18Ardennes
General information Rules highlights Rules clarifications Variants Implementation notes
- Designed by David G D Hecht.
- Published by Deep Thought Games and Golden Spike Games.
- Rules.
- Map.
- Tiles.
- Market.
- BoardGameGeek.
- Differences from 1830.
The game starts with fifteen minor companies operating. These can lay a single tile (yellow or a green upgrade) and either split their revenue with their owner, or can withhold.
Players start public companies (majors) by through an auction at the start of each stock round. Players bid for the right to start a public company, and nominate one of their minors that will used to start the public company. For the first group of public companies formed there are geographical restrictions on which minors can be used to start each public company.
As a stock round action, players may exchange a minor company for a share in a public company, if there is a route from one of the public company's station tokens to one of the minor company's station tokens.
Public companies can lay two yellow tiles, or upgrade one tile (a green or brown upgrade). They start as five-share companies and can pay out, split or withhold revenue. As their first action in an operating round a public company may convert to a ten-share company. When this happens the company president is allowed to gain extra shares by purchasing them, or exchanging a connected minor company for a share.
There are several revenue bonuses:
- Ports: running to the off-board area next to a port city gives a bonus based on the train type (20/30/40/50/60/80F for 2/3/4/5/6/4D trains).
- Mines: running to a station token in a mine city doubles the revenue for that city.
- Trans-Europ Express: a train that runs to a northern city and a southern city, or to an eastern city and a western port, receives a 30F bonus for each station token that is counted as part of its route. If the route includes northern, southern and eastern cities and a port then the bonus is 60F for each station token. A 4D train must count the northern/eastern/southern/western locations to receive the TEE bonuses, they cannot be skipped.
- Forts: companies that own fort tokens gain 10F extra revenue for each if they have a route to either Paris or Strasbourg, or 20F extra revenue for each if they have routes to both. The company does not have to run any trains to Paris or Strasbourg to receive this revenue bonus, but must run at least one train.
There are two types of train:
- 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 trains gain revenue for cities and towns. They can visit up to the number of cities as the train number, and any number of towns. Their routes can begin and end at towns.
- 4D trains are diesels that can run a route of any length and gain revenue from up to four cities on the route. They do not gain revenue for towns. They double the revenue from these cities, and also the bonuses for mines and the Trans-Europ Express. A 4D train can reuse track used by another train. Only ten-share companies can own a 4D train, and they can only own one each.
- In section 3.1 of the rules you are told to distribute Fr2,100 between the players, but then shows the starting cash for four players at Fr575 each, which is a total of Fr2,300. The game components show the four-player starting cash as Fr525 which is correct.
- Public companies cannot start until phase 3. This is stated in section 1.4.2 of the rules, but sections 2.1 and 5.2 suggest that they can start in phase 2. This has been clarified on Boardgamegeek.
- Some of the rules around bankruptcy are unclear. These are the interpretations that have been implemented (but are unlikely to matter, as it is almost impossible to go bankrupt unless you are trying to do it):
- Presidencies of minor companies get sold to the pool what a player bankrupts.
- Minor companies in receivership can be bought from the market for twice the share price.
- Minor companies in receivership that are in the grey stock market zone cannot be bought from the market.
- Minor companies cannot be exchanged for treasury shares of public companies in receivership.
- Minor companies can be exchanged for market shares of public companies in receivership.
- Certificate limit does not change when a player bankrupts.
None.
- Open issues
- To get a port bonus for a route you must make sure that the route selected includes the grey hex to the west or north-west of the port city.
When the first set of public companies form, there are restrictions on which minor companies can be used to start each public company, based on the cities that have their tokens. Coloured tokens and icons are used to give guidance on which locations for tokens are eligible for each public company.
This screenshot of a game in progress, shows which minor tokens and available token locations can be used for starting public companies:
- Minor 2 can be used to start either the NL public company (the yellow company) as it has a token in Amsterdam, or the P (dark blue) as it has a token in the Ruhr.
- Minor 3 has a token in Aachen which makes it eligible for starting any of the NL (yellow), P (dark blue) or BE (green).
- The two cities in Paris give rights to start different companies. The western city lets you start N (brown), the eastern city lets you start E (orange).
- The neutral tokens in the three port cities show which major companies could be started if a minor company placed a token there: N in Dunkerque, BE in Brugge, NL in Vlissingen.
- Open slots have an icon showing which public companies could be started if a minor company places a token there. For example Arnhem-Nijmegen has a yellow icon as it can be used to start NL, and Frankfurt-am-Main has a dual colour light blue/dark blue as it can be used to start either BY or P.
- Basel cannot be used to start any public companies, so does not have any icons.
Once the first public companies have been started there are no restrictions on which minor companies can be used to start any remaining public companies, and so these coloured tokens and icons are removed.