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1830: Railways and Robber Barons came into the mail today, despite me not even getting 1856 to the table yet. I guess I wanted to get the game that started the railroad dickery, and didn't have an added ruleset about the Canadian Government.... Here's my question: should I even bother with the starter game for 1830, or just man up and go straight into the main game? It seems to me I should do the latter considering all there is to the starter game is the tile-laying as opposed to the actual stock management that makes 18XX what it is.
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Dec 29, 2012 03:21
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Trynant posted:1830: Railways and Robber Barons came into the mail today, despite me not even getting 1856 to the table yet. I guess I wanted to get the game that started the railroad dickery, and didn't have an added ruleset about the Canadian Government.... Depends on who you are playing with and how much you care about losing. If you are playing with enthusiastic newbies who will trust the game and not mind losing, then the full game is fine. Otherwise the starter game is better. If you are a gamer, then you shouldn't have a lot of issues with the actual 1830 rules, but the game play is not that closely related to the rules, if that makes sense. You can do a lot of things that the rules don't really discuss (although they are certainly legal) and if people don't understand that, then there can be a lot of fussing and whining.
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Dec 29, 2012 05:26
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I'd say to jump in the deep end and go for the full rules but then again I usually hate playing games that only use part of the rule. Still, it really matters on your group, but if I remember last time I played the new edition of 1830, the rules were awful and playing the beginner version won't help to know how to play the main version all that much and might actually confuse matters since some of the rules might be slightly different than in the full version eg the initial auction for privates.
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Dec 29, 2012 09:05
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We started the new year with 1830. This is the first 18xx I've won in my group. I started with NYNH and the two lowest privates. I pushed hard to get NYC as well and opened it lower than I wanted but snatched that up before other players had the chance. I blocked off Boston and was subsequently blocked off from the southern part of the map myself, but NYNH and NYC both hitting the New York tile 3 times a piece gave me a nice cash advantage and the diesel rush hurt me the least. I do however attribute it in part to the more experienced players taking each other out a bit.
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Jan 5, 2013 11:17
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That reminds me of the game of 18MEX that I had where we got someone new to try out the game (3 player). Me and the other experienced guy were so busy screwing each other over that the newbie actually managed to win. Really want to play 18MEX again (some of you might know that it's my current favourite game), there's something new I want to try in it to see if it works. This weekend I might get a chance to play a game of 1880/1861 or the good old reliable 1846. I like them all, although I've only played 1861 once since the large number of minor companies can be daunting for people. 1880 is my favourite weekend game so far, mostly due to the different ways it can develop, it truly is a well developed game. Recently I tried 1895 Namibia, since the group split into two groups of 3 and Namibia is apparently designed for 3 players (the other group played 18GL, which I'm not a huge fan of). The game is half partial cap, in that you need 60 to float but the other shares are handled like partial cap. There's only one private in the game and there are things called obligations: they are basically destinations but they allow you to prevent someone else from getting the president share of a company when it is originally being floated. Once you destinate, you receive an extra share in that company as well. Companies need to open in a set order within the game, which is kind of weird since the third company is not all that good so one player feels disadvantaged. The game uses Hex trains, which means that you actually don't want a lot of 2H trains because they are crap (although dirt cheap, only 40 a pop). Green is reached on 4H instead of 3H as well, which is frankly weird. I came last but I had fun, it's a pretty easy game to play with not many special rules. Would like to try it again now that I know more about it. No pics this time because I forgot.
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Jan 10, 2013 12:28
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Looks like my group is going to try 18West, anyone here given it a go?
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Jan 17, 2013 18:47
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I haven't played 18West, but I do have an order for a copy in with Deep Thought Games. It definitely looks interesting to play, but it also looks to have a lot of dead time as the railroads build to the west coast. It's too bad that I am 400+ in line at DTG, as I would like to get some new 18XX games into the mix with my group. I did recently play a game of 18Mex and came in 3rd out of 4. I was expecting to come in dead last because I made some pretty serious mistakes early with my first company. We were playing with an optional addon that adds a ferry route to a city on the Baja Peninsula. It also has a private company that lets you drop a token in the new city for free, which doesn't need to be connected. I messed up twice with that private, first I didn't buy it in during the 2 phase (this private specifically allows that), and second, dropping the free token doesn't count as the normal token placement for the turn. I got blocked out of the mainland from there because I didn't use my normal token lay on a turn. I got really lucky when the merger round started that I was able to get rid of that early company by merger. This forced one of the other players to essentially by two 4D trains mostly out of pocket. This allowed me to jump ahead of him in the ranking.
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Jan 17, 2013 20:40
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Yeah I'm like 540 in line, gonna have 18Mex in about 2 years time, yay. What's your opinion on 18Mex? I would almost call it my favourite but many people don't seem to like it.
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Jan 17, 2013 21:07
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I think I need to play 18Mex a couple more times to get a good feel of it. I initially didn't like it, but having played it again recently, I do think it is growing on me. The limit of 1 train an OR does keep a lid on crazy train purchases that I never see coming. I do think that unevenness of the various companies can give more experienced players an advantage, but that isn't very unique to 18Mex. I also need to try the game a few times without that addon I referenced before. I think it makes for a pretty big change, as it turns a coastal city into a 30/50 city that becomes somewhat important in the mid game.
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Jan 17, 2013 21:24
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I think a lot of companies become more viable the more experience you are with the game. The Tex-Mex is actually surprisingly viable if you have the A minor, as is the Mex Central with the B. The Yucatan and FCP tend to be the two worst, though.
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Jan 17, 2013 21:32
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Apparently Deep Thought Games has been making a ton of games for the Chatanooga 18xx con this weekend and after the con, games should be moving up through the queue. I thought I'd get 1889 when it's finally my turn.
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Jan 18, 2013 01:31
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Hello 18XX'ers. I played my very first 18XX game, in this case the reprint of 1830! I was playing at a convention, and I liked it enough the first time I played it I pretty much pushed a second play of the game on the very next day. The game did leave me with a nagging question: how long does a newbie game of 18XX play out usually? It seemed like our game was never going to end, and I ended up quitting early simply because the convention center was closing. Admittedly, we were doing the game sans calculator, and I'm pretty sure that was a terrible mistake. Where does a game of 1830 usually end, i.e. how far past buying Diesels does a game stretch on? And I would like to note even though the game was LONG, 1830 was absolutely a great experience and I can't wait to get it on the table again (or maybe 1856).
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Jan 21, 2013 22:55
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I have no idea how long it takes to play a newbie only game of 18XX because all of my games have been with experienced player that play the game every week and if we do get a newbie, he usually knows most of the rules beforehand and/or the experienced players can teach and keep the game flowing. We usually clock most games at 3 hours (give or take half an hour) so I'm surprised that it too you so long, but then again we are all familiar with the game and the decisions we make. After Diesels the game usually lasts one or two more ORs before the bank is broken and I can't see it going more than that. Also, when you are more experienced, you usually reach a point where nobody's route can possibly get any better than they already are so instead of going through a full OR you just multiply the dividends by the number of ORs, which make the last few ORs not last that long. Also, newbies are reluctant to train rush, I find, while experienced players will force the game onwards by train rushing pretty much constantly. 1830 with experienced players WILL mean that at least one player goes bankrupt, which is why we don't usually play it anymore.
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Jan 22, 2013 00:24
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Has anyone had a chance to play 1817? I used to game with the designer, but I was on a gaming hiatus for three years and when I got back, found out he quit playing anything other than 18xx and thus doesn't really mingle with anyone from my old group, therefore I haven't been able to try it. I have heard a lot of great things, that the short-selling mechanic brings it to a whole different level, but would be interested in getting additional opinions. Any thoughts?
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Jan 22, 2013 10:01
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I haven't tried it yet but I think my group has talked about it in the past: I'll ask them tonight (tuesday is my 18XX night) and see what they say. Isn't 18NY also in the same general area? Also, sometime this month I might get to try a custom design by one of the players of our group: it's based in England (same general area as the very good 1822, which is still in the prototype stage I believe). He hasn't tried designing games before so I'm not sure how it'll turn out.
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Jan 22, 2013 10:51
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Lorini posted:Apparently Deep Thought Games has been making a ton of games for the Chatanooga 18xx con this weekend and after the con, games should be moving up through the queue. I thought I'd get 1889 when it's finally my turn.
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Jan 22, 2013 11:09
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Coming off my first victory a couple weeks ago I now went bankrupt for the first time in an 18xx in our latest game of 1830. The lesson I took away is NEVER pass up a chance to buy a 5 train. I read a lot of strategy tips saying to save B&O for your 2nd company, but I can't figure out how that's supposed to work. It seems like it always gets stolen by another player.
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Jan 22, 2013 14:10
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I feel that the B&O should be used to get a quick buck and then either dumped on anyone that wanted in on the gravy train or just use it to get a cheapish permanent train. I think if you wait too long it gets shut out of every good place near it.
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Jan 22, 2013 14:17
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Tekopo posted:Any news on this? I might add to my order when it's finally my turn because waiting this long for a game means that I'd rather get all I want in one big order (although that means that I'll have to pay quite a lot in tax). I've got 18FL and 18MEX on order atm, has anyone tried 18Scan or any of the other games? Nope haven't heard anything additional, I'll post when I do.
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Jan 22, 2013 15:37
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Tekopo posted:Any news on this? I might add to my order when it's finally my turn because waiting this long for a game means that I'd rather get all I want in one big order (although that means that I'll have to pay quite a lot in tax). I've got 18FL and 18MEX on order atm, has anyone tried 18Scan or any of the other games? 18Scan is great for 3 players, which is nice as there aren't too many good solid smaller games out there. It has 3 minors into a state railway, partial cap, and 18EU style simple track. The unique aspects are offboard locations that take tokens for extra value and a mine that gets extremely valuable in the green phase, then loses value in the brown phase. I'd say it's definitely worth checking out if you often have a small number of experienced players and want a good game for that situation.
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Jan 22, 2013 16:22
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What other fast playing but relatively complex games are there for 3-4 players? We usually play on week days so we don't have a whole lot of time and usually fall back on '46, 'MEX or 'Neb.
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Jan 22, 2013 16:38
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Have you played 18EU? The game is pretty good with 3 players, and once everyone knows it, it is one of the shorter 18xx games. To me, the hardest part of it is getting the various minor companies for the right value. The auction is a little weird in that all the companies start at 100, even though most of the minors are not actually worth that much. So it is this odd auction where as people pass it gets slowly cheaper until someone gets to buy it outright.
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Jan 22, 2013 18:20
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Can't say I have, but my group has talked about trying it out since they have played it before but not with me. Might try to push for it more but I still want to try 1844 and 1841, even though they are problematic in terms of rules.
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Jan 22, 2013 18:24
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Alright, so I gave 18West a try finally and even though we played it wrong (you can't issue shares until the 4 train hits, otherwise the early rush is way too much) I really, REALLY liked it. The basis of it is that you have land grant, which get money in the company by laying track until they connect to their destination, upon which they place a doubling token when they reach there. There are public companies, but they are good later on because instead of getting a doubling token, you get a bypass token, which is good because there aren't many routes out east and the contest for tokens is very punitive. The game has a very good feel to it as you aim to connect up you land grants at the start and then once the route is established there's almost no further track placement east to west but there's a lot more development in the mid-west and east coast, which feels historical. It has a few weird rules apart from that but nothing too bizarre. We will probably play it properly next week and I'm really looking forward to it, will probably add it to my order when it comes up in 5 years time :S
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Jan 30, 2013 23:50
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I am interested to hear how a proper game of 18West went. Just to keep in the back of my mind for when my order comes up in like 4 years.
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Feb 6, 2013 23:18
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18West played properly was still good. We had 4 this time so the game was very different since you could invest more in your company at the start and make sure that you had a 2. I played the Northern Pacific and went with two granger roads: In retrospect I should have made sure to get two 2-trains maybe at the start, although I don't know how viable this was. I was raking in the dosh at the start but I over-invested in my own company (I prefer full cap to partial tbh) so I didn't have enough money by the end to buy a 4D without emergency train buying, which knocked about 400 off my shares alone. I came last in the end, but it was a fairly close game. I really like the game since there seem to be many ways to win: invest in the granger roads early, or get a land grant, or a mixture of both, with most of the strategies having both weaknesses and merits. Overall, a pretty good game.
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Feb 7, 2013 21:37
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 My queue position at DTG went from 544 to 543(since it's been stuck at 544 for the past 3 months or so, I'm hoping this means production has started again)
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Feb 8, 2013 02:35
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How long did your games of 18West take? It sounds like I will probably keep it in my order. In other news, some that I occasionally play with got a copy of 1817 at a convention a couple weeks ago. 1817 is apparently the next game with a lot of hype behind it. From what I understand, it focuses a lot more on the stock market portion if the game. You can short sell shares of a company that you think is going to go out of business. There is also liquidations and mergers of companies to buy their tokens and/or trains. I have heard that companies don't start with many tokens, and routes are easily closed off if you are not careful. I am looking forward to giving it a try, but it probably won't be for a couple of weeks.
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Feb 8, 2013 06:04
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We managed to go through it relatively fast even with 4 players, about 2-3 hours at most, the three player game that was also playing it took longer than that but they had to explain the game to a newbie. Also, order down to 540, looks like DTG IS back into production, thank god. Along with 18MEX and 18FL I'm thinking of adding 18West and 18Scan.
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Feb 10, 2013 12:55
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We had another game of West, which makes it 3 weeks in a row and surprisingly we haven't got bored of it yet. We have gone past the initial analysis stage and found some of the better strategies but the game hasn't broken down yet (like 1843(?) in South Australia did). We have all decided that the strongest company in the game is the Texas Pacific: it destinates in San Diego, which can go 60 in brown and can also run an east-west with a 2 train: as well as that, it can easily get two east-west routes both going to San Diego. Since the token in its destination doubles the value of the town and east-west bonus makes you double a single town, this means that with regular trains San Diego is worth up to 240. Keep in mind that there are 4D trains in this game and you realise that it is possible to get absolutely ridiculous payouts at the later stages of the game: this is definetely a game where getting one train is easy, but you only win if you manage to get two trains in your company in the end game. Also, found a copy of 1870 on e-bay, hopefully I actually get it so that me and my group can try it out.
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Feb 14, 2013 11:19
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I will definitely be interested to see how games of 1870 go for you. I wonder how much of the strategies my group uses are valid versus groupthink. One potential word of warning, everyone in my group refuses to play three player 1870. I have never attempted it, but supposedly the game breaks down somehow with that number of players. If you want any thoughts on some initial strategies, let me know.
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Feb 14, 2013 11:55
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Oh, another thing about about West, it seems to work best with 4, 3 player gave too much money to people and although the game is playable with 5, you are really tight on money early on.
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Feb 14, 2013 13:06
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Tekopo posted:Oh, another thing about about West, it seems to work best with 4, 3 player gave too much money to people and although the game is playable with 5, you are really tight on money early on. 1870 is the same way with 5 players. It makes it a little slow to start, but it does tend to make for some varied games. With 5 players (and sometimes 4 depending on the private auction), one or two players have to start out as investors and buy 1 or two shares to help get companies off the ground. This usually works out okay for the investor, as they dump the shares after 3-4 ORs when the stock price has increased over Par value. Remember that in 1870, IPO shares pay dividends into the company, so having extra shares in the open market is not a good thing.
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Feb 14, 2013 14:43
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18West is also partial capitilisation, but due to the way that it works, you never really need to take the investor role. You either start a Land Grant, which get money when they build track and you usually only get the president's share at 20% of the company: 30% pays dividens directly into the company while the remaining 50% is locked out until the Land Grant destinates, upon which the remaining 50% of shares start paying directly into the company and apart from the doubling token, the company now opperates like a bog-standard corporation with partial capitalisation. Otherwise, you can get a Granger Road. Granger Roads are minor railways in the east: they only have one token and can only build yellow/green track in a defined area in the east. When you float them, you pay twice the cap and get 50% of the company, with the remaining 50% paying directly to the company (this 50% cannot be bought by you or anyone else). It's therefore possible to start Granger Roads at a cap of 50, pay 100 to float the Granger Road and then buy a single 2 train (which is usually the only thing they can run at the start). The problem with Granger Roads is that they can't emergency train buy, so if you don't have a train in them you either shuffle trains from another company or just let the Granger Road die. It's also possible to merge Granger Roads into corporations, which gives you the choice to swap your president certificate in the Granger Road for 0, 1 or 2 shares of the company you are merging, with either you paying the difference in share price to the company or the company paying the difference to you depending on how many compensation shares you decided to take. Overall, this usually means that even with a low amount of money, you don't have to resort to investing. You will usually have enough money to take 20% of a Land Grant (you don't really need to protect yourself because it's unlikely that someone will have the capital to take 30% AND be any to start anything else), which, from our games, usually costs 140-180 depending on what you set the cap at, you start a Granger Road at 50 cap (which costs you 100) for around 240-280 total. The money in a 5 player game is 300: the rest of the money is usually used for bidding in the auction phase (this auction is not present within the original rules but included in the errata, and it's a simple auction in which a player chooses a specific Granger Road/Land Grant/Corporation and then people bid on it in order to gain the President share).
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Feb 14, 2013 15:05
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I had read through the rules in 18West, but I don't think I realized that there were no true private companies in the game. Just a bunch of minor railroads you have the option of starting. Some notes about 1870 to keep in the back of your head. 1. There are two grey tiles (St. Louis and Kansas City), but they become available when 6 trains are bought, not the usual 8 or D trains in most other games. 2. 5 trains are not permanent, but they don't rust until a 12 train is bought. With four 5-Trains, three 6-Trains, two 8-Trains, and two 10-trains, that is 11 total trains that need to be bought before a 12 train has to be purchased. If players let it happen, the 12-Trains will not come out. This is usually good for whoever has the 5-Trains. It can take a little work to get that first 12 train (extra withholding or cash from hand), but it is usually worth it to force the companies with only 5-trains into a forced train purchase. 3. There are way more certificates available than people have room to buy. This is a game where starting another company with the express intent of withholding until the train is in the yellow can be a very good idea. You use this yellow company to fund trains for the forward company. The bonus is the yellow shares don't count against the stock limit, so you should make sure to be in the yellow before the next stock round to allow you to buy up more good shares. But don't neglect other people's yellow shares. They may not be paying out now, but at the end of the game, the payouts from the final 3 ORs can be a nice little boost at no penalty to your stock limit. Point #3 also leads back to point #2. To keep the company in the yellow, you sometimes have to withhold or pay half late in the game even though you don't need any more trains. This can lead to enough money that you move the train off that company and only have to pay a couple hundred out of hand for the 12-Train.
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Feb 14, 2013 17:13
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in terms of length, 1870 is a weekend only game, right? I can't see us finishing it in 3-4 hours like for our weekday games.
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Feb 14, 2013 17:25
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1870 is one of the longer games. Once everyone knows what's going on and is familiar with it, I think 4 hours is about right including setup and takedown. But your first games are going to be a bit longer.
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Feb 14, 2013 20:52
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Have some pictures: 1860:  18West (Latest game, I had the Southern Pacific and Texas Pacific at the start):   Keen eyed among you might have notice the lack of non-brown non-city track: there isn't any. Really keen-eyed among you might have noticed we used two traight tracks as turns: well, you aren't supposed to run out of curves, but you can. Really REALLY keen-eyed might have noticed that there isn't a single sharp turn except for the green track Hecht-type junctions.
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Feb 15, 2013 22:06
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In 18West, is there tight yellow turns? Was it just coincidence that you didn't need any? I think not having brown regular track tends to speed up the endgame a bit. The only other game I know like that is 1880, and it doesn't have the drawn out ending as people try to get an extra couple of dollars a run. I played 1856 (Canada), and the game kinda dragged on at the end as a couple of us tried to maximize our diesel runs. I think if I play it again, I will make sure we play with the variant where final trains are 8-Trains instead.
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Feb 15, 2013 22:48
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The game intentionally has no tight yellow turns: this makes it difficult to connect the north-west to San Fran since there's also no peace-sign green stations. I think it's done to prevent Land Grants from doing ridiculous windy routes, which otherwise would be plenty viable and pretty stupid.
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Feb 15, 2013 23:03
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