18xoxo

Disclaimer: I am no 18xx expert by far. I have maybe 20 games under my belt and most of them spread out across different titles, as I love to explore new things. However, 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.

This one surprised me. I had never heard about it and when I looked at the rulebook, the section “hire gunslingers” made me shrug and envision a wargame/western/18xx crossover, where I roll dice when I attack the trains of my competitors.

How far from the truth! This is a super compact, interesting 18xx title that after 2 (online) live plays left me wanting for more.

Bonus points: When I did my through-hike of the Colorado Trail in 2017 I was actually passing through the very same region this game is set in! Oh, the memories of drinking beer with an oil field worker in Salida, who's working on a Marxist pamphlet in his trailer with the cayote howling outside in the dark... 🤣

What's the game about 📋

• Mixture of fixed turns (yellow is always only one set of 2 OR), train exports (permanents included) and overall very short length
• less public companies than players, so always 1 investor (at 3-4 players) at the start of the game
• up to 6 tiles building per OR, you pay more the more you build. Yellow and upgrades can be built during the same turn when in the right phase.
• pick up and delivery of gold which is excavated when building over a mine tile
• 10-share companies that pay out based on track built and gold exported
• special feature where one company always gets a very lucrative train route built for it, but has to pay debt to another company
• 2-5 trains are plus trains (dits are not counted for stops), the last train is a 6x2 train (and its availability is limited to a relevant number!)
• linear stock market, double and triple jumps are possible
• stocks only drop when president sells

This is not everything but should give you a quick overview. Overall, it feels unique because of how fast it plays, its special mixture of set phases but still it's quite easy to pick up and get into it.

The map 🛤️

The map feels pretty good because of a mix of – interestingly developing off-board cities (one starts high and goes down, others go up) – terrain with several mountains and rivers, which can easily be overbuilt, – the special section where you can't really build but rather starting with the green phase only one company gets the route built, and only that company has access to it.

Combined with the variable setup (only 2 companies of the 5 that are in each game are set in stone) and some of the privates incentivizing certain regions, I can see a lot of differently developing games taking place on this map.

The companies 🏭

Public companies

There are two main special features concerning the companies:

1. At the start, there are only 2 public companies that can be opened. It's always the Rio Grande (which later gets a track built for it) and one random company. Starting with stock round two, two more public companies can be opened and in brown one final company gets added.

2. There are two more companies that can be invested in, one company pays out depending on how much and which track was built and one pays out, depending on how much gold got delivered. These two companies feel more lucrative early to mid-game but don't reach the heights of a 2 train end game “normal” company with payouts of 700-1000+.

Private companies

There seems to be a nice mix of those. They are always spread out across the phases, with 2 yellow, 2 green and 1 brown private being bid on at the start of the game. They deviate from the usual block one hex, get one share boring stuff and may incentivize certain strategies. You have the private which turns a dot into a town or pays out 50 when the dot is connected? Maybe try to incorporate that dot into your network. Have the private that doesn't close but always pays out 25? Maybe focus on investing early and then opening high to maximize your portfolio space.

Overall, the privates feel great and creative to me. I only wish they maybe went more in the creative direction for some of them, like the jeweler (get 5 every time a gold is transported offboard).

Values 📈

This game is tight! Partially, we've probably been digging our own graves by building too much track, on the other hand you want to make use of that mechanic and get lucrative routes as soon as possible. Because of the short yellow phase (only 2 ORs), the 2 trains seem very dangerous, as if you go for two of them at the start, you probably will struggle to get a ¾ train and might be without a train when the 4s rust them.

Also, there are always interesting decisions to calculate through (build track through the gold mine for maybe a higher cost, but also short term profit with the gold shipping?) The dynamics of when to open which company, what to do with your investments in the steel and gold companies etc.

Player count 🎲

According to the box, this plays from 2-4. I only played at 3, but that worked out perfectly. I also see the 2 player game working since there are the steel and gold companies and therefore the 2 players wouldn't always just be cross investing. 4 is probably also fine and would be interesting to try out.

Production 📦

This is currently being prepared for a kickstarter, supposed to happen later in 2024, so I have no clue what's the final product is going to look like. The rulebook however seems very nice so far, and I like all the graphics that are depicted in the rulebook for the cards etc. However, I have never heard of the designers before, so I would be cautious, as with all kickstarters of unknown entities.

Final thoughts 💭

As I already stated in the intro, this was a nice surprise! I like very much of what I found in this. Mostly stood out the combination of very short play time with a “full” experience of building companies and running big routes in the end, having lots of upgrades on the board and a nice story arc.

Also, the way track is built with the implications on the steel company is just very interesting, as you don't just build track, but rather take steel from columns that increase in price for every tile built. This is interesting on its own, but even more so when in later rounds several companies take away the available steel from each other, which again might influence your track building decisions etc. Just very clever. The only downside I see when playing on the table is that this could add some fiddlyness to the game.

The one thing I am not so sure about is that the Rio Grande always wins the royal gorge with its special track, which is super lucrative. In both plays it was always the company with high income in the end and the owner was the winning player. He's also the by far the best player of us, so that's not my point, but I might dislike the staleness this could bring to the game.

In regard to adding this to my collection: I am definitely considering this now! There's just nothing like it in my collection, and I gravitate more and more to shorter 18xx, as those have at least a real chance of actually getting played. Often, I feel I get less out of the “big” games compared to the additional time investment I have to make for them.

If you want to get your own impressions of the game before the kickstarter starts, go check out https://18xx.games/ and start playing online.