Rules diff · for a player who already knows 18RoyalGorge

1817, read from Royal Gorge

Same skeleton — stock rounds, operating rounds, track, trains, dividends. But Fremont County pays you in gold and steel, and 1817 pays you in equity and debt. Everything below follows from that.

1817 — Craig Bartell & Tim Flowers, v1.0 (2012) 18RoyalGorge — Kayla Ross & Denman Scofield, rulebook Oct 2025

The thesis, in one picture

Both games run on a stock market. Only one of them puts a trapdoor at the bottom of it.

18RoyalGorge — the price is just a price

45
60
80
110
150
200
270
End

A low price costs you dividends and turn order. It does not cost you the railroad. The only red on this track is at the top — hit it and the game ends.

1817 — the price is a solvency reading

Liquidation
Acquisition
 
40
75
140
280
600

Drift into the gray and your shares go illiquid — nobody can buy or sell them, and a rival with cash can buy your entire railroad for $10. Land in the red and the company doesn't operate at all; its assets are auctioned off and you personally cover the loans it can't. Every loan you take walks the marker one space closer.

Three shifts

Everything else is detail

If you only carry three things across from Royal Gorge, carry these.

i

Companies aren't things you invest in. They're instruments you build, resize, and dismantle.

18RG gives you five fixed railroads with fixed homes and ten shares each. 1817 gives you twenty blank charters with no identity.

You IPO one by dropping its home token anywhere open on the map, then auctioning the president's certificate ($100–$400). You declare whether it's a 2-, 5-, or 10-share company. It can convert or merge into a bigger one later, during dedicated Merger & Acquisition rounds — a round type 18RG doesn't have. Dead companies go back in the box and get reused.

ii

Money is debt-financed, and the stock price is the debt meter.

No steel market. No gold shipping. No CF&I, no Victor Gold. Instead: $100 loans from the Bank of New York, takeable almost any time.

Each loan taken moves your price one space left; each repaid moves it one right. Interest comes due every operating round, and the rate floats upward as the whole table borrows. The president personally guarantees them.

iii

Short selling.

The signature mechanic, and the one with no Royal Gorge analogue at all.

You sell a share you don't own, take cash for it, and hold a negative share. While you're short, you pay the bank every time that company pays a dividend. It scores as a negative at game end, and there's never any obligation to close it.

The full diff

18RG → 1817

Read left to right: what you already do, then what 1817 does instead.

Area 18RoyalGorge 1817
Players / length 2–4, moderate 3–7 (variant to 12). ~6 hours
Map Fremont County, Colorado Northeast USA — Chicago to New York, Canada to Atlanta
Cash / cert limit $800 / $550 / $400 · limit 20 / 14 / 12 $1260 split evenly: $420 / $315 / $252 / $210 / $180 · limit 21 / 16 / 13 / 11 / 9
Round order SR → OR → OR SR → OR → M&A → OR → M&A
Privates 25 cards, 5 in play; auctioned left-to-right from a minimum bid; income every OR; companies buy them in Green phase for ½–2× face 11 privates, all auctioned at the start against a shared $200 seed subsidy; bids capped at face value; never resold to players — but spendable as cash at an IPO, and captured in mergers and acquisitions
Starting a company Buy the president's cert, pick your price in the phase-legal range, pay 2× into the treasury; home is preprinted Auction the president's cert, $100–$400; share price = bid ÷ 2; the whole bid goes to the treasury; you place the home token anywhere open (not Toronto)
Company size Always 10 shares 2 / 5 / 10, gated by phase. Convert (2→5→10) or merge two same-size companies in M&A. Never forced to grow — a 2-share company can end the game as one
Selling stock Price drops one step per share if the president sells; bank pool capped at 50% Selling never moves the price. No pool cap. 2-share company shares can't be sold at all. Price only moves on dividends, loans, and end-of-SR
End-of-SR move Sold out → one right Sold out (100%+ held) → one right — plus one left for every share sitting in the open market
Player share cap 60% (70% at two players) 6 of 10, 3 of 5, 2 of 2
Acting for a company Not a thing Instead of your own stock turn: take loans, and/or buy back your company's own shares out of the open market
Dividends Pay or withhold Pay full / pay half / withhold. Short sellers pay the bank per short share
Track Up to six tiles a turn, each needing a steel cube bought off the CF&I market One tile; a second costs $20. At most one of the two may be an upgrade, and you can't lay a tile then upgrade it the same turn
Station markers Cost printed on the charter, paid when placed Come with company size (1 / 2 / 4). Placement is free — you pay for markers when you convert
Trains Two per company, always Limit 4 → 3 → 2 by phase. 2 / 2+ / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8; 8-trains unlimited and permanent. One exported at the end of every OR
Trainless company Must buy; the president bails it out; failure is bankruptcy and the game ends Never required to buy a train — and the president may not contribute cash. No train at the end of your turn sends the marker to red liquidation, and the company is auctioned off next M&A
Bottom of the market Just low prices Two special zones. Gray Acquisition: illiquid, no buying, selling, or shorting; a rival may take the whole company for as little as $10. Red Liquidation: doesn't operate, assets auctioned, president covers the loan shortfall personally
Selling companies No mechanism Liquidation, hostile acquisition, and friendly sale — the president offers at ≥ price × shares, and once offered, any bid forces the sale
Bankruptcy Ends the game immediately The player is removed; the game carries on, and the certificate limit rises for everyone left
Game end Bankruptcy, red stock zone, or the Silver-phase event card First 8-train bought or exported → three more operating rounds
Scoring Cash + shares at final price Cash + shares − short shares at current price

Route rules worth flagging

Mostly familiar — three aren't

Both ends must terminate

A 1817 train's route must begin and end at a city or off-map area. 18RG only asks that two revenue centers sit somewhere on the run.

Coal mines are free revenue

The train number counts cities and off-boards only. Coal mines add their value to the route without spending a stop — and a route may never start or end at one.

Off-boards are endpoints

Off-map areas must sit at the ends of a route, never in the middle. A train may legally run off-map to off-map.

The 18RG instinct that will burn you: treating a low stock price as merely bad. In 1817 it's a cliff.

Drift into the gray and a rival with cash can simply buy your railroad out from under you for $10 — no vote, no consent, no recourse. Price is not a scoreboard here. It's the distance between you and the trapdoor.