Disclaimers : this is my first attempt at a BGG review. I'm a complete newbie in the world of 18xx, and my general boardgaming experience is limited at best. This review is written after two games of 18AL with no other 18xx experience (unless Chicago Express counts). Besides, English is not my first language. Why should you be wasting your time here? I don't really know, but I'll try to make it worth your while. :)
Introduction
I first heard about the 18xx games a few months ago, and they immediately captured my attention, but not necessarily in a good way. Reviews and fleeting references in other reviews picture them as rule-heavy behemoths where you have to solve knapsack problems with 1000 variables in your head just to begin appreciating the depth. However, I have always liked heavy games and was willing to try and push my limits.
Having finally gathered our courage, me and my friend printed out a DIY copy of 18AL, and my gaming group tried it. My expectations were rather high; well, the higher was my amazement when 18AL managed to far surpass them! There was certain fiddliness with the payouts and optimizations (I'll describe it later), but in general, the whole game was a blast. It was fun.
This review intends to share this fun with you eurogame fans and urge you to try the 18xx and especially 18AL (as far as I understand, it is intended to be introductory, and it is really easy to get - just print out and laminate). I believe everything I'll be saying below goes for most 18xx games, but since I've only had experience with one, I will be referring to 18AL everywhere. I will describe neither the rules nor the components (the first is published right here, and the second you make yourself :) ), but try to address the common image of 18xx games and understand why 18AL turned out to be so much fun for me and my group.
It is entirely possible that I've gotten 18AL all wrong, and we misplayed everything. In this case, I'd like to hear from veteran 18xx'ers about the nice things we missed. But even for our inexperienced crowd, the game was so much fun that I couldn't but share.
Myths, misconceptions, and stuff you won't notice
Let me begin with the "ugly" of the 18xx world that might scare a new player away.
1. Heavy rules. Frankly, I expected heavier. 504
:) After reading a couple of reviews and one pass through the rules, I had a very good idea of what happens in the game. I urged my gaming group to read the rules beforehand, and no one had any real problems with it. Naturally, we had to refer to the rules quite a few times throughout our first game, and a few things came up too late, but at the second game the rule-reading moments were much more seldom, and I guess at the third game we'll only need the reference tables at the end. To my mind, this is a perfectly normal progression, and many crystal clear eurogames followed the same pattern in our group.
However, be forewarned: 18AL is not a eurogame. It faithfully follows the Ameritrash approach of "theme first, mechanics second" and does not hesitate to introduce a whole different mechanics if it makes the theme more engaging. What did Alabama need railroads for? Coal and lumber? Great, let's add special "coal tokens" that may increase the value of certain tiles and a whole special tile with a lumber mill on it. However, this flows so well with the system you don't even notice it is a whole new rule, you just ask "what does this private do" at the beginning, and it all makes sense.
2. Hard "math". I put "math" in quotes, because by "math" people here usually mean numerical computations, not mathematics. There are few things further from mathematics than numerical computations, and most mathematicians can't count... but I digress.
To put it simple, 18AL does not have any hard computations at all. It does have a whole lot of easy ones, in both the boring computing variety (like 27*6; it does get a little repetitive when you have to do dozens of these at 4 a.m.) and the less boring optimization variety (which city should I upgrade to get the best route). I guess the former can be easily helped by the much-acclaimed Excel moderator, and I can easily imagine how the latter might become excessively tedious if the map were much bigger or more densely populated. As it stands, the optimization problems are enjoyable, and computing problems are not really noticeable.
3. Extremely cutthroat gameplay. Can't really comment as I've only played twice. 118