Keith came over yesterday evening for a game of 1825: Unit 3. This one is set in Scotland and is specifically designed for 2 players. Because I opted to spend £220 on private companies, Keith got a 60% share in the Caledonian Railway, which proved to be a real money spinner. Neither of us were very aggressive about pushing the pace, so the Caledonian hung onto its fleet of 2-trains for much of the game, and every time it paid out Keith was getting a 60/40 advantage over me in cash and share price gains too. I got the rules about company offer sequencing slightly wrong - I thought the second company offered had to be NBR which has difficulties getting going until the 3-trains come out. We played for about two and a half hours before we scored up - there was probably at least another hour left in the game. Keith came in about £150 ahead of me. He is far too polite to say but I got the feeling he didn't enjoy the game that much. Keith is a dyed in the wool Euro-gamer, and as we played I tried to imagine how this game must look through his eyes - compared with today's streamlined and polished products from Germany, 1825 seems very old-fashioned. It has lots of sharp edges in the rules - complicated exceptions that don't seem to add much value - you need a calculator to play it, and it's just so long! Nevertheless, I love it. Shame that it will probably stay on the shelf in the absence of local opponents!

Yesterday Keith very kindly presented me with a copy of Nicholas Palmer's Comprehensive Guide to Board Wargaming which he picked up in a second-hand bookshop. What an amazing nostalgia trip! Back in the late 70's I used to borrow this book repeatedly from Oxford library and pore over it. What a pleasure to have my own copy at last.

Tag: boardgames