The Depot: 1847: A Review
by Nick Wedd
It is set in the Pfälz district of Germany. There are five major companies, which must be launched in fixed order - the shares of each are only available after the preceding one has been launched. There are also some minors, sandstone mines, which like the minors in 1835 do not obstruct building on their home hexes, but do confer benefits on majors which acquire them. The price paid for these by the majors may not exceed 50% of their face value, so the rip-off technique that is so effective in 1830 does not work here. There is an optional sixth major company.
A new feature is four long-distance bonus routes. Each time a train runs one of these routes it receives 40 DM extra revenue. These routes are not difficult to achieve, but do generate rivalry between companies which wish to guarantee them by station-marker placement.
The board is effectively even smaller than it appears at first, as four of the companies are restricted in their placements of yellow tiles to the eastern two-thirds of the board, and the other one (and the optional sixth company) to the western third. Happily these "patches" are marked on the map, unlike 1853 where one has to look up the extents of one's own and one's rivals' patches in the rules.
At least one of a company's runs must involve its starting-point. On such a small map, this is not a serious restriction.
A poor feature is the need to start the game by taking the tiles from 1835 and going through the 1847 tile manifest, selecting one of no. 1, two of no. 4, etc. I think that next time we play, we may omit this step and just use all the 1835 tiles.
I like this game for its short duration. It is good to have a quick 18xx game which is not as small as 1876, and is more conventional than Vellani's 1849 (Sicily).
Go back to the main 1847 page.
Go back to the platform.
