1830 is a classic game, one of the best titles that, despite its age, does not get old. While playing it, I learned what 18xx is all about and now thanks to Marcin from Olkusz we can back to this title and all its different variants. There are really a lot of them. Recently, he offered us a game combining: The Coalfields + Take A Ride On The Reading + Chesapeake Bay Bridge. The first one greatly enlarges the map, there are several companies that operate in New York and it gets really hot there. The second one introduces a change in the rules of capitalization of companies and the sale of shares.
So companies have an incremental capitalization like they did in 49. With one change: they continue to float from 60%. Starting a new company is not necessarily so lucrative. In this variant, companies can buy their shares, they can also issue them. So you can still get a lot of money to buy trains (we buy 60% and then issue 40%), but it is good to do it wisely and you have to plan it very well. The upside is that the shares are in the company’s treasury from the beginning of the game and only the shares that are in the treasury bring the company income. I liked these changes very much and the game was really interesting. It’s also cool that this way you can play any 18xx game based on the mechanics of the 1830. For this, you don’t have to do anything e.g., change maps, add new shares or tracks. It is enough to make an agreement that today we play a little differently and we will see what will come of it.
However, you have to be prepared for the fact that the game will be longer. All variants add some time to the game, especially The Coalfields. Because there is a bigger map and more companies in the game. Changing the rules will also make the game a little longer, as you will have to re-plan some operations and some actions will not be as obvious as in the classic 1830.
The 2011 version by Mayfair has all the elements that allow you to play these variants, and if you have a genius in your group who can do PnP, you can even have a cool board game like ours and then you can then play any version of 1830 🙂
Links:
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/56839/1830-take-ride-reading
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgameexpansion/56841/1830-coalfields
https://kanga.nu/~claw/blog/posts/2009/08/28/game-observances/variants-for-1830/
Number of players: 4
Game time: 5 hours 56 minutes
Results: Michał z Olkusza 11940 / Andrzej 11507 / Marcin 10033 / Marcin z Olkusza 9453
BGG rating: 8
Game type (stock / engineering): 65% / 35%
Second game:
