Like 18WE/72, 18EE/82 is an operational strategy game based on Mike Hutton’s popular 1862: Railway Mania in the Eastern Counties system covering Easter Europe. It features a larger board, 21 major companies, and more offboard areas than either 18EA/62 or 18WE/72. Any player familiar with 18WE/72 will very easily be able to enjoy 18EE/82, because the rules are almost completely identical aside from setup.
18EE/82 features five regions instead of three, in which only three of four corporations are typically startable, as well as 3 minor companies in Hungary. The four non-Hungarian regions feature randomly selected subsidies at setup, out of a pool of five. These simple differences in setup present the players with major strategic decisions in what railroads to found, as well as how their companies will best be developed and operated.
18EE/82 has extremely high replayability, due to its random setup at the beginning of the game. Every non shell company is assigned a license type randomly (from expresses, freights, and regionals).
18EE/82 has a larger board than 18WE/72, covering much of Eastern Europe. The map also has more offboard areas, including the premier zones of Berlin and Constantinople. Like in 18WE/72, there is no plain yellow track. All track tiles are unlimited. Each company gets at least three track actions to determine tile placements and upgrades. The map size supports more stations which can be acquired during the life of each corporation. Each corporation may lay TWO additional tokens each operating round, instead of just one.
The financial aspects of 18EA/62 you will find almost fully intact. There are parliament rounds, mergers, and refinancing, all as players know them from its predecessor game. Similarly both chartered and non-chartered corporations function in exactly the same ways. This allows players to focus on the operational aspects of the game, without having to learn a new financial framework if they are familiar with either game.
-description from the designer
