My Venture Into Online 18XX
I know what you are thinking: "Now he is talking about something dirty!" I'm not! I promise.
18XX is the placeholder name for a series of thrilling railroad board games. The original title, 1830, was developed by Francis Tresham and released in 1986 by Avalon Hill. These have a prominence for being long and complex games. They are, in some respects. In others, they are much more accessible than one might be led to think. I'm going to be using 1830 to illustrate the basic flow of the game, as the particular details won't be necessary for now.
The game runs over an indefinite number of rounds until a player goes bankrupt or the bank is "broken" - meaning the bank runs out of money. There are two main phases in each round, the Stock Round (SR) and the Operating Round (OR). Each phase has several sub-phases that the players complete. In the Stock Rounds, the players take turns buying and selling stock. In the Operating Rounds, players that are in control of a corporation take turns running the companies by placing track, placing stations on the board, running routes, and buying new trains. Now, this is an incredibly simplistic description of what can happen in a turn, and while it may sound mundane, 1830 especially is a brutal, unforgiving, and cutthroat game. I love that. One round you may be humming along making money, and the next someone sells all of their stake in a corporation and dump a worthless company with no assets right into your lap! I may do a more full-featured write-up of how a game plays as we get further into the game in which I am currently involved. For now, I want to discuss the four main ways to play these great games online!
RR18XX
The most accessible as of this writing is a website called RR18XX (www.rr18xx.com). I have some pictures posted below so you can get an idea of the interface. The website has each of the three main "views" on their page: finance - all of the player's current stock holdings, cash on hand, and private corporations owned. This screen also gives information about each of the companies - their current trains, stock value, and the value of the runs made for each operating round.
This website also has rules enforcement! This is the best feature of the website, by far. It is incredibly handy for teaching new players the game, and since the system is asynchronous, players can take their time getting acquainted with the game mechanisms and how the website works. There is a significant downside to this site: it is especially slow. It can take as long as three or four minutes to advance to the next action.
While this is the easiest of the online systems to create games and play games with, the speed of the site creates a major annoyance that can take away enjoyment during busy times. That said it is the easiest method to use that works with phones. Overall, this is the system I have used the most. I frequently have two to three games going at a time.
Board18
The second online system that I have some experience using now is Board18. I have played half of a game and have started a second as of this writing.
This system uses a website that hosts the board, stock market, tiles, and tokens, a program to handle game chat (typically Slack or Discord), and a spreadsheet to handle all of the numbers. In the case of most of the popular games in the series, people have made what are called "Dreamsheets". These are automated spreadsheets that can handle all of the math for the players. All that is required from the user is to fill in changes in share number, train purchases, and money spent each turn.
Board18 will require the use of a computer some of the time for ease of play. When you are already using three separate methods to make turns, using your phone is a real pain and just not very user friendly. It can still be done. Stock rounds are quite workable from your phone, for instance.
Board18 has no automatic rules enforcement, so the players will need to know the rules pretty well and police each other to be sure that everything is being played correctly. On the flip side, the variety of games playable using Board18 is huge! Due to the players making modules for the games they want to play, nearly every 18XX game available has a module that can be used with Board18. This is a really good method for playing more obscure titles.
There are a lot of positives to this system. I am growing to like it now that I have some time using the spreadsheet, chat programs, and website. The biggest downsides are the lack of rules being programmed into the modules and the difficulty of playing a game from your phone. If you get into playing 18XX games online, you will probably use this system at some point. It's that good.
That is my overview of the two systems I have experience using at this point. I will make a second part once I have experience with some of the other two big ways to play these games online. I'll probably get around to a more in-depth description of how these games flow later on down the road.
Happy gaming!
18XX is the placeholder name for a series of thrilling railroad board games. The original title, 1830, was developed by Francis Tresham and released in 1986 by Avalon Hill. These have a prominence for being long and complex games. They are, in some respects. In others, they are much more accessible than one might be led to think. I'm going to be using 1830 to illustrate the basic flow of the game, as the particular details won't be necessary for now.
The game runs over an indefinite number of rounds until a player goes bankrupt or the bank is "broken" - meaning the bank runs out of money. There are two main phases in each round, the Stock Round (SR) and the Operating Round (OR). Each phase has several sub-phases that the players complete. In the Stock Rounds, the players take turns buying and selling stock. In the Operating Rounds, players that are in control of a corporation take turns running the companies by placing track, placing stations on the board, running routes, and buying new trains. Now, this is an incredibly simplistic description of what can happen in a turn, and while it may sound mundane, 1830 especially is a brutal, unforgiving, and cutthroat game. I love that. One round you may be humming along making money, and the next someone sells all of their stake in a corporation and dump a worthless company with no assets right into your lap! I may do a more full-featured write-up of how a game plays as we get further into the game in which I am currently involved. For now, I want to discuss the four main ways to play these great games online!
RR18XX
The most accessible as of this writing is a website called RR18XX (www.rr18xx.com). I have some pictures posted below so you can get an idea of the interface. The website has each of the three main "views" on their page: finance - all of the player's current stock holdings, cash on hand, and private corporations owned. This screen also gives information about each of the companies - their current trains, stock value, and the value of the runs made for each operating round.
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| The finance view of rr18xx. |
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| The map view of rr18xx. |
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| The stock view of rr18xx. |
Board18
The second online system that I have some experience using now is Board18. I have played half of a game and have started a second as of this writing.
This system uses a website that hosts the board, stock market, tiles, and tokens, a program to handle game chat (typically Slack or Discord), and a spreadsheet to handle all of the numbers. In the case of most of the popular games in the series, people have made what are called "Dreamsheets". These are automated spreadsheets that can handle all of the math for the players. All that is required from the user is to fill in changes in share number, train purchases, and money spent each turn.
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| Spreadsheet for financials in 1862 in google sheets. |
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| Board18 website board, tile, and token view. |
There are a lot of positives to this system. I am growing to like it now that I have some time using the spreadsheet, chat programs, and website. The biggest downsides are the lack of rules being programmed into the modules and the difficulty of playing a game from your phone. If you get into playing 18XX games online, you will probably use this system at some point. It's that good.
That is my overview of the two systems I have experience using at this point. I will make a second part once I have experience with some of the other two big ways to play these games online. I'll probably get around to a more in-depth description of how these games flow later on down the road.
Happy gaming!
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