Designer: Francis Tresham

Originally released in 1986, Railways & Robber Barons by Francis Tresham is more than just a classic, it’s a game with a Mono Lisa-like legendary status in the board gaming world. That said, for anyone who has ever actually seen the Mona Lisa in person, you were probably surprised to find out it’s actually a tiny painting perhaps not living up entirely to the namesake of one of the most well-known paintings in the art world. Now I’m not saying that 1830 is or isn’t a good game with that statement, I guess what I’m saying is that like the Mona Lisa, a painting like any other, 1830 is a board game like any other. Much of the hype, applauding and mystique surrounding this classic game and the 18XX series it spawned is driven by a kind of mythological stature given to and built up by its fan base. At some point however you sit down to play it and you come to the stark realization that this is an economic train game and though it comes with a lot of hype by the community that adores it giving it that cult classic status, it really is just one game in a sea of games.

For me personally, 1830 falls into the nostalgic classic category as a game, I’m reviewing it now because I have recently introduced it to my gaming group and I like to do reviews when a game is fresh in my mind, but the truth is that I have spent quite a few hours, decades ago, hunched over this one even before the Mayfair reprint (using the old Avalon Hill version). Suffice it to say, back in the day, I loved playing this one and I can understand the communities affection for 1830 Railways & Robber Barons.

As I look at 1830 today however I look at it with decades of board gaming experiences, with a more critical eye and a higher understanding of game design and perhaps more modern expectations. That means this old classic is getting reviewed in the backdrop of the modern board gaming era, so the question here really is, does this classic still hold up today!?

Overview

Final Score:  (3.9 out 5) Great Score!

In 1830 Railways & Robber Barons, as the title suggests players take on the roles of fat cats from the 1830’s who are running railway companies in a cut-throat competition to make the most money. Manipulating stock markets, building railways, trains and train stations, players are essentially building up companies so that their stock shares payout, stocks being the primary source of earnings in the game. In this process, players are buying low and selling high, trying to stick it to each other guy through pretty cruelly ruthless methods like stock dumping to make company values drop as they exit investments and seek out new ventures and many other “business transactions” that raise many ethical question marks about the very nature of capitalism.

This is a tough game with quite a few pretty mean-spirited take that moves that are made by players as they maneuver their investments around the stock market trying to leverage their winnings while torpedoing the earnings of others. The game is very much about timing as you can imagine, getting in and out at the right time, often coming down to a kind of game of chicken between players to see who will make the big plays and when. Much of the game is about controlling turn order in the stock round where the really big plays actually take place and trying to control the speed at which new trains enter the game resulting in older trains “rusting” (leaving play) which in turn creates horrific consequences for companies using aging trains. The whole experience is truly brutal, it’s the sort of game that I think really requires a very particular group who can take that cruelty with a light-hearted approach rather than getting upset.

It’s also a very long game and though I would not call the mechanics complicated, the strategies involved most certainly hit that high-level veteran style of game, not for the faint of heart. You can expect a typical game to exceed 6 hours pretty routinely.

The question here however is, does all that translate to being a good game? What I can say is that to me and my friends, games with a sharper edge like this, where we can really stick it to each other tend to make a really great impression with us. This is the sort of gaming we like, betrayal games are always popular in my gaming group, games like Game Of Thrones the board game is a huge hit with us predominantly because of the way you can really screw each other over so yeah, for a group like ours this one fits like a glove. We also have no issue pulling an 8-hour session to play a game, we do it routinely, we make the time for good games and so again, the length here is not an issue for me. I don’t negatively judge games that are intentionally long for being long, it is what it is.

All that said, I would definitely say that this is not a game that will speak to the typical gaming group of the modern era. By modern standards, this game will be seen as “complex” mechanically, way too vicious and way too long even for the most patient of groups. This is, however, my review and I’m judging it based on my own standards here so as you read this review, remember, who the audience is, really matters here. You have to like long, complex and mean-spirited games to like this one, if that doesn’t sound like you, this should be a really hard pass. If that sort of thing is music to your ears, however, you’re in for a real treat because frankly, this is an absolutely astonishingly amazing game and I can fully understand why it has this legendary classic game status, it earns it tenfold!

Components

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Pros:  Very pretty, big visual improvement over the Avalon Hill version, good quality components typical for GMT games.

Cons:  Misprints & pretty poor manual detract from the experience.  The use of paper money makes the game unplayable requiring you to seek out an alternative.

I remember the Avalon Hill version of this game and all I can say is that I personally, with zero artistic ability and an ink printer, I could create a vastly superior product than Avalon Hill managed back in the day. I mean the Avalon Hill version looked like a really shitty prototype on its best day.

Seeing 1830 by Mayfair bring the production level to modern standards is an absolute delight and they have done a fantastic job with the components here for the most part, both preserving the very important visual queues and functional approach the game needs while offering tons of extras based on years of player feedback and wrapping the whole thing up with beautiful art. Unfortunately there are some chinks in the armor and though no game is perfect, its a tragedy when you have to reference an old version of the game to get the correct information about its deluxe reprint.

The hard-mounted two-sided board is gorgeous with perfectly executed organization and iconography that really helps to both smooth gameplay and initial teaching of the game with the most important information/reminders on the board itself. The mounted board is two-sided because it includes the classic 1830 map of the original game and on the other side an expanded version of the map for a larger and more varied game. This is absolutely fantastic in particular in combination with all the different variants for the game that includes a wide range of unique tiles and alternative setups to give you a tremendous amount to explore and ways you can customize your experience.

The card stock is firm and artistic, with a glossy finish making the handling of stock certificates a pleasure. The tokens and tiles are on firm cardboard made to last. It’s worth noting that the tiles are all two-sided as well with the new Mayfair art on one side and the old Avalon Hill art on the other. I don’t know exactly why they would want to preserve the old Avalon Hill art as it’s really generic and boring, but I imagine perhaps it’s because some old-school fans might be used to it I guess and prefer it. It doesn’t negatively affect the game in any way so it’s a none issue for me. My issue is that there are a number of errors in the reprinted tiles, nothing that ruins the experience, but its hard to imagine when you have a correct version of the games tiles in the original, how you could print the wrong tiles in the reprint, its kind of sloppy especially given this games nearly $100 price tag.

The corporate cards are also of good stock with a nice mat finish and everything fits neatly into the box. Again, I have to complain, two of the corporate cards have misprints that actually mislead you into thinking they have 3 stations when they actually only have 2. A foolish blunder that caused me to have to research why I have 2 station tokens for a corporation that claims to have 3 stations on the card. Turns out its just a misprint, again, very sloppy for such an expensive game.

Finally and it’s a really big one is the use of paper money in the game. This is a game where you manipulate money constantly, making change and making payouts, simply and frankly put you can’t play this game with the paper money included, it’s just, utterly unmanageable. Quite literally with the use of paper money, this game will take 12+ hours to complete and half that time will do nothing but fumble about with paper money. This is a real black mark against the game, but it’s one the community has generally fixed for themselves as it’s an issue with all 18xx games. The community consensus is that Poker Chips should be used and after doing just that I agree whole heartedly. The use of poker chips not only makes exchanging and paying out money very fast and hassle-free, but it feels great at the table. Of course, I can’t give 1830 credit for this as poker chips are not included, but all I can say, either get poker chips with this game or don’t get this game at all. With paper money this game is unplayable. It is not a great look for a $100 dollar game to be completely unplayable with the components included, requiring an upgrade to components on top of your initial purchase.

I could complain about a rulebook here as well because it’s not entirely clear or particularly well written. It makes a lot of sense once you learn the game so in hindsight, it’s a great reference for the rules, but in practical terms even understanding something as simple as the sequence of play is poorly explained. There are also a number of very misleading rules that you will discover are actually quite different from the original game and its unclear whether this is intentional or if it is just poorly worded in the Mayfair version. Research revealed the latter.

I would use an online tutorial or have someone teach you this game because while the rules are actually quite intuitive once you understand them, the rulebook seems to be written with the assumption that you already know how to play, a tragic state that seems to plague all the 18xx games. Its a bit strange, but generally not great even though it’s a nice rulebook in terms of quality of print.

All and all, in terms of quality its a mixed bag here. Generally the components themselves are of very good quality, and very pretty but between some of the very obvious misprints, a rather confusing manual and the paper money this is a game that is going to make you work a lot harder than you should have to, to get to the table, especially for a $100 game, I’m being very generous with 3 stars for this one.

Theme

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Pros: Great execution on the theme combines perfectly with the gameplay.

Cons: The early-mid game excitment is in stark contrast to the slow and almost unbearably boring end game.

If you know anything about economics and in particular about the economics of the 1830’s which I imagine isn’t going to include too many people, this game actually is spot on thematically. I mean it covers all of the really nasty economic tricks pulled by these unscrupulous businessman of the early 19th century as well as the issues of railway construction and company management. It’s all very intuitive from a gameplay perspective however so knowledge of the historical foundation here is completely unnecessary which I consider a major plus but I would imagine anyone with an economics degree is going to do a hell of a lot better in this game than those without one. I would argue that when you play this game, you can take just about any mechanic in the game and explain why its there due to the theme and that just feels great.

Historical relevance aside, thematically this game is about buying and selling stocks, managing railway companies, building railways, and trying to find those perfect train routes and all of these things are not only handled with relatively simple mechanics but there are constant carrots in front of you that are both engaging and exciting. It’s a beautiful thing to see you predict what will happen to a company a few turns from now and leverage that knowledge and watch it payout or dump stock at the right time to watch an opponent’s company unravel at the seams. It’s mean-spirited that is for sure, but this too is part of the theme here, you’re meant to be these rather unethical cut-throat businessmen and this game gives you a real sense of that. In fact, the experience is almost surreal and really makes you question the whole concept of capitalism as many of the nasty activities reflected in 1830 are very much part of modern world economics.

The game makes you feel like greedy businessmen and you are rewarded for your greed, it’s a brutish game, but that is the world 1830 represents and thematically it nails it!

If I have any complaints is that the games exciting core gameplay does not extend to the end game. It starts out as this action packed stock trading, business management game where players are making big plays, taking risks, speculating, just in general fully engaged but the game ends in a rather slow moving and very boring end game where all you do is run train routes until the bank runs out of money. There is a real stark contrast between early to mid game and the end game. The latter being rather anti-climatic to such a degree that the community uses spreadsheets and other aids to help expedite this boring end game. You might think this complaint belongs in the Gameplay section, but it actually hurts the theme a lot more in my opinion. You go from being cut-throat Robber Barons fighting for every dollar you make, to effectively becoming a lifeless administrators managing spreadsheets. It sucks all the energy out of the room.

Gameplay

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Pros: A deep well of strategic gameplay, combined with highly addictive and dynamic mechanics makes this one hard to put down.

Cons: The game slows down over time until it comes to a near grinding a routinely boring halt.

1830’s Gameplay I would categorize as moderately complex and its strategically quite demanding. That said its intuitive and much of the gameplay feels natural, easy to get used to. Still playing the game requires a pretty high level of concentration, a lot of foresight and an intricate understanding of every single mechanic in the game and while there aren’t a lot of mechanics to learn, the impact of these mechanics can be deceptivly important, things that seem very innocent are actually quite crucial and not everyone is going to pick it all up on their first go.

There is good reason why this game and game genre (the 18xx series of games) have become a sort of lifestyle game sub-genre in board gaming because you really can spend an enormous amount of time and energy analyzing what is really going on in this game. There are so many unique and interesting puzzles to unravel here that I don’t think it would be possible for me to really do the game justice in a review while keeping the review reasonably readable to explain it all, but perhaps I can illustrate with some smaller examples of what I mean here.

One of the things you do in this game is buy stock. Each company that someone buys a president share (the first stock in the company) gets to set a price for that company. When 60% of the shares of a company are sold to players the company “floats” and begins to operate in the operating round which is a complex way of saying that it has the potential to start making money (building tracks, buying trains, running trains etc..).

When that first president share is bought it seems like a very simple matter. After all, players are here to buy and sell a stock, it seems like a thing to do. The meaning behind this and the consequences for this action however will echo throughout the game from that point forward. Which company was chosen has an immense impact on how the game will unfold. The price set for that company has an enormous impact on the game, when the company floats and which players buy into it by picking up shares and how those shares are distributed among the players is all of critical importance. Understanding why these things are important would require countless pages of text, but what I’m trying to illustrate here is that the game is afoot almost immediately with what appears to be largely a trivial action. A player buys 1 stock and it triggers countless events in the present and in the future of the game that might very well define the entire direction of that game.

One good example of what can happen is that a player sets a high price. When a player does that it means that when the company does float it will have a lot of capital to spend on building it up as how much cash a company gets when it launches is based on its initial stock price. If the share price is high however which means that investing in it drains more of player cash, if its low it means more people might see it as a great opportunity creating many investors. But in either case, depending on the circumstances at the table it has the potential for being both a big payout or a big disaster. What if you buy into the company and it doesn’t float. Now you have money invested in a company that is doing nothing for a round, already you are falling behind compared to players who have floated companies that will make money. If the company does float what if that player intentionally tanks the company because he is setting himself up for a different investment down the line, or what if that player uses one of the tricks like selling of a private company to the railroad company to pull cash out and then sells all his shares tanking the share price and leaving you with a company that has no money to spend.

So much can happen from such a little event like buying a stock and this is where the gameplay of the game really shines, where you are rewarded for clever decisions and making smart plays and the wonderful thing is that your reward is more money, fuel for making even bigger plays in the future.

But what if you fall behind, are you out? Not at all and this is the other great thing about 1830. You can go from rags to riches pretty quick, just buy some stock in a new company, build it up and start over. There is a limit to how many times you can really fail, but suffice to say, one setback isn’t the end of the world and inevitably you will suffer some in the course of a game, there are always routes to success you just have to be clever enough to find them.

I’m sure this is all very confusing when talking about a game you don’t know the rules for, but the main thing I’m trying to illustrate here is that I can talk about the game without explaining the rules and the terminology and the economic concepts are actually quite literal translations of the real thing. Buy low, sell high, invest in good companies, watch for unscrupulous activities in which players intentionally bankrupt companies and try to sink you with them. These things from an economics standpoint, have some universal understanding and when teaching the game you can speak about it in these terms and most players will understand, while the mechanics that govern this are relatively straightforward and naturally intuitive.

The other big play element beyond stock trading and stock market manipulation happens in the operating round. Here players manage companies that have been “floated” (60% of the stock shares bought by players). Each round players lay track, build stations, buy trains and run their trains. This sometimes feels like mini game in 1830 because while its a very critical part of the game, defining which companies are successful and which are failures, its usually not the focus of players attentions. What players are really looking for is to determine what the intentions of a player is with a company.

On the surface, its obvious that the most invested player will want to have a successful company so that dividends pay out and they make money. There is a lot of deception here however because it is not too uncommon for players to build up companies with bigger and more devious plans in mind. Its a funny thing that happens at the table because everyone is watching the person operating a company like a hawk, but they aren’t really watching what he does with the company but trying to read between the lines.

There are also some pretty nasty tricks that can be pulled in the operating round when it comes to laying track and building stations. Companies can block each other with tracks and stations, very rapidly turning a high profit company into a dumpster fire waiting to happen. Even nastier still is the train “rusting”. Each acting company has the opportunity to buy trains, but when certain trains are purchased, old trains become obsolete and are removed from play. This can and often does result in some companies having no trains and because its a requirement for all operating companies to have trains, those that find themselves without must replace them. If a company can’t afford the newly available trains which are always more expensive then the last generation of trains, the CEO (Biggest stock holder in the company) becomes financial responsible to replace the trains, meaning he may have to use their own money.

When this happens their can be terrible consquences, players can even go bankrupt if they can’t afford to replace a train. Suffices to say, avoiding this situation is on everyone’s mind as is trying to force that situation on people. The brutality of such a move is less likely in 2-3 player games, but in 4-6 player games, not only is this likely to happen to people but its almost a certainty. As such, a case can be made that 1830 plays best at 4 to 6 players because you really want this arch in your game, its exciting, its brutal and creates amazing table tension.

There is so much more to say about the gameplay in 1830, what I offer here are just some of the highlights but really this is a game where every action, every bought and sold stock, every lay of a track.. really anything players do changes the lay of the land and has players wrestling with decisions. 1830 has amazing table present once everyone really understands the nuances at the table and though it may take a game or two to get everyone truly vested, when you have a table full of players that all understand the subtleties of this game it really is an absolutely amazing gaming experience.

Now I mentioned the end game issue in 1830 in the theme section so I won’t harp on it too much here, but, yes of course, a slow, boring and rather anti-climatic ending of a game is never a good thing and I’m going to charge 1830 here as well.

There are solutions to this of course, one very obvious one is to play with a smaller sized bank, the less money the bank has the faster this end game will come. My friends and I however have experimented with some of the variants the Mayfair version of 1830 comes with and there are actually quite a few really good ones that help to both expedite the game in general but also make the end game at least a little bit more exciting. Its not exactly a fix, but I would encourage anyone who enjoys the game and finds themselves with the same complain to really take a look at the variants section of the rulebook. There is some really good stuff their and many ways that you can customize your experience.

Replay-ability and Longevity

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Pros: Endless replayability and longevity proven by over 3 decades of continued “In Print” state, not to mention the spawning of an entire genre of 18xx games.

Cons: The only problem will be your addiction to buying more 18xx games, they aren’t cheap.

I’m going to make this very short and sweet. This game was published in 1986 and its still in print today and has become the founding father of what is effectively an entire genre in board gaming (the 18xx’s series). It would be insane for anyone to claim this game is anything but immortal in terms of replayability and longevity. This is a lifestyle game and while I won’t argue that it’s a lifestyle for everyone, for those that fall into it, it is an unlimited well of experiences expanded by a huge library of offshoots, variants and based on games in the 18xx series. You can’t ask for more longevity then the likes of 1830!

Conclusion

1830 Railways and Robber Barons is a hallmark game, an example of what happens when a brilliant and passionate designer takes their time creating something truly magical. 1830’s status as a cult classic is well deserved and though it is not a flawless beast and certainly is not going to be for everyone, if you fall into this well you aren’t likely ever to claw your way out. 1830 and really the whole 18xx series becomes an addiction and while we are here to review 1830, it really is just the tip of the iceberg into a much larger and fascinating side trek into the world of board gaming.

I’m a fan, I love it and there are already a number of 18xx games on my shelf and each one is as unique and interesting as the next. 1830 is the core of this series however and while the consensus from the community is that 1830 is not a good place to start with the 18xx series I actually disagree. I find this one very palatable and much easier to teach than the rulebook suggests and learning from a teacher worlds apart from trying to do it from the manual. I recommend you find someone who already knows how to play, this makes a world of difference.

Flaws and misprints aside, this is a gem with some rough edges, approach with caution, but from one gamer to another, 1830 Railways & Robber Barons comes highly recommended.