My interest in strategy board games started early when my grandfather taught me chess at six years old. In high school I enjoyed playing on custom-designed Risk maps with my friends, and in college I discovered Settlers of Catan.  Next was enjoying the plethora of modern Euro games.  I moved to Grand Haven, Michigan in 2018 and started attending Thursday-night gaming at a local game store in Zeeland where I was introduced to 18xx in 2019. I was hooked after my first play of 1846.

Favorite titles of our group included 1846, 1862, 1822 and 1822MX. 18USA was polarizing – it was Mark’s favorite title, and everyone liked the randomized setup, but some did not like the shorting mechanic or extended length of the game.  During setup of an 18USA game, Bill remarked, “Someone needs to make a game on the 18USA map without the shorting.”  Around the same time, I listened to an 18xx podcast that had a segment on “Things you wish to see in an 18xx game,” and they talked about personal, elective loans.  It became clear to me that elective loans could easily replace shorting.  I adopted the “Sure, why not?” attitude and went about creating 18EUS.

My first main design goal was to create a game that my local Zeeland group enjoyed and could play regularly.  Thus I sought to combine the favorite aspects of the group’s favorite games together and keep the play time down so it could be a “school night” game.  Elements included private company auctions like 1822, randomized setup like 18USA, and stock market shape and end-game like 1862. When I first described 18EUS and its inspiration to Mark, his comment was, “That sounds like a mutt,” as he thought these elements may not combine well together and that the result would be a spin-off that is lesser than the original.  However, we found through playtesting that 18EUS both possessed original features and brought together features from other great games in a unique way.  Players have not described the game as a spin-off; rather they describe it as a new, unique 18xx.  18EUS became a favorite for our group, and in the summer of 2021, I took some prototype copies to the Chattanooga Rail Gaming Challenge to gain more feedback and gauge interest in a wider audience.

My second design goal was to create a game that was not “solvable.”  If a game has a winning formula or dominant strategy, then the player that most efficiently implements the dominant strategy wins.  That kind of game can be fun for a limited number of plays, but once the winning formula is discovered, players often lose interest. I did not want this to be the case for 18EUS.  I sought to address this in two ways.  First, the relative strengths and weaknesses of certain strategies depend on the randomized setup.  Players must analyze the opening flop to get an idea of what overall strategies could surface, and then must value these strategies accordingly and decide how to move forward.  I have found this exercise to be quite fun in other games such as 1822 and Gaia Project and am proud of the way it has positively enhanced 18EUS.  Second, the strength of certain strategies depends entirely on the actions of other players.  Bank shares may underperform if other players have not taken many loans, and loans may underperform if too many loans are taken.  Players need to both react to prior player actions and anticipate future potential player reactions in order to succeed.  So far, through my own plays and from feedback from playtest groups in Dallas and Seattle, a dominant strategy hasn’t been found and, as the designer, this feels like a huge win for me.Our local group continues to enjoy playing 18EUS.  It has proven thus far to continually provide a sandbox experience where the winner is the player who has successfully outmaneuvered the rest of the table.  The winner is often difficult to predict, and multiple players have remarked that they enjoy playing even when they are not winning.  I’m thrilled with the way that this game has come together and I hope that more people will discover and enjoy 18EUS as much as our local group has!

Author: Greg Holton