18 India

About the game

What is 18 India?

India's railroad history began in 1837 when The Red Hill Railway used the country's first steam-powered locomotive to carry stone for road work to Madras, modern-day Chennai. In 1845, India's first railway was incorporated, the Madras Railway. Sixteen years later, on a warm April day in 1853, a 14-carriage train carrying 400 passengers was hauled 21 miles by three steam locomotives - the Sahib, Sindh, and Sultan - and passenger railway service was thus initiated in India. From there, as they say, the rest is history, and India today has the world's fourth-largest railway network. 18 India is an operational railroad game for 2 to 5 people that plays in about 3 hours. The game is inspired by 1829 Mainline by Francis Tresham, and while the venerable Mr. Tresham created some novel mechanics for that game, many of them are not ideal for players that eschew in-game randomness. In 18 India, those random elements are transformed into an amazing level of pre-game variability, which gives each session of the game a different character.

How it plays

Mechanics

On the shelf

Categories

Questions players ask

Questions to bring to BoardGameBrain

• How do setup and the first turn work in 18 India?
• When does scoring happen and what ends the game?
• How should the table resolve an unusual timing or rules interaction?