18Rhl

Fox in the Box’s 18Rhl is an 18XX built as two games in one: RHL and LRA, with separate maps and rule sets. The premise is neat and the execution is serviceable, but this is not a design trying to rewrite the formula; it is more a rearrangement of familiar furniture.

In RHL, which I played with four, the emphasis is on building one genuinely strong company and developing a network around the river. LRA shifts towards a more direct connect-the-dots exercise, with the ports serving as the network’s obvious destinations. The interesting decision is whether to invest in the quality and extraction value of one network, or race towards the connections that matter.

The trains are effectively all express, so villages become prizes rather than places to skip. Privates are less powerful, and the lack of a 60% ownership limit lets you load up a company and milk it; meanwhile, the small supply of useful advanced tiles makes laying track distinctly unforgiving, because a careless early decision can leave you outside the worthwhile networks. Mercifully, the ceiling of a 6-train keeps the arithmetic reasonable, a point my spreadsheet was only too ready to confirm.

Its running time is sensible and RHL was an agreeable play, but the narrow tile choices feel more like a restriction than elegant pressure. 18Rhl is good, but there are plainly better routes through this particular territory.