interested!

Tekopo
Oct 24, 2008

When you see it, you'll shit yourself.


Played another game of Neb and managed to win this time! I started well, managing to get three 2 trains with the CSR which gave me a huge starting cash advantage, even though I got completely shut out until the 5/7 was bought since I hadn't secured my route out. When I got out though I managed to get tokens in all the right places (Denver, Omaha etc).

Things that I managed to do well were:
- Obviously getting those three 2 trains (I was making 2 times as much money as everyone else)
- Getting tokens in Omaha and Denver and securing two east to west.
- Being thrifty with privates, buying it out for the maximum (105).
- Buying the right trains (5/7 are excellent and I bought a 4D easily due to partial cap).

And the picture:

Tekopo fucked around with this message at 01:06 on Nov 15, 2012

Tekopo
Oct 24, 2008

When you see it, you'll shit yourself.


Played a game of 1860 recently, which is based around the Isle of Wight (a relatively large island in the southern coast of England). It was pretty weird, since there are loads of strange rules: you can buy to 100% and sell a company down to 0% even if no one else has enough shares to take it over, if you lack a train, you 'borrow' a train of the correct size and get a set amount of money until you can buy it back, companies have different initial cap ranges, regular track can't be upgraded past yellow (although dots can be), dots are either halts or towns. I'll post some pictures I took later on and I actually managed to get a copy myself for cheap. About the only problem with the game is that the start is very, very slow (usually only two companies float, they are always the same companies and you need to wait until other people have money (which means several ORs) before the game really picks up. Fun, but weird.

Mayveena
Dec 27, 2006

People keep vandalizing my ID photo; I've lodged a complaint with HR
One nice thing about 1860 is that it's the only 18xx that's relatively easy to get that plays well with two players. A two player game is pretty competitive and fun. Doesn't last too long either.

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Tekopo
Oct 24, 2008

When you see it, you'll shit yourself.


Yeah, from the looks of it it doesn't look too bad as a 2p game. It's a shame that it's so unlike anything else available since otherwise it would make a nice introductionary game.

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