18xx Information

The 18xx game system is a railroad themed boardgame that abstractly simulates the operation of railroads over a period of time. Some individual game titles are years that are important to the overall them of the game. 18xx games include a financial element through a stock market and players represent the investors who also control individual railroads and the winner is determined by considering total net worth at the end of the game. Many of these games simulate actual events in railroad history and there is no direct random element such as movement determined by dice rolls. Some of the games can be very long and even the shortest 18xx games take 3 or more hours to play. Francis Tresham in England invented the original game system with his England based 1829 game. The first US published 18xx game was 1830 and it was my first 18xx game played. I quickly learned to appreciate the game system and started dreaming about creating new designs.

INTRO: Let's face it; as much as I love 18xx games, most of them are just too long. While I enjoy epic length games, the trend in 18xx games seems to be "bigger is better". I was at a gaming convention in October 1996 and sat down to play 1870 with four other players. Our game lasted 8 1/2 hours! I decided that there might be a place for shorter games that still capture the flavor of larger 18xx games. I also wanted something that would be more accessible to newer gamers as well as "sometimes gamers" like spouses, etc. I decided to create something set in the southeast US which currently are not featured in any existing 18xx game. Since I had read a few books pertaining to southern railroads and with Chattanooga being known for its railroad heritage, a Tennessee game started to take shape in my mind. I started working on 18TN in 1995 but didn't really have a good way to produce any kind of decent prototype. In 1997 I got a color inkjet printer and picked up Microsoft Publisher for Windows 95. With the help of David Reed and Chris Lawson, I was able to develop a decent looking 18TN prototype. The following is a little information about the original game.

Info on 18TN

DETAILS: As mentioned, Chris Lawson began to help me in playtesting early versions of 18TN and agreed to help me develop it. Somewhere along the line, Chris decided that the design needed major revisions. Although I didn't necessarily agree with all of his ideas (designers tend to be protective of their "babies", especially their first one), I did want to see the design published in some form. This led to Chris making a number of major changes, one of which was his decision to rename the game 1851. By late 1997 Chris was doing final playtesting and scheduled the game for publication in 1998 (it was published around March 1998 and is beautiful). Chris and I are listed as co-designers but there are many changes between my original 18TN design and 1851. I have no plans to publish 18TN despite the positive feedback I have received when I have taken it to conventions to show off. I think there would be considerable confusion between 18TN and 1851 since the maps are similar and the same railroad corporations are used in each game. Therefore, the following sections pertain to my earlier version of 18TN and are mainly of historical interest.

Details: 18TN has six railroad corporations including the L&N, the first major railroad to build major lines into Tennessee in 1850. The other railroads include the GM&O, the Southern Railway, the Illinois Central, the Tennessee Central and the Nashville, Chattanooga & St Louis (the Dixie Line). The map extends from roughly Little Rock in the West to Bristol TN/VA in the east. The north/south boundaries are Cincinnati to Atlanta although a number of these cities are red off board areas. Admittedly, there is a fair amount of Kentucky represented but the primary play area is in Tennessee. There is yellow track printed on the map from Louisville to Bowling Green to simulate the early track building and to enhance the L&N's dominance in Middle Tennessee.

The privates are represented by actual ghost railroads around the state. They were situated to add strategic value where possible. In 18TN all privates have the same basic ability. That is that any owning corporation may lay an extra tile in the private company's hex in addition to its regular tile laying phase (like the C&SL in 1830). These simplifications, as well as a smaller stock chart were done to keep the game moving.

Each railroad corporation is allowed two yellow track lays on its first turn of operation only if it wishes. I found this necessary on a map of this scale. There are special yellow tiles for Nashville and Chattanooga. The other special features include an abstract effect caused by the American Civil War. Basically, all railroads lose the income from one of its trains for one turn when the Civil War is triggered (the purchase of the third three train). Depending on when the railroads start, some may not even be affected by this. These rules are designed to give each game in this series a local flavor but hopefully won't bog the players down with learning numerous new rules or concepts.

Here is a screen shot from my original prototype. This shows the Nashville area.

Around mid 1996 I think, I received a great looking gif file of the whole board courtesy of David Reed. Here it is:

Info on 18GA

A LITTLE HISTORY: 18GA is actually my second attempt at a "lite" 18xx style games, this one set in the State of Georgia. The first attempt was my original 18TN game which is set in the State of Tennessee. Both games were originally created in 1995 and 18TN was only a couple of months older than 18GA. I had intended to develop them both together since I had envisioned some kind of modular system for these smaller games. Almost from the start, I realized that map for Georgia was much better suited as a smaller map because I felt that it did not really have wasted hexes where there was not much action. The original version of 18GA was a little shorter than 18TN perhaps because the map developed faster. It was hoped that 18GA would play in about 3 hours or less. An original logo from my first edition map appears above.

So what happened? Well, my energy was devoted with 18TN and I didn't have much time to do anything much in 1996 on either 18GA or 18TN. Beginning late in 1996, I got back on this project and began working closely with Chris Lawson in England who had gotten interested in 18TN/1851.

I never forgot about 18GA though and starting late in 1997, the game was revised and a new round of playtesting began. Around this time I upgraded my inkjet printer to a new HP wide carriage model with the idea of possibly producing better prototype maps and some of the other components.

Late in 1997 I produced about 15 copies of the latest playtest version, called an evaluation copy, to circulate to other playtesters and players at my Chattanooga Rail Gaming Challenge. Positive feedback from players at the convention and from players I had never even met who had played the evaluation copies when they were carried to other conventions around the country encouraged me to redouble my efforts to get 18GA out in some form. Chris Lawson published 1851 about this time and has told me that his future publishing plans have not been determined yet. However since I was planning to create components myself so that it could be published soon, I didn't see any point in waiting since most of the basic design had been done. I think that I have succeeded for the most part.

18GA DESCRIPTION: The map is printed on a single 13" x 19" page. It contains the entire State of Georgia as well as some bordering areas and cities. The locations of couple of gray off board cities (Montgomery and Tallahassee) have been slightly exaggerated for game play purposes. The overall scale is about 60 miles per hex. Here is a screen shot of the map. As in 18TN, there are six railroad corporations represented. They are the Georgia Railroad, the Central of Georgia, the Atlantic Coast Line, the Seaboard Air Line, the Western & Atlantic and the Georgia & Florida RR. References to ghost railroads of Georgia were used to create the five private companies. The Civil War is represented in this game but in a very simplified manner to retain playability. In this game Atlanta has three different city values. In 18GA the green tile for Atlanta is actually lower than the yellow city value! That's right, the green city value for Atlanta represents the effects on Atlanta and nearby areas from the fighting and it becomes a mere $10 city until the first five train is bought and Atlanta is "rebuilt". Of course, its final value is a truly impressive $70!

The game has a few new or unusual features and some of them are listed below:

• One of the privates provides a free "2" train for the use of the purchasing RR corporation.
• Railroads can only buy one train from the bank per OR until the "4" trains are in play.
• The "whistle stops" are now called towns and don't count against the length of a train's run.
• Private companies can only be sold to RRs for a maximum price of 1.5 times face value.

DESIGN COMMENTS: There are a couple of things that I changed when I got into the Alabama based game. I pretty much decided that the $55 par value is just too dangerous. Especially in 4 or 5 player games, players are tempted to start their only railroad at $55 and then have to buy its permanent train largely out of pocket, effectively killing their final score. Perhaps I was a little hung up on the idea of par values equally spaced apart on the stock chart. Some railroads are still better than others and I don't really have a problem with that. It is one of those things that have to be "solved" or determined through a number of playings. Lately I have been tempted to help strengthen the SAL by making Savannah a pre printed yellow city. There is a temptation to continually tweak things even after the game is published and "out the door". More cutthroat players probably will not like the rule of only being able to buy one train from the bank per turn, but playtesting and discussions have shown that train flow is tricky in smaller games like this. Just keep in mind that this game was designed to be friendly to newer players.

18AL

(The Railroads Come to Alabama)

18AL is my third 18xx design after 18TN (published by Chris Lawson in a revised manner as 1851) and 18GA. It is similar to 18GA in scope. The map is about the same size and, like 18GA, it features 6 historical railroad corporations and five private companies. It has been undergoing playtesting since early 1998. I produced a limited deluxe edition of 18AL which was offered to prior purchasers of 18GA who I had email addresses for. Each copy had hand Mayfair 18xx money sets, painted wooden tokens, complete cut out and sorted tile sets and laminated shares and charters. All 12 copies sold in about 5 hours when offered on March 10th, 2000.  I'm sorry that I can't produce more copies of the deluxe edition but they just take too long not to mention the difficulty in obtaining some of the materials such as wooden pieces and Mayfair 18xx money.

Here is a look at a portion of my final 18AL map. It shows the northeast portion of the map.

In 2001, I suspended publication of 18GA and 18AL. I was approached by 18xx fan John David Galt who was interested in producing new editions of 18GA and 18AL. He began with color photocopy masters of my original sheets. He has spent considerable time updating some of the components and some of these new forms such as tile progression sheets (which I never seemed to have time to make) are available for free download   for current owners. More recently, he has produced some new components using Corel Draw including a new map. He has a number of forms and the latest version of the rules available for download for previous owners. His latest versions of 18AL and 18GA should be available now. For more information, go here:

Info on 18GA and 18AL Kits for Sale

Some of the rules have undergone minor changes since original publication. One of the major changes for 18AL is that “4” trains now have a delayed obsolescence. That is, once a “7” train is bought, “4” trains are allowed to run one more time, then are immediately discarded. This was done to reduce the number of games of 18AL that end in bankruptcy. Also, I no longer recommend or support either 18GA or 18AL for play by 5 players. When played by five players, railroads are not properly capitalized and this can lead to more player bankruptcies. For updated information on both game games, visit John’s site as shown above:

18MEX

(The Railroads Come to Mexico)

Here is some initial information about my latest design. As the title suggests, it is set south of the US border in Mexico. It is somewhat larger in scope than 18AL or 18GA. The current version includes 3 minor companies, 7 regular railroad corporations plus a government railroad, the NdM. I had intended to try a game with a government railroad merger and a sense of succession of the railroads and local flavor while keeping the complexity low to moderate. Unfortunately, as you add special features and flavor (sometimes referred to as “chrome”) sometimes the overall complexity increases. The game has higher overall building costs but they are balanced by the mail contract payments each operating company receives. The initial rules required the merger of one railroad into the NdM to represent the consolidation of the Mexican railroads but now the merger is not mandatory and does not always happen, leading to different type board layouts. My first complete prototype was finished in 2001 and since then I have made a number of changes and it has been playtested at conventions and in Europe. I gave in last year and overhauled the map though it is now a two sheet map and is slightly larger. I think the game is getting closer to being finished now but I am not sure when it might be available for sale. One place I know that it will be immediately announced when that day comes is the Yahoo 18xx group. This site is fairly active and many of the active supporters of 18xx around the world post there regularly. I highly recommend it. Here is a link the site:

Link to Yahoo 18xx Group