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Main Catalogue |  Board Games & Card Games |  Tresham Games |  1829: Mainline 1829: Mainline Price: £39.99 Currently unavailable. 18xx Board Game, 1 to 7 Players ages 11+, by Tresham Games \'A New Type of \'1800\' Series Game MAINLINE: For Fast, Long-Distance Trains There are no dice or chance cards in this game. All players start with the same amount of money which they use to invest in Railway Shares. These depict real railways that ran in Britain during the Nineteenth Century. The companies build railway lines by laying tiles on the map board. They also buy trains and run them to connect stations of different values. The money thus earned may be paid to the shareholders as a dividend or it may be retained to buy new trains, build bridges, cross mountains or establish new bases. There must be one such base on each company route. These bases are shown by coloured marker tokens that clearly define each company\'s field of operation. Stations that are not so identified may be used by any company. The trains are brought in order of size. The tiles on the board may be up-dated in the order yellow, green, brown and finally grey. When a dividend is paid the value of the shares (usually) rises. When it is retained the share price falls. As the railways grow the share prices will reflect company fortunes. Earnings are used to buy further shares. In this way changes of Director may occur and give a player control of someone else\'s company! When the bank funds are exhausted the game finishes. Players add the current values of their shares to their holdings in cash and this determines the finishing order. ++++++++++++++++++++ Counter magazine review: Tresham Games 1-7 players, best with 2-4(5?); 2-5 hours designed by Francis Tresham reviewed by Mike Hutton Here in the U.K., the saying goes that you can wait for ages for a bus to come along, only for three to arrive at once. At Spiel 2004 we nearly had a similar experience, with rumours of no less than three new games from Francis Tresham. As it was, the arrival of 1825 unit 3 and Revolution: the Dutch Revolt were not joined by the third for a year. Still, three games in two years from Francis is something of a record, and the arrival of 1829 Mainline at Spiel 2005 saw it sell out twice in as many days. With that level of anticipation, it obviously has some expectations to fulfil. As has been the case with others of Francis\'s games, 1829 Mainline has been under development for some time. Indeed, the concept seems to have been under wraps since 1994. As the name suggests, 1829 Mainline has a lot in common with 1829, Francis\' first published game from 1974. The game revolves around players buying shares in railway companies, which are under the direction of majority shareholders. As before the map covers the U.K., albeit this time in a north-north-west diagonal cross-section running from London to Glasgow. As before, the map is split into hexes, and there are hex tiles which can be laid on these to form track, plastic counters to mark company bases, train cards of various types, a stock-market chart which is reminiscent of the one found in 1825 unit 1, money, and share certificates for 6 private companies and 9 major companies. With fewer players you might be playing with only 7 major companies, and this is noticeably speeds up the game. As you can probably guess, the game broadly follows the usual 18xx lines of players buying stock in companies which then operate to provide revenue and stock-market gains. In order to save time - and our editor\'s patience after my last opus - I will restrict this review to a brief summary of those aspects of the game which differentiate Mainline from a base-unit 1825. I will also concentrate on the 3-7 player games, and deal with the 1 and 2- player games last of all. But this is not a game which follows the 18xx standards of long-term strategies, stability, zero-luck, and the threat of over-analysis. This is an 18xx game which is about short-term planning, coping with sudden reversals in fortune, and riding your luck. This becomes apparent from the start. At the start of the game, all the share certificates are shuffled, the Priority Deal card placed in the top quarter of the deck, and a set number of cards dealt to each player. The remaining certificates are placed face down as a draw pile, and the top one turned over to form a discard pile. Each player also receives a set amount of money, and the game starts with the initial stock round. In the first stock round, players may only buy shares from their hand. This starts with the player who was dealt the Priority Deal card, and each player in clockwise order will only get one stab at doing so. The player with the PD card actually starts off with one fewer certificate in hand, in lieu of the PD card itself. This is compensated by the first player having first refusal of the visible top card on the discard pile, but in general going early in the first stock round is unhelpful, as reacting to other players\' purchases can give a distinct advantage. It is this that gives me my first cause for concern; for if you are playing with more than four players it is quite possible for a player to be shut out of starting their own company at the start. While this does not necessarily shut a player out of the game, and there is an ``optional\'\' mulligan rule to allow players who have been heartily stitched up in the first stock round an escape route, this is a game where running companies is the heart of the game. I have even been in a 4-player game where a player was effectively shut out of running a company for most of the game, and this had its root in the first stock round. The game as a whole comprises two phases - firstly a stock round (SR) where players may sell, or, more typically, buy shares, followed by a series of three consecutive operating rounds (ORs) where companies which have been floated can earn their shareholders money. In order to buy shares, players will need money. Most of this will come from profits from train companies, but in their first turn of a stock round (and only the first) a player may also sell share certificates to the bank in order to raise money. It is important to note this, as it can be frustrating to find you lack the necessary funds to buy the shares you need in a round simply because you forgot or failed to sell less desirable shares on your first turn. It is also worth noting that, unlike most 18xx games, there is often something to be gained by keeping a fair amount of cash in hand, both during and at the end of stock rounds. Thereafter a player\'s turn consists of buying 0 to many shares from one or more sources: 1. At face value from certificates held in the player\'s hand . 2. At face value from the top of the discard pile - players are allowed to ``buy down\'\' to a desired certificate in this way. It is important to note that if the discard pile is exhausted in this way, the top card of the draw pile is automatically flipped to restart the discard pile. 3. At the current stockmarket price from the bank\'s stock of shares previously sold. At the end of a player\'s turn, he or she turns over one card at a time from the draw pile. The player may buy the share and then turn up another, but as soon as he or she fails to do so the certificate is placed on the top of the discard pile and it is the next player\'s turn. If a player fails to buy any shares at all on their turn, this counts as passing, and the stock round ends if everyone does so consecutively. The player who started the round of passing gets the Priority Deal card, which allows the player to deal first in the next stock round. The effect of all this is that at the end of a stock round there will typically be at least as many certificates in the discard pile as there are players. Operating rounds function much as one would expect in an 18xx game. Private companies pay out fixed revenue, and then each company in a fixed order builds track and stations, runs trains to either pay a dividend or retain revenue, and then buy trains. This will all be familiar to 18xx players, with the following exceptions: Track laying consists of playing any number of consecutive yellow hex tiles on the board from a single railhead connected to one of the company\'s bases. Tile laying like this can continue until either the line meets encounters a large station or a tight curve. There is an exception to this in a couple of tiles which contain two small stations on separate track. This seems odd to me, as using these tiles to continue a long piece of track seems against the spirit of the idea of promoting long-distance straight routes. What seems to happen at the start of the game is that the first few companies will exploit the possibilities of building extremely long (and sometimes unlikely) routes, even to the extent that early revenues are made up predominantly from revenue from small stations. This not only gives a distinct advantage to these early companies, but it also increases the length of time in calculating revenues; more on this later. Later companies will typically build to join some of these routes and exploit or disrupt them. Tile upgrades (yellow to green, green to russet, russet to gray) are allowed from the start of the game. There are no ``game phases\'\' causing players to wait for a certain type of tile upgrade to become available. Whenever a company connects a station to a network for the first time, the company gains a bonus equal to the value of the station paid into its treasury. This occurs immediately after the tile is placed. The timing of this is not immediately obvious in the rules, but is important as it may affect whether a company is able to build across a river (cost £40) or through mountains (£80). At the start of the game the long routes created by early companies are likely to net large bonuses and give these companies something of an advantage. Stock-market movements occur exactly as they do in 1825, dropping one space when no dividend is paid, and moving up 0-4 spaces if one is. Buying trains is normal, with the exception that trains do not become obsolete and disappear. (There are no game phases). Each company can own up to three trains, and in order to make space they can also be sold back to the bank for £180. Coincidentally (!) this is the price of the cheapest of the trains, so there is little point in not buying a 2 train from the bank if you have the funds available and have nothing else to spend your money on. The actual mix of trains is a little strange. The first two types of train available (2s and 3s) visit the stated number of large stations and all intervening small stations a la 1853. After this there are 4E trains, which run to the four best stations on a route of any length. After this there is a single 4+4E train. This does the same as the 4E, but doubles its revenue. The 4+4E is expensive and so acts as something of a ``blocker\'\', but after it is bought the rest of the trains all become available. These are the 4T - which acts like a 2 or 3 train except it may end its runs in small stations - the 2+2 which acts like a 2 train but doubles its revenue, and more 4+4E trains. The game continues until either the bank runs out of money; a company reaches the top of the stock-market (460); or a stock round occurs where no-one buys anything. Usual 1825 rules apply for the first two cases; in the last one a full set of three operating rounds is played prior to the game ending. That\'s pretty much the game. It is, as our redoubtable editor hinted last time, a case of a simplified 18xx. The simplification works remarkably well. The introduction of elements of chance into the stock-buying creates a tension which is absent in most 18xx games, with players needing not only to get their companies started, but also actively protect them from hostile take-over or take steps to mitigate for the possibility. Some will be uncomfortable with this, but I like it a lot, with a qualification I will give below. The operating rounds, and in particular the bonus scheme for connecting towns, means that there is competition for connecting to towns, even if those towns aren\'t going to be used long-term. Simplifying the operations begs the question as to why this hasn\'t been done so successfully before. But this seems to be down to the fine balance between freeing up companies\' options and the encouragement to expand into new territorial areas. The components are close to what we have come to expect in 1825 - solid and functional components which are practical if unspectacular. The major improvement over previous 18xx games is the track tiles, which are now the same quality you find in games like Age of Steam and Stephenson\'s Rocket. Francis has intimated that these quality tiles may find their way into others of his games at some point. The two main disappointments are the rulebook, which has enough ambiguities in it to require some form of errata or FAQ, and the private company certificates which have backs which are just distinguishable from the public company certificates. Both issues are with Francis, and he is taking steps to deal with them. All this is very fine and good, but I have a few issues with 1829 Mainline. On the box the game is listed as requiring 1.5 to 3 hours. The only 3+ player games I have managed to play in under 4 hours are solitaire ones. A typical game with 3 or more seems to take about 4.5 to 5 hours, which feels about an hour and a half longer than it needs to be. The bank is large - £20,000 is a lot of money to get through - but this can be halved and still only shave half an hour from the game. The first 2-3 hours are fun - provided you are fully involved that is - but after this some of the excitement seems to wear off. I have a feeling as to why this is the case, and the prime candidate is the length of time it can take to calculate each company\'s train runs. The larger express trains make end-game route calculation easy, but the fact that the 2 and 3 trains remain in play to the end of the game means that the players still have to include all the intervening small stations for some of their trains (and these can still be lucrative - see above), and each company is likely to have 3 trains each. If you can reduce this route calculation time then it will certainly help. If you can play a full 4-player game in 3 hours then it is likely to be a hoot from start to finish. But I am still struggling to get it down to this. The second issue is a question mark over whether players need more control over the stock buying part of the game. The optional ``Mulligan\'\' rule, which covers the eventuality of a player being completely hosed in the first stock round, is something I see as more of a necessity. Even then the lack of control over directorships can catch players out, and particularly in games with more players. There is precious little control in the early stock rounds with 5 players, and much less with 6 or more. I must confess I haven\'t played with 7 players yet, and I don\'t envisage doing so will help the situation. But these are not the biggest sources of frustration. The first is the thorny issue of who gets the priority deal. It is quite possible that a game can turn on who has first shot in a stock round. If you are uncomfortable with this then I would suggest using a fairly common house rule either allowing the PD to be auctioned, or to give it to the player with the most money in hand at the end of the previous stock round. I will be experimenting with this when I get a chance, and will pass on what I find. The second is that it is quite possible for a player to be able to turn up an extremely lucrative share late in the game, and so boost his or her score by £250+ at a stroke. This is rather harder to counteract, and is less of a problem if you are aware of the possibility at least when the game starts. But in a 4-5 hour game it can be galling to lose as a result of the turn of a card, which is what this represents. If the game could be over in 3 hours then this would be less of an issue. That aside, there is a lot to like about 1829 Mainline. It achieves something I really didn\'t think was possible - simplifying matters while putting a degree of luck and tension back into a well-tried and tested format. At this stage I can\'t really recommend playing it with more than 4 players, and putting together things like revenue charts to help speed up the calculations are really needed. But there are two areas where the game really shines. The first is that you can play it solitaire. I am unaware whether there have been previous attempts at this for 18xx games, but would guess none have come close to what Mainline has achieved. The rules for stock rounds are replaced - as they are for 2-player games as well - with a patience-style (Klondike) deal of the certificates at the start of the game. You are allowed to move individual certificates onto a revealed certificate for the same company, but can only buy one or more of the face-up certificates from a single column and any revealed private companies which are at the exposed end of their column. If you empty a column or choose not to buy any shares then you can ``re-seed\'\' the patience tableau by adding a single card face-up to the bottom of each row. The idea of the solitaire game is that you try to break a bank of £2,500 in the fewest number of operating rounds possible. My record thus far is 12, but 14-15 is more common. I am also given to believe that you can extend this by changing the objective from breaking the bank, to highest personal wealth after, say, 15 operating rounds. But that is a matter of taste. The second is that the game actually works with 2 - yes, a second good 2-player 18xx game in as many years! Using the same patience-style mechanism is quite a challenge as players have more than one bite at the cherry each stock round, unlike in the solitaire game, and your quest for a decent haul of certificates can leave some equally tasty ones exposed for your opponent. The random order the certificates appear in the stock tableau make quite a lot of variation from game to game. I have found that the priority deal is also more powerful than in the standard game. According to the rulebook this format can be extended to 3 players, but is likely to be unbalanced with more. There are a few items which need clarifying though. The first is that the rulebook says you should start with either £535 or £355 each, depending on where you look in the rulebook. It is actually possible to play 2-handed using the rules for 3 or more players, starting with £535 each. But the ``patience\'\' style game is far better for 2, in my opinion, and for this you start with £355. The second clarification is that that it is not immediately obvious what happens with selling stock. We play that you can\'t, since there seems to be no mechanism in the two-player game for buying back shares from the bank pool. Finally there is the issue of whether moving cards around and yet not buying shares should move the priority deal card. We play that it doesn\'t, although it feels like it probably should. To summarise, 1829 Mainline seems to be trying to cater for those who want a simpler, lighter, and shorter 18xx-style game. It certainly succeeds with the first two - although it is still a little meaty to be called a ``Euro\'\'-style game. Shorter it is not, however, at least unless you are playing with a much-reduced bank size or solitaire. Certainly I believe it is better with fewer players - no doubt a disappointment for those wanting a 7-player game! It is very different from other games in the same genre, and worth investigating. 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