Unit 1 is the most versatile of the base sets. It works best at the widest range of players (3-5), has 3 regional mini-expansion along with a half-dozen minor companies you can add. It's the most plausible single unit to use the Phase 4 options with. It's got the largest board with plenty of track-building options. I think it's the best starting place in general. The 2-player Unit 3 is good if you're going to be playing at that number a lot - but Unit 3 alone won't work with more than 2.

As sort of a follow up, how much additional money/time does unit 1 with all 3 regional expansions require?

Shouldn't that be "to the northwest?"

Um yes. Corrected!

Alright, I found some source that suggests to add 1,000 pounds per minor company. So ~4,000 with all the regional kits.

Do you remember what the source was?

I believe he may be referring to http://www.18xx.net/1825/1825f.htm. That's the only reference to money I have found.

Does this imbalance the GWR at all? Or is this expansion more for when unit 2 is also being played such that LNWR & GWR have two starting points?

I haven't found that it makes the GWR overly strong. By pulling the GWR's interest to the west it gives the LSWR a larger opening (already a good company), which in turn actually lightens the load on the SECR/LBSC and makes it easier for one of them to be rather good and even makes it possible for both of them to actually be viable.

This is my favorite expansion, just because the board is so tiny! I get my money's worth just making fun of it when I introduce people to 1825.

The minor companies for the south board are nice for variety, and good with more players, but none of them are hugely strong. They all help to make outlying areas of the board (that are usually sparsely used with only the basic game) more interesting to develop. But they're all flavor, nothing that I've played with has been fundamentally game-altering, and it's not uncommon with smaller numbers of players for the minors to be completely ignored.

But then again, if you can set the right par, and get some multiple stock jumps, they can be a nice addition to your portfolio given the weakness of some of the majors in Unit 1.

I played with 4 recently, and was acutally surprised that it worked quite well, because generally I'd do Unit 2 with 3 and Unit 1 with 4.

Unit 2 is probably overall a slightly weaker unit when judged by itself, because the range of players it supports is smaller (3-4), one major company - the NER - is a bit too weak IMHO, and it lacks Unit 1's many expansions (and Unit 2's one minor company expansion isn't very strong). On the other hand, it does play quickly, and is even more accessible than Unit 1.

I think Unit 2 + Unit 3 would be a really cool, wide-open game for 5. I haven't had a chance to try it yet though.

I've done a full batch of company certificates and stickers for the tokens. I can upload it if you like.

Unlike Akke's lot, my charters match the colours on the company certificates, with the only exception of the R1 and R3 companies where I only have the "old" version of the certificates.

Let me know if you're interested.

Mike.

Mike: I'd toss a couple geek gold your way for that too. Also, you should link your current version of the 1825 faq. I always seem to find your old version that has question marks for the monetary amounts.

How long does this game take?

It is not listed in the playing time section of BGG.

Thanks

Your first game will be long, like around 3-4 hours. After that, 2 or 2 1/2 is probably about right. At least, that's my experience.

I never considered 2-player 18xx to be a very tempting game, so I was surprised how well Module 3 worked with 2 players. I bought it mainly because I wanted the option to combine with Unit 2; when I played it with 2 on a lark just to give it a try, I ended up really impressed. It's not something I'll play a lot, but I'm much happier with my purchase than I expected to be, and it's nice to have a meaty, 2 - 2.5-hour 2-player non-wargame.

One wierd point I noticed: when combining units 2 and 3, the rules say to use four '4' trains, but the two units only have three between them! Still, I suppose most people will have unit 1 as well, or you can easily make an extra train card, or even just play with three '4' trains.

What does this Unit do so well that allows it to be the only 18xx that really works with 2 players? Is it the limited number of companies, smallish board, low starting money? Some combination of all of these things? Unit 1 clearly seems too large for 2 players, but could Unit 2 make a servicable 2 player game?

From the pictures, this looks like this unit has the most interesting board (lots of mountains, weird small town track endings, high density). I'll probably get around to purchasing it some point in the semi-distant future -- maybe when R4 comes out.

I think the main thing is just that it's built on the 1825 engine. The combination of stock-trashing and the loot-n-dump from the 1830 base engine would make a 2-player game far less interesting because you can't really own your opponent's stock.

These are highly recommended. The brown track particularly in the basic set is a bit restrictive, and I like having the additional configurations available. 1830 vets will definitely want this, since this brings the total brown track mix more or less in line with that game.

I should say too, that these are more important with Unit 2. The track in that module is very dense, highly concentrated around Liverpool and Manchester. Having a few more options for developing that network is a good thing IMHO.

The 2+2 and 4+4E I like, although they don't get a lot of use. The others I think are only relevant if you're using the "narrow guage" track, otherwise the are just slightly more expensive 3 trains you can invest surplus cash in after the 3 trains are gone in the standard game (where the top train is a 5).

If the 3Ts were available simulataneously with the 3s, they might be more interesting.

Very interesting ... I didn't realize this had been changed (I have v.1 of the R kits). I always liked the "narrow guage" track in 1853, which the "single track" in 1825 emulates, sort of; but I never played with it in 1825. A shame it didn't work out, apparently.

If you have access to striped track, I have a variant which makes single track work really well. I'd only use it with the regional kits, and most importantly Wales. The rules are:

1. You can't lay single track unless you have a 'T' train.
2. Two yellow single track tiles *can* be laid next to each other on a single operating turn.
3. Only 'T' trains can run on single track. Optionally you can allow U trains to do so too.
4. In order to upgrade a single track hex you have to be able to reach it with one of your trains.
5. Small stations on single track do not count against the train total for 'T' trains.

When using this variant I tend to add one extra tile each of 87, 88.

The variant works like a charm.

Mike.

FWIW: If you are really desperate for the single track tiles, you can order a kit from Heron Games for 1853 that has the same tiles. It costs £3.90 which is quite a bit for 16 tiles, but there you go. Stocks are low. If I ever order a set, I'll scan them since I suspect that the kit will sell out and the single track tiles will never return to 1825... Also, 18xx.net's tile encyclopedia doesn't have pictures of the missing tiles.

Well, the tiles are sold out now, I see. Here's hoping someone scans them....

So do the 6 trains kill the 3s and the 7 trains kill the 4s? Or is this different as well?

The 7s kill the 3s.

This is the only one that I've played with that I didn't like. Unless you're playing Unit 2 with 5 players (probably not recommended) or playing a combined game with another unit, I think these two minors are just not going to see play. Their bases are simply too far from the action and/or too hard to link in, and there are enough shares to get to your limits in decent major companies.

With a Unit 2/Unit 3 game, though, the Furness might be quite tempting.

It's a matter of playing style as to whether the minors are used or not. Certainly I've seen games won and lost with the minors. The tricky one is the North Staffs. Give it an inch and it'll quickly take a mile. The Furness is much harder work, but you still get a perfect opportunity to pump extra money into the game.

I just wanted to voice my annoyance that the Furness chips are black. If you don't want to print out stickers, at least with the other companies you can write their intials on the chip with a fine point sharpie. However, both the Furness and LNWR chips are black, requiring a sillier solution, such as whiteout or acrylic paint. I'll probably just bite the bullet and get some wood blocks and print some stickers if i were to end up playing with this expansion a lot.

A silver sharpie would work great for that. I bought one to highlight the #s on the trucks in Bootleggers and was very pleased with the result.

Soft curve tiles without a town aren't included in the base game, but are added here. It was my understanding that this was do to some kind of play balance issue. GER, for instance, is more valuable with this addition, as it has trouble expanding to the northeast until phase two. Thoughts?

I of course mean soft curves with town aren't included in the base game. I got too negative.

The "halt" tiles are hold-overs from 1829, and we weren't sure we liked them the one time we used them in that game. They felt like pure hosers, and they're kind of nasty (they significantly damage your run, they can't be upgraded, and are very hard to bypass and tend to severely gum up the routes). So I'm not sure about them.

I was actually completely unaware that I had missed this expansion, so thanks for the list I now have a copy on order.

Alright, I admit fully that I haven't played with this company, but wouldn't the GER utterly dominate this minor? That said, I guess it is an incredibly profitable route, so it could be used to end the game in a hurry. I dunno. Do people like playing with this expansion?

The LT&S is more like a bond issue than a stock. It's got one route it can run that can't be expanded. So it's got a fixed payout which it will run from the turn it floats to the last turn of the game.

It can still be used to help fiddle trains and raise cash for other companies, though, so that's worth something, and there are choices about how to capitalize it. And it's run is decent. But this is not a minor company that you'll expend a lot of effort thinking about.

Couldn't it buy a train and run the GER routes though? Maybe of value if you owned the GER and LT&S and built a shared route for them?

They have only one station, and that station has only one way out, so they can never run a second train.

Oh right, of course.

This is what I did. Poker chips speed up a lot the game and are easier to handle than paper money.
Recently I've joined a 18xx club which use an excel file to run all the economic calculation once the game enter a phase with 2+ OR. Once the OR are over and there is the market round, money is given to players.
I noted that this system extremely speed up the game.
We completed a 1870 4 player match in 4.5 hours, including the explanation of private companies and strategies for me.

I use poker chips for people, paper money for the companies. Since company transactions are simpler/less fiddly than personal transaction/dividend payments the paper money works just fine. It's pretty rare for a company to have more than ~10 bills at a time.

Forgive my ignorance but is there a fixed amount of money in this game or could you just use a boatload of poker chips for the bank and not worry about how many you use?

I just bought Units 1, 2 and 3 with the supplemental tiles (K1) and the 3 regional kits (R1.1, R2 and R3.1) and I'm really looking forward to sinking my teeth into this.

The bank sizes are listed at the start of each Unit's rule book. Typically it is 6K. You can also check the 18xx differences list for authoritative numbers. Most (all?) of the regionals add 1K to the bank.