The latest addition to my 18xx collection is 18RoyalGorge: The Rails of Fremont County and the Royal Gorge Wars. I bumped into this on BGG, I think, and the game sounded good enough so I bought a copy. This was on Kickstarter in 2024 and came out in 2025 with less than 500 backers, so not a big deal back then. There was a seller for this on BGG, and they turned out to be the European distributor of the Kickstarter. Very handy!
This is a 2–4 player game that plays in 2–3 hours. The estimate is reasonable: our games so far have been under three hours. I’ve played this with two and three players.
The game is set in Colorado and as the exhausting full title says, is about the Royal Gorge Wars (or the Colorado Railroad War), in which Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Company and Denver & Rio Grande Railroad competed about access to passes in Colorado. First, Santa Fe won the access to Raton Pass and then the companies fought over the Royal Gorge canyon. This included gunfighting, though it seems nobody was actually killed. Eventually, the companies agreed that D&RG would get the railroad, but had to pay a lot of money to Santa Fe.
The history of the Royal Gorge is depicted in the game. In the yellow phase, the Royal Gorge railroad is under construction. In the green phase, the Treaty of Boston happens, the Gorge route is finished and Rio Grande gets tokens blocking the Gorge. However, Rio Grande is also indebted to Santa Fe. If the debt is not paid by the end of the game, the Rio Grande share value will plummet. Santa Fe, on the other hand, has a debt to the famous gunslinger Doc Holliday, who may be represented by a player-owned private company (if not, the money goes to bank).
McGuffins
There are a bunch of interesting features in the game.
You can build or upgrade up to six tiles per OR. That’s a lot, but it’s also quite expensive. To lay tiles, you need steel, and that is bought from the Colorado Fuel & Iron company. The more steel you use per turn, the more expensive it is. Building four yellow tracks is reasonable (just $60), but it’s $40 per tile after that.
Steel and gold companies are player-owned. You can buy shares from the CF&I and the Victor Gold Company. There’s gold on the board and it can be shipped to gain $50 revenue. The more gold is shipped, the better dividends the gold company pays. The CF&I distributes all steel payments to shareholders, which means it can be very lucrative – we’ve seen payments of up to $60 per share, and $25 per share is common in the early game when railroads are not paying that kind of money.
The tile mix is very limited. It’s been a while since I’ve played a game with a tile mix this limited. The heavy building and long distances mean that you’re going to run out of basic tiles quite often. That’s a bit weird, but on the other hand, if you have the money, you can probably upgrade a tile somewhere else to get the tile you want, but it’s not always possible.
The certificate limit is tight. It’s 20 for two players, 14 for three and 10 for four. Maybe I’m just used to games with higher certificate limits, but this felt very tight, I was pushing against the limit much sooner than I expected. There are only two companies starting on the first SR, but the steel and gold company shares are cheap at the beginning and pay well (especially the steel), so that gets you lots of shares quickly. The 10 certificate limit seems very low!
The train/event deck is nice. They’ve numbered the train deck and before the game, you just sort it by numbers. Then you get train cards that show how many trains of the type there are left and all rusting events and so on in the right spot. That’s clever.
Lots of setup variability. There are many companies, but only five are in play each time. There’s a deck of private companies and five of those are auctioned every game. The games won’t always run the same way.
Verdict
My initial impression is good: 18RoyalGorge does interesting things and is unusual enough. It’s a solid shorter game, not A-tier but certainly interesting enough for now. We’ll see if it’s a keeper.
18RoyalGorge mostly looks good, but the graphic design is a bit messy and heavy – there are many things that could be improved in the design to make it look more professional and pleasant. It’s a niche Kickstarter game from hobbyists, though, so professional level cannot be expected.
The closest comparison for me is 18Korea, and while 18Korea is clearly the better game of the two – my initial rating for 18RoyalGorge is 7/10 and I just changed my 18Korea rating to 9/10 – I don’t mind seeing similar ideas floating around in other games in new ways. 18RoyalGorge is clearly heavily influenced by 18Korea, and is also easier to get and 100 € cheaper, which is something.