18Mex – 3rd play and I love it more and more

Foreword:

18Mex is one of my favorites 18xx games. I think that map and companies are well ballanced, and no matter which company you will start, you can win the game like others. Even privates are well ballanced, but several of them should be bought in pair with company (for example: when you buy minor (private) A then you should start Texas-Mexican Railway (TM) because this two can help each other). Only minor (private) C seems to me a little bit weak, because it’s hard to generate good income, and U de Y is not so easy to manage. But after last play, I think that I should change my opinion… 😉

Who was playing?

5 players! Me, Marcin (Magole), Tolis, Maciek and Tomek

How do we started?

Auction round was super fast. Nobody wanted to buy the cheapest private company, so on every privates were bids except last one. Marcin started “dominoes” and he bought first private. Second was bought by Tolis, and third (with minor A) after bidding was bought by me. Private with minor B was bought by Maciek and I bought minor C. I was thinking to open TM to controll all east side of the map. Sixth private was bought by Maciek, and finally Tomek was able to buy his only private – Mexican National Railroad. Because I spended too much money for privates I wasn’t able to run any company. And when Tomek opened TM, I knew, that this will be hard times for my minor A. As I mentioned before, Tomek opened TM, Tolis opened Mexican Railway (MR), Maciek opened Chihuahua Pacific (CP) and Marcin Pacific Railroad (PR). I was waiting long time to open my own company. So the first few OR’s were little boring for me, since I was able only to run my minors. I invested my money in others shares, mainly in TM and PR. Both companies were paying dividens and they are also sold out on stock market, so I got not only cash from dividens but also share price increased after each SR. So when I started my company? When last train “4” was on the table! And what is more crazy I started 2 companies in one SR! So I sold some of my shares, and then I started Mexican Central (MC) because I wanted to use tracks which are build by other companies and also to use little towns in my routes. In the same SR Marcin opened Southern Pacific (SP) and I opened UdeY (since I had already 10% of it’s shares from my minor). I opened my MC with price 60$ and UdeY with 75$. Since Marcin opened SP with price 80$ his company was before mine and I was praying for him to buy last train 4. I do so, because I wanted to buy two permanent trains. And I did so using old train from my MC to transfer some money 🙂
My next idea was to stop dividens and gather money for train 4D for both companies. And I was soo close to do that either. I was able to buy it for UdeY, but I was a little bit late for 4D for MC 🙁 I had to stop dividens and that’s how my company droped on stock market under Maciek’s company…
Thankfully that was last OR of the game, and both Maciek and Tomek can’t catch me 🙂

Some crucial moments:

– my both companies were able to trace easily routes to Mexico
– in last SR I sold one share from my MC, and after that MC shares didn’t counted to share limits (so I was able to buy another 4 shares!)
– my both companies were able to easily buy permanent trains
– National de Mexico was splitted through many players, so noone can jump away from others (Tomek 30%, Marcin 30%, Tolis 20%, Maciek 15%, Me 5%)
– Nobody wanted my UdeY when it started and when I payed out dividens only my money grown

Conclusion:

18Mex is absolutely one of the best 18xx I’ve played so far. Fast game with many ways to win, ballanced map and companies, great privates (minors!) and many, many more.

Time of play:

4 hours 30 minutes

Results: