1894 - A Plea, not a neutral review

First off…

A friend invited me to give 1894 a try. I read the rules and played a round online asynchronously, but I wasn’t very impressed. Well, if it’s that good, then I guess I’ll just have to buy it and try it out at the table to really understand what it’s all about. The designer is offering the game for sale.

For a small fee, you get a superbly crafted, homemade game sent to you that plays flawlessly. I’m on the side of the board game community where high-quality design always pays off more than unnecessary components or artwork that gets in the way of gameplay.

At the end of the day, board games should be painted cardboard or paper that starts to make sense once you apply the rules. In that regard, these homemade games are a breath of fresh air for me.

Then finally, the first live game at the table, preceded by an intensive study of the rules. By the way, I’ve written a summary of the rules in German and uploaded it on BGG. Anyone who wants to is, of course, welcome to translate it into English.

Now that I’d taken a closer look at the game, I began to understand much better what makes it so appealing. In online games, you sometimes just click your way through (at least I do, but I’m sure others do too). That, of course, means you completely miss the actual core of the game. – Well, we met up two more times right after that to dive even deeper into the game. And wow—what a blast! What kind of game is this, anyway? We’re all absolutely thrilled!

Why You Should Play It

I’m thrilled by how the game seamlessly builds on classic 18xx designs while doing so many things differently that it has become a completely unique, innovative, and modern game! 1894 is largely based on 1830, but borrows the idea of upgrading trains from 1824. It offers all sorts of nuances that result in an incredibly exciting dance around stocks, routes, and money.

All in all, this is an absolutely outstanding train-and-track-destruction game! (ein "Züge-und-Strecke-kaputt-Spiel") And, along with 1871, it’s probably the most innovative 18xx game to be developed in recent years and decades. There’s no reason not to play this game if you love laying tracks and buying stocks!

Stops

There are only cities, major cities (Brussels, Lille, or Paris), and—and I think this is particularly brilliant—double-dits. And these consist entirely of curves, and the most annoying ones at that. It’s a bit of a stretch to compare these double-dits to 1871, but I’m going to do it anyway. Because: These double-dits are always located at strategically important positions, and the battle for the right ones is a blast! At the same time, the map is both small and large enough that the game really flows well. If you spend enough money on tokens and bridges, you can definitely afford a good route for the diesel train in the end and build toward it! Because the exciting part is that starting in the brown phase, you can normally upgrade green cities to OO cities. This lets you wonderfully destroy the routes others have built—or shoot yourself in the foot.

Trains

The ability to upgrade trains was likely borrowed from 1824. At least, that’s what the designer himself wrote in his designer diary. I have to say that I felt the same way when reading that diary: Back then, I thought the mechanism for upgrading trains in 1824 was truly brilliant. But somehow it didn’t work well enough in the game. Here in 1894, it works incredibly well: Once per OR, you may upgrade a train to the next phase train (if available). It’s not an easy question to answer: whether and when you should do this. Sure, upgrading a 2 or a 3: easy! You do that because both trains in 1894 are so bad that you just want to get rid of them. If you can use them as a discount, all the better. But upgrading a 4 to a 5+1? Tough question! A 5+1 into a 6 (the first permanent train)? Then you do have a permanent train, but the 6s run really horribly, especially if the tracks were destroyed beforehand. Hey, the diesel doesn’t cost that much in this game… should we wait for that? Should we invest the money in tokens and just cover the cost out of pocket later? Maybe…

Companies

For me personally, an 18xx game derives much of its character from the design of the companies. For a game that doesn’t feature variable companies (as in 1867 or 1817), the companies should still have quite a bit of personality: more tokens, but a worse location; better opportunities early in the game, but a disaster in the late game. Here, too, 1894 proves to be a prime example: The companies are so different that it’s a real joy to try them out. It’s particularly interesting that some of the companies start with two tokens on the board! …but sometimes that creates more problems than it does advantages.

The SRs have a great pass mechanism that’s already familiar from 18India and many other games: whoever passes first automatically gets the PD. I think this is a great modern variation on the pass mechanic that gives players significantly more control over the game. The game is full cap. However, shares in the IPO contribute to the company’s treasury. The company may also redeem shares from the market in the OR, so that these now also pay to the treasury (which shares in the bank pool do not do). A great mechanism has been built in that allows companies to earn a little money: if they have more shares in the treasury than in the IPO, they can reissue them in the IPO. The new share price is then automatically set to 100, and the company receives this money as well. This can be a great cash injection or a way to keep the company afloat with frozen funds.

Stock Market

The stock market is especially fun! It’s incredibly well-designed (I do love that the higher par prices are on the left and not on the right of the market) and features a special gray zone for stocks, which I believe was borrowed from 1828. Here, a company president can always buy 2 shares that don’t count toward the paper limit, and you’re allowed to own more than 60%. The key is that you no longer have to sell down to 60% when you leave the gray zone! On the contrary: Whenever the company is sold out, it can even rise up to three times at the end of the SR. That makes it worth keeping the shares. This isn’t really something you can always plan for. But—and this applies to all mechanisms in 1894—you can play around with them! If the timing is right, if it’s the right moment, but maybe not, then you could—or maybe not.

Privates

Finally, there are the privates to mention. The starting auction is a standard waterfall auction. But the privates are truly outstanding! I consider it a great feat to design privates in an 1830 adjacent game, which are worth either play their ability, yet also to ignore it and just take the money. This is particularly exciting because the game essentially starts with two "B&Os": There are two companies that are immediately floated as soon as their director is auctioned off, since every player already owns a share in them. But by the second or third SR, there can be a lot of money in circulation because private companies were bought in for a lot of money or the shares of the two "B&Os" were sold.

What Remains

In my games so far, many of my decisions have never felt quite right. And yet, sometimes they’ve led to victory. The game is truly an open sandbox where everyone throws sand at each other, and it’s unclear where a small castle will end up standing. It’s definitely the most interesting 18xx game developed in recent years, and it deserves a lot of attention and enjoyment!