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1825

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Bruce Murphy edited this page Sep 18, 2024 · 23 revisions

Table of Contents

General Information
Rules Highlights
Rules Clarifications
Variants and Optional Rules
Implementation Notes
Known Problems

General Information

Rules Highlights

Compare 1825 to another 18xx game.

  • Operations-focused
  • Personal money and assets are never contributed towards the purchase of trains. Consequently, there is no emergency train buying and, even more importantly, there is no personal bankruptcy.
  • Selling stock does not affect stock price
  • Private companies have no powers. They are dealt to the players at the start of the game.
  • Starting with the second stock round, private companies may be sold to the bank (minus a £30 commission), or bought from the bank for face value.
  • Corporations are available for IPO in layers. Once all the stock for at least of one of the corporations (if more than one) in a given layer has been bought the corporation or corporations in the next layer become available. Each layer has a specific par price.
  • Corporations may lay two tiles or upgrade one tile each round. When laying two tiles, they must not be adjacent.
  • In order to upgrade a tile with a town or city, the corporation must own a train that can "reach" that tile from one of it's tokens. A consequence is that trainless companies may never upgrade a tile.
  • Routes must not begin or end on a town, or visit multiple towns/cities on a tile - except for 3T and 4T trains.
  • The stock market is linear. Zero dividends move it to the left. Positive dividends move it to the right from zero to four spaces.
  • When a corporation's stock price drops to zero, it becomes bankrupt. That corporation is removed from the game, including all of its tokens and shares.
  • It is possible to sell the president's certificate to the bank pool. In this case, the corporation goes into Receivership.
  • Corporations are not required to own a train
  • Player money is separate from corporate money
  • Game ends at the end of the current operating round if the bank breaks
  • Game ends if a company's share price is in the right most cell of the stock market. It will end immediately after that company's turn.
  • "Minor" companies are 5-share companies, where each share is either 40% (director) or 20% shares.
  • Minors are considered to be in the lowest layer of companies. Consequently, they aren't available until after a £71 par company is sold out (unless playing with just Unit 3, in which case they are available after a £76 par company is sold out).
  • Minors are incrementally capitalized. They are obligated to buy a required train, one which has been reserved for each minor. Minors begin operating (after they are "formed") when they have enough cash to buy that train, which happens automatically.
  • Unlike the 10-share companies, Minors can be parred at any price (as long as it will allow the purchase of the required train, and as long as it's not the highest possible share value).
  • Minors operate similar to 10-share companies, except they operate after all 10-share companies operate
  • Receivership companies are controlled by the first player, counting from priority deal, that is not a director of a company. If all players are directors, the player with priority deal controls the company.
  • Receivership companies must withhold and must buy a train if they can afford it.
  • Track and token lays are allowed for companies in Receivership. In addition, Receivership companies may lease a train from the bank for £10. None of those costs have to be paid until dividends are withheld.

Rules Clarifications

There are many places where the rules are silent or conflicting or require clarification, primarily when combining Units and Kits. Some of this is discussed under Implementation Notes. What follows is more-or-less conventional wisdom for some of the rest.

  • "Double-heading" a pair 2 trains counts for determining if an upgrade is legal as well as running for revenue
  • Shares in the market or IPO do not pay dividends
  • U3 and 2+2 (in addition to 3T and 4T) trains can begin/end a route with a town ("small station")

For more information/justification, please see:

Variants and Optional Rules

  • Units 1-3 and regional kits R1-R3 are implemented
  • Kits K1, K2, K3, K5, K6, K7, and D1 are implemented
  • Not all combinations of units and kits are supported, e.g. K2 (extra trains) is not supported without K3 (phase four).
  • Regional Kit 1 uses version R1.3
  • Regional Kit 2 uses version R2.1
  • Regional Kit 3 uses version R3.1
  • You may choose to play with Unit 3 and add extra 3T and U3 trains to the roster. This is optional in the Unit 3 rules.
  • A "strict bank" option is available to just use one of the Units bank size when combining units. See below for the default behavior.
  • A "big bank" option is available to add all of the bank sizes from all of the units being used. See below for the default behavior.

Implementation Notes

  • It is possible to create a multi-player game with illegal options and/or player counts. If you create a game with an illegal player count for the options selected, or if you have selected an incompatible set of options, an error will be thrown when you try to start the game. Your only choices at this point is to either add more players (depending on the options chosen) or to delete the game. I may make this more user friendly in the future.
  • Yes, there are two shades of brown in use, just like the printed game. The darker brown ("sepia") color is used for pre-printed tiles with track that can't be upgraded (mostly, tile 200 can upgrade three locations on the map). The lighter brown is used as normal for tiles that upgrade green hexes and tiles. (The 1825 rules referred to the first color as "brown" and the second color as "russet").
  • The 200 tile is available to lay on Crew/Wolverton/Swindon once brown tiles are available in Phase 3.
  • Minors do not form until they have enough cash to pay for their required train.
  • The Unit 2 (expanded) market is used whenever Unit 2 is in play.
  • The rule where Receivership companies can pay for tiles, tokens and leased trains after receiving revenue for its run was difficult to implement. This implementation essentially loans the company the money for these things if the company lacks the cash. If the revenue generated is insufficient to repay that loan, an error is thrown when the route/routes are submitted. Your only choice is to run a better route, or "UNDO" steps and not spend as much money.
  • Determining the amount of money in the bank when combining Units and/or Kits is not as straightforward as one might think. The official rules say to either combine all of the Unit banks together or just use the bank from one Unit (which the rules recommend). Both of these are available as options. The default, however, follows Mike Hutton's recommendation for increased bank size based on which Kits have been added.
  • The game will not fill in all "double-header" 2 trains routes from the previous run
  • It is unlikely that the auto-router will comprehend double-heading

Known Problems

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