1846: The Race for the Midwest is Trains, Tracks, Stocks and Shares…

In this 18xx game, players will deal with all of the above in order to make money.

1846 is an 18xx game set in the Midwestern United States. Differences from other 18xx games include scaling the number of corporations, private companies, and bank size to the number of players, fewer restrictions on actions such as raising money and using private company powers, the initial distribution of private companies, and paying for virtually all track builds.

My first impressions of 1846: The Race for the Midwest including a brief overview of gameplay followed by my positives and negatives and final summary.

1846: The Race for the Midwest Update August 2018

So this was a step too far for me. It’s a well-put-together game but I don’t want to play a game like this for this long. Age of Steam was about perfect in weight and length.

But these games aren’t for me really. They’re for a different breed of gamer 🙂 If I’m going to build routes I’ll play Via Nebula. Should I feel the need to play a game with a train in it I’ll play Game of Trains. If I want to manage resources I’ll play Gaia Project.

Train games fall down a gap in the middle. Where the desirable elements include game length, fun times and interesting mechanisms, 18xx games don’t quality enough in any of those areas. Age of Steam maybe… but 1846 does not.

I do like the route building, the blocking and the personal/company money. I also enjoy the choice of what to do with your income.

It’s the income bit I like the most about this kind of game. In a lot of games, you maybe have to take an action that’s better in the long term but have to sacrifice points to do so.

But here not only are you sacrificing points (money) to give resources to your company, but you’re also investing points in other areas to gain more points. Do it right though and you nail this game.

That part is clever and I do enjoy that, but that’s it sadly.

Jesta