18xoxo

Disclaimer: I am no 18xx expert, by far. I have by now quite a few games under my belt, but most of them spread out across different titles, as I love to explore new things. Still, as there's usually little information on all the different 18xx games, I would like to provide some insight into how the game felt (to me) and what made it special.

Intro:

18USA has become one of my all-time favourite 18xx games. Playing it for the first time was an eye-opener, and even though sometimes I have a hard time committing myself for a 10hour session when the opportunity comes up (rarely enough), when I actually do it I enjoy every minute of it.

Naturally, I started researching if there are shorter variants for it to get a similar experience in a shorter period. And there are! As also mentioned in my initial 18USA review, besides 18Hiawatha, I know of:

• 1877: Venezuela
• 1817WO
• 1817NA

The first hasn't been published or finished its development, and my first contact with it went very poorly. The second, I have no interest in because of its abstract map. And the third one I had no chance trying out, but is listed as still taking 6+ hours.

Since it was also available on 18xx.games, trying out 18Hiawatha was easy, and a first online live session went well and was super quick. So, after we got our yearly 18USA fix at our last 18XX Franken Convention, our monthly 18XX group was ready to try out 18Hiawatha during our next session. This impression is based on that, and my 2 online playthroughs.

📋 What's the game about?

Generally speaking, we do very similar things than in 1817/18USA. You start companies, evaluate all of them, and try to leverage the money you get by shorting overrated companies by investing it in better companies. The big changes are:

• The endgame is triggered when the first 4-trains are purchased. This means the 3-trains are already permanent and the playtime is around four hours, although this could be less for faster players.
• 2-share companies don't exist, and everything can be shorted directly after the company started. Yes, that means shorting starts in the first Stock Round!
• Trains are always bought for face value (bye bye train shuffling).

Given these changes, did we get what we were looking for?

🛤️ The Map

The map shows the region from Milwaukee in the north to Chicago in the south. There are offboard-connections in all corners/sides of the map, while the values change greatly.

Additional points of interest are the Milwaukee-tile in the North, which is a grey tile that gets a second token spot in green (+60 value) and also is the destination for 2 connection bonuses. One of those can be achieved with a 3-train, the other requires a 4-train. The two Chicago tiles in the south are special because they start at 40 revenue in yellow, but goes back to 20 in green, to then get to 60 in brown.

The rest of the map doesn't have much features, and also almost no terrain cost. Especially the whole area in the middle north of Chicago has plenty cities, but was very uninteresting/uncontested in our live playthrough.

🏢 The Companies

18Hiawatha uses 12 of the Companies of 1817/18USA, and all Companies start as a 5-share with the purchase of the Director Share. The acquisition of one additional token is mandatory.

Because of this, all companies can be shorted (in contrast to the 2-share companies of 1817/USA), and a lot of thinking goes into which companies have the best positions and how you can screw a company you've shorted even further.

In our playthrough, for example, we were able to exclude a company started in the bottom left from getting to Chicago.

The other big factor are the 8 private companies that are auctioned off at the start of the game and have a nice variety of the stuff you're used to from 1817, like non-upgradeable track tiles with bonuses, special tiles, additional trains, additional revenue tokens, and so on. Making the most of those in combination with the starting position is one of the key elements of a good start in 1817, and definitely can be found here as well.

📈 Values

So clearly, this game should be about values, as you try to parse current with future earnings to determine how you can gain an edge versus your competition. The one rule that really threw me off was the strict sales rule of trains for always face value. I still don't know why it exists, as it makes a lot of strategies existing in the full game irrelevant. There's little value in friendly sales if you can't mess with what you're selling beforehand. If you are shorted, you have fewer options for making those who shorted you pay.

I am sure there's a reasoning for that rule, maybe tied to the shorter playtime and less ORs, but I don't really see the benefit so far. Would be interesting to try without.

On the other hand, this made me realize the benefit of the housekeeping turn that Venezuela introduces, as here, if a new company is opened later at a higher price to pay for the more expensive trains, in a probably worse position because the others are already taken, it becomes a clear short target with little to do, as it surely falls back once and then can only jump forward once max.

After thinking about this now, my preferred solution would probably be the usage of the 18USA up to quadruple jumps, if you stay with the option to short something the minute it opens, as then a lucrative new company that maybe runs the route bonus could do well in its second OR. Still, excluding getting additional trains from other companies seems weird.

🎲 Player Count

So far, I've only played this at 3 players, which was very fine. I totally see this working out at 4. 5 should work as well, but I am bad at projecting this. Maybe it's even more interesting because the money for 2 companies is tighter.

📦 Production:

Oh, well. This is a hobby product which cost 30$ at the time (crazy to look at this price after the latest issue clocked in at 90$!) for several games in the magazine. I also think that the magazine is not available at the moment – maybe the digital version still is.

Nevertheless, out of the 16 components (7 track tiles, 8 privates, 1 game map), 4-11 – depending on how you counting – were faulty. That's...not good. The full list is:

• Map / rulebook having different starting money values
• missing brown CHI tile
• very unsharp printing of the privates
• stock market not aligning when putting the map together

In the end, I don't care. The game is perfectly playable. Actually, it was quite revelating to see how little is needed to tune an existing game into something different with just a board and a few paper sheets — given that you need to own a copy for 1817 or 18USA to play this.

💭 Final thoughts:

In the end, I am not sure what to make of it. My initial impressions are good. You're definitely getting some of the 1817 vibes, especially at the start. It does start to feel weird when you realise that the 3s are already permanent, and we wondered where the pressure would come from. However, buying the 3s turned out quite stressful on the loan market, and 35$ per loan made surviving — especially once the 2s died — quite challenging. It might have been different if I had not opened one more company, which also bought a 3 but never ran good and was rightfully shorted, but put even more loans into play.

When looking at the BGG comments about 18Hiawatha, I found this comment about 1817 game length and how you need the later trains to make the main decisions around the 3s more opaque. The more I think about it, the more I tend to agree.

Still, I cannot stop hoping for a great, short 1817 like experience. Is it 18Hiawatha? Not to the full extent, but definitely something to start the journey and form an opinion to better understand what it is that drives the main games' perfection. I am happy to have played it.

If you want to want to start your search for a short 1817 like experience but have no player nearby, go check out https://18xx.games/ and start playing online. For support of the designer/publisher, please head over to Traxx

#18xx #boardgames

Disclaimer: I am no #18xx expert by far. I have by now quite a few games under my belt but most of them spread out across different titles, as I love to explore new things. I am far from a great player. Still, as there's usually little information on all the different 18xx games, I would like to provide some insight into how the games felt (to me) and what made them special.

A great title for #18Korea that I think I heard somewhere else before is Unbalanced Privates – the 18xx Game and that hits the nail on its head. There are also other McGuffins, but this is its core identity. At the beginning of the game the players do a snake draft (e.g. 1-2-3-3-2-1-1-2-3 for 3 players) for the private companies which are split across 3 categories. Every player must have 1 of each category in the end. Then, you go away and earn ~500 in the first OR set. 🎉

Part 1 of these high earnings are because the privates seem crazy overpowered compared to your standard 1830-type private. You just want to sell your train for the full price whenever you want during your turn? There you go, draft this private. You just want 80 income for your company every turn? Also fine, take that private. Adding a whole new tile with new expensive destinations to the board? Yeah, i thought so, here you go.

Part 2 is that the game begins with the whole of Korea available to build track on. The north is very profitable (some offboards are 70 in yellow), but after the 3rd 4-train the Korean war happens and all tracks and companies (if they didn't manage to token in the south) are destroyed and you play the game on half of the map, if even.

Seems crazy? Yeah, crazy fun! Lets dig deeper:

📋 What's the game about

• Variable setup in
  • available companies (5 North Korean, 3 South Korean pre- and 3 South Korean post war)
  • (Snake) Draftable private companies (3 per player out of 75 total with expansion)
• Always 1 stock round followed by 2 operating rounds. Phases change when new trains become available, NOT when first train of new phase is bought. All 2 trains exported after first OR, so OR2 = always green phase
• 1 non-permanent train export per OR set
• 60%max shares, higher if bought from market
  • incremental companies, 20% to float
• Linear Stock Market:
  • Two sections (pre/after war) for IPO prices
  • up to double jumps
  • Stock loses value only when President sells

🛤️ The map

The map or rather its dynamics is one of the USPs of this 18xx. As mentioned above, the map is split into two parts. The second half of the game (after the Korean war) is only played on the lower part, and the north is completely removed from the map.

Moreover, the North also follows the logic that the further North off-boards are, the more lucrative they become. Offboards start from 40 up to 70 in the furthest north-east corner of the map. The reason is, that the more distance between the offboard and the south, the harder it is for a North Korean company to make it to safety, i.e. place a station marker in the south. City tiles are also worth more in the north, ranging from 30 in yellow to 50 in green. The south follows the usual logic of normal cities being worth 20 and 30 in green.

While all of the north can earn massive income during the first few OR sets, be aware that there's still a huge difference between companies from the middle area of Korea and, for example, the most north-eastern company with basically two routes to the 70 off-board and another off-board in the south of it with 60.

🏢 The companies

So what do you do, when one of these great north-east companies is in the game? Well, luckily the game also has a bidding mechanic for every company put up for auction during the stock round. This means that you have to make sure that the potentially very profitable company is not bought for cheap. And while you're at it, you're probably also advised to cross-invest into this company while they're cheap. By doing this you make sure you're earning a piece of the massive cake while at the same time making it harder for the owners late game, as there is no redeeming of sold stock into the company, so once the money's gone, it's gone. As an investor, you have to be super careful though to make sure that you sell these stocks in the stock round before the Korean war. Understanding how fast companies can push through the 3s and the first 3 of the 4-trains (remember the export) can be the difference between a good position for the win and a lost game.

However, there's another caveat: when buying from the stock market, you're allowed to exceed the 60% max stock limit that you may own of a company. So if you are able to make it to the south with your North Korean company, weather the midgame storm that is the war and the train rush and get your permanent train(s), you might have 80-100% of a very profitable company.

Now that i have talked a lot about the North Korean companies, lets turn our view to the other half of the map, because the South Korean companies are important as well. Since the 2nd half of the game is only played in the South, having tokens in the best locations can be crucial to make the best of your E-Train runs in the late game. You always have to balance earning money early in the north while making sure you get a company in the south in time. Also, you're only allowed to put your super powerful privates into companies from the north or the 3 pre-war South Korean companies, leading to a competition over the best South Korean companies as well and having the timing right, when to put up one of those while having enough funds to secure them in the bidding round is a necessary skill to play this well.

📈 Values

Understanding the puzzle of available companies, which player owns which privates and their individual potential is one of the most fun things about this game. Sometimes you follow the rules I lined out above and make sure to have enough shares of the very profitable north-eastern companies, while at other times you see that another player has a private to add a special tile to the map in the south, completely altering your most profitable routes there and therefore also the value of the available companies.

Just be aware that this is not a 18xx title driven by its stock rounds. Yes, you auction the companies, but apart from that there's not much happening. There's rarely any dumping (since you can't move the privates out from a company once you've put them in) and because of the stock price not being affected by non-chairman sales, there's little to do with the stock values.

🎲 Player Count

Having played this at 3 and 4, I am pretty sure that i prefer the 4 player game over 3 player. While totally fine at 3, it shines more at 4 because of the higher competition for token slots in the South, which is one of the key parts of the late game. For the same reasons, it might also work great at 5 but I haven't tried it.

📦 Production

I was totally unsure what to expect, but the production quality of this is great and on par with for example, All-Aboard Games. Map is nice, tiles are sturdy, fine charters and shares. My only complaint is that several of the companies have similar colours and the company logos are also sometimes hard to distinguish, but this might be a cultural thing of not being used to the letters. Yet, I often struggled looking from afar at the map to immediately be able to tell, which token belonged to which company.

And the big elephant in the room: the production in in korean. This is not a problem for the revenues of the offboards, companies, the market, trains etc. but all the rules are in korean and also all the text of the privates. To me this was not a major problem, as you'll also receive a translation of the rules and the privates, but it might turn off some people. To me, this was a non-issue in all of my players and my co-players.

Speaking of production, given that this is produced by a Korean guy, getting it might be a bit trickier that your normal webstore order.

As far as I know, right now there's only one way:

Contact Jack from Artnpiece through BGG (user kyungjung kim ) or mail him. He will ask for pre-payment but so far i heard nothing negative about it not working out. Our copies were brought by himself to Essen for a handover there. Total for main game + expansion was 126$ in 2024.

Clearly, all of this is at your own risk.

Apart from that there's a constant talk about a Kickstarter happening for the english version of the game, but this did not happen for a few times now already. Latest estimate was again Q1 2026, so keep your eyes open.

💭 Final thoughts

When I heard first about #18Korea it sounded like this obscure speciality which is hard to acquire but worth it. Given that i love variability and puzzles, it sounded like a great game for me. After i bought it, the first play was fun but not necessarily the great game i hoped for. After a few more plays, the game has definitely risen in my ratings and i really like it right now and am super happy to have it in my collection.

I think its an absolute novelty compared to what 18xx games usually do and i happily take this over one of the endless 30 clones out there. Also, it plays relatively quick and can be done in 3,5 hours. Full recommendation!

If you want to desperately play this game now, the game is also available on Steam but i never tried it and it has mixed reviews.

#18xx #boardgames