For a new approach to games 18xx is Poseidón. 16 years ago I tried an 18xx and failed. This year I tried again, following the suggestion to start with Poseidon. It worked. The last few weeks we have played 7 games of 1830, at 5 and a half hours each. Perfect! Epic!

I’m very happy Capstone booked you to do the tutorial for Iberian Gauge. I got it on pre-order, so I’ll definitely be watching your video before my first play 😁

Very glad to see more people getting into Tom Russell designs. I think she is one of the best designers out there.

Fantastic video, I think your move towards keeping your impressions vlog purely positive gaming experiences is good for you and that comes across in the quality of the vid. Was cool to have two games and then a look at then overarching mechanic - great format. Also, love the honesty when you point out how winning a game can influence how much enjoyment you’re getting!

LOVE the curling analogy Jon! It is very much like that: openness and jostling for initial positions, and then the whole game changes from how the cubes ended up and where.

Just picked up TSR. Can’t wait to get it to the table. Great discussion!

I give Irish Gauge a 9 and Iberian Gauge a 10. I practically begged Capstone to issue Iberian Gauge!

Great to see your excitement in this video! Rio Grande put out another auctionless cube rails game a few years back: the minimalistic Northern Pacific… also by Tom Russell. This is a genre I’m keen to try out myself.

Thanks for the video! One of the game stores here finally has Trans-Siberian on stock. Think I’m going to get myself a copy tomorrow :)

As a solo player I'm always looking for games with very low count of auctions, One is OK as I can dice it out and then best play the rest of the moves. Alas, I miss out on player interaction, but have always enjoyed the route building aspect

Got TSR based on your playthrough. I've enjoyed it, thx!

Great! I've been playing Iberian Gauge too :) the whole thing starts colaborative, yes, but then as you mention the mean streak can appear. For example what you mention - if you and I both have 2 stocks on the same company, well, we may be game-long best partners, but if you have 3 and I have 1... that one can strategically mean I lose money but you lose 3x more, and the game is to be first, not to have a bigger profit at #2 :P. Of course, as you say, it also depends on perceived risk - but again, company ownership will push you toward collaboration or betrayal.

I'm glad you are enjoying these. Was thinking of recommending Age of Steam until you went off on auctions...

So glad to hear you're enjoying a renewed foray into cube rails, it's such a fun and rewarding genre! In such a short financial sandbox, trying new things and seeing whether your gambit pays off is exciting and often shakes up a group meta. And if it fails, as a friend of mine always says, the catch-up mechanic is that the game's an hour. I hope you continue exploring the genre, and perhaps auctions will even grow on you. I personally love auctions and still find Irish Gauge in particular underwhelms me. I enjoy others by Tom much more, including these two, but my favourite two cube rails are by John Bohrer: GM&O and Chicago Express. Fair warning though, both are very dependent on auctions. Anyway, thanks for your thoughts!

Totally with you. I jumped in over my head with both Chicago Express and Irish Gauge. Both feature auctions for every share in the game. Since then, I have played Northern Pacific, Paris Connection, and Ride the Rails. You should give Northern Pacific a shot sometime if you can. It really boils down the shared incentive fun of these games to just two possible actions per turn -- place a cube, or move the train along. I'm most excited to try Iberian Gauge, as it looks the closest to 18xx while fitting in easier rules and shorter time.

Appreciated your musings and analogies! :) very curious to try this genre myself, and leaning towards Dual Gauge first

Wow, now I need to try Trans-Siberian Railroad. While I enjoy 18xx games, the shorter play time and boiled down nature of cube rail games means they get played more often. My favorite has been Chicago Express (though leans heavily on auctions), but really enjoyed Iberian Gauge and might have found my new favorite of the genre. I didn't care too much for Irish Gauge though for some reason, and Paris Connection is a bit too simple for my tastes. ...but love the idea of the Russian Government nationalizing the companies you're trying to make profitable!

Based off your thoughts, I'd highly recommend Tom Russel's most recent train game: Dual Gauge. Player decisions early on strongly effect the way the game plays out, while giving enough power to the players to try and leverage their own position even in the late game. Plus, it's a multi-map system like Ride the Rails or Concordia, where each map has small rule additions that change the way the game feels.

Glad you came around on Ethiopian food :P

I much prefer Ride The Rails over Irish Gauge. From what you said about Irish and Iberian, I’m quite confident you will really like Ride The Rails.

Have you tried Chicago Express at all? Auctions obviously a part of stock purchases there but I enjoy it a lot.

My favorite train game is Ticket-To-Ride .. is Trans-Siberian Railroad much harder to play than that?

Imagine if there was 'Ethiopian Gauge' 😉

Try Mini Express

fyi the default subs being klingon is an extra waste of time for people who actually need subs.