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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Back in 2020 I swooned over Village Green, a delightfully constricting game of card placement and fluid scoring designed by Peer Sylvester and published by Osprey Games. 

Fast forward to 2023 and Osprey are back with Village Rails, designed by Matthew Dunstan and Brett J. Gilbert. It’s a sequel, of sorts. Like its sibling, Village Rails provides players with the puzzley experience of creating a grid of symbol-splattered cards with scoring cards around the edge, all wrapped up in a tidy and tiny package.

It’s good: compelling, compact and cranium-caressing. Worthy of the ‘Village’ name. And yet the experience it provides is markedly different and whilst I like it quite a bit, there is no swoon.

All aboard

The goal of Village Rails is points, tracked on gorgeous scoring dials shaped like old-fashioned train tickets. They’re a delightful highlight of an excellent production.

On each of your turns you take a ‘tracks’ card and add it to your expanding 3 x 4 grid. These cards have two train tracks traversing them, with a track entering or leaving each of the card’s sides. By the end of the game you have…

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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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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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I’ve really scaled up the difficulty level in my 18xx journey this year. After treading water with some of the classics, such as 1830: Railways and Robber Barons, 1846: The Race for the Midwest, Shikoku 1889 and 18Chesapeake, I have begun to seek out more complex iterations of the classic system started with 1829, designed by Francis Tresham about 40 years ago.

As a part of this second-level exploration, our friends at GMT Games were kind enough to send me a copy of 1848: Australia (first published in 2007 by Double-O Games, then in 2021 by GMT). 1848, designed by Helmut Ohley and Leonhard “Lonny” Orgler, is set around the railway business of Australia at the start of the country’s railway business. This business was initially a horse-drawn railway in the 1830s before it became a more industrialized system, moving not just people but mining, logging, and cement factory goods. The Sydney Railway Company, the first of the big railways in Australia, began operations in 1848.

1848 shares many of the systems started in 1829 and prevalent in most of the 18xx games I’ve tried so far. If you want to learn more about how the basics work in these games, please take a look at my previous coverage. We’ll talk here about ways…

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I’m a big fan of Alban Viard.

Viard, the designer of Clinic: Deluxe Edition, strikes me as the kind of guy who is probably a mad genius. The rulebook for Clinic made me laugh out loud and it was the somewhat cynical approach to the hospital design simulation that made me fall in love with a super-complex system that was one of the hardest games to table in my collection.

I’ll play anything that Viard designs. With that in mind, I reached out to Clay Ross at Capstone Games to see if I could snag a review copy of the Nano9Games series. Viard built a small-box collection of three solo-only games featuring different themes and a gimmick—each of the three volumes features nine cards, nine dice, and nine cubes in a small bookshelf-style box.

I decided to play the games in order, each time on a different trip I had scheduled for personal travel this fall. Below, I’ll share a few thoughts on each box and an overall verdict!

Nano9Games Volume 1: Railways

Railways is a high-score challenge; you are tasked with building an efficient railway network over 120 years (12 rounds, each spanning a decade) to deliver passengers and increase capital and profits.

There are…

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I’m diving into train games in a big way in 2023. After learning the 18xx system a number of months ago, I have been aggressive in finding these games as I try to learn the ropes.

Earlier this year, I shared my project idea with Josh Starr, the person who runs Grand Trunk Games. About two years ago, I purchased 1861: Railways of the Russian Empire / 1867: Railways of Canada (the two games can only be purchased as a box set), the first Grand Trunk production following a successful crowdfunding campaign.

1861/1867 are beautiful second editions. It is clear that Josh only wants to put his name on sensational productions of classic games, while also finding ways to draw new 18xx gamers into the system. Josh’s second project is a reprint of a game long out of print. Originally released in 2004 as 1889: History of Shikoku Railways, the game is famously known as one of the best, if not THE best, introduction to the 18xx system.

I got to know the game a bit better through the 1889 implementation on 18xx.games. Now that I have a physical copy at home, I’m even more excited—it’s great to own a game that teaches curious players about a somewhat intimidating system. While Shikoku 1889 is an exceptional…

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Wouldn’t it be great to find a game that takes many of the best parts of a game you already enjoy, makes it a bit shorter, keeps most of the fancy production elements AND still offers a rich decision space?

Lately, it seems like almost every game I loved from five years ago has tried to find that space. Heck, in the last year alone, I’ve seen or played versions of Terra Mystica, Terraforming Mars, Twilight Imperium, Spirit Island, Scythe, Orléans, and Everdell that aimed to be a more streamlined version of the base game.

This year, I’m intentionally driving hard into the past. Why look at so many new games, when there are THOUSANDS of great games from just a few years ago? I recently reviewed Age of Steam, a 21-year-old design. I like Age of Steam quite a bit, but its complexity plus its length at lower player counts are a minor turnoff.

I didn’t even know about Railways of the World (2005, Eagle-Gryphon Games) until the publisher sent a copy for review. Railways, designed by Martin Wallace (Brass: Lancashire) and Glenn Drover (Mosaic: A Story of Civilization), was updated with a 10th anniversary edition in 2015. This newer edition includes maps for the Eastern US…

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(To learn more about Justin’s journey into the 18XX system, read his introduction here.)

About 18 months ago, I decided that I finally wanted to crack the nut when it comes to the 18XX system. It’s been a long and winding road, in part because the road looks like a path no one in my gaming group really wants to walk.

Recently, I decided to force the issue and get a couple of my gaming circles to play just one of these games to see what people think. After browsing the interwebs and building a short list that seems to serve an 18XX novice best—games like 1830, 18MS, Shikoku 1889 and 18Chesapeake—I decided to go with a choice designed by the person I trust the most: Tom Lehmann.

The man who has designed some of my favorite strategy games—Race for the Galaxy, Roll for the Galaxy, Res Arcana—also designed 1846: The Race for the Midwest (the first edition was released in 2005 by GMT Games). A second edition of 1846 arrived a couple years ago, so I dropped some cash to buy a second edition copy for myself.

I am thrilled to share that 1846 is not only a perfect game for strategy gamers who are new to the 18XX system, but 1846 is…

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Right now, I’m digging into train games pretty hard.

Cube rail games, like Iberian Games. Short train games like Village Rails. Medium-weight games, like Chicago Express. Long train games, such as 1846: The Race for the Midwest. Online train games, on 18xx.games. Fantasy train games, like Empyreal: Spells & Steam.

If there’s a reason to play a train-adjacent game in 2023, generally speaking, I’m playing it. I think that’s because I spent most of my gaming career avoiding games like this, so I want to be inclusive as I consider this category. Are train games for me? I’m going to do everything I can to find out for sure, especially if I can break out my poker chips to substitute out crappy paper money.

I have spent a good part of the last two years with Meeple Mountain attempting to build a relationship with Eagle-Gryphon Games. I’m excited to share that this mission was a success. Over the next two or three months, I’m going to be posting a number of Eagle-Gryphon articles.

Most of my friends think of Eagle-Gryphon as the Vital Lacerda shop. Lacerda has designed many of the most beloved strategy games ever made, such as The Gallerist, Vinhos: Deluxe Edition and Kanban EV.

In fact, Eagle-Gryphon has…

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[fuzzy awakening sounds] “I said the game could take 5 or 6 hours. What do you think?”

I was listening to my friend Jacob tell me about his love affair with 18XX games, the long-running series of economic “train games.” These games are legendary for two reasons: the games are an eyesore (and that’s being polite) and they are crazy long. Almost everything I had read about 18XX games led me to believe games would last at least one hour per player, and that games were best with 4-5 players.

That, plus a teach for games loaded with rules, meant at least five hours sitting at the table for a single game.

Oh, boy. I have a job, kids, a wife and a life! It’s pretty hard for many of my friends to even play games these days, let alone long ones that often have to be played during the daytime on a weekend. Suffice it to say, I’ve got a lot of built-in challenges for an endeavor like this one.

But I wanted to see for myself. I’m on a mission in 2023 to embrace playing longer games once or twice a month, and 18XX games offered the perfect chance to get comfortable getting…uncomfortable. For years, I’ve been turning down chances to play 10-hour civilization games and 12-hour…

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If people are a city’s lifeblood and downtown its beating heart, then the city’s transit apparatus is the circulatory system carrying that vital flow to and from the places it needs to go. And perhaps there is no public transport more ingrained into popular culture than the unassuming subway.

Spidermans have been born there. Evil villains have made them their lairs. People fall in love there all the time. There’s just something about those subterranean networks of rails and tunnels that call to the human psyche, begging to be center stage in our fiction. And it turns out, it’s a great setting for board games, too. Take Terminus, for example.

Terminus is an action selection, resource management, and town building game governed by a rondel-style track (called the Action Loop) which not only functions as the game’s timer, but also serves as the main impediment to the players’ ambitions. Building subway lines to score points is the name of the game, but you only get nine revolutions around the track in which to achieve your goals. Some actions are cheaper the earlier you get to them and some items are limited. So, Terminus is going to force you to make some tough decisions, passing up some things in order to get to others before your opponents do. And that’s…

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Everything about every single Friedemann Friese game looks similar when you consider each green game box with dry cover art and a game title that (usually) starts with the letter F.

At the behest of my editorial boss, Meeple Mountain founder Andy Matthews, I stopped by the 2F-Spiele booth at SPIEL ‘22 to pick up a copy of Findorff, Friese’s newest game, for his personal collection. While I was at the booth, I went ahead and grabbed a copy for myself.

I added Findorff to the 40-or-so review copies I hauled home from the show. Fast forward to the moment I whipped out the rulebook for Findorff and then did a dummy-hand three-player setup to walk through the game.

Two turns into that walkthrough, I knew we had something here. After four plays (two solo, one three player, and one four-player game), I know something else: this has replaced Power Grid as the best Friedemann Friese game I have ever played.

Downtime? Zero

Findorff is one of the 23 districts of a German town called Bremen, the birthplace of Friese. Findorff (the game) is based on the history of this district with players producing resources to build up the town from the early 1800s to the early…

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