After playing 18CZ (again!), I was trying to pin down why I thought it was “OK” and not “Great.” Why does 1822 PNW make me want to get it back to the table, while CZ is merely a “Yeah, sure.” (I mean it’s still a positive feeling, but more “indifferent plus” than “suggest” or “enthusiastic“) and I think this comes down to one thing that I have touched upon a few times over the years, but bears repeating.

Entanglement — The (Not So) Secret Sauce

By their nature 18xx games are more entangled than most business games. In typical games, each player controls their own (single) corporation. What is good for the company is good for the player, and vice versa. In 18xx, a player can juggle multiple (competing) interests; it can be great to trash a company under your control (shifting its assets to a ‘better’ company).

This brings up the Principal-Agent Problem , but also Implicit Collusion because there might be other shareholders and they will want to know if the company is going to pay out or with-hold, and if it will be headed for a glorious future or Chapter 11.

It can be impossible to state the “right” play is for a company merely by looking at the board. You need to understand the stock split dynamics. Does the president own 60% (and 40% is in the IPO/Bank). Or is it a 40%/30%/30% (in a three player game). Treating those situations identically is a recipe for disaster.

So — The board position is entangled with the players’ stakes. That’s the “hook” of 18xx.

(Acquire also does this, and is rightly acknowledged as one of the greatest games of last century¹. Its board play is much simpler, the stock entanglement does the heavy lifting. In Chicago Express the entire game play revolves around implicit collusion — getting the incentives right so that others make plays to your benefit)

Of course there are levels of entanglement, and ripples to the chaos.

How many companies (and which ones) will open?

If the same companies open in the same order every game, the game will likely start to feel the same (although various splits of minors still have interest)². Varying how many companies (and which) provides variety because the “train rush” is triggered by that one additional company operating. In many games, there might be “semi-permanent” trains. If X companies open, they last. The X+1st company opens and they rust.

Some games (like the ’22 family) randomize the order that some companies show up in, this forces each play into a new line but also means that the number of viable companies might change, which has implications on the train rush.

More subtlety, 1846 achieves the same effect by having some dubious companies that frankly aren’t great. Is it worthwhile to open a second company? Uh, sometimes. For a long time the fact’ that the game’46 had mediocre companies puzzled me, but borderline companies are a ticking time bomb. If the incentives are right, someone will open them just to watch the world burn trains rust. The fact that their ROI isn’t great is borderline.

Thinking about this with 18CZ; I suspect that it does do better at this that I thought … but three players is not its sweet spot³. The train limit is a bit too generous at that count (at least in our meta). Again compare this against ’46, where the number of companies (and trains) varies based on player count to keep things tight.

How entangled is the board?

The game board should be small enough so that each company’s track plays have ripple effects.

The game that best exemplifies this is, naturally, Go. There are “joseki” — opening lines that theoritically should provide roughly equal chances for either side … in that particular corner. Professional players spend an inordinate amount of time on the first 20-30 moves (out of 150-250 ish) because the corners influence each other and the josekis will combine. Joseki A (in the NW corner) may be great if Joseki B is in the NE corner, but terrible if Joseki C is in the NE corner.

So you want to leave things in flux and arrange joseki(s) that work together in your favor.⁴

In our last few games of CZ, Eastern Side of the Board never impacted the Western Side … everyone met up at Prague, which held enough token slots that most companies could get through, and the ones that didn’t at the end had their runs on the appropriate side. Sure, there was jockeying between companies on each side, but the corners never impacted each other. (Again, might be a problem that is solved at more players).

Which is not to demand that “every company cares about every other company,” but there should be some tension and chokepoints; companies fighting to place track or station tiles. For example, ’46 has Chicago (and Toledo, and Indianapolis). PNW has Seattle and Portland literally fighting over growth.

CZ (at least with three) felt like it had walled off suburbs. My branch in the SE eventually merged with the NW companies (and the Northerner), but it was a minor event. Like finding a run worth an extra few dollars in share. A rounding error, not a bomb.

(1862 almost achieves “every company really cares about every other company”; because of merger opportunities but also because the board is so tight and different company charters will have very different track preferences).

And even companies far apart and destined to ne’er meet; they might compete over tiles. Every 18xx player knows the sinking feeling when you discover a needed tile is missing.⁵⁶

What doesn’t interest me

Hunting out the extra dollar and operations minutiae all the time. (Hunting out extra money in the opening is the entire point of compound interest). Yes, sometimes that extra dollar really matters. A few bucks might make the difference between buying another certificate. In that case, the extra few dollars is a “bomb⁷” (a big deal).

Token wars, snatching up the right train, ownership battles, dumping companies … those are always bombs. If the few extra dollars is a bomb only 1% of the time, it can be simplified away. But I’ve learned that in order to entangle the board (and stock) you have to have the possibility of not entangling it. Sometimes even great games can have a relatively dull run.

There are other things that don’t interest me. (I’m no longer fond of the ’30 family’s script of “first company low, second company saves first.” Nothing wrong with that play … but I’ve seen it enough). But in general I’m looking for a reason to play an 18xx title and most of them give me plenty.

1. The BGG HoF got some things wrong, but they got that right. ︎
2. I owned 1835 back in …. ’92 or ’93, but never got to try it. I know it has its defenders and variants…. ︎
3. After writing this, I went and checked BGG and 4p is listed as best with 3p and 6p having the lowest recommended numbers. ︎
4. I don’t play Go well enough to know how to do this; but I played enough to know this is true. See the proverb “Memorizing Joseki loses two stones.” ︎
5. Yes, its a horribly gamey thing …. why should the fact that some company hundreds of miles away built a branch mean you can’t? Well, just imagine that they got a compliant politician to hose you. ︎
6. Also, I swear that 1846 is influenced by Coriolis rotation of the earth, because tiles that are mirror images with 4 each will have one set empty and the other set untouched. ︎
7. For those readers unfamiliar with the term, I am using the meaning of “bomb” from a Jonathon DeGann Article, which is still available on the Wayback machine. ︎

1. Merge minors in too fast, leaving your company under capitalized when the permanent train rush starts (because those shares weren’t earning for the company). Unless you need to absorb the minors to handle a train disappearance, they typically earn fine.
2. (Related) — Too many minors and no privates to bump up company income. Privates are a good way to stuff some money into the company (without taking stock out).
3. Start your company too early — You get slightly better money at 50% of a minor instead of (say) 40% of a major, but nobody can buy into your minor. “Second mouse gets the cheese.”
4. Forgetting that the train limit is 2 during brown phase. (aka “Too much 1846 muscle memory“). The solution is to start a minor & buy the locked train¹ (and infuse extra cash into your company). It can be worth taking a big hit on paper (since you lose value if you par the company over $200) because if you don’t your company is going to back up anyway and you’ll still eat the $$$ out of pocket.
5. Not noticing that a minor can open and block your connection — Particularly early in phase 2 a minor can start before your minor goes without losing any value² to put down a critical lumber space (or even just a yellow³), typically in the second OR of the batch (the first to take their home, the second to block).
6. Not adjusting your bids to the presence of blockers — As mentioned in the last comments, you want to up your certificate count. But if a ‘bad’ minor⁴ is coming up in the next round, there is going to be one less cert available next round, which means that next rounds auctions will be bid up a bit more …. which means (since you can see it coming) you should be willing to bid up this round (either to win or at least drain some money out before next round).
7. (In the mid/end game) Placing bids before snapping up the juiciest stock shares.

1. The problem is noticing during the OR, instead of during the SR … when you could have corrected it. ︎
2. Typically bidding 140 so as to buy and L and upgrade it automatically, which lets the company start at 70, which will be before all the companies opened in SR1 if they had <= 3 ORs ︎
3. Since you won’t be able to upgrade to green until phase 3, which can be a delay of several ORs. ︎
4. Usually a regional (in PNW) when it’s too early; but also a minor that won’t be able to merge in time ︎