1862

General Information

Designed by Mike Hutton
2-8 Players
Location: Eastern Counties, England
Rules
Map
Tiles
Market
BoardGameGeek

Rules Highlights

Compare 1862 to another 18xx game.

This is not a complete synopsis of the game rules, only a highlight.

No player bankruptcy.
Companies can be either full ("chartered") or incrementally ("non-chartered") capitalized.
Not all companies are available at start.
Before each stock round is a parliament round, where players can bid on starting a company with a charter.
Players are penalized if a newly chartered company has not floated by the end of the following stock round.
Flotation is at 50% for both chartered and non-chartered companies.
Tokens are purchased at flotation.
Three types of trains: freight, express and local, each with different rules.
Can only run trains types that the company has a permit for.
Companies that are connected can merge. This is how a company may acquire additional train permits and tokens.
Companies can redeem (buy) shares from the market to place in their treasury, even full-cap ("chartered") companies.
Companies must own a train. Will sell shares from treasury to pay. Failing that, will refinance (like a merge, but only one company). Failing that, the company will go bankrupt. The president never contributes personal money.
Game ends via reaching terminal stock price, bank breaking, or at the end of full OR set after an H-train is bought.

Rules Clarifications

Each Freight train individually in a Freight route must meet the train route requirements (e.g. must have a token), but the route as a whole may visit two red or two blue offboard locations.
The Freight revenue rules are somewhat equivocal regarding offboards. There is a fair bit of debate on the rules and examples. I have chosen an approached arrived at by a very strict reading of the rules. See below.
The rules are silent on what shares may be sold when failing to meet a parliamentary charter obligation. See below for how this implemented on 18xx.games.
The rules are silent about what happens when a company taking its first OR is also in receivership. See below.

Variants and Optional Rules

Companies normally have 7 tokens, there is an option to give each company 8 tokens.
The short length option removes one A, one B, one C, and one D train from the bank.
The long length option adds one C and one D train to the bank.

Implementation Notes

The code will calculate freight run bonuses based strictly on the route chosen and will simply count intervening hexes between the beginning and ending hexes.
Instead of having a separate, "mini", map showing company home locations, these home locations are shown on the map. Prior to a company placing its home token, home locations are shown as icons on the appropriate hex. After that, the home token is highlighted on the map.
The above icons on the map are coded with outlines to indicate starting permit type and availability for starting. Local permits have a diamond outline, express permits have a circular outline, and freight permits have a hexagonal outline. The outline is in white if the company is available for starting and black if not.
The game logic will make no attempt to prevent you from bidding/winning a charter for a company that you won't be able to float. Bad things will happen to you when that happens. You have been warned.
When an charter obligation has not been met by a player the end of the stock round after a charted company was started the following will occur: a fine is levied against the player. Cash will be deducted from the player, then shares will be sold starting with the company in question. The company will then close with no compensation to any stock holders. If the fine was not completely paid by this process, it is forgiven. Note that it is entirely possible that the player will have zero assets after this occurs and will effectively be removed from the game.
Adding a town to a plain track is done in the same manner as upgrading a tile. All possible town additions as well as upgrades are shown.
Since a revenue location can only be scored once, it will be assigned to the first train listed that visits it.
All freight trains that connect end-to-end will be treated as a single, longer, train - not just non-permanent trains. Freight bonuses are assigned the the first train listed that is in that end-to-end connected set.
The game logic will optimize "skipped" revenue locations for N/M trains across all routes. For example, it will attempt to skip revenue locations that are already visited by another train. Skipped locations are shown in square brackets.
An asterisk (*) on a train indicates a warranty. Each * corresponds to one warranty.
When a company is forced to upgrade its home hex to make room for its home token (Rule 7.3), this build action will occur before the opportunity to merge is given. This satisfies the 3rd paragraph of this rule in the GMT edition.
When a company in receivership is taking its first OR, it will not place its home token. This will be delayed until the first OR after it is out of receivership.