Hello all- I am looking to start learning 18xx games. I have never played one. Any discord group or other group that has into games or learning games?

Thanks

M

This is how it all started with 21Moon before the AAG edition. This was the design update after the Calandale prototype video test+review that never left the shelf and got replaced by the AAG edition. One of two or maybe three existing copies. Now on the geek.

Calling all monster 18XX nerds....

I'm in a great spot to be able to attend the Chattanooga Rail Gaming Challenge this year, IF there is enough interest for me to get at least some scenarios, and preferably the full (NOT extended) game on the table. Any takers? 3 people is enough - if I get 4 or more, I'll moderate instead of play.

Drop me a line here or via email (mfrazier@designsice.com) if you can commit. Once I have enough people, I'll make the arrangements!

-Mark

I am not entirely sure if this is allowed as it might be counted as promoting, I can remove it if required.

Railways of the Lost Atlas is one of my favorite 18xx games to play right now, and I wanted to play it more often than Saturdays. So I built a version you can play in the browser: play.lostatlas.live

It has the base game and the Landmarks expansion with all variants. You can build the map tile by tile like at the table or use a prebuilt map, and the engine works out most of the things for you, routes and revenue included. Games are saved, so you can play live or take your turns over a few days. You can also play hot-seat on one device.

Asterisk Games gave their permission to share it. It's still being built, so if something looks wrong there's a bug report button in every game. I'd love to hear what you think.

Evening

Our playgroup played our first 18xx over the past 2 weeks (18 Chesapeake) and even though we had a few rules hiccups we had a really fun time. 18 Chesapeake did leave us yearning for a little bit more though.

The playtime was fitting. The balance between operating and investing were quite good but the private companies are quite boring overall.

What would be the next step with 18xx? We are currently 4-5 active players and evenly split between enjoying economy and operation.

I heard that shikoku 1889 is quite good but is it worth skipping for a more in depth game? Is better to try something like 1830 or 1846 or are there some newer medium complexity/Length games that are worth checking out?

I know there have been long standing delays with the wave 6 games but has anyone had trouble getting older warehouse game orders fulfilled? It’s been over two weeks and my order hasn’t shipped. No insult to Scott, I really admire his contribution to our hobby. It’s a testament to the quality of his work that I am impatient to receive the games haha!

10-20 years ago I was part of a group that played 18XX games fairly regularly. Our most played game by far was 1870, we also played a fair bit 1856, and occationaly 1850, 1832, 1860 and a few others.

My conclution then was that 1870 was supreme, because it without added rules-complexity had a wide open strategic landscape, that allowed for a multitude of pathways to victory.

Which current 18XX titles come closest to fitting the description above?

Hello! I'm new to the 18xx genre, having just gotten Railways of the Lost Atlas and I'm really enjoying it! Strategically, what is the purpose of the priority deal marker moving around? It seems to me like it just helps keep track of turn order, but I get the feeling it's more important than that, at least in other 18xx games. Is there an advantage to having it besides first pick at taking an action?

Edit: Thanks for the replies! Excited to apply this and keep exploring the system!

I'm a big fan of all the large wooden priority deal meeples offered in these 18xx games. Does anyone know of an online supplier that sells these? I'm doing some pnp work.

Additionally, I was wondering if there's any comprehensive list of priority markers that have been historically provided in 18xx games? Maybe a blog or a bgg post?

As stated in the title, I always wanted to get into the 18xx genre, and seeing that all three titles provide great beginner experience, I got them all.

However, life got in the way and our group has been static for quite a while. And with storage space being so valuable, I have come to the conclusion that I should only keep 2 of the 3 (if not only 1).

So I'd like to ask the community, which of the three provides a less rich experience and could be gifted to another if it were you?

CiuffCiuff(https://ciuffciuff.com) is a web app to keep track of all operations in 18xx game plays.

It currently supports 1830, 1840, 1846, 1848, 1849, 1856, 1882, 1889, 18Ch and 18MEX.

A video preview of how it works is available on youtube(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qt7rcgh7tN4),
thanks to “Nithrania - Game in a nutshell” video series.

The UI of the app has been improved in the meantime, while converting the project from iOS into a web app.

I am looking for 18xx gamers willing to give it a go, and get some feedback.
I developed it for the community as a huge 18xx fan, I would really appreciate anyone taking the time and effort to try it out.

Gianluigi,
from Italy

Now available, with focus on the Chinese market.

Anyone in philly actively playing these games? My brother and I would love to learn, looking for a group that is open to teach?

Hi all,

After quite a lot of tinkering, I’ve finally reached the point where I’m comfortable sharing a little project I’ve been working on:

https://18bk.games

The tool is free to use, no sign up required.

The idea came from something I’ve seen discussed in different forums and on YouTube quite a few times — and something my own group runs into as well: bookkeeping can take a surprising amount of time in a physical 18xx game.

Poker chips help enormously (and I personally love playing with chips), but especially later in a game there can still be a lot of repeated:

• calculating routes and revenue
• working out dividends
• moving money between companies, players and the bank
• doing essentially the same arithmetic for several ORs once the board has stabilised

I’ve seen people here mention spreadsheets, calculators, revenue trackers, or simply doing the final OR sets on paper. 18BookKeeper is my attempt at making that kind of assistance a little smoother while still keeping the actual game on the table.

You don’t have to track everything

One thing that became important while building it was that different groups want very different levels of digital assistance.

So there are several ways to use it.

You can use it as a more complete bookkeeping companion, but there are also lighter modes where you enter much less information and mostly let it help with revenue/dividends and the repetitive calculations.

The goal isn’t “now everyone has to enter every transaction into an app.”

Quite the opposite: use as little of it as is useful to your table.

You can also start halfway through a game

This was another thing I really wanted.

You don’t need to decide before the game that you’re going to use 18BookKeeper.

If you’re in Phase 5 or 6, things are becoming repetitive and somebody says “can we please stop doing all of this arithmetic?”, you can create a game, enter the current board state and continue from there.

That’s actually one of the ways I imagine it being most useful.

Multiple devices

The game isn’t tied to one phone or laptop.

You can share the session and have several devices connected to the same game state, so different players can view/use it from their phones, tablets or computers.

That also opens up the possibility of putting the shared table view on a larger screen while people continue using their own devices.

And yes, you can keep using poker chips ❤️

I’m definitely not trying to turn physical 18xx into an online game.

You can theoretically let 18BookKeeper handle the money completely, but that’s not really why I built it.

I like chips.

The workflow I personally wanted was something like:

run the companies → let the app keep track of what happened → settle the chips at a convenient point, such as the end of the OR set.

That way the physical game, trains, tiles, shares and chips remain the centre of the experience, while some of the repetitive accounting gets out of the way.

It’s still an early release, and I’m sure people here will find edge cases, games that behave differently, and probably several things I’ve misunderstood.

So I’d genuinely appreciate feedback — particularly from groups who already use spreadsheets/revenue trackers or have developed their own tricks for speeding up physical games.

What would make something like this useful enough that you’d actually put it on the table?

For now I've implemented 1889 and 18SJ as per getting permission from those publishers.

If you find some issue with the tool, there is a built in bug reporting tool in the menu directly.

18BookKeeper: https://18bk.games

I was surprised to find 1830 at my local library. All games are free to borrow for 14 days :)

I would love to get this one one day and it doesn't look like it’ll hit the AA waves anytime soon. does anyone know where you can purchase it?

I am a seasoned boardgamer and I'd like to start playing 18xx games. Unfortunately it's hard to find people to play these irl. I know the 18xx.games site exists, but I feel that people there are experienced 18xx players. Is there a reason why there's not a single 18xx game on BGA (which I find less intimidating)?

Calandale puts PTG on the operating table:

https://youtu.be/5UZU8jqYzA0?is=wZDYdlJ9xe6iKSC-

For all those interested in a 1822PNW reprint, Scott Petersen added it to his P400 options, you can vote for it here if you're interested:

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/3362421/all-aboard-games-p400-waves-7-and-8

The original print run sold out so he only needs 200 votes as a proof of concept to launch a smaller print run!!

For all those interested in a 1822PNW reprint, Scott Petersen added it to his P400 options, you can vote for it here if you're interested:

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/3362421/all-aboard-games-p400-waves-7-and-8

The original print run sold out so he only needs 200 votes as a proof of concept to launch a smaller print run!!

Hello everyone :)) I regularly play 18xx online with
my friends. We are all massive nerds and are quite mathematically inclined but none of us have a background in statistics. Any suggestions for fun and interesting graphs we can produce with Excel after playing an online game?

In my gaming group we have been playing Imperial, and I love the game. Now I'd like to try a game where specifically the stock mechanics are more complex (selling, dynamic stock price, etc). 18xx games seem like the perfect fit. However complexity and game duration are concerns. 1849 is listed at 180 mins on BGG, so it should be fine. Would you regard 1849 as a good starting point for a group which has never played 18xx before?

As 21Moon is out of print despite being around for only a few years I think it retired a little bit too soon. Many games probably ended up in big collections and will therefore very seldom find its way to the table, if ever. Maybe there are a few more out there who want to play a physical game of 21Moon but never got the chance. Hopefully there is also a bunch that have played the game already but would maybe enjoy playing a updated version with a twist.

My plan is to recycle the rules of Moon and maybe add/subtract 3-5 pages of rule changes/some changed components into a updated version of the game = 21MOON Second Campaign. Same, same, but different.

After having played Imperial a couple of times with my gaming group, and absolutely loving it, I'd like to get into train games with stocks. 18xx seems very appealing to me, particularly the ones with lots of stock shenanigans. Game duration could be a concern, however. I don't think I'll be able to convince my group to play a game that's longer than 4 hours, and that might already be pushing it. 1849 is listed at 180 minutes on BGG, and seems to have all the kind of stock mechanisms (dynamic stock price, selling shares, dumping companies, companies buying back or issuing shares) I'd love to try. Would this be a good starting point for 18xx games?

Alternatively, I've been looking at cube rail games, particularly Chicago Express and German Railways. As I am from Germany, I'd find it quite nice to have a game set there. However, the turn order mechanism is worrying me a little. I fear my group might get frustated if they don't get any turns.

Which of the two games do you prefer and why? What are your thoughts on the turn order mechanism in German Railways? Would it be better to start with a cube rails game or jump into 1849 (or another 18xx game) right away?