Magole, Tolis and I gathered recently in Sosnowiec (southern Poland) to play some 18xx games.
Thats a Splotter Spellen’s take on 18xx. It is, of course, very different from the other games in the genre. The translation between 1800′ railroads reality and ancient Mesopotamia kingdoms is ingenious.
In SR, you buy a piece of land. There are four types of them, each present on the stock market. Player owning the most land in a kingdom is its king. So the kingdoms (companies) don’t have share prices! Of course, you can sell land as well.
In OR, each kingdom digs irrigation canals using diggers. After that, it purchases equivalent of trains and must immediately decide whether to use it as waterworks (pumps or reservoirs) or diggers. And owning at least one group of diggers is mandatory — just as trains in 18xx. An interesting thing is that you can place canals and waterworks no matter where. Even if they are on the territory of another kingdom, it doesn’t matter — the important thing is what kingdom irrigates the land, not where.
After OR, there is a rainy season. Water flows down the rivers and is distributed via the canals. Owners of used waterworks (kingdoms) and irrigated land (players) get money. Kings either distribute the harvest or keep it. Stock price of irrigated land increases. Once no water flows off the board, the Southern People get mad and invade — the game ends.
The cashflow is tricky. Not only you have to save money for diggers, but also for waterworks. I realised several times that I had thought that a company was safe because it had just enough money for diggers, whilst waterworks were also essential.
I think I made a mistake emerging Akkad kingdom on turn 3 instead of turn 1. I wanted to get more income from First Akkadians (independent nation — private — that closes once Akkad buys diggers) because they were quite expensive. It was clearly a mistake — mere land ownership isn’t enough to make money, you have to control a kingdom.
I feared that the game would be somehow disappointing, fortunately I really enjoyed the first play. I’m looking forward to playing it more. And it worked fine with 3 players. I wish more 18xx games changed the paradigm of the genre like this one does.
The potential problem of the game is that it’s hard to see who is winning and how a sale of lands will affect the score. I fear that if you want to play fully, a spreadsheet is a must.
Game length: 2h40
1. Tolis – 3912
2. Galatolol – 3846
3. Magole – 3016
I played it once before and had great great time thanks to the brutal train rush and fast pace. But it was with 6 players. This time, with 3, it dragged for too long and wasn’t interesting because we knew how easy it is to bankrupt in this game, so we played safe.
An average player wants to open a company in the first Stock Round. Given that the train distribution is always the same, the train rush has to accelerate with more players. And since this is the only appeal of the game to me, I don’t want to play it anymore at lower player counts.
Game length: 3h50
1. Galatolol – 8870
2. Magole – 8465
3. Tolis – 7953
So far this is my favourite 18xx game. Every play, even if starts similarly, ends differently. And there is highly interesting Bank of England.
The privates distribution (you either buy one of the privates or lower one’s price) is awkward: if you want one, there is no point in lowering its price because you risk someone picking it before you; if you don’t, the minimum price is still too high.
Now, Bank of England (BoE) is how “the big company that absorbs others” should be done. Its shares are available all the time (unless all held by players), it doesn’t have president, and – especially – there is no labourous route calculating (no “let’s find the optimal routes for those four 8-trains”). You simply add values of controlled stations to the fixed income and that’s it.
Last time I won and this time I played with the same strategy in mind. I went for the Tasmania private and one of nearby companies because this grants good revenue in the early game. Additionally I was buying BoE shares every time I had some spare money. In total I bough 7 of them, all at the start price of £70. The problem was that no one wanted to take loans (they make BoE shares more valuable). That’s why I deliberately started doing so, basically ruining my company (its income was still decent though). I didn’t close it out of fear of smaller certificates limit (every time a company is taken over by BoE, the limit is lowered by 2 or by 3 if you were its president). In the late game I sold BoE shares because their value wasn’t going up as fast as public companies’ (meanwhile I started two new companies; one of them was later take over by Tolis). But it was too late. Magole won comfortably thanks to high price of his two companies (he sacrificed the third one to make them stronger).
This playthrough was longer that my previous ones (there were under 3 hours), but it was fine. And by the way, we played wrong. We forgot about K bonuses and that the small dots don’t count towards the train range. This explains why the bank is so big given the small board (10 000 pounds). And apparently, with 3-4 players, the penalty for a president of a closed company is 2, not 1 — I wonder if it makes the strategy of deliberate company closing unplayable.
Game length: 3h45
1. Magole – 9346
2. Galatolol – 7061
3. Tolis – 6494
(previously posted on my miniblog)
Parę dni temu spotkaliśmy się w Sosnowcu z Magole i Tolisem na granie osiemnastkowe.
Ur: 1830 BC
Gwóźdź programu. Tolis kiedyś grał i chciał sobie odświeżyć ten tytuł, a ja akurat zrobiłem samoróbkę. Bałem się, że może być średnio, na szczęście rozgrywka mnie nie zawiodła. Gra zachowuje cechy 18xx, ale jednocześnie jest wyraźnie inna (w końcu to Splotter). Zaadotpowanie osiemnastkowych mechanizmów do starożytnej Mezopotamii jest imponujące.
W grze inwestuje się w typy terenu (kto ma więcej w obrębie danego królestwa, jest jego królem). Królestwa stawiają zbiorniki na wodę, pompy i kopią kanały, a spływająca (i przechwytywana) rzekami woda nawadnia ziemie, co zwiększa ich wartość.
Gra ciekawie zmienia paradygmaty gatunku i nie mogę się doczekać kolejnych partii.
Czas gry: 2h40
1. Tolis – 3912
2. Galatolol – 3846
3. Magole – 3016
1857
Grałem w to wcześniej raz, w 6 osób, i było niezwykle brutalnie (gra się zresztą zakończyła dość szybkim bankructwem). Na 3 graczy (świadomych zagrożenia) tego niestety już nie ma, a nic innego gra nie oferuje – no może poza ekstremalnie biedną planszą. No i się dłuży. W większym gronie chętnie dam kolejną szansę, w mniejszym pas.
Czas gry: 3h50
1. Galatolol – 8870
2. Magole – 8465
3. Tolis – 7953
1848: Australia
Póki co moja ulubiona osiemnastka. Poszedłem w strategię, która poprzednio dała mi zwycięstwo (kombo Tasmania + pobliska spółka, do tego kupowanie tanio udziałów Banku Anglii), tym razem niestety nie dało to nic przy wartości dwóch firm Magole.
To co najbardziej lubię w tej grze, to jak zaimplementowano dużą firmę, która wchłania mniejsze: jej dochód to stała liczba plus wartości wcielonych stacji. Elegancko. Nie ma żadnego liczenia tras dla pięciu posiadanych pociągów mogących wyruszyć z 10 stacji na planszy.
Niestety okazało się, że znów graliśmy z paroma błędnymi zasadami. Mam podejrzenie, że jedna z poprawek może sprawić, że gra zacznie mi się mniej podobać… (celowe utopienie spółki będzie jeszcze mniej opłacalne)
Czas gry: 3h45
1. Magole – 9346
2. Galatolol – 7061
3. Tolis – 6494