18xoxo

I love board gaming. One of my first “real” experiences was playing Catan during one holiday with my dad. Some of the other kids introduced me to the Cities&Knights Expansion and it added a level of complexity, I had not seen in a board game before. I was addicted.

Fast-forward several decades: Following my first big crush, Agricola, many other games followed. As with most addictions, I followed the rabbit deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole, going from mid-heavy Euros to heavier and heavier Euros.

During that time, i made first contact with 18xx. Probably as part of Heavy Cardboard Youtube Channel, I dismissed it because of its reputation of being super complex and only something for the real nerds. That lasted quite a while until somehow I became aware of the 1889 Shikoku reprint Kickstarter by Grand Trunk Games. It got to me.

Mostly why it hit me so hard with the urge to immediately back it was because it was beautiful. I am always a sucker for great looking games, not necessarily just great graphics, but even more so if the whole thing just feels right. Pax Pamir 2nd edition is probably the greatest example of this that I own.

So I backed it and started reading Josh Starr's blog about the production and the game in general. And it dawned to me that more than just a train game might await me.

Again, fast-forward several months, 1889 finally arrived. The game was as beautiful as expected, so all I was waiting for was the right opportunity to play it with my usual gaming group who loyally had followed me through all my board game purchases I threw them into over the years. The day finally came and it was...

... a disaster. 5–6 hours and the worst thing was how you could feel over the course of the game, how people became less and less interested. I was devastated. So much, I actually was considering selling the game off again (something I rarely do, which is why I ran out of shelve space completely by now).

Then for whatever reason I started following the 18xx hashtag on Mastodon and found a group with whom I could play a few sessions online. And even more important: They introduced me to https://18xx.games/

18xx.games

This was a game changer. Not only suddenly I had access to dozens of games, more importantly, I had access to a huge amount of people eager to play at any given time. This, coupled with the possibility to play asynchronous, led to a big amount of rounds of 18xx in a short period. With more and more experiences under my belt, the urge arose to document some of my thoughts and write down possible strategies or considerations about where my 18xx journey might lead me next. Glad to have you aboard.