21Moon

Coming to 21Moon, I immediately see all the familiar signs of a modern 18XX: excellent production and artwork, an attempt to fit the experience into heavy-Euro running times, and a clever twist intended to make it stand apart. Yet it is not merely a superficial variation. Its new elements are well developed and fit together. My major issue is the rulebook: it is excessively terse, has no examples, and can create questions even for veterans of the genre. In some places, moreover, the English wording is simply poor.

The standout mechanism is that each company has two bases. Trains may run to the central base and generate dividends, or to the remote one, where the money goes to the company itself. Once there are more trains, those two options can naturally be combined. It is a simple trick, but one with a meaningful effect: it noticeably speeds up the operating rounds without feeling rushed or alien to the rest of the system.

The other fresh feature is that companies play their own mini stock round and can themselves buy and sell shares. That opens up interesting lines of play and allows for plenty of commotion across the game's five stock rounds. This is not just an added subsystem: together with the bases, it gives the game a brisk but lively tempo, with plenty of decisions emerging from the relationship between company treasuries, dividends, and the market.

Overall, 21Moon has plenty to say. Despite the disappointing presentation of its rules, I think it dethrones Chesapeake as my quick 18XX of choice, while the depth of its systems leaves ample room for replayability.