The Depot: 1835: FAQ

by Bill Stoll

This FAQ was last updated 1/31/96

Here is a summary of common questions about the game of 1835. When the answers are the FAQ author's opinion, they are noted as such. Otherwise, they are in the rules or the game author (Michael Meier-Bachl)'s answers. Please send questions and comments to:

Bill Stoll

jvcb28c@prodigy.com (preferred)
bill@kripalu.com (alternate)

CONTENTS:

1.0 About 1835
2.0 Share rounds
3.0 Operating rounds
3.1 Laying track
3.2 Laying tokens
3.3 Running trains
3.4 Miscellaneous
4.0 Private Companies
5.0 The Prussian
6.0 Miscellaneous

1.0 About 1835

Q1.1 What is 1835?

1835 is a "Game of Railway Building and Share Speculation" designed by Michael Meier-Bachl and based on the game systems developed by Francis Tresham. Some of the other games using this system include 1825 (set in England), 1829 (set in England), 1830 (set in the northeastern United States), 1853 (set in India), 1856 (set in Canada), 1870 (set in the Mississippi river valley). 1835 is set in Germany.

1835 is often regarded as one of the more complicated members of the 18xx family. It is for 3-7 players and takes an average of 6-7 hours to play.

Q1.2 Where can I get 1835?

If your local game store doesn't carry it, you can order it from the following mail order store for around $70:

Games People Play
1105 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA
617-492-0711

2.0 Share rounds

Q2.1 Can I sell a block of stock that would result in more than 50% of a company's stock being in the bank pool?

The answer is NO, you cannot sell stock if it would result in more than 50% of a company's stock being in the bank pool. The game author writes (translation by Matthias Klose doko@cs.tu-berlin.de):
rule 2.6.3.2 at no time there may be more the 50% of share from one company in the bank pool (except bankruptcy). Each paper (certificate) may only be sold as a whole, not partially (e.g. 40% in the pool, sell 20% paper (certificate) and get 10% paper (certificate)).

Q2.2 Can one sell stock if 30% is in the bank pool and 20% is unsold? In other words, does stock that has never been sold count toward the "50% in the bank pool" from Q2.1 above?

YES, you can sell stock in this situation. Never-owned stock is NOT counted as being in the bank pool. This was confirmed by the game author.

Q2.3 Can I sell stock in a company that has not been floated?

The game author writes: In or before the SR in which a company starts to operate (except the Prussian), it is not allowed to sell shares of this company to the pool. A company has to operate at least one time before you can sell its shares (Exception: Prussian shares may be sold directly after it begins to operate)

FAQ author's interpretation of the above: a) for all companies except PR, the company must operate at least once before shares may be sold. b) for the PR, once it is OPENED, shares may be sold whether it has operated or not.

Q2.4 Can I sell stock in a company that I bought earlier in the same share round?

YES. But once you have sold stock in a company, you are barred from buying that stock for the remainder of that share round. This was confirmed by the game author.

Q2.5 If I am the director of a company, can I sell ALL my shares in the company, exchanging the director's share in the process?

FAQ author's answer is YES, as long as two conditions are met: a) this doesn't result in more than 50% of the company's shares being in the bank pool, and b) selling the director's share forces a change of director. If (b) is not true, then the player would be attempting to sell a director's share to the bank, which is explicitly forbidden in the 2nd Edition English rules.

The game author comments: "Correct. The sale of the director paper (certificate) is only possible, if at least another player has a director qualifying majority of shares (10% for Prussian/20% for others)."

Q2.6 What is the minimum shareholding a player must have in a company before he/she can nationalize shares directly from other players?

You need a minimum of 55% before you can nationalize. This was confirmed by the game author and by the 2nd Edition English translation, section XV (3).

Q2.7 Do Private companies and Minor companies count toward the individual player's certificate limit?

YES (confirmed by game author).

3.0 Operating rounds

3.1 Laying track

Q3.1.1 Must a company lay track on its home tile? The owner of the Pfalzbahnen picks up the WT directorship, and uses the Pfalzbahnen power to lay a marker on L6. Must the WT lay its home tile? The 2nd Edition English rules are nebulous. They say track must either be laid on the home station or "to extend existing track". A similar question exists for the BY when it owns the Nurnberg-Furth.

The answer is NO. Track need not be laid on a company's home tile. This was confirmed by the game author.

Q3.1.2 There are some hexes that require a fee to lay a tile on them. Do you also have to pay the fee when upgrading the tile?

NO (confirmed by the game author).

Q3.1.3 Can a company upgrade a tile when it doesn't create any new track that the company can use?
For example, suppose I have this situation:

That's tile 9 on the left, connected to a BY station on the right tile (201). Can I upgrade tile 9 to green tile 24 as follows:

even though the new track cannot be used by the BY at all?

YES, such upgrades are legal (confirmed by game author).

Q3.2.1 Can a company other than WT lay a token in Stuttgart before WT opens?

The answer is NO, unless the tile has already been upgraded to leave an extra space for the WT home marker. This was confirmed by the game author.

Q3.2.2 Is the cost of a token 20M per hex counting from the nearest token of the company, or 20M per hex counting from the home hex of the company?

Count from the Home Station. This is clearly stated in the 2nd Edition English rules, section VIII (4). For example a BY token on E19 (Berlin) costs 200M regardless of where else the BY has laid tokens.

Q3.2.3 How much does it cost the BY to lay a token on H20 (Dresden)?

FAQ author's answer is that it costs 160M. As the crow flies, Dresden is 7 hexes from the BY home station on O15 (Munchen). However, as legal track is laid, a minimum of 8 hexes are required.

A long email discussion (which I misplaced :-( ) resulted in someone finding the above answer in a German edition of the rules. If anyone knows the correct reference, please forward it!)

Q3.2.4 Some questions about the brown upgrade tile, #221, on hex C-11(Hamburg)

[A] Is there only one valid orientation of the tile?

YES (as illustrated)

[B] The unupgraded hex (C-11) looks something like this:

Suppose the situation illustrated:

PR has a token on the city where minor company 6 starts, SX has a token on the other city that is north of the river, and BA has a token on the city south of the river. When the hex is upgraded with tile #221, are the PR and SX tokens forced to be north of the river? If not, who decides what goes where? Does it matter?

FAQ author's answer is that it does not matter - after the upgrade, the tokens are all lumped onto a single white area. A route beginning in Hamburg at a company with a marker in one of the stations north of the river can exit on the other side of the river without paying the ferry fee. The fee only applies when a route goes THROUGH Hamburg, entering on one side of the river and exiting on the other.

We gave the game author this question, but he neglected to comment. I'm inclined to take this as implied consent :) so this is how the 1835MOD.EXE program interprets Hamburg.

However, others disagree. Jeff Goldsmith jeff@gg.caltech.edu commented: "I disagree, but I don't know if the rules state "through" or "using." We play that it matters. If the logic of the fee is that a station is on the other side of the river and one must ferry trains over the river, then it shouldn't matter if the station is a terminus of a route.

I hope that we can eventually get the game author's final word on this issue.

Q3.3.1 Can a route start and end in Alsace-Lorraine?

YES. The offboard destinations entering hex M5 from the Northeast and entering hex N4 from the East are considered separate cities; therefore they may be used as the start and end cities of a run. This was confirmed by the game author. Note that these only have value 50M in Phase 2; in Phase 1 and Phase 3 they are worth 0M.

Q3.3.2 Are offboard destinations counted as large or small cities?

LARGE (confirmed by game author).

Q3.3.3 When running trains, there is a rule that no route may use the same piece of track, no matter how short. Look at green tile 24, for example. It has no cities on it, and looks like this:

Can I run a train from the upper left hex edge to the top hex edge? I am not reusing track, but the move still feels illegal because the turn is "too sharp".

This is illegal as it is reversing back along a junction. Also note that only one train (of one company) can use this tile for a run, as the join at the bottom is considered the same piece of track. This is consistent with 1830 and 1853 (thanks to Jeff Goldsmith jeff@gg.caltech.edu for that info), and the ruling was confirmed by the game author.

Q3.4.1 What happens when a company has no trains, the bank is out of trains, and nobody will sell a train to the company?

According to the 2nd Edition German rules (5.5.4.4), a share company is allowed to operate without a train if there are none available for purchase in the bank. This was confirmed by the game author.

Q3.4.2 Must the agreed price for a train be greater than zero? And can I pay you to take my train away (negative price)?

The minimum price is 1M. This was confirmed by the game author.

Q3.4.3 Can a share company voluntarily reduce itself to zero trains?

YES, the rules clearly state that a company must own a train at some point during its operation -- not necessarily when it is done operating. Section XII of the 2nd Edition English rules say: "Every floated share company must own a train at some point of each of its turn, ie if a company starts a turn without a train it must purchase one during that turn."

4.0 Private Companies

Q4.1 Suppose someone other than the director of the Pfalzbahnen lays a tile on the Mannheim Ludwigshafen (L-6) hex. Must the Pfalzbahnen close when and if the owner lays a station marker on that hex?

The answer is that the Pfalzbahnen closes when it lays a token on L-6, whether or not it uses its power to lay the tile free. This was confirmed by the game author.

This was a controversial rule because the 2nd Edition English rules state that the Pfalzbahnen closes "when both these actions have been carried out" but it is not clear whether the Pfalzbahnen owner must be the one to carry out both actions.

Paul Work pwork@sd2.sews.wpafb.af.mil reports from the German rules that "the Pfalzbahnen closes when the token is placed free of charge". He suggests that the translator added the word "both" using "translator's license".

Q4.2 If the owner of the Nurnberg-Furth Private Company is director of a share company, and they elect to use the NF power to lay a token on L14, can they do it at any time during the share company's operation? Or must they do it during the token laying phase (that is, AFTER laying track)?

The NF token can be laid at any time during the company's operation, even before track is laid.

Matthias Klose doko@cs.tu-berlin.de writes: " ... here in Berlin we play it that the power of the private can be used anytime in the turn of a share company. The author of 1835 has intended this and wanted to check this again for an upcoming 3rd edition rule."

Q4.3 Hexes M15 and M17 can be built on in addition to a regular track lay by the owner of the Ostbayern Private Company. Does the Ostbayern close if someone else lays tile on those hexes?

The 2nd Edition English translation states that "the Ostbayern is closed when both hexes have been built on." The FAQ author interprets this to mean that anyone can lay the track that closes the Ostbayern, assuming they have legal tile lays on those hexes, of course.

5.0 The Prussian

Q5.1 Can PR operation be denied after it has already been denied once?

This question is in reference to section XIII "Bringing the Prussian Railway into Service" in the 2nd Edition English translation of the rules. This section says: "It is not permitted for the owner of a certificate to gain a bonus by getting two lots of income for any certificate in the same round. If therefore the Prussian Railway is opened at a point in the operating round where its operation would result in a player gaining such a bonus then the Prussian, although open, does not operate until the following round."

The game author, Michael Meier-Bachl, responded indirectly to this question. Here is FAQ author's interpretation of what he wrote: (the game author provided the example) "If the PR forms during an Operating Round (OR), then: a) if the Minor #2 (M2) has already operated, the Prussian (PR) does not operate until the next OR. That is the ONLY instance in which the PR, although formed, does not operate. b) if a Private or Minor company converts to PR in an OR after providing income or operating, then those converted shares earn no PR dividends in that OR. The unpaid dividends stay in the bank."

"Example: M1 buys the first 4-train, M2 converts to PR before operating, M1, M5 and Braunschweigische convert to PR shares. Then in this OR, M3, M4 and M6 operate. Then the Prussian will operate. If Prussia pays dividends, the former M1 and Braunschweigische will not get dividends this round, and the former M5 WILL get dividends."

NOTE to 1835MOD.EXE users: in the above example, version 3.0 of 1835MOD.EXE will pay the M1 dividends *if* M1 itself paid no dividends, even though M1 operated.

Q5.2 Between the time the first 4-train is bought and the 4+4 is bought, can the owner of Minor #2 declare the PR open at the beginning of either a SR or an OR? Or just at the beginning of ORs?

The answer is EITHER. The 2nd Edition English translation, section XIII, says "If the owner of the Berlin Potsdam decides not to open the Prussian at this point he receives a further opportunity to do so at the start of each subsequent round." This was confirmed by the game author.

Q5.3 Share price moves up if all purchaseable shares of a company are owned and not in the bank pool. With the Prussian, are the only "purchaseable" shares the four that become available when the Badische's Director's share is sold? If the Prussian is formed, and I convert a Minor Company to Prussian and sell it, can that keep the Prussian's price from rising?

Once a share is sold to the bank it is "purchasable" and therefore stops the company price from rising. Whether it was bought or swapped in the first place is immaterial. This battle of semantics was settled by the game author.

6.0 Miscellaneous

Q6.1 Is all money (treasuries, personal cash) public knowledge?

FAQ author's answer is YES, but I also believe that this is a matter of personal preference. We didn't ask the game author this.

Q6.2 Bankruptcy is very messy; luckily it doesn't happen often. If someone grossly mismanages and goes bankrupt while owning Private or Minor companies, what happens to them?

The game author comments: "I never saw a bankrupt in 1835 ... :-)"

The FAQ author's answer is this never happens :) But if it does, Privates and Minors owned by the bankrupt player go to the bank pool, and the holder of the wooden loco operates Minor companies that are in the bank pool. No players get income from Privates or Minor companies that are in the bank pool, though Minor company treasuries can still grow. Privates cannot be purchased. Minors cannot be purchased until they are forced to convert to PR when first 5-train is bought.

A publication compiled by Elfin Enterprises and the Puffing Billy Committee of Thornton, CO provides a more complete mechanism for handling bankruptcy. The related text is included below. For those using the 1835MOD.EXE moderator, you should know that it does not implement the following scheme.

"10-12 Bankruptcy - Rewording, clarifications and additions. (See also the top of page 11). If the Director of a company is forced to purchase a train using his personal funds, but after this is still short of cash to make up the necessary balance, he may not sell shares in his own company in such a way that the Directorship is forced to change hands. He may by such means force another company to suffer a change of Director (including the case in which he himself is Director of another company), but not the company needing to pay for the train."

"Further, no shares may be sold in violation of the 50% rule (see The Bank Pool above). If after all permissible sales the player still has insufficient funds to purchase the train, he is bankrupt. His personal funds are taken over by the beleaguered comapny, and he is out of the game."

"Any remaining stock certificates, and private/minor companies, are then dealt with. Private and Minor Companies are closed; where appropriate, equivalent PNR shares are made available in the Bank Pool, though this does not cause a change in the PNR's stock price."

" All remaining shares, including those in the beleaguered company, are then sold (this is the *only* exception to the 50% rule) and their stock prices adjusted accordingly. The cash resulting from these sales goes to the beleaguered company."

"The company then attempts to purchase the next available train; if it still does not have enough money to do so, the bank will loan the company sufficient funds to eliminate the cash shortage. This loan is interest-free but must be repaid as soon as the company has the cash to do so, and the company cannot declare dividends until the loan has been repaid."

"Nor can the beleaguered company declare dividends while its Director's share, or more than 50% of its shares, is in the Bank Pool. If at the conclusion of any subsequent Share Round, more than 50% of the beleaguered company's shares are still in the Bank Pool, the holder of its Director's share *must* exchange that Director's share for an equivalent amount from the Bank Pool (the current holder of the wooden locomotive decides how the equivalent is to be made up, if there is a choice). This rule also applies to any other company which, because of the bankruptcy proceedings, ends up with more than 50% of its shares in the Bank Pool."

"If a company's Director's share is in the Bank Pool, the player owning the majority of shares in that company operates the company until the Director's share is purchased. If more than one player has equal holdings in the company, the player closest to the bankrupt player, in clockwise rotation, runs the company. If no-one owns stock in the company, the player holding the wooden locomotive runs the company."

dmreed@bihs.net last updated 31 January 1996