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.