Short Game Description

I

18DDR is about the reconstruction of the former GDR after 1945. This involved not only rebuilding industry but also repairing the railway network, both of which had suffered severely from the effects of the war. The GDR's economic system was a planned economy, not a market economy. Therefore, reconstruction was based on planned targets that had to be met. 18DDR was developed against this background, although the historical circumstances are not reflected exactly for game mechanics reasons.

In 18DDR, players take on the role of district secretaries. Their task is to fulfill the planned objectives for their district. These objectives consist of a combination of construction performance and transport performance. Construction performance consists of issuing construction orders. The use of the repaired rail network is crucial for transport performance. The more construction orders issued for a district and the better the rail connections to other cities, the easier it is for the district to fulfill its plan. 

18DDR begins with the starting round, in which each player selects a bonus action card along with two associated district secretary cards, which also count as double construction order cards. The owner of such a card manages all activities of the correspondent district during the operating rounds. Following the starting round, three operation rounds take place, in which the district secretaries carry out the necessary repairs to the railway lines. For this purpose, track tiles placed on the game board's hex grid. The track sections depicted on the track tiles represent repaired track sections. After two or three operation rounds, a planning round always follows. 

During the planning rounds, players issue further construction orders by acquiring district cards. In order to acquire district cards, they must use red action tokens. Players place them on track spaces on the game board, or on the supply space on the district card display. Red action tokens on a track tile block its tracks. This blockade represents the dismantling of tracks as reparations by the Soviet occupying forces (they had tracks dismantled in order to repair tracks in the Soviet Union). Instead of construction orders, players can also acquire district cards as special action cards (back of the action cards). The owning player may use the special actions cards as additional actions during the operations rounds.  

During the operation rounds that follow a planning round, players can repair the blocked tracks by removing the red action markers. In addition to further expanding the railway tracks, they can also fulfill the plan for one of their districts. The Reichsbahn provides them with a train for this purpose. This train must then run a continuous route with a specific income result that depends on the number of construction order issued by this district. When the income complies with the target, the district secretary receives the "Hero of Labor" award. Depending on the number of players, the player who first receives a certain number of these awards wins 18DDR.