My 18xx journey continues!

During my visit to SPIEL last fall, I spent a few minutes with Leonhard “Lonny” Orgler, the owner of publisher Lonny Games and the designer of train game classics such as 1880: China, 1848: Australia, and Russian Railroads. During that conversation, Lonny was kind enough to furnish a copy of 18Mag: Hungarian Railway History for review.

I’m seven plays into my 18Mag journey, and I will give it this much: this is the most unique of the 18xx titles I’ve tried so far thanks to a couple major changes to the system. I don’t think all these changes work, but for those who are looking to shake things up a bit, 18Mag delivers a satisfying experience. Also, this is the only 18xx game I own that has a solo mode!

Minors, Not a Setback

18Mag is a 1-6 player economic tile-laying game based on the 18xx system created by Francis Tresham that began with the game 1829, released more than 40 years ago. For more details on how games in the 18xx system typically play, please read my kickoff article, 18xx: A Beginner’s Journey. There’s also a growing pool of content on the 18xx format that walks a new player…

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Let Freedom Ring

Monopoly tends to be a hot-button board game to discuss. Most people grew up with at least one copy floating around somewhere between their family and extended family, and it has remained ubiquitous since its release. There are hundreds of special versions and variations of the game. Famously, Monopoly originated as The Landlord’s Game, designed by American anti-monopolist Lizzie Magie. The game wasn’t intended to be a solid bit of game mechanics as much as it was intended to be a statement piece in support of an economic philosophy known as Georgism.

I am not a smart man. If you ask me how the economy works, most times, I would stare at you like a deer in the headlights, grunt, and shrug. But this bit of context is important because Freedom Rings is similar to Monopoly in so many ways. It wears its influence on its sleeve. It’s just that this game happens to be based on a different economic philosophy, taking influence from Stephen Taft’s 2015 book A True Free Market: Conversations on Gaining Liberty and Justice Through Economics. It’s unclear how involved Stephen was in the creation of the game itself, as there are no credits listed on the box or in the rulebook (other than the artist), but the opening…

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There’s really no getting around it—the theme of Mombasa (2015, eggertspiele) is a little dicey, particularly for gamers who bristle at the idea that clever hand management mechanics have to go hand-in-hand with buying shares in companies trying to colonize parts of 18th-century Africa. My colleague Thomas Wells dove into some of these issues with his write-up on colonialism a few years ago.

So, designers Alexander Pfister (who designed the original game) and Viktor Kobilke took Mombasa and reimagined the game’s theme to a space race aimed at the pursuit of colonizing the moon.

Now we are left with an easier question: what if you took the same great gameplay from Mombasa, repackaged it with the space theme, and asked players for forgiveness that the first game’s theme was legitimately awful? We’re good, right?

Skymines (2022, Pegasus Spiele) plays it smart. This feels exactly like the original game, with all the great programming elements and tough decisions tied to a card recall mechanism that still feels wholly unique. Pfister and Kobilke added a second side of the main map to introduce a more complicated area majority system that affects the share prices of the four major corporations. There’s a solo mode now, a mode that is in the early lead for the best solo…

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I’m not a tableau guy. I’m not anti-tableau by any means—Race for the Galaxy is one of my favorite games. They’re not a genre I seek out, though. My distaste is mild enough that the realization only came to me recently, after a game of 51st State. My friend Nathan said, “Tableau builders aren’t my thing, but if I were to play one, this is the one I’d play,” and I realized the same was true for me.

It explains a lot. Wingspan? Nah. Everdell? Eh. Terraforming Mars? Best for all involved that I don’t. I think my distaste comes from the fact that I prefer my games streamlined, and running calculus around a bevy of unique cards turn after turn is not streamlined. There’s also some (irrational) part of me that has come to regard an appetite for combos as one of board gaming’s baser instincts, and I’m suspicious of anything that appeals to it.

Look, nobody’s perfect.

This is not meant to yuck your yum. If anything, these realizations have made me more understanding of the popularity of the above-mentioned games. It also has me trying to figure out why I like 51st State so very much.

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Kanban EV (2020, Eagle-Gryphon Games) gets to the table from time to time, thanks to a mix of the “Cafe Lacerda” game nights I do with friends every few months. Named for Vital Lacerda, the designer of games such as On Mars, The Gallerist, and Vinhos: Deluxe Edition, friends bring all their Lacerda games to someone’s house, then we fight to see which two or three of these games get to the table.

I recently decided to dig into the mini expansion for Kanban EV, SpeedCharger. I got it when I bought the “Upgrade Pack” with the base game a few years ago, but I had never played it. Like other Lacerda games, the base game is usually designed with such care that expansions are not necessary. After playing Kanban EV a few times, I was sure that I would never open SpeedCharger; designs this strong don’t need any extras.

But lately, I have been staring at my supposed “Shelf of Shame” and noticed that I don’t have many unopened base games. I do, however, have a few unopened expansions. I used SpeedCharger as an excuse to break out Kanban EV with players both new to the base game and those with some experience, and I have to…

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Agri-cola hits the spot
Twelve full ounces, that’s a lot
Twice as much for a nickel, too
Agri-cola is the drink for you!

— with apologies to the old time radio advertisers for Pepsi Cola. (And, yes, I know it’s pronounced A-grik-a-la, not Ag-ri-cola, but I didn’t learn that for a long while so Ag-ri-cola stuck in my mind.)

My Meeple Mountain friend and colleague, David McMillan, is a huge fan of designer Uwe Rosenberg—so much so he started this series to have reviews of all of Rosenberg’s games here on Meeple Mountain. I’m happy to contribute a review of Agricola to the cause.

[caption id="attachment_295137" align="aligncenter" width="509"] Agricola: My slightly worn box[/caption]

Agricola is the Place to Be

When Agricola was released in 2007, it caused quite the stir. Although not the first board game to use the worker placement mechanic (that honor goes to 1999’s Bus or 1998’s Keydom, depending on who you ask), Agricola was one of the first games to catch the wider public attention.

So, why am I covering a game that’s almost 20 years old? In part because it’s a classic game and, in part, because I think Agricola is still worthy of your time and attention.

Allow me…

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On the heels of reviewing my now-favorite Vladimír Suchý game, Evacuation (2023, Delicious Games), I decided to rip the shrink off the other Suchý game I picked up at SPIEL last year, Shipyard (2nd Edition). (I’ve been excited about this one for a while now.)

Shipyard is a dinosaur to a modern gamer, as it was first released in 2009. To some of my friends, the original game is a classic, but those friends have never been kind enough to introduce me. When I had the chance to grab the updated version, I jumped because I needed to know—does the original still work, fifteen years later?

The answer? It depends on how long you can stomach the wait to score points.

Ahh, the 1870s

Shipyard is a 1-4 player rondel and tile drafting game that situates players as shipbuilders in the 1870s. Over a series of rounds, players will take turns until a countdown timer expires, giving each player one final turn to finish building ships and send them on a test voyage—known as a  “shakedown cruise”—to impress local officials.

Each turn after the first turn of the game looks the same. Each player has a cube (or cubes, in a two-player game) on one…

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As I started to make my way through the instruction manual for Five Peaks, from designer Adam Strzelecki and publisher Trefl, I quickly realized that I’d seen this game before. “Oh,” I said, “this is Concordia.”

At this point in my life, having played so many games over the years that my mind is a free-associating cloud of mechanisms and rules, I often read rulebooks and think of comparative benchmarks. It’s only natural. Despite the rumors, I too am human, and we love patterns. I don’t believe I have become uncharitable about this, though. It isn’t often that I look at a game and think, “Oh, this is [insert title].” The bar for that remains high.

Five Peaks clears it with ease.

It uses the same hand management system as Concordia. Each turn, you play one card from your hand and perform the action shown on the card. These cards allow you to move about the board, or collect resources, or buy new cards from the market. Any cards that you play stay down on the table until you play the card that lets you pick up all your cards.

Five Peaks uses the same resource management system as Concordia. You’re restricted to ten items, represented by the ten slots on your individual board. You have to manage…

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Without my realizing it, Looping Games have been in my head for the last few years. Their 19xx series of games have snuck onto my most anticipated lists (both in 2021 and 2023). They have shown up in conversation. But I had never actually played a game or even seen a box to lock the series into place mentally. 

As a friend was telling me how excited he was to finally get hold of 1987 Channel Tunnel, all the pieces clicked and I realized how this collection of titles in their novel-sized boxes belong one and all to the same publisher. I’m sure there’s a fun conversation around the origins, size, and hopes for this series of 20th century historical outings. For the time being, I’m happy just to give them my attention. 

The Cotton Club was formed in, you guessed it, 1923 by bootlegger Owney Madden in Harlem. A racially segregated clientele were often entertained by the legends of the jazz age in the presence of famous gangsters, politicians, and celebrities. 1923 Cotton Club is a worker placement game that sets players as club owners in the days of prohibition, building up their wares in an attempt to build the best establishment and draw a notable (regardless of nobility) crowd. 

Riding the icon train

The central…

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In many years, the exceptional game Carnegie (2022, Pegasus Spiele) would have been my #1 gaming experience of the year. Beautiful board, a very interesting milestone system, lots of variability in the setup, and maybe my favorite action selection format of that year.

As it turned out, Carnegie was my second favorite game from 2022, eclipsed only by the stellar gameplay of Tiletum. (If I’m being honest, dice gave Tiletum the edge, because the tactical gameplay was just a better fit for me and that game.) That still means that any time I can get a chance to play either game, I’ll always bite.

The best thing about expansions: another reason to whip the original game out and get it back to the table. When I heard that an expansion was inbound for Carnegie—known as Carnegie: Departments and Donations—I made sure to grab a copy.

Here is the “worst” part about Departments and Donations: it doesn’t cleanly fit in the original box. Because it comes in a 9”x12” plastic sleeve with all of the new tiles, instructions and bidding sheets, it looks kind of sloppy now as it sits on my shelf as it sits on top of the Carnegie box.

For a game with easily the best-looking board from 2022, this is unfortunate. Luckily, everything…

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(Justin loves train games! For more on his series of 18XX reviews, please start with 18XX: A Beginner’s Journey.)

Almost every outlet I read, watch or listen to says it the same way: to get a sense of 18XX games, you have to start with one of the first games in the series, 1830: Railways & Robber Barons. Published in 1986, 1830 is the sequel to 1829, the first game in the 18XX system created by Francis Tresham.

1830 is still the most popular game in the 18XX series—as of December 2023, it’s still in the top 300 games on BGG’s all-time favorites list—so it made some sense to give this game a spin. What I quickly found is that 1830 is a great game, but a terrible introduction to the 18XX system.

Oh, That Map

If you are new to 18XX games, please follow the links above to get a sense of how 18XX games play. I won’t cover the entire system in detail here; my 1830 review will discuss the base concepts to provide some flavor on what makes 1830 unique.

1830, like other 18XX games, positions 2-6 players as rival entrepreneurs in the nascent railroad business of the early 19th century. The winner of a…

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Games are a conversation. In this case, the conversation starts with someone asking how to split up a bunch of money and ends with someone yelling, “I’m the boss!”

I’m the Boss! Which I’m going to not abbreviate so you have to imagine someone yelling it at you every time you read it, is a negotiation game from the 90s from prolific designer Sid Sackson, who is the creator of Acquire, what I consider to be one of the most important branches in game design. He’s also part of a cute BBC documentary that lives on a weird corner of the internet.

If you like your negotiation games light, filled with regular injections of drama, and wrapped up in a little more than an hour, this is the game for you.

The premise of I’m the Boss! is CORPORATION. We’re all departments in a corporation of some kind, business people doing business things. On a turn, you either try to make a deal on the space you’re on, or you roll the dice, moving the deal marker the number of spaces rolled, and then you try to make a deal at the new location, or you draw three cards and your turn is complete. Once a certain number of deals are completed, the game is over.

[caption…

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On a whim—which is saying something, because I don’t typically buy things “on a whim”—I picked up a copy of last year’s reprint of 1880: China during SPIEL 2022. Based on the 2010 game of the same name, Lookout Games produced an updated version with a better-looking map, box and components.

But Lookout doesn’t do much in the 18xx space; in fact, 1830: Railways and Robber Barons is the only other major 18xx game that they currently publish. So, it was curious to see 1880: China under the Lookout banner at the show. I laid down some cash and quickly proceeded to get the game home and…not play it in any form for six months.

Earlier this year, when I began using the fantastic site 18xx.games, I learned 1880: China in the virtual space. That way, I could take more time to learn the systems and what made the game unique. Around this same time, I began to read reviews about 1880: China and 18xx loyalists seemed to be very excited about it.

Now I see why. Across 17 total plays online and in person, this is the best version of the original 18xx system I have played. 1880: China is a beast because so many of the game’s rules are different from 1829, the first…

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