This is a guide to playing 1853 (which assumes you know how 18xxes are played in general). I recommend reading this rather than the official rules, or at any rate before them, although I have tended to use their rule numbers and they can be found at: https://lookout-spiele.de/wp-content/uploads/EN-1853_V3.pdf They suffer a number of problems not least is that the publisher of this second edition adopted the convention that Phase N begins with the purchase of the first N train, making the pre-game setup "Phase 1", but didn't change all the phase numbers in the rules to reflect this. The game is set in imperial India (which includes modern Pakistan and Bangladesh). Unlike most 18xxes, companies are initially restricted in their area of operation. The game has an unusual setup procedure (but don't they all?) where players post bids to connect specific cities which entitle them to priority purchase of related company shares. There are two track gauges, metre and broad; the metre gauge has less capable trains but is cheaper to construct in difficult terrain. Companies are either Major or Minor, but the difference is less than in 1825; Major Companies get more tile lays and begin with 2 Bases, but Minor Companies can get earlier access to metre gauge Trains. 2: Setup and bidding ==================== The bank starts with £15,000. Each player starts with: 3 players: £730 4-5 players: £570 6 players: £510 2.5 Contract bids At the start of the game each player bids on a set of cities to connect, putting aside some money which is only returned to them when the connection is made. It doesn't matter who makes the connection, and the rules for what constitutes a connection are not the same as the normal train routing rules. 2.5.1 Bid amounts First players secretly and simultaneously select a bid amount. This must be at least £80 in a 3-player game; £60 in a 4+ player game. (It need not be a multiple of £10.) Theoretically there is no upper limit other than their starting cash, but it is unusual to bid much higher than a plausible combination of cities (see below). These bids determine the order of play, with players seated in descending order of bid amount. Ties are resolved at random. Each player removes the amount of their bid from their starting money and puts it to one side. 2.5.4 City selection In the normal order of play, each player either passes, or secretly writes down the name of a city (a hex with one or more token spots) and publicly claims a share associated with that city; each city on the map has small numbers printed on it. For example, Delhi is associated with companies 1, 2, 3, and 5. Continue round until every player has passed. Passing is permanent; you may not pass, then claim a share subsequently. Director's certificates are not used during this phase; players are always claiming single shares. You must write down a number of cities constrained as follows: Players Cities 3 4 to 6 4 3 to 6 5 3 to 5 6 3 to 4 It is not usual to bid much in excess of the minimum. Each city you write down counts against the value of your bid; £20 for a city without a preprinted value, or the preprinted value for cities shown in green on the map. You can't select cities with a total value exceeding your bid, and you can't select a city that won't leave enough money in your bid to make up the minimum number (eg, a player who bids the minimum £80/£60 can only select £20 cities). You may not pass unless you have the minimum number of cities; you may not pass if you have more than £40 of your bid unaccounted for and you don't have the maximum number of cities. A bid may not include more than two cities from the Ganges valley region: Cawnpore, Lucknow, Allahabad, Benares, Patna, and Calcutta. If a bid of exactly three cities includes two Ganges cities, one of those two must be Calcutta. Once bidding is concluded each player puts their list of cities with the bid money set aside. 2.7 Issued shares Players now pay for their claimed shares. If they cannot afford them all, they still receive them, but the cheapest shares are marked as "unredeemed" shares. These do not pay dividends and may not be sold, but they do count as issued shares for the purposes of floating companies, and to establish a player as Director of a company. A player with unredeemed shares must pay for all of them before they can buy shares in a Stock Round. Redeeming shares does not count as a share purchase and any number of shares can be redeemed at one time. Table 3: Players: 3 4 5 6 Share limit in any company: 60% 60% 50% 40% Total certificate limit: 21 16 13 11 Qualifying number of shares to float: 6 5 5 4 This table establishes the maximum holding any player can have in a given company, the total certificate limit per player, and the number of shares in a company that need to be issued for it to float. A share is "issued" when it is moved from a Company's new shares to a player; it does not cease to be "issued" if it is sold into the Bank Pool. Put aside all the shares in Companies which no share has been issued in. These are only available for purchase once every share in the other Companies has been issued. 3 Share Dealing Rounds ====================== When a Company floats, you may not sell shares in it during the same SDR. New shares (shares which have never been issued) are sold at the face value, not the current stock price. If there is no current stock price, Bank Pool shares are also bought and sold at face value. Unlike in normal 18xx, you don't buy the Director's Certificate first. A Director is appointed when the Company floats. If there is a tie, the player who has owned shares in the company the longest becomes the Director. This procedure is also used if share sales cause a change of Directorship, and means a bit of fiddly bookkeeping, sigh. If no player owns 2 shares when a Company floats, a Manager is appointed (3.4) just as if share sales caused this situation later. As normal, you can buy one share, sell any number, can't buy a share you sold earlier, and can't buy and sell the same share at the same time. You may sell shares in a way that causes a Company to have no Director. Share sales have no stock prices effects. Only buying shares extends the SDR; selling shares does not, and the Elephant is given to the player to the left of the last player to buy. At the end of an SDR, the player with the Elephant may sell it to any other player at a mutually agreeable price. 2.8 First SDR (no, "2.8" is not a typo) The first SDR of the game is special in a number of ways. Shares sold into the bank pool realise £5 less than their face value. If a company floats, the Director is appointed only at the end of the first SDR, rather than immediately. You may sell shares in a company once it has floated if you are selling shares issued as part of the bidding process and you do so at the first opportunity after floatation. At the end of the first SDR, the BBCI may be either a Major or Minor Company. If it has floated, and if the Director's bid includes both Bombay and Ajmer, it is a Major Company. Otherwise it is a Minor Company. The Director reveals no other information about their bid. If the Director's bid included Bombay and Ajmer, they must reveal this; they cannot optionally keep the BBCI as a Minor. If the BBCI is a Major, it gets a second Base at Bombay, and the cost of building its first tile at Ajmer is reduced to £70. At the end of the first SDR, if at least one Minor Company has formed, add one 2 Train, one 2M Train, and one 3M Train to the supply. Furthermore, 2 Trains are now double-sided 2/1M Trains; Minor Companies can buy them as either 2 or 1M Trains. Additional 2/1M Trains may also be available as detailed in section 4.8. 3.3 Company Floatation When a Company floats, it immediately receives money equal to ten times the face value of its shares, its stock price starts at the face value of its shares, and it places Tokens on its starting Base or Bases. 3.4 Managers If a floated Company has no Director at any time, a Manager is appointed. The Manager will be appointed from the players who hold one share; the just-previous Director if there is one, or failing that the player who has held shares in the Company the longest. If no player holds any shares, the holder of the Elephant is the Manager, changing if the Elephant moves. If a player bought one share, they would then become the Manager. A Manager acts as a Director except they may not pay a dividend. However, a Manager of a Company with no Train can (but is not compelled to) buy a Train from the Bank on credit. Until this Train is paid for, which cannot be done incrementally, the Company may not spend any money for any other purpose, and it may not sell the Train. If a Director is appointed, the Train must either be paid for immediately, or returned to the Bank. The Director could contribute money as in rule 4.8.8. 4 Operating Rounds ================== In ORs, Companies are run in a fixed order, starting with #1, the EIR. They carry out operations in the sequence below: 4.1 Track Construction 4.1.2 Major Companies Major Companies (Companies 1-4, and perhaps Company 5) can lay one or two tiles per turn. 4.1.3 Double tile lay selection In its first Operating Round, the Director of a Major Company selects if it will be allowed to lay two tiles either: 1) only once Phase 3 starts. 2) at any time, but at a cost (all game) of £20 each time it is done; £50 for Company 1. 4.1.5 Gauge The second edition of the game came with annoyingly arty tiles, and also the tile set is a bit limiting (compared to the first edition with its expansion kit). On any replacements or expansion tiles I print: Broad gauge is shown as a solid black line, like normal 18xx track. Metre gauge is shown as dashed black-and-white track. Dual gauge track is probably shown as plain white track, but there isn't a well established convention and it might depend on what I find easiest to manufacture. All Companies can lay either gauge of track at any time, even though Majors will not have access to metre gauge Trains until Phase 3. 4.1.6 Connection to tile being laid As in most 18xxes, the tile being laid must be connected to a Company Base via a valid route not blocked by a Station "tokened out" with other Company's Bases. There is no requirement to have a Train long enough to reach the new tile. The connection must be traversible in a single gauge, and if it is only traversible in a single gauge, the new tile must be in that gauge (or dual gauge, although only tile promotions will be dual gauge). A tile with two Small Stations and discrete track sections need only have one piece of track connected to a Base. If two tiles are laid, they must be connected to different Bases, and the routes traced to those new tiles must be disjoint in the way that Train routes have to be. 4.1.8 Extension from bases In the original rules, what 4.1.8 means is entirely unclear. My best guess is its text should be ignored; the rule I'm going to put here, which might have been the intent, is just an enabling rule to the effect that you can place a yellow tile on a beige hex containing one of your Bases and no tile, which the letter of 4.1.6 in the original rule forbids. 4.1.10 Restrictions A tile cannot be placed such that a railway line runs into the sea or the grey offmap area. 4.1.12 Construction costs Construction in normal terrain is free, but laying a tile in difficult terrain requires payment of a construction cost dependent on gauge, as shown below: Broad Metre One River £40 £30 Multiple Rivers £60 £40 Hill £80 £50 Mountain £140 £70 Himalayas £240 £100 "Himalayas" have a cloud around them, unlike other mountains. "Multiple Rivers" refers to a hex divided into 3 or more parts by rivers. The map's graphics are a bit too pretty for their own good, and the rivers typically don't quite make it to the edge of the hex, but they still should be regarded as dividing the hex into pieces. Where a tile combines two kinds of terrain, both costs must be paid. 4.1.14 Outposts Some places, mostly on the frontiers, have a reward shown in brackets, representing British government subsidy for railway construction. When such a place is connected to a Company Base, the Company making the connection receives the reward. All construction costs are paid before any reward is collected. 4.2 Tile Promotion As an alternative to laying tile(s), a Company may promote one tile (or preprinted green hex). Unlike laying tiles, a Company can normally only promote a tile inside its area of operation, defined on the Company charter (and in Table 2, but I haven't typed that in because it's on the charters). After Phase 5 has begun, Companies owning at least one 5 or 6 Train can promote outside their areas of operation. A Company that does so must use the promoted tile in its Train routes during the same OR; hence, you cannot promote a tile outside your area of operation that none of your Trains can reach, unless you then construct a Base during the same OR that makes it reachable. Tile promotions are "permissive"; you can promote any tile as long as you can connect to it after the promotion. The usual requirement to preserve existing track exists. Possible promotions are defined by a chart, not expressed by some simple rule. You can never promote a brown tile which is adjacent to a grey tile. Promotions never incur construction costs except that the first promotion of Calcutta costs £60 - broad gauge, multiple rivers. 4.3 Fulfilment of Contract Bid After a Company's tile lays, any player whose contract bid cities are connected must reveal their bid, recovering the money put in escrow at the start of the game. This uses a different definition of "connected" to everything else. The cities are connected if track connects them all, whether or not there are Bases that would actually make it possible for any Company to run the routes in question. Any number of changes at intermediate Stations are permitted when forming such a connection, but it is not permitted to change track gauges other than at a Station. Additionally, the connection can involve walking between separate Large Stations (but not Small Stations) in a single hex such as Delhi. If a bid is found to be illegal the offending player is required to sell sufficient shares to divest themself of all Directorships during the next SDR, but really, please don't construct illegal bids. 4.4 Establishment of Base Stations The first additional Base costs £40; others, £100. Placing more than one Base during an OR is not prohibited. You can't place Bases outside your area of operation, except after Phase 5 has begun; as with promotions, the Company must own a 5 or 6 Train and run a route involving the new Base. New Bases must be reachable from an existing Base without a break of gauge, as with tile lays and promotions. You cannot have two Bases in one hex, even where a city has disjoint Stations. 4.5 Running Trains Trains have to be run on track of the correct gauge or dual gauge track. (No, really?). An 'N' Train can run to N Large Stations and any number of Small Stations, including Small Stations beyond the last Large Station on the route. A '1M' Train must visit at least two Stations (only one of which will be Large). One Train cannot visit two Large Stations on the same hex, but it can visit two Small Stations, which represent two different towns not two places in the same city. There is no requirement to run Trains for maximum revenue, nor to run to as many stations as possible. 4.6 Dividends The revenue thus collected is either paid out or withheld. There is no half payment option. Unsold shares are not Treasury shares; they do not pay dividends to the Company. Additionally, the Company nominates one Train as the "Government Mail". This pays income to the Company Treasury directly equal to the value of the Stations on the ends of the Train's route. 4.7 Stock Price Adjustment If no dividend was paid, the stock price drops one space if and only if there are shares in the Bank Pool. If the stock price was £10, it remains £10; the Company does not close. If a dividend was paid, the stock price moves up at least one space. If the dividend was at least equal to 2/3/4/5x the stock price, the stock price moves up 2/3/4/5 spaces, respectively. If the stock price reaches £400, the game ends immediately after the dividend is paid. 4.8 Purchase of Trains (More than any other, this section lists what's different...) There is no requirement to have a Train. If a Company has insufficient money for a Train, the Director may make up the balance with their personal money. They may only make up the shortfall; ie, after doing so the Company Treasury would always be £0. Major Companies cannot ever own 1Ms. When Trains are bought between Companies, the price must be at least £10. Trains that become excess to the Train Limit as the result of a Phase change are returned to the Bank without compensation and can be bought from the Bank. It is the purchase of broad gauge Trains that drives the Phase changes. This seems like a good time for the Phase table: Phase: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 Introduced by: Game start |1st SDR |First 3T |First 4T |First 5T Trains added: |2/1M |3, 2M |4, 3M |5, 6, 4M Trains rusted: | | |2, 1M |3, 2M Tiles available: |yellow |+green |+brown |+grey Train Limit: |4 |4 |3 |2 Num. ORs between SDRs: |1 |2 |3 |3 Note that while Phase 5 is triggered by the purchase of a 5 Train, as soon as one has been bought, both 5 and 6 Trains are available for purchase. Also note that an increase in the number of ORs takes effect at the next SDR, not immediately. After a Phase change, the previous Phase's metre gauge trains remain available from the Bank, if it has any left. E.g, when Phase 4 begins, 3Ms are available, but any remaining 2Ms can still be bought. 4.8.17 Train Availability Kludges In the first OR only, if at least one Minor Company formed in the first SDR (and so extra trains were added per rule 2.8), if all the 2/1M Trains have been bought but the first 3 Train has not been bought, Companies may buy any number of extra 2/1Ms beyond the usual supply. A Company may even buy an extra 2/1M then the first 3 Train, but as soon as the first 3 Train is bought, this option is not available. (This stops a Minor that only really has mountains to build on from being completely stuck with no metre-gauge trains to buy.) Once per game, and not in the first OR, if no current Phase metre gauge trains are available from the Bank, each Minor Company can buy a single next Phase metre gauge Train from the Bank. This power can be exercised even if metre gauge Trains from the previous Phase are still unsold. 4.9 End of Operating Rounds At the end of a series of ORs, the holder of the Elephant may call for an additional OR. 5.1 End of Game If a stock price hits £400, the game ends immediately. Otherwise, when the bank is broken, the game ends at the end of the current OR; if the bank is broken in an SDR, play one OR. The winner is calculated in the normal fashion; cash plus total stock value, with Company assets being irrelevant. Tile Counts (mostly for my reference): https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/541504/promotion-tile-3-error-chart Does #3 upgrade to #87 / #88? 1853 v1 MIKv1 MIKv2 1853v2 Y plain 7 4 6 8 14 14 9 14 14 Y 1 Small 3 10 4 2 10 4 14 4 2 14 58 10 Y 2 Small 1 2 2 2 2 2 55 2 2 56 2 2 Y 1 Large 5 4 4 6 8 8 115 2 Y plain metre 77 2 1 4 78 6 3 3 6 79 4 2 6 Y 1 Small metre 72 4 2 1 4 73 6 3 2 6 74 4 2 4 Y 2 Small metre 71 2 1 1 2 Y 1 Large metre 113 2 1 1 2 75 2 1 2 2 76 2 1 2 2 G plain 80 2 2 81 2 2 82 4 4 83 4 4 G 1 small 87 2 2 88 2 2 G plain metre 84 2 2 85 2 2 86 2 2 G plain dual 233 6 234 4 250 4 G 1 small metre 89 2 2 G 1 small dual 116 2 117 2 G 1 large 12 2 2 13 2 2 14 2 2 15 2 2 G 1 large dual/mixed K 96 97 / 717 4 2 C's 98 99 / 719 4 2 T 100 2 2 Y 101 2 2 X 718 2 G 2 large hex 90 91 92 93 8 4 or 716 in v2 B plain dual 106 2 2 107 2 2 108 2 2 B 2 large dual 102 2 3 103 4 4 Grey plain dual 112 2 2 Grey large 109 2 2