1871 Steel Cities
- Fred Campbell
- Rules
- Map
- Tiles
The game is centered on the steelmaking industry in the Great Lakes region of North America. It is the result of extensive historical research on the coal seams, industrial works, and technological inventions that sparked the Gilded Age. A surprisingly large number of well-known companies and critical inventions related to railroads were founded or created within just a few years of the game's namesake year.
The game uses a progressive system of company auctions based on 1822, with a similar phase chart and mix of company types, but uses a sealed-bid second-price auction (aka Vickrey) to speed play. The unique auction rules are summarized below.
There are two classes of trains:
- freight, which service square tokens and square dahs, and
- passenger, which service round tokens and round dits.
There are four types of trains, two within each class:
- "H" for hex freight, which run routes like the hex trains in 18NY and other games;
- "F" for fast freight, which service only the highest revenue hexes on their routes (up to their train limit) and earn double revenue for dahs and hexes with the operating company's tokens;
- "P" for passenger, which generally run routes like ordinary 18xx trains; and
- "E" for express passenger, which service only the highest revenue hexes on their routes (up to their train limit) and earn double revenue hexes with the operating company's tokens (but not for dits).
Minor companies can only run one class of train--either freight or passenger--but not both.
Major companies can run either class but half of them have only one passenger token and the other half have only one freight token.
From Phase III thru Phase VI (the final phase), major companies can lay either:
- 3 plain tiles,
- 2 non-tokenable tiles (inclusive of upgrades), or
- 1 tokenable upgrade tile.
There are two sequential auctions in the first stock round: private and minor companies are auctioned first, then paper companies (equivalent to concessions in 1822).
Only private and minor companies are auctioned in subsequent stock rounds (because paper companies are no longer available for auction).
In each auction, players bid on all available items simultaneously by recording their bids secretly and simultaneously revealing their bid sheets for processing.
Each company type has a bid class of A, B, C, or D, and for each bid class there are 6 available bid prices.
- Private companies are either Class A or B.
- Minor companies are Class C in Phases 1 and II, and Class D in Phases III and IV.
- Paper companies are Class C.
Bids are processed for each item one-at-a-time by company type in ascending order of that type's bid number on the Auction House sheet.
To process bids for an item:
- Eliminate ineligible bids,
- Determine the winning bid (if any), and
- Determine the item's processed price (i.e., the amount the winning bidder must pay).
A bid is ineligible if:
- The player doesn't have sufficient cash to pay the item's processed price,
- The player is already at certificate limit, or
- The player has loan debt.
Cash and certificate limits are applied to each item separately when bids are processed, not when bids are placed (because, in a sealed-bid auction, a bidder cannot know in advance whether or which items they will win). A bidder with loan debt should not place any bids.
- No Sale: An item remains unsold if it receives no bid or none of the bids placed are eligible.
- One Bid Only: If there is only one eligible bid, the player who made that bid wins the item.
- One High Bid: If there is more than one eligible bid and one bid is higher than all others, the player who placed the highest bid wins the item.
- Tie Bids: If there is a tie for the highest bid, the winner is the bidder whose bid marker is in the lowest-numbered space on the Bidding Order Track (i.e., space number one).
After a tie is broken, the winning bidder moves their bid order cube to the highest-numbered space on the Bidding Order Track (based on the number of players in the game) and closes the gap by moving the other player’s cubes into their nearest lowered-numbered spaces (i.e., the cube in space number two is moved to space number one, and so on).
Determining the Processed Price
- One Bid Only: If the winning bidder is the item’s only eligible bidder, the processed price is equal to the minimum available bid price (i.e., the first column price).
- High Bid: If there is more than one eligible bid and the winner’s bid is higher than all others, the processed price is equal to the second-highest bid.
- Tie Bids: If the winning bid was tied with another bid, the processed price is equal to the amount of the tie bid.