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18 India

Played 18 India for the second time yesterday. The first time I played was fairly soon after it released (2p with the now-adult TaoLing1) and the rules were a mess and the game was a mess. The rules are still a mess but there is now an extensive FAQ on BGG.

And let’s not mince words — That rule book (and/or, the entire development of the game) is a stain on GMT’s reputation. Not a huge stain, but it is. There are still threads popping up where the rulebook and designers intent still conflict. Maybe I’ve been living the dream because I normally read rules by Tom Lehmann, Chad Jensen, and the like, but even with the rules and FAQ there are still lots of “Huh?”2 An 18xx rule book shouldn’t need to re-invent the wheel. (And to it’s credit, the one page “18 India for experienced 18xx players” is pretty good).

OK — so, thoughts on the game. I’m assuming anyone reading this plays 18xx, so I’m only going to discuss the differences between this and a standard game.

If I had to pick “The core hook” of the game, it would be the stock draft & IPO. To summarize roughly half of the (non-director) certificates and privates are put into an IPO, which is kind of like a card game of solitaire/patience, with players only being able to buy the top card (or two) of each pile, and the rest of the stocks have to wait until they are uncovered. The rest get dealt to the players, who keep about half and discard the rest. The discards (and the directors shares) are then drafted. The cards the players keep/draft are “in their hands” and only that player can buy. (I refer to them as “options”).

The instant thought that this gave me (and others) is that means that 18 India might be “a long hand of cards” — Oh, the shares I got dealt were much better, so … X hours later, I win! This might definitely be a problem, although there is room for good play. Or there might be some “Bad player right before me bought a mediocre share from the IPO and let me get the great share underneath it.”

Both of these are sort-of the antithesis of 18xx, which typically have little to no luck. I’m not against this in theory, but its not quite the itch that 18xx often scratches.

Then there’s the rest of the chrome. You can skip this as its just a list, although a make a few small points in the middle.

  • Random setup with 9 companies (3 in each of three regions) out of all the available companies. One of each region is a guarantee company … if it doesn’t pay out, the Bank still give a small dividend, so it doesn’t back up. (There is also a 10th company always in play).
  • All tile colors are available all the time (but upgrade in normal order).
  • You can place four yellows or do an upgrade, but the yellows must all be contiguous.
  • Variable Cities that are worth more depending on the highest value non-variable city.
  • The priority goes to first passer, but the next in order in a stock round is the next passer.
  • Each SR has a “sell only round” and then after that it’s buying. Sales never affect price and the market can have as many (non-presidents) shares as you want.
  • A company floats when the directors share is bought, or any 30%. Incremental capitalization.
  • Companies can buy shares (or bonds) in other companies. In fact, apart from withholding (and cross selling trains) this is the only way companies get money. Nothing in the IPO/Bank pays back.
  • There are gage changes (count as a stop, but no money, and may not be used as a start/end of a run).
  • Trains never rust; but the train rush is real, because
    • Companies can always double/triple or even quadruple jump; better trains are necessary.
    • Companies can sell trains back to the bank (for full value for earlier trains, less for the good trains), and the train limit is two.
    • There are regular trains (X stops, dits are bonus money) or express trains (any length but dits don’t count money).
    • Some trains (regular or express) have multipliers and double/triple all money
  • Companies don’t have to have a train (and presidents can’t go into pocket) they just back up faster and eventually close.
  • At the end game, a companies final value isn’t just the stock price but also include it’s assets (trains/cash/stocks).
    • I kind of like that. It better models the real world in capturing “What would you really want to keep this stock if the game were to keep going another round?” (Because a company with higher earnings will likely have better trains, and a company with lots of cash wouldn’t need to with-hold again).
    • In practice its a bit tedious & anti-climactic. You should definitely print out the game end scoring work sheet (or use a spreadsheet) because its an involved calculation.
  • The 10th company (GIPR) is a special company that can only open at a certain point, and it has bonds that can convert to shares, so it has 200% (and that money is just created). It can also absorb companies that close.
  • There are special runs worth more3 and then are commodity sources/destinations that are worth more4, but only for the first company to ever make one. Also, these things don’t get doubled/tripled if you have a special train.

That’s a long list and leads directly to the core criticism of 18 India. “Too many notes.” This is 18 Salieri as compared to the Mozarts in the genre.

These may all be historically accurate, but there’s too many competing things going on. A company can buy a share from the IPO to unblock the next share for it’s president (or to open the company during the current OR!). Do you increase your best city or build four tracks to head for a commodity? Will that get you the commodity run, or will the next company get it. Who controls the GIPR could be a very narrow race (first to get a 3rd/4th share down) and then that player could funnel a ton of money around.

(I’ve had the shower thought that if an 18xx has a big conglomerate company, perhaps it should have a rule that it must always buy/sell trains at face value to prevent such swings. But it’s part of the game).

18 India would benefit from pruning. The game isn’t long … our game5 took 3.5 hours including the setup (not fast), rule refresher, mid-games “How does that work again” arguments, and scoring. So the chrome isn’t delaying the game unreasonably (although it does add some time), it’s just a lack of cohesion.

But for all that, 18 India might make a pretty good “Kitchen Sink” choice. Yes, it has a lot of chrome, but even before we’ve internalized it the game was pretty fast. I’m tempted to try 1817, but its hours longer. (As was multiplayer 1862 or 1822PNW, and both of those have a fair amount of chrome).

If there is a focus that emerges from all of the chrome, I suspect its setting up for the endgame (while still earning enough to build a portfolio). Between the endgame scoring and quadruple jumping, the game rewards setting up a big, long term company and perhaps the GIPR is a red-herring.

But if that’s true, then it probably comes down to the opening draft, because only the first companies will be able to compete, and its definitely a long hand of cards. But the beauty of the kitchen sink design (if it has one) is that its very tough to predict the route from source to destination.

So — 18 India isn’t one of the great 18xxs, but I want to try a few more times to determine if its actually good. So for now it’s a suggest, but I think it will end up indifferent (or possibly even avoid).

(Assuming you like 18xx, if you haven’t tried this is not the one to start with. Start with 1846).

  1. Which probably means that a now moniker is in order, but Old Habits and all that. ↩︎
  2. I’m going to go with developer, because there were also charts on the board that had mystery numbers …. and we eventually figured out they were helpful reminders on the stock chart, but they weren’t labelled as to what. We spent a fair amount of time before we figured that out. Answer: They were repeating the player count in parenthesis so you wouldn’t have to read across. But we thought “Is that the max president’s shares? What is that?” ↩︎
  3. Printed on the map for your reference in incredibly small type. ↩︎
  4. Again, very hard to figure out source/destination from the map. ↩︎
  5. First time for some; second for the rest after a long gap ↩︎
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