Learning 1862, coming from 18Royal Gorge

Good news: the 18xx skeleton is identical. Buy shares in a stock round, presidents run companies in operating rounds, lay track, run trains for revenue, pay dividends to move the share price, richest player wins. If that's your mental model from Royal Gorge, it all still holds. This guide only covers what changes — and 1862 changes a lot: three kinds of train running at once, a bidding "Parliament" to found companies, and a merger engine that turns twenty small railways into a handful of giants.

At a Glance↑ top

1Starting Companies — two doors, not one↑ top

In Royal Gorge there's one way to bring a railroad to life: in a Stock Round you buy the presidency, set the price, seed the treasury. 1862 keeps that door but adds a second, and the choice defines the company.

2Shares & the Director↑ top

• Director's certificate = 30% (three shares' worth), versus Royal Gorge's 20% president. Seven 10% ordinary shares round out the 8-certificate set.
• No per-company ownership cap. Royal Gorge stops you at 60%; 1862 lets you own every available share of a company if your certificate limit allows. Dumping and dominating are both stronger here.
• Certificate limits are tighter and player-count-sensitive:

3Capitalisation↑ top

Royal Gorge is purely incremental — the treasury fills only as shares sell. 1862 splits the world:

• Chartered → 100% up front. The moment 50% is bought, the treasury receives 10 × par. A par-90 charter floats with £900 in the bank instantly. This is the single biggest cash swing in the game and has no Royal Gorge parallel.
• Non-chartered → incremental, exactly like a Royal Gorge company: money arrives share by share.

4Round Structure↑ top

Royal Gorge has a fixed heartbeat: SR → OR → OR, forever. 1862 adds the Parliament Round and makes the number of ORs grow with the phases.

So a full cycle is Parliament Round → Stock Round → (1–3 Operating Rounds), repeating. The Parliament Round is brand new; everything else you recognise.

5Parliament Rounds — the new auction layer↑ top

This has no Royal Gorge equivalent (the closest cousin is 1861's petitioning auction). Before each Stock Round, players bid to found chartered companies.

• Starting with the Priority Deal holder, each player may start an auction on any available company with an opening bid (a multiple of £5, minimum £0), or pass.
• Others raise in £5 steps or drop out (dropping out of that auction is permanent). Highest bidder must found that company: pay the bid to the bank, set a par, buy the director's cert at 3× par, optionally buy up to two more shares.
• The round continues — new auctions start to the winner's left — until everyone declines to open an auction. Priority Deal does not move during Parliament.
• Win a charter and you're under obligation: float it (reach 50%) by the end of the next Stock Round or eat a fine of 5× par.

6Stock Market & Dividends↑ top

Very familiar. Sells zig-zag the price down one space per share (to the pool); dividends push it right, withholding pushes it left. Two wrinkles worth flagging:

• Dividends can jump up to four spaces right (≥4× the share price), versus Royal Gorge's max of three. Big pay-outs move the needle faster.
• Train-less companies are second-class citizens: if a company owns no train, its shares sell at half price and it can't do much. Keeping a train in every company matters even more than in Royal Gorge.
• Protected zones: selling above 200 or below 40 (and you're not the director) ignores the first share before the price drops — a light brake on crashing high or low stocks.

The George Hudson Manoeuvre — 1862's little cheat

There's no gold-shipment bonus here, but there is this: if a company earns revenue that's at least £10 but below its share price, the director may spend treasury cash (in multiples of 10, the minimum needed) to top the revenue up to the share price — forcing a price increase — but must then pay it all out as a dividend. It converts hoarded treasury (including Local-train subsidies) into share-price growth. Named after the fraudster who paid dividends out of capital; use it the same way.

7Track & Stations↑ top

8Trains — the Big One↑ top

If you internalise one section, make it this one. Royal Gorge trains are a single ladder. 1862 trains are three parallel systems a company can run at the same time, and a two-sided card that you assign a type to on purchase.

Permits: what you may run vs. what you may buy

• Every company starts with one train permit (Freight, Local, or Express), dealt at setup.
• You may buy any train type, but may only earn revenue with types you hold a permit for.
• The only way to gain a second/third permit is to merge with a company that has it. This is the engine that ties trains to mergers — to run mixed trains, you consolidate railways.

The three train types

Some are "N/M" trains (e.g. 4/5): the train visits M stations but only the best N score — you drop the worst, your choice.

Running multiple trains — reuse the track

A company runs all its trains together. The rules you must respect:

• Every train must run through one of the company's own station markers; at least one run must include the company's home station.
• Runs must interconnect at large stations (even hostile, tokened-out ones can be the meeting point).
• A single train can't reuse its own track — but different trains of the same company may share track freely, and each station/off-board scores once total.

Bands, phases, rusting & warranties

• Trains come in bands A–H; buying the first of a band advances the phase.
• Rusting: A rusts when C arrives, B when E, C when F, D when G. (E–H are permanent.)
• Warranties (£50, up to 3/train) delay rusting one phase per token — a genuinely novel lever. A and D trains come with one free warranty.
• Train limits shrink as you go: 3 of each type (A–D) → 2 of each (E–F) → any 3 total (G–H). Excess trains are not discarded on a phase change; you just can't buy past the limit.

9Mergers & Acquisitions — the missing mechanic↑ top

Royal Gorge companies never combine. In 1862 they combine constantly, and it's how twenty tiny railways become a manageable few. Two flavours, both requiring mutual consent of both directors (usually the same player!) and a track connection between the two companies' tokens:

• Merger — at the start of a company's operating turn. If the other company hasn't operated yet, the merged company continues the turn.
• Acquisition — at the end of the turn. The merged company doesn't operate again until next OR.

Shares combine 2 : 1 into the surviving company. The mechanics (option shares, redeeming/relinquishing, new share price = lower price + half the higher) are fiddly the first time — lean on the two worked examples in the rulebook. The strategic point for a Royal Gorge player:

10Train-less Trouble: forced buys, refinancing, receivership↑ top

Royal Gorge's safety net is president emergency-funding, and player bankruptcy ends the game. 1862 pushes the pain onto the company and has a richer failure ladder:

• Every company must end its turn with a train. Can't afford one? The director must raise cash by either selling company treasury stock or refinancing (issue shares, merge existing holdings 2:1, treasury gains 10× par). Not both.
• Receivership: if the director's share ends up in the pool, the company runs on autopilot (majority shareholder operates it) — no track, no new tokens, retains revenue, buys one train if it can.
• Company bankruptcy (no train & can't refinance, or price hits the bottom) removes that company — but the game continues. Shareholders get compensation at (often half) share value. This is a huge mindset shift from Royal Gorge, where bankruptcy is the end.

11Endgame & the LNER↑ top

Triggers are similar in spirit — bank runs out (£15,000), or a company tops the market, or the game runs a full OR set after the first 'H' train sells. But 1862 adds a distinctive finale:

Winner, as always, is greatest personal wealth (cash + shares). Money in company treasuries doesn't count — same as Royal Gorge.

12The 20 Companies — how to think about them↑ top

Royal Gorge hands you Santa Fe and the D&RG plus a few random others. 1862 has twenty, entering in three waves, and their home-hex geography and starting permit matter more than their names.

• Availability waves (2–6 players): the initial 8 are open from the start; +4 after the first 'B' train; +4 after the first 'C'. The final 4 are discarded out of the game. (7–8 players add 1–2 extra starters.)
• Each company's starting permit (Freight / Local / Express) is randomised at setup — so "which company" partly means "which permit, where."
• Home bases are not reserved. A company that looks great can be un-startable if its home hex gets tokened out first. Conversely, you can deny a rival by tokening their home.

★First-Game Cheat Sheet↑ top

A translation guide for 18Royal Gorge players learning 1862: Railway Mania in the Eastern Counties.
Companion to the full 1862 rules pages in this folder. 18RG © Seaworthy Games · 1862 © GMT Games / Mike Hutton.