18ZOO
Rules Clarifications
Stock Market - special mechanic
Nearby Family - special mechanic
Variants and Optional Rules
Implementation Notes
Known Problems
- Designed by Paolo Russo, implemented by Carlo Russo
- Rules
- BoardGameGeek page
- Tiles
- Stock Market-bgg
- Stock Market-wiki
You will find 18ZOO familiar and at the same time revolutionary - it has many different ideas compared to a typical 18xx game.
For the feeling let's say: it's like 1860-lite, it's ridiculously fun.
Please read the rules.
- Game money is called $N; each 1$N represents a 25$ of a standard 18xx, so it's like playing the game with only 25$ chips.
- Numbers are **quantized **by 25 - not need to notice it; in game you'll see only small numbers 1$N - 20$N.
- RUN are fully numbers, like in other 18xx; you run for 200 (Nuts) so you collect more or less 8$N (200 /25).
- Initial Draft is in between 1846 and 18Sardinia: it's a pass or buy a private, going anti-clockwise from last player to first player.
- After the ISR the game starts with the first SR.
- Privates are called **POWERS **- they are superpowered.
- POWERS have a price between 1$ and 3$; you may sell them for a price from 0$ and their face value.
- Companies can buy POWERS in any moment of their OR turn
- There are 20 POWERS in the game: 4 available in the ISR, 4 more in each SR (3).
- POWERS labeled FUTURE are available in following SR - they are shown in advance.
- 3 MAX POWERS: players or companies may own maximum 3 POWERS at any time, so you need to sell them or use them in order to acquire more.
- Companies are between 1 and 8: on 18xx.games there are only 5 companies MAPS and 7 companies MAPS.
- Shares are called 20% share, because each company starts with 5 of them.
- Game has incremental capitalization.
- In the last SR (third SR) one more share is offered for each company (labelled IPO R RESERVED) going to a total of 6 shares per company (the percentage 120% shown is not relevant - each share is 1/6 of the company).
- Stock market is 2D and each value has 3 numbers (special mechanics): share value, RUN threshold, FIXED dividend.
- One row is colored **blue **(the row 10-15 value) and labelled with "PRESIDENT BONUS": when you get the dividend, there is am added bonus for the president. i.e. if revenue is 3$, each share gets 3$ and president 3$ more as bonus.
- Shares from the market can be bought over the 80% limit; so it's possible to buy 4 shares the first SR and then sell 1 share, next SR buy 1 share more from IPO and then buy the last share from market and own 100%.
- Shares in the market give 2$N to the company at the start of each OR.
- One share sold by more than one player (not the president) reduce reputation just once (6.2.1)
- Buy the President share and the company is operative next OR
- When you IPO a company you put immediately the home track if available; there are only 2 yellow city track of each type.
- When in green or brown phase, you IPO a company, you may put a green or brown track on the home straight away + 2/4 yellow tracks; and the company gets into the treasury 5/10 $ bonus.
- Companies are IPOed in a strict order (special mechanics): it is decided by the two first companies IPOed.
- ZOOTicket are like a bond, they have a growing value from 4$N to 20$N (see the info tab); if you keep a ZOOTicket till the end it values 20$N
- Anytime during a company turn you may exchange a ZOOTicket for its total amount and give any part of it to the company - and keep the change. i.e. in the 2nd OR of the 2nd SR you may exchange a ZOOTicket for 9$N and give to the company just how much need for that permanent train.
- Villages (water pond) play a special part in the game.
- Water ponds don't count as a stop for the trains, so you may run a 2T for 2 stops and all water pond you find in a route (i.e. run 3 water pond then 2 stations and 5 more water ponds).
- Each water pond gives 10N to the run and 1$N into treasury.
- Water ponds don't count for stops, so you need at least two STATIONs/OFFMAP stops to run a train.
- It is possible to end a run on an O.
- Water pond cannot be upgraded, unless you use some special power (RABBITS or MOLES).
- Y green tracks come in two kind, one station or two stations. So you may token fully a green Y tracks if you go there first.
- A company can put two yellow tracks, or a yellow track plus an upgrade in any order.
- Only the HOME of the GIRAFFES, TIGERS and BROWN BEARS can be upgraded till gray; other HOMEs go up to the brown.
- To move forward on the stock board a company should run at least the current threshold (see stock board).
- It is important to have growing revenue, running once for a 100000N is worthless.
- [BONUS1] If a company in a OR buys at least one new train, it moves one tick forward.
- [BONUS2] If a company in a OR buys a NEW PHASE train (first 3S, 4S, 5S, 4/2J) the company moves one tick forward.
- 5S rust 3S, train rust can be dangerous and fast.
- 3S Long and 4S run once more after they are obsolete.
- 4S PERM is a special 4S train that is permanent like 5S and move the track set to the brown.
- J trains are like E trains in 1822: a 2J runs 2 stops and double the revenue
Each cell of stock market has 3 values
- share value
- RUN threshold to move forward
- FIXED dividend
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i.e. the yellow cell with share value 6, has also a red 1 and a threshold of 100, it means that
- to buy or sell a share it cost 6$N;
- to move one tick forward the company needs to collect a run of at least 100N.
- if the company run and divide to the shareholder, each shares gets a 1$N;
NEARBY FAMILY RULE is in place only with 2-4 players - in a 5 players game you can open any company in any order.
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Nearby Family Rule: Companies are sorted from H1 to H8 and the first player can launch any company. The second player then can launch only a neighbour one, i.e. if the first player opens H3 then only H4 or H2 are available. The following players can only launch the next in line (like aring) company, i.e. after H3 and H4 the player can only open H5, then H6 and so…
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Games with 5 players - rules with changes
- only 2 ZOOTickets per player
- no NEARBY FAMILY RULE: companies can be launched in any order
All powers visibile
Since the start of the game it is known all powers that will be available on each SR
BASE 2/3
- Base 2: Center map with ”less money”. The 3x3 hexagons (G7 G9 G11, H8 H10 H12, I7 I9 I11) are replaced with 4 mountains/hills
- Base 3: Center map with ”more money”. The 3x3 hexagons (G7 G9 G11, H8 H10 H12, I7 I9 I11) are replaced with water and a Y station
FORCED PURCHASE
The official rules are: If the cash raised is still not sufficient, the player with the PARENTS Card sells Cards they own, one by one to raise the necessary funds - every single sale brings down the reputation by 1 row.
To make it simpler to calculate the available liquidity, we implemented that it is possible to sell a group of shares as a block (forbidden by the rules) or each single share in any order.
NUMBER OF COMPANIES IN THE GAME
There are 1-8 companies in the game and it's possible to play with one only, or all eight of them, and change and create the map at will.
The implementation on 18xx.games instead has only 6 standard MAPS called
- A-B-C with 5 families each, and
- D-E-F with 7 families each.
POWERS: some powers are slightly simplified to work on the platform
- HOLE is created as an out of map connection between two points, so sometime to choose the run you must click few times and select according to your will if you want the run to pass through and not to the offmap.
AUTOROUTE
The code looks for the highest revenue, but in 18ZOO it's necessary to reach the current threshold. It means that an autoroute solution may be not the most efficient one - i.e. with a threshold of 200$N, you want to collect at least 200$N and maximum number of O (water ponds), since they give 1$N into the treasury.