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

After a 5 hour drive from Bavaria to the con location, we helped set up the tables and hung around for an hour or two until most of the other guests arrived. Of course, we also set up the first #boardgames during this time, as we did not want to waste any time and wanted to get started as soon as possible. #brettspiele

Once everyone was there, we had dinner and then went back to the chapel for a short introduction from the hosts and off we went!

The plan was to play as much 18xx as possible, as this might be one of very few opportunities for me to play longer 18xx live. So following the plan, i hopped into a game of

1837: Rail Building in the Austro-Hungarian Empire

#1837 definitely is an older title and it shows. Yeah, i know. There will be tons of people claiming that 1830 is even older and still cream of the crop and yadda yadda. Well, i don't buy into that. In my humble opinion, the evolution of 18xx for my taste has only led to better, shorter, more interesting games.

You start with a big auction of small companies (most of which come with an attached private mountain pass company) and you build up your network. Later on, you can form the classic major companies and honestly, the interaction between those was one of the more interesting aspect of the game, as your small mining company could be forced to close and merge into one of the major companies. You clearly don't want that if theres still a lot of money in the small company. Then theres also 3 other big companies, that again merge from sub-companies, giving the director share to the player with the most sub-companies of it or the lowest company number.

There are also two different types of train, a plus train and a normal train, which makes for some interesting track-building decisions.

Generally speaking i seem to handle games with too many companies not too well. That's a pattern i realised over my time playing 18xx and it showed here again. All the different companies that didn't do too much felt just bland to me and the pacing was a slog. The hours went by and finally the forming of the national companies happened just to drag on further. At one point (ok, it was already 4.30 in the morning by then) i just wanted it to be over, but the other players insisted on calculation not only 1 OR set but 2. So we did that and then i finally could go to sleep, with a strong last place finish to make for sweet dreams.

I did want to experience this game but i can say with confidence that there is no need for a second time with it. However, i still might want to try out 1824 as it showed up on some Top-10 Lists a while ago.

18USA

Talking about COMMITMENT! Two long 18xx back to back and no backing down. 🤓

This was pure coincidence. . When we chatted about who would bring which game, almost all of my games were already brought by other people, so i decided to pack 18USA as it had just arrived a few days prior and this was probably one of the only chances for me to ever play it offline. When talking about it over breakfast, a nice couple chimed in and expressed interest in participating in a round. Turns out, the couple was Designer Legend Matthias Cramer and his partner. Well, here we go!

Honestly, this was probably the best experience of the whole con for me. Not necessarily in terms of how well I played or how much fun I had (I came in dead last again), but in terms of how mind-blowing the game was. I finally understood why people praise the 1817 system so much.

#18USA is not your average 18xx. Yes, you start companies and try to make a profit. But alle the other stuff doesn't work here. Just trying to make a profit to keep raising your stock value? The other people will short you to death and dance on your grave with the new company they opened with the funds they received from your shorts. More than anything i feel that 18USA puts laser focus on the real value of your company. If you barely scrape by, your probably better of withholding and getting some new trains into the company instead of making a quick dollar. Or you do that but then merge the shitty company into one of your new companies to avoid being shorted. I don't think any explanation of mine would do the system justice as i only played it once and barely started to see the light. But the mere glimpse of greatness left me aching for more.

On top of that i love the setup of 18USA. As you probably know from my review of 1822PNW (more on that later), i really dig variable setups and powers. There's plenty of that here. Most of the cities get random starting bonuses, the off-boards are randomized and the metropolitan cities are randomized as well. Then theres always only i think 15 out of 30 privates available. This is an incrediable amount of replayability, but also a bit of a front-loaded burden, as you have to wrap your mind around the initial starting puzzle.

We didn't finish the game as it became clear who was in the lead and people wanted to move on. I would have re-started in a heartbeat. This was my best 18xx experience probably since i started playing the series a year ago and i would love to dig deeper into it.

By the way: the poker chips you're seeing here are the small sized chips that originated from a BGG-thread. Everyone really liked them a lot and i think i can recommend them. I am not sure which design i would choose if i bought a set myself, but thats just personal preference. The form factor and production value are great.

18India

As it was after dinner, we just wanted to play something shorter and ended up on #18India. I know, I just bored you with my repetitive remarks about replayability, different maps, etc. But somehow that doesn't work for me with 18India.

For me it's one of the “party” 18xx. Not too long, you have a lot of money and can do a lot of different things, maybe some randomness. But having played it live for the second or third time now, it just never clicks for me.

One of the reasons is that you can end up in the corner of the map, and while everyone else is combining their routes for maximum profit, you're on your own with little chance of success. I suppose a better player would hedge his bets in this regard and draft differently positioned companies (my draft was terrible, as I found out), but still...

I can't put my finger on it, but I'd rather play something else.

1822PNW

#1822PNW is love, 1822PNW is life. I already wrote enough about this game in my review, but this game has delivered once again. It is such a relaxing experience, yet full of tension. You're forced to constantly adjust your bidding and merging strategy. You have to get the timing right (we played with 2 less L-train) and also develop your end-game routes.

The moment when the small train networks from all corners of the map crawl towards each other and finally connect is just so thematic (actually I have no idea how it worked in the past, but this is how I imagine it).

And since everyone was playing really quick, we were able to finish in just 4,5 hours. I got 3rd place. Hurray! Honestly, i don't mind at all, would play this every time.

18Korea

All the 18xx games left me a bit exhausted and I wandered around looking at the other games people were playing. This wasn't just an 18xx con, so there were plenty of Euro games being played and even a late night Social Deduction round. #bloodontheclocktower

Finally, i decided to play one final game of 18xx and since i just got my delivery of #18Korea from the Essen Spiel fair, this was a good one to try out. Also, it is supposed to be shorter, so perfect to end the evening with.

Another one of the aforementioned “party” 18xx games, it has a very strange arc. You start making huge money in the north of the map (North Korea) before the war takes place with one of the 4-trains and that hole area becomes unavailble and you only are playing in the southern part of the map. Companies, that don't make it south are lost, so you try to maximise you profits while also b-lining for the south. You earn very little until you develop your routes again and then run 2x trains in the endgame for again high profits.

But that is not even the core of the game. The beating heart of 18Korea is the dozens of super-powered privates that are drafted at the start of the game. Each of them seems so overpowered that you wonder how this is going to work. It does, somehow. Finding the right combination of privates and making the most of them is part of the charm of this game.

Unfortunately, we spent more time than we thought, as the rulebook is not great and the translation from Korean into English also doesn't help.

Still, fun experience and definitely would play over 18India. Hopefully i will be able to try this one out, soon and then maybe can write a full review. Also, winner, winner, chicken dinner!

1889 Shikoku

The next day saw me fully prepared to play nothing, maybe a small game of Arcs. Then i saw the Bat sign against the sky of Goth...ahem, someone setting up #1889 Shikoku and asking for players in the whatsapp group. I couldn't resist.

So i went and played a super quick round of 1889 (2,5 hours) which we unfortunately couldn't finish because it was time to leave. I think i was in a decent position for maybe second place and the game wouldn't have lasted much longer, as we were already buying the Diesels.

Funny to come back to this after one year and so many different 18xx games. I still like it for what it is and definitely would play it more often. Also, i still stand by my choice of this over 18Chesapeake anytime.

We packed our stuff and started the journey home with a deep fried brain, little sleep but dozens of good memories. Definitely looking forwad to come back next year!

Thanks to all the organisers, players and staff helping out at the Con, you made this the great experience it was.

#18xx #boardgames