We played 18Ardennes for the first time yesterday. Although my dad claims we've played it once before, but I have no recollection of that.

The game was fun, and in many ways an improved version of 18EU (from the same designer, David Hecht). Much more going on on th board, and it feels more balanced and dynamic.

The main downside is that maybe there's a bit too much going on, and everything has its own custom rules. You can get bonus income from mines, from ferries, from collecting fort tokens and from east-west and north-south runs, and everything works slightly differently, so it's easy to mix up and forget something.

I'm not sure why Hecht loves using so many minors; 1861 works great with far less minors. 1861 is by a different desiger (Ian Wilson), but feels similar to 18EU and 18Ardennes in scope, starting with minors and later turning them into majors.

I like that 18Ardennes keeps minors viable until the end; you don't have to merge them into majors. And they first turn into 5-share companies before you can convert to 10-shares, which makes the switch from minor to major more attractive, and that conversion is really just about issuing more shares to attract more money, which feels realistic and appropriate, giving the game a smooth progression. Downside is that it took a while before we started buying each other's shares. I think the game could have used more stock rounds; one after each operating round, instead of two.

Oh yeah, my son won. This is starting to become a regular occurrence. Once upon a time I used to be the most common winner of these games in our family, but those days increasingly seem to be behind us.

#18xx #18Ardennes #boardgames