1846 & 1893 Cologne (first game)

Two 18xx during one gaming night? Yep, it is real 🙂
First we were playing 1846 and second was a new title for us: 1893 Cologne.
We played 1846 with 3 players (me, Jacek and MichaÅ‚ from Olkusz) and it took us 3 hours and 16 minutes. Nice time, nice game. If you played it already, then you know that it is almost a family 18xx game: it is hard to bancrupt, the price of stock values doesn’t drop down so easy and there is no auction at the beginning of the game (which is always a little bit stressful for a new players). That’s all makes this game one of the most friendly titles for a new players. Moreover, that’s why we will show this title during our first mini railway convent in next weekend. We will have got 3 tables with this game and we have got already a few interested people, who I hope would be a new 18xx players after that.

So how the games looked on Saturday?

1846:

I opened only one company during the whole game with a rather high value $80. Jacek done the same and MichaÅ‚ from Olkusz opened very low 2 companies and at the end of the game one with a rather high value $100. I paid nice dividends for the most of the game and my shares ended as the most expensive ones. MichaÅ‚ paid dividends very rare and his shares started to grow at the end of the game. And Jacek – he played this game for the first time, but his shares was almost as expensive as mine. The game ended with MichaÅ‚ as a winner, his companies paid the best dividends and he also blocked some of our best tracks in the middle of the game. That was his key to success 😉

Next game was 1893 Cologne. It is a rather short 18xx game from Marflow Games and I bought it during Spiel in Essen.
We played it with 4 players and it took us only 2 hours and 35 minutes. A new player joined us, so it took me some time to tell him all the rules 😉
During the game he was investing only in other players shares: his strategy was new for me and he ended the game in the second place. That strategy is very risky, you must be very careful and keep watching all the time who and what is doing.
What is interesting in this game? There are only 5 big companies and 2 of them started late in game due to merging minor companies. Map is small and most prominent place is in the center (Koln).
The stock market has got 4 dimensions but there is tight certificate limit (only 9 for 4 players). There are also public bonds which allow to invest money (cost 100Mark and gives 10Mark in every operating round), they count to certificate limit so they are just an option when other companies are weak.
Last question: price goes only one step down on selling shares . Buuuu

After one play it is hard to say: do I like it or I don’t. It is interesting and it is fast. It is much, much better than the fast variant for 2-3 players in 18CZ.
Michał‚ said the same: we will see. He wants to play it once again as do I 🙂
And the last thing: 1893 contains few small variants so next time we will play with some of them.

Wolfram who is the president of Marflow is making all his games protected with glossy laminate. I don’t like it and after few e-mails Wolfram offered me a game without laminate. Yupee, so what you see on the photos is a special custom version 😉













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