1825 Rules ========== 0: David's notes ================= This is an attempt to summarise the rules to 1825 in a more useful way. I have an early printing, and 1825 has been patched more than once; and the rules are from the era when it was felt necessary to explain carefully that the Bank is the stock of money and that the board is made of hexes, but also they have become a mishmash of different printings, clarifications from the publisher, fanon answers to ambiguous rules, and rules everybody knows which aren't actually written down anywhere. Where possible I've preserved the original rule numbers. 1825 has a lot of expansions. If I say "the base game" I mean Unit 1 with no expansions at all. There is a list of the expansions at the end. I've tried to rearrange the rules to keep all the rules for the base game at the start. 1: General Description, definition of terms =========================================== The game depicts the development of the railways in 19th century Britain. The players are individual investors who may become Directors of the Companies, but need not in order to win; at the end of the game, the player with the largest personal wealth wins. Aside from the initial deal of Private Companies determining the order of play, there is no element of chance in the game. Any term in ALL CAPS will be defined later. Terms with Gratuitous Capitals are game concepts with specific meaning. [A square-bracketed section is a clarification not a rule]. (A section in round brackets is just as much rules as text in no brackets.) {A section in curly brackets is not needed in the base game}. 1.0 General summary of play COMPANIES build railway lines by laying TILES on the MAP. Towns and cities become STATIONS with varying values printed on the Tiles. Companies plan ROUTES between Stations. Companies can lay TOKENS on key Stations to use them as BASES. TRAINS are owned and run by each Company on Routes, earning revenue based on the value of the Stations they call at. A Train is not a single locomotive, but sufficient locomotives and rolling stock to serve a major route. A Route is not a separate game-mechanical entity with a life of its own; it refers only to the route that a given Train is taking to earn money in a given round. Train purchases cause the game to pass through a series of PHASES which change the set of Tiles available and alter some other constraints on the operation of Companies. Each Company is financed initially from the sale of SHARES. Money is not needed for normal construction or routine operations but it is needed for new Trains, Bases, and construction in difficult terrain. Revenue earned later may be paid out as a DIVIDEND or retained for expansion. [The Trains, Routes, and lines on the map do not represent all of a Company's operations, but just the most important aspects.] Usually a Company will have several shareholders; there are ten Shares in each Company, and players buy and sell CERTIFICATES representing these Shares. The largest shareholder is always the Director, and makes the decisions about how the Company is run. The STOCKMARKET shows the price at which Shares are sold to and bought from the Bank. If a Company withholds revenue its share price will fall; but if it pays a dividend the share price will rise - by a greater degree if the dividend is large and the share price low. If a player acquires more Shares than the current Director, they become the new Director. If no player holds at least two Shares, a RECEIVER is appointed. The game ends when the BANK runs out of money. Money is only given to players; there is a separate stock of "company credit" notes, which are used for Companies' balances and are not in limited supply. The game may also end if a Company's Share price reaches the maximum possible. 1.1 Bank As well as money, the Bank holds company credit and unbought share Certificates and Trains. How much money the Bank starts with is not clear (sigh); I suggest £1000 per Major or Minor Company in the game plus £2000 for each of K2 [which adds more Trains increasing potential Company income] and K3 [which adds a fourth Phase making for a longer game]. Unit 3 unaugmented should probably still have £4000, even though it has only 3 Majors. That would be £6000 for the base game. 1.2 Bases and Tokens Each Company starts from a Base, a Large Station marked by the Company's initials. A Token will be placed there when the Company begins to operate. The Company may later place Tokens on other cities connected by rail to existing Bases to form new Bases; when a Company has more than one Base, the initial Base is not special in any way. Once placed, Bases are never removed. Companies have a limited supply of Tokens. One is placed on the share price index when the Company begins operating, so the maximum number of Bases the Company can have is one fewer than the number of Tokens. 1.3 Map The map is marked along the left and bottom edges with a scale of letters and numbers to give each hex a unique identifier. These and some other markings on the map are in white which is almost unreadable on the pale yellow ("buff") that comprises most of the map. Sorry about that. The buff hexes are "normal" ones on which yellow track Tiles can be laid as described later. Yellow hexes contain two Large Stations and take only specific green Tiles. Green hexes depict specific cities; they take only particular russet (sort of orangey-brown) Tiles specified for each city individually. Dark brown hexes can never be built on {with a few exceptions noted explicitly}. Some hexes have preprinted track. Some hexes are divided by major rivers, contain mountains, or are reserved for the use of a particular Company. These are detailed later. Some Private Companies [eg the C&W in Dover] are depicted, but for interest's sake only. 1.4 Company There are three kinds of Company. Private Companies [eg the Liverpool and Manchester Railway] are owned by individuals and represented by one Certificate. They provide income (shown on their Certificate) and determine the initial order of play, but they do not develop further. Major Companies [eg the Great Western Railway] are divided into ten Shares. These are represented by nine Certificates; the Director's Certificate represents two Shares. {Minor Companies [eg the Taff Vale Railway] are detailed in section 8.0} The terms "Privates", "Minors", and "Majors" are used in the rules. Where the rules refer to "Companies" they mean Major and Minor Companies. Rules pertaining to Private Companies will always say "Private" explicitly. 1.5 Director When the Directorship of a Company changes, which it does as soon as any other player achieves a larger shareholding than the existing Director, the new Director exchanges two ordinary Certificates for the Director's Certificate. The Director of a Company always holds the Director's Certificate. 1.6 Dividend When a Company pays a Dividend, 10% of the dividend is paid to each Share held by a player. If the Bank held Shares, some of the dividend would be unpaid. 1.7 Receiver When a Company is in receivership [because no-one wishes to own two Shares and hence be the Director] it operates under special rules that permit it, eg, to hire a Train from the Bank. 1.8 Route A Route on which a Train is run must begin and end at a Large Station and must include at least one of the Company's Bases. It may terminate at a Large Station occupied entirely by other Companies' Tokens, but not run through such a Station. Routes can never use the same track or Station twice (or visit more than one Station on the same Tile), and cannot reverse at junctions; they can leave a Station on any track they please (except the one they entered on). {Some specialised Trains have different rules controlling how their Routes are constructed.} 1.9 Shares and Certificates There is a maximum number of Share Certificates a player may hold, as shown in Table 10. This limit applies to all Certificates, whether they represent Private Companies or one or two ordinary Shares; however, Certificates whose Share price is below £50 are not counted. (A Private does not have a Share price so always counts towards the limit). 1.10 Stations A black dot on the Map ("a town") will become a Small Station when a Tile is laid on it. Large hollow circles are Large Stations; their hexes contain cities. "Town" and "city" have no special status in gameplay; all that matters is the type of Station(s) and their value. Hexes with Stations all have a number in a circle printed; this is the value, earned whenever a Train runs on a Route that visits a Station in that hex. 1.10.1 Later construction [A town hex may become a Large Station. A Large Station may grow to contain more than one hollow circle, at which point it may be a Base for more than one Company; two Large Stations may merge. A hex with no town or city will never become a Station. A hex with two towns is not better than one with one town. The two towns will typically end up on different lines and the hex grow into a junction of modest value; a single town may grow into a higher-value city.] 1.11 Stockmarket The share price index (SPI) is a grandly named piece of blue cardboard with Tokens on it which indicate the stockmarket price of each operating Company. Whenever a given Share in a Company is bought from the Bank for the first time (a "new Share"), it is sold at face value, even if there are second-hand Shares held by the Bank which can be bought at the stockmarket value. Therefore, the Bank must keep new and second-hand Shares separate. 1.12 Tiles The Tiles come in three colours. Only yellow Tiles, laid on buff hexes, are available at first. Later in the game, green Tiles (laid on yellow Tiles or hexes) are available; then russet Tiles, laid on green. Every type of Tile has a serial number printed on it that identifies it. (Two Tiles with the same serial number are game mechanically identical and should also look the same.) The Tile mix is limiting, but Tiles replaced in later play are available to be placed again. 1.14 Trains Each Train card has a large number printed on it, which gives the maximum number of Stations that Train can visit in its Route, as well as a face value at which Trains are bought from the Bank. Trains are sold in ascending order; when all the '2' Trains are bought, the first '3' Train is available. 1.15 Phases When the first Train of a new type is bought, the game may enter a new Phase - this may make a new colour of Tile available, obsolete older Trains, etc. 2: General Procedures ===================== Player and Company assets are always public knowledge. Players should display their Certificates clearly and be ready to state their cash balances on demand. No deal between players is binding, and Companies may only deal in ways explicitly permitted. Players and Companies may not give each other money or assets except as explicitly provided by the rules. Play opens with a Share Dealing Round ("SDR") in which Shares are bought and sold. Then there are, depending on Phase, between one and three Operating Rounds ("ORs") in which the Companies lay track and run Trains. This sequence is repeated until the Bank runs out of money or a Share price rises to the maximum possible. The game continues until the end of the current OR (if the Bank runs out of money in a SDR, play one OR after the conclusion of that SDR). Players get credit for payments due them during this time. The winner is then the player with the greatest personal wealth. Personal wealth includes cash on hand (and credit gained after the Bank was exhausted) and all Shares held - at their stockmarket value if they have one, or face value if they do not [eg a Private, or a Major that never operated]. Company assets such as Trains, company credit, and Bases have no effect on victory. 3: Setup ======== Place a Token for each Company in the hex of its initial Base, next to but not in the Station preprinted with the Company's name. The Base does not exist until the Company forms, but the Token serves as a reminder of its start hex. Prepare a deck with a number of Certificates equal to the number of players, using: a) Private Company Certificates in ascending order of value. b) if need be, the LNWR Director's Certificate then ordinary Certificates in the LNWR. Deal one card to each player, which becomes their property. Players then seat themselves round the table in the same order - working clockwise from the smallest Private Company, then other Privates in ascending order, then the LNWR Director, who decides the order that the ordinary shareholders seat themselves in in a game of 7 or more players [only possible with expansions]. Players receive a sum of money from the Bank given in Table 1. Players then pay for their initial Certificate, and the first SDR commences. The Private Companies in play are as follows: Unit 1: Swansea and Mumbles, Cromford and High Peak, Canterbury and Whitstable, Liverpool and Manchester. {Unit 2: Leeds and Middleton, Cromford and High Peak, Stockton and Darlington, Liverpool and Manchester. Unit 3: Arbroath and Forfar, Tanfield Wagon Way, Stockton and Darlington. If more than one Unit is in play, combine the Privates, but do not include more than one of the cost £30 / revenue £5 Privates.} 4: Share Dealing Rounds ======================= During a share dealing round, players get turns in which they are offered the opportunity to buy and sell Shares. Players always deal in Shares with the Bank, not directly with each other. The first SDR is special in a number of ways, the most important of which is that players cannot sell Shares. The SDR begins with the player who holds the "Priority Deal" card; in the first SDR, it begins with the player who was dealt the smallest Private Company. The player may buy only one Share (exception: they may buy a Director's Certificate if it is "new", being sold for the first time) but may sell any number of Shares (if it is not the first SDR) before or after buying a Share (but see 4.3 below). If they do not buy a Share they "pass", whether or not they sell. Play passes to the left. If all players pass in succession, the SDR ends - so a player may eventually buy as many Shares as they can afford, but selling Shares does not prolong the SDR. The player to the left of the last player to buy takes the Priority Deal card. 4.1 New Shares The Bank sells new Shares in a defined order. It first sells any remaining Privates in ascending order. Then it will sell Certificates in the Major Company with the highest face value, beginning with the Director's Certificate. If more than one Major has the same face value, the Bank will sell Shares in them both. Furthermore, the Bank will begin to sell Shares in the Major with the next highest face value when any one of those Majors is fully subscribed. For example, with the Companies in Unit 1, the Bank will sell no Majors until the Liverpool & Manchester is sold. It will then sell Shares in the LNWR (£100), and only when those are all sold will it sell the GWR (£90). Once the GWR is sold, however, both the GER and LSWR (£76) are available, and when either of those is fully sold the SECR and LBSC (£67) can be sold and may even begin to operate before the other of the GER and LWSR. When six or more new Shares in a Company have been bought by players, the Company will form during the next OR and begin operations. 4.2 The Bank Pool Entirely independently from this, the Bank maintains the "Bank Pool" of second-hand Shares which have been sold by players. The contents of the Bank Pool in no way change the procedures for new Shares above. Players may buy either new Shares or Shares from the Bank Pool; the latter are bought and sold at the price on the share price index, or face value if the company does not yet appear on the SPI. Privates can be sold into the Pool at £30 less than face value. They could then be bought at face value [but seldom are]. 4.3 Restrictions There is a limit on the number of Certificates a player can hold, given in Table 3. If a player exceeds this number (eg, because their Director's Certificate was split into two ordinary Certificates) they must sell excess Certificates at the first available opportunity. A player may not buy a Certificate that would put them over the limit even if it would immediately result in them exchanging two ordinary Certificates for a Director's Certificate, hence getting back under the limit. Certificates in a Company whose Share price is below £50 do not count towards this limit. If the price were to rise above £50, that would oblige the owner to sell excess Certificates as soon as possible. (The Share price can never be exactly £50. Note that it is the Share price that counts, not the total Certificate worth.) A player may not buy and sell Shares in the same Company on the same turn. They can sell Shares in a Company in a later turn in the same SDR. They cannot buy Shares in a Company which they have sold Shares in earlier in the SDR. 4.4 Directors and Receivership As mentioned, the Directorship of a Company passes as soon as a player has a larger shareholding than the existing Director. A Director's Certificate may be sold by a Director who holds no ordinary Certificate. It is possible to sell half the Director's Certificate provided that an ordinary Certificate will be available for the selling player (ie, we are not in a very large game where after the sale nine players and the Bank would hold one Share each). The Directorship passes to the player who now has the largest shareholding; if players are tied, preference is given to the player closest on the seller's left. (The Directorship would also change if the Director sold ordinary Shares giving themselves a smaller holding than another player.) If no player owns two or more Shares in the Company, it goes into Receivership and the Director's Certificate stays in the Pool. The Director's Certificate cannot be directly bought from the Bank Pool; players must buy ordinary Shares. However, in a large game where all eight ordinary Shares are held by players (one apiece), one of them may buy a fictitious ninth ordinary Share, become the Director, and immediately trade it in along with their real ordinary Share for the Director's Certificate. In practice this is an extremely unlikely scenario. [4.5 Advice The rulebook suggests that in the first SDR a beginner can do worse than to buy shares whenever funds permit.] 5: Operating Rounds =================== Each OR follows the same sequence. 5.1.1 Privates Private Companies pay their revenue to their owners. In the event, early in the game, that no Company is able to form yet, the OR ends immediately and the game passes to another SDR. 5.1.2 Company Formation Any Company in which six or more new shares have been sold is now formed as follows: * A Company Token is placed on the SPI at the face value of its Shares. * A Company Token should already be present on its start hex; move it into the Large Station to form a Base. * The remaining Tokens are held by the Company and may be used to build Bases later. * The Company begins with company credit equal to the value of all ten shares, even though some may not yet have been bought by players. * The Director holds the Company's Tokens, credit, and Trains. * The Company will now operate in this and subsequent ORs. Note that the new Company's initial Base might not contain track. (This does not produce a special case of the railway construction rules.) 5.1.3 Order of Companies Companies are operated in decreasing order of original face value. Where two companies have the same face value, they run in the order in which they were formed, which should be recorded. The order in which companies are operated does not change during the game. 5.1.4 Sequence of Operations In order, companies have the opportunity to: * Build track (5.2) * Build a Base (5.4) * Run Trains, collect revenue, pay a Dividend (or not), and calculate share price changes (5.5) * Buy Trains (5.6) Any costs incurred during Operations are paid with company credit, never with players' money. [Note that since a Major Company will never have a Train in the OR in which it forms, it will always have its share price drop initially (6.3).] 5.2 Building Track Railway construction is done by "laying" Tiles on empty hexes or "promoting" existing Tiles with ones of a different colour. Normally yellow Tiles are laid on buff empty hexes, then promoted to green Tiles, then promoted to russet Tiles (which in expansions then promote to grey tiles). Where a preprinted hex is not buff but yellow, the first Tile placement on that hex would be a green Tile and is treated as a Tile lay (even for 5.2.1); a green preprinted hex would first have a russet Tile placed on it, and is treated as a Tile promotion. (This is consistent with Tile lays happening on hexes without any track and promotions happening on hexes with existing track). Dark brown preprinted hexes cannot be played upon (with one exception below.) All these rules apply together (ie, if one rule prohibits something it overrules another rule permitting it) [but often they are redundant.] Companies do not have exclusive rights to track or Stations they have built. Bases, however, can exclude other Companies from sections of the railway. 5.2.1 Number of Builds A Company may either promote one Tile or lay up to two [ordinarily yellow] Tiles, which must not be adjacent to each other, even if they are not connected by track. 5.2.2 Phases Early in the game, in Phase One (see 5.7) only yellow Tiles can be placed. Later in the game green and then russet Tiles will be available {and grey Tiles in expansions.} {Expansions introduce a few tiles striped in two colours which bypass the normal buff->yellow->green->russet->grey sequence. These are #119 (russet/green, available with russet tiles, can be played on yellow tiles), #166 (grey/russet, available with grey tiles, can be played on green tiles), and #200 (russet/brown, available with russet tiles, can be played on Crewe/ Swindon/Wolverton, has special Route rules, sigh).} 5.2.3 Existing track If track already exists in the hex, all existing connections between hexsides and stations must be preserved; any Route (5.5) that could have been made to or through the hex must still be legal. The precise depiction of station positions in the hex is not significant and need not be preserved [and it does change in a confusing fashion on the BGM tiles mentioned in 5.2.6], but any Company Base present must retain its existing connectivity. 5.2.4 Accessibility It must either be the case that: 5.2.4.a Some new track on the Tile could be reached by following track from one of the Company's Bases via a possible Route (see 5.5.2.a and 5.5.3 of the Route rules; no other Route rules apply) of any length. or: 5.2.4.b A Route that one of the Company's Trains could presently be run on (5.5) increases in value (hence, this play is a Tile promotion that increases a station's value). Note that the double-heading rule 5.5.5 does apply. It is not necessary that the Route be one that will actually have a Train run on it later in the OR. [A just-formed Company with no track in its initial Base hex can lay a Tile there by 5.2.4.a. It might then be possible to lay another Tile in a non-adjacent hex which has become reachable from the Base.] 5.2.5 Edges A half-hex or a smaller portion of a hex cannot have a Tile placed in it. A hex which is not quite complete can. Tiles can be placed such that track runs off the map edge. A Tile cannot be placed such that track runs into the sea, or the dark green coastal areas outside the hex grid, or to an unconnected side of a preprinted dark brown hex. However, cases where a Tile is placed with track on it which cannot possibly be connected later are not in general forbidden, nor is it required to connect to existing track on adjacent hexsides. 5.2.6 Permissible lays/promotions based on existing hex contents Tiles with Stations may only be promoted as listed in the Tile Chart. Tiles without Stations ("plain track") can be promoted in any way that obeys 5.2.3. Some additional track must be laid to meet the requirements of 5.2.4. The general type of a hex without a Tile or track determines what the first Tile lay there can be. A buff hex takes a yellow Tile; a yellow hex a green Tile. An empty hex takes plain track and hexes with one or two towns take Tiles with one or two small Stations respectively. Similarly, hexes with preprinted Large Stations (but no track) take Tiles with a like number of single-base Large Stations. {Tile-specific rules: Tile #115 cannot be played on the start hex of a Company unless there are no Tiles #5 or #6 available or the Director of that Company consents to the play (if they do not exist yet, they cannot consent).} City-specific rules: Bristol promotes only to russet tile #38. Birmingham has three large Stations and a special promotion scheme {shared with Manchester and Glasgow in expansions} with Tiles marked "BGM". London has its own Tiles, easily recognised by having six stations. {Liverpool has its own Tiles, marked "L".} {Crewe, Swindon, Wolverton: Kit D1 adds a tile, #200, that can be played on these dark brown hexes.} 5.2.7 Construction Costs Most construction is not paid for. However, mountain hexes are marked with a triangle, and a construction cost (£100 unless the hex is marked otherwise) must be paid with when a Tile is first laid there. {Some hexes are divided into two parts by water. If the hex is marked with a cost [typically £40] any tile lay there must pay that cost. No hex in the base game is so marked.} Tile promotions never incur constructions costs. 5.2.8 Specific Companies Some hexes are reserved for specific Companies whose name is handwritten in black ink on the hex. [Eg, the hex west of London is reserved for the GWR.] An initial Tile lay in that hex can only be made by the listed Company. The location of a Company's initial Base is not inherently reserved - eg the LBSC's initial base at Ashford can be played on by anyone. If a Company name is written in brackets, the Company appears in an expansion. The reservation only applies if the expansion is in use and hence the Company is in play. 5.4 Building Bases A Company's initial Base is free, but it can build new Bases (only one per OR) by placing Tokens on empty spaces in Large Stations. A Company may never build (or have by any other means) more than one Base in a given hex. The target Station must be reachable from one of the Company's existing Bases obeying the constraints of sections 5.5.2.a and 5.5.3 of the Route rules. [This is the same rule as for laying new track.] A Company pays £40 for the first Base it builds and £100 for all subsequent ones. {This is independent of any rule that causes it to gain additional Bases by any other means.} A Company cannot create a Base in another as yet unformed Company's start hex if that would leave no space available for the unformed Company. 5.5 Running Trains A Company now plans Routes for the Trains it owns, totals the income from those Routes, and may either pay a Dividend or withhold that income. The Trains should be run in a way that maximises the income. Any player, whether or not they are a Shareholder [although a non- Shareholder has little incentive to do so], can point out a set of Routes which improve the total income, which Trains would then run on. 5.5.1 Each Train is run on its own Route (which must not reuse track from other Routes, per 5.5.7). 5.5.2 A Route must begin and end at a large Station. 5.5.2.a A Route must include a Base belonging to the Company. It may not pass through a large Station entirely filled with other Companies' Tokens but it may start or end at one. 5.5.3 A Route must be continuous, and must not involve reversing at junctions or changing lines at crossings. It must not reuse any section of track, revisit any Station, or visit more than one Station in the same hex. However, a Route can leave a Station in any direction (save the one it entered on [which would re-use track].) 5.5.4 A Train has a number on it indicating the number of Stations it can visit; the Route must not include more Stations. 5.5.5 Two '2' Trains may be "double-headed": run on one Route which is legal for a single '3' Train. They earn income exactly as a '3' Train would. 5.5.6 Trains may not run non-stop through a Station. They stop at every Station the Route runs to. {5.5.6a Exception: Trains may run non-stop through the Station on tile #200, which upgrades Crewe, Swindon, or Wolverton. The Station would not then count against the Train's number of visited Stations (5.5.4) nor give income to the Train, but it would count as a Company Base (5.5.2.a).} 5.5.7 A given Company's Routes cannot share track with each other, although they may call at the same Stations. {5.5.X Various special types of Trains in expansions ignore some of the constraints on Routes in one way or another.} 5.5.7 1/2 London is a frequent source of confusion. Each London station is connected to the adjoining hexside. There is no track between London stations and no Route can ever pass through London. 5.5.8 Each Train earns income equal to the total value (printed on the Tiles) of the Stations it visits. It is therefore possible for a Company to earn income from the same Station more than once during an OR. 5.5.9 The Director now decides if the income will be paid out to Shareholders, 10% to each Share, or withheld as company credits. 5.5.10 The Company Share price now is adjusted in accordance with 6.3. 5.6 Buying Trains The Company may now buy one or more Trains from the Bank or other Companies. They will not run until the next OR. Purchases are resolved one at a time. 5.6.1 New Trains are bought from the Bank. The Bank normally makes Trains available in increasing order of size and so will normally only have one type of Train available at any given time. However, special rules may change this - eg, surplus Trains from a bankrupt Company (6.3.4). When Trains are returned to the Bank they are sold as an alternative to the stock of new Trains and do not affect the Phase progression. Eg, if the Bank is selling '4' Trains and a surplus '4' is returned, that returned '4' need not be bought before the first '5' is available. 5.6.2 The Phase (5.7) limits how many Trains a Company may own. 5.6.3 The first purchase of a new type of Train can trigger a Phase change (5.7); this is resolved immediately after the purchase. 5.6.4 A Company may not buy a Train that would put it over the Phase limit even if that purchase would trigger a Phase change which would put it back under the limit. 5.6.5 Trains can be bought from another Company at any price agreed by their Director(s). [Apparently the same-Director case is not as ripe for abuse as it looks....] 5.7 Phases As the game progresses, Train purchases will cause the Phase to change. This mainly makes new types of Tile available (which permit Tile promotions, higher Station values, and more complex junctions), but also can render Trains obsolete, change the Company Train ownership limit, and change the number of ORs which follow each SDR. When Trains become obsolete, they are immediately removed from play. When the Train ownership limit is reduced, a Company with excess Trains must return the excess to the Bank, which will then make them available for resale. [In practice, the removal of '2' Trains at the same time makes this unlikely.] Companies cannot simply dispose of unwanted Trains. They must sell them to other Companies or wait for them to become obsolete. 5.7.1 Phase One The game begins in Phase One. Yellow Tiles are available. Each Company may have 4 Trains. Each SDR is followed by 1 OR. 5.7.2 Phase Two Phase Two begins with the purchase of the first '3' Train. Yellow and green Tiles are available. Each Company may have 4 Trains. Each SDR is followed by 2 ORs. 5.7.3 Phase Three Phase Three begins with the purchase of the first '5' Train. Yellow, green, and russet Tiles are available. Each Company may have 3 Trains. '2' Trains are obsolete. Each SDR is followed by 3 ORs. 6 General Topics ================ [Don't blame me, I didn't decide all this stuff goes in one grab-bag section of the rules.] 6.3 Share price changes After a Company receives its income, its Share price may change. If a Company withholds its income, or if it has no income, its Share price drops one space on the SPI. If it paid a Dividend, its Share price may rise. If the total income was not greater than half the current Share price, the Share price does not change. Otherwise it rises at least one space. If the income was twice, three times, or four times the current Share price, it rises 2, 3, or 4 spaces (but not "and so forth": 4 spaces is the maximum increase). A Share price cannot exceed £340; if one reaches £340 the game ends at the end of the OR. {In games with the K3 expansion or Unit 2, the limit is £500}. If a Share price falls below £5, the Company is bankrupt. Its Trains are returned to the Bank for resale; its Tokens and Shares are removed from the game. A Director may not intentionally make a Company bankrupt by withholding a non-zero income. 6.4 Receivership If no-one qualifies as Director of a Major Company (which has formed and started to operate), a Receiver must be appointed. The Receiver should be: A player who is not Receiver or Director of any Company. Failing that, a player who is not Director of any Company. Failing that, the player who is Director of Companies with the lowest total Share price. If more than one player is equally qualified by these criteria, prefer a player who owns a Share in the Company. If that does not break the tie, break it by taking the first best-qualified player clockwise from the player holding the Priority Deal card. The Receiver acts as Director subject to the following additional rules. 6.4.1 Income is always withheld, even if this will result in bankruptcy. [In practice either the Company will seem a viable purchase when Shares can be bought for £5, or it has no prospect of any income whatsoever.] 6.4.3 The Company may lease a Train from the Bank for £10 per OR. This Train remains the property of the Bank - leasing does not trigger Phase Changes and another Company might buy (or even lease) the Train in its own OR. The Receiver must lease a Train if and only if doing so will improve the Company's income. 6.4.4 If the Company has no Trains, it must buy a Train as soon as funds permit, provided that there is a Route that that Train could be run upon (even if it is presently leasing a Train to run that same Route). The Company may not lease or buy a second-hand Train from the Bank, but only the next new Train for sale. It may only buy a Train from another Company if it is of the same type as the Bank's new Train and is being sold at a lower price. It may never sell a Train. 6.4.5 If the Receiver is also a Director, any two other players may veto decisions made by the Receiver. The following cannot be vetoed: Placing a tile which extends track as in 5.2.4.a. Promoting a tile or building a Base which will cause an increase in revenue when Trains are run in this OR. Decisions which the Receiver is obliged to make by the rules. 6.4.6 A Company in Receivership makes all payments at the end of its OR. It must still have sufficient funds to make those payments by the end of the OR. [This might, yes, get fiddly if a Company builds in a mountain hex then realises it didn't accrue the necessary £100 so has to unroll its move...] 6.4.7 As soon as a player holds two Shares, they become the Director, and the Company is no longer in Receivership. 6.4.8 Optional Receivership rule This is something I've come up with which I'd like to experiment with. Rather than leasing a Train, a Company in Receivership with no Train may buy a Train funded by any combination of Shareholders who jointly agree to provide the money for any Train that is for sale. The Shareholders may use any amount of the Company's money as part of the funds for the purchase, even if that means some or all of them contribute no money. The Receiver must accept such a proposal if none of the Company's money is being used; or, if the Company's money is being used, the Train is being sold at no more than face value and is not being purchased from a Company which one of the involved Shareholders is a Director of. Otherwise, the Receiver may choose to accept or reject the proposal. If there is more than one such proposal, the Receiver chooses which to accept (or rejects them all if they are not obliged to accept any of them by the previous rule). The Company is still obliged to buy Bank Trains if possible by 6.4.4 and if it can do so it cannot instead buy a Train under this rule. STOP HERE if you are just trying to learn the base game. 7.0 Advanced Trains and K3 ========================== [These expansions don't have to be used together, but many of the advanced Trains only come out in Phases Four and Five. Some Minor Companies have "baked-in" advanced Trains so it is necessary to read these rules when playing with Minors. Units 2 and 3 also cause more Phases to happen.] Advanced Trains adds some additional Train types to the game, which have a special ability. These Trains are available for purchase in addition to the standard Trains; they never advance the Phase, but some standard Trains are removed from the game if they are in play. A Company buying a Train can freely choose from any type of Train the Bank has available. The advanced Trains (3T, 4T, U3, 2+2, 4+4E) work as follows: A T-Train (tank engine) may start and/or end its Route on a Small Station. It may call at two value 10 Stations on the same hex. They might also have a variant ability as discussed in section V. Halts (tile #11) may only be placed by a Company that owns a T-Train. Halts are placed (as noted on the tile upgrade chart) on plain track tile #8, an exception to the normal rule that plain track never grows stations. Other Trains ignore Halts completely. T-Trains may stop at a Halt, but they may also ignore them. U-Trains may start and/or end their Routes at Small Stations. They only count Large Stations towards the length of their Route; ie, they can score any number of Small Stations. 2+2 Trains plan a Route as if they were a 2-Train but then pay twice as much income as the normal value of the Route. 4+4E Trains plan a normal Route of any length and score twice the value of any four Large Stations on that Route. They completely ignore Small Stations. Kit K3 adds two additional Phases, grey tiles with more complex track and higher station values, and '6' and '7' Trains that work as normal. The Share price limit that will cause the game to end is £500. Units 2 and 3 also add '6' or '7' Trains and so will cause Phase Four and/or Five to happen. With all expansions the later Phases are as follows: 7.0.3 Phase Three Phase Three begins with the purchase of the first '5' Train. Yellow, green, and russet Tiles are available. Each Company may have 3 Trains. '2' Trains are obsolete. Each SDR is followed by 3 ORs. '3T' and 'U3' Trains are available. 7.0.4 Phase Four Phase Four begins with the purchase of the first '6' Train. Yellow, green, russet, and grey Tiles are available. Companies may have any number of Trains (no, really). Each SDR is followed by 3 ORs. '4T' and '2+2' Trains are available. 7.0.5 Phase Five Phase Five begins with the purchase of the first '7' Train. '3' Trains are obsolete. '4+4E' Trains are available. No other changes. [FIXME David make a chart of Phases] 8.0 Minor Companies =================== Minors are smaller companies which operate like Majors except as noted below. The most important differences are that they have a "baked-in" Train which they cannot sell and they can never build additional Bases. 8.1.4 Minors are represented by four Certificates; a Director's Certificate of four Shares and three two-Share Certificates. The Directorship would still pass as normal if someone acquired all three ordinary Certificates or if the Director sold part or all of their holding. Obviously, they are bought and sold in quanta of two Shares. 8.4.1 Shares in all Minors become available for purchase from the Bank when the last share is sold in any Company with a new Share price of £71. If no such Company is in the game, the last share sold in an £76 Company releases the Minors. Minors have no set starting price. When someone buys the Director's Certificate in a Minor, they choose the price per Share. This cannot be the highest possible (which would cause the game to end). It must be high enough that the value of all ten new Shares is at least the cost of the baked-in Train. The Minor receives Company Credit incrementally as its Shares are sold; it will not necessarily be fully capitalised when it starts to operate. 8.4.3 The Certificate limit will be higher in a game with Minors as shown in Table 10.2. 8.5.1.2 A Minor Company always forms in the OR in which it has sufficient Company Credit for its baked-in Train. It immediately spends Company Credit for the baked-in Train. Unlike a Major, a Minor might therefore run a Route in its very first OR. Note that the baked-in Train is not drawn from the Bank's stock of Trains. [It springs fully-formed from the forehead of the Minor Company.] A Minor Company CAN form even if its baked-in Train is not of a type yet available for purchase from the Bank. 8.5.1.3 Minors operate in order of formation, but all Minors operate after all Majors. 8.5.4 A Minor Company may never acquire a second Base by any means. The Taff Vale Minor starts in 'OO' hex V8 with two separate Large Stations. Neither is specifically reserved for the Taff Vale; a Company may build a Base at either Station in the hex but cannot leave no free space at all for the Taff Vale if it has not formed. If there is a choice, the Director of the Taff Vale decides which Station to place the Base in during its first OR. The Large Station in the Cambrian's start hex R8 is only present if the Cambrian is in play. The North Staffordshire's hex Q13 contains two small stations. It is not reserved for the NSR, but Companies playing there must neither place a green Tile (eg #888) without an empty space for the NSR's Base nor place a Base that would leave no room for the NSR. If the NSR forms and there is no Large Station in its hex, it may play (lay or upgrade) on that hex once per OR even though technically since it has no Base it is violating rule 5.2.4. It would place its Base as soon as possible (without regard for the normal sequence of play). [Some additional conditions were removed here which stopped you killing the NSR by sneaky tile plays once the Director's Certificate has been sold. All's fair in love and 18xx; if Q13 isn't already green, caveat emptor.] 8.5.6 A Minor Company may never sell its baked-in Train. 8.6.0 A Minor Company never enters Receivership; a Minor with no Director will do nothing at all in Operating Rounds, and its Share price will fall until it is bankrupt or someone holds four Shares. Remember that these are the only differences. A Minor can otherwise do anything a Major can. 9.0 Tables of Trains ==================== [This is partly guesswork. No two sources agree on the number of trains in use with various expansions.] 9.1 Trains Always Used 2 3 4 5 6 7 U3 3T Unit 1 6 4 3 4 Unit 2 5 3 2 5 2 Unit 3 5 3 1 2 2 2 2 Units 1 and 2 7 5 4 5 2 Units 2 and 3 5 5 4 5 2 2 2 2 Units 1, 2 and 3 7 6 5 5 2 2 2 2 9.2 Expansion Trains Do not try to use expansions with Unit 3 by itself. When K2 Advanced Trains is in use, use 3x3T, 1xU3 if seven or fewer Minors and Majors are in play. Otherwise use 4x3T, 2xU3 if one Unit is in play. Use 5x3T, 3xU3 if two or three Units are in play, including those in table 9.1. [This is the bit that's pure guesswork.] When K3 is in use, add 2 7-trains. Use 3 6-trains whether or not the table above calls for any. Remove 1 5-train. When K2 is in use in a game with '6' or '7' Trains, add 2x4T, 3x2+2. If the game includes '7' Trains, add 2x4+4E. 10 Tables of players ==================== 10.1 Starting capital and certificate limits Units: 1 2 3 1+2 2+3 1+2+3 Players 2 1200/24 1200/24 750/17 3 830/16 800/16 840/31 840/29 4 630/12 600/12 630/23 630/23 630/33 5 504/10 504/19 504/18 504/28 6 420/16 420/23 7 360/14 360/19 8 315/17 9 280/15 10.2 Certificate limit increase with Minors The three Minors in Unit 3 are not counted for this table. Since you cannot play without them, they are already baked into the table above. Minors: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Players 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 3 1 2 2 3 4 5 5 4 1 1 2 2 3 3 4 5 0 1 1 2 2 3 3 6 0 1 1 2 2 2 3 7 0 0 1 1 2 2 2 8 0 0 1 1 1 2 2 9 0 0 1 1 1 1 2 So, for example, if 5 players play Unit 1 with the 5 Minors in the regional kits and kit K7, they will start the game with £504 each, but the certificate limit will be 12 per player [total 60, with 54 Major and 20 Minor certificates in play, so if Share prices rise over £50 quite a few certificates will have to be in the Bank.] V Variant Rules =============== V.1 Ports A Port has its name printed in white capitals on the gameboard. In Unit 1, the Ports are Weymouth, Southampton, Dover, and Harwich. If a Company places a Base token in a Port city, in every subsequent OR (but not the OR of placement) it receives an £20 bonus in company credits at the very end of its turn, after Train purchases, whether or not it runs any Trains to that Port. It also receives an £10 bonus in company credits for each Train which it runs to that Base Port. This is considered as income for the purpose of maximising income in rule 5.5. Where a Port hex can be upgraded to hold two Bases, a second Company that placed a Base there would gain the Port benefits. In the Edinburgh/Leith hex, note that only Leith is a Port. Only one Company can benefit from a Port in Edinburgh/Leith; as soon as a tile is placed there, it must be made clear (by the placing player) which Large Station is the Port. V.2 Suburban Routes for T-Trains In a special exception to 5.5.7, a T-Train may run on a Route two adjacent hexes of which are shared with another Train. This ability may only be used when running on plain track or from certain eligible cities (a "suburban Route"). Eligible cities are those that start the game with two or more Large Stations - London, BGM hexes, Liverpool, and OOs like Newport/Cardiff. Beware: russet and grey tiles may not leave these distinct from other cities. Their eligibility is based on their starting layout. A 3T may run from a russet or grey city; a 4T can run from a grey city, or run from a russet city as if it were a 3T. The Company must be running the Train from a Base in the eligible city. A given Company can only ever run one suburban Route. [Rationale, per Lou Jerkich who wrote this variant: tank engines were often used on suburban routes in reality, and otherwise in practice they usually prove to be more expensive versions of '3' and '4' Trains only bought because the Company cannot afford a '5'. Sure, they can run to small Stations, but you don't want to run to low-value small Stations. The requirement for a Base requires some investment. Jerkich wonders whether this makes the Taff Vale Minor (the only Minor that could ever do it) too strong. If it does, we'll just say "no Minors".] V.3 Baked-In Variants These rules and the gameboard and components I have "bake-in" variant DB2 as detailed at https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/134330/db2-secr-changes-1825-unit-1 To unroll this variant: Hex W21 is not reserved for the SECR. Brighton (X20) is reserved for the LBSC. Ashford (W23) is reserved for the SECR. Ashford is a river crossing requiring a payment of £40 to pay a tile on. The SECR's initial Share price is £71, and so the LBSC is only available after the SECR is sold out, and Minors are available when the SECR (or any other £71 company) is sold out. The tile charts also bake-in variant DB1: https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/134350/db1-station-promotion-variant (the simpler rule used in practice). lots.0 Expansions and kits [mainly for my own reference] ======================================================= Units 1-3 are all self-contained games; Unit 1 depicts the South, Unit 2 the Midlands, and Unit 3 the South of Scotland. They can be combined (except that Units 1 and 3 together doesn't make much sense). Regional kits R1 (Wales), R2 (South-West England), and R3 (North Norfolk) expand the Unit 1 board with additional terrain and Minor Companies. Kit K2 (Advanced Trains) adds additional Trains which work in different ways to the normal Trains. Kit K3 (Phase Four) extends the game with longer Trains and additional tile developments. Kit K5 (Minor Companies for Unit 2), er, adds some Minor Companies to Unit 2. Kit K7 (London, Tilbury, and Southend Railway) adds a Minor to the terrain in Unit 1. Kits K1 and K6 contained additional track tiles. They were superseded by kit D1.