Proposal: Rails 2.0 / Evolution Fork – Shifting the Focus from Bookkeeping to Strategic Thinking

[sbleeck]

Visual Evidence & Playthrough: https://www.youtube.com/@18xxEvolution

The New Repository (Rails 2.0): sbleeck/Rails-1835-Special-Edition

Hi everyone,

I’ve been a long-time user of the Rails-18xx engine. Six months ago, I dove into the codebase to ready 1835 for championship-level play. Because this repository has been dormant for several years, I took the architecture in a new direction to support modern, real-time features. This has resulted in what is essentially a "hard fork," with over 100,000 lines of code rewritten.

Everything in this new architecture has been designed to take time away from bookkeeping and give it back to strategic thinking. By drastically reducing cognitive load and visual strain, a full game of 1835 can now be played in two hours instead of three.

I want to share what has been built over these six months to see if there is interest in endorsing this as the conceptual "v2" successor to the project. Here are the three major architectural pillars:

1. The UI, UX, and Cognitive Load Revolution

The interface has been completely overhauled to create a rock-steady, zero-jitter environment that respects players' time. There is now a single source of truth for all information, eliminating duplicated text.

Railcards: The boardgame experience is back. Certificates are physical-looking beige "Railcards" that animate when transferred and match a strict global color scheme (Red = Sell, Green = Buy, Blue = Action).

The Linear OR Panel & Hotkeys: The old panel is replaced by a strict, top-to-bottom linear sequence (Build > Marker > Revenue > Buy > Special). The game is fully operable via hotkeys ('Enter' executes the default next move), turning the endgame into rapid-fire resolution and speeding it up by 1000%.

Synchronous Play Tools: Integrated chess clocks display active thinking time directly in the Status Window. Autopass is removed to maintain absolute player agency. A massive gray "Game Paused" overlay ensures tournament integrity.

Bulletproof Corrections: The correction managers (Tile, Cash, Stock, etc.) have been completely rebuilt and are 100% stable. Standardized Cmd+Z / Cmd+Y handles seamless undo/redo.

Information Density: Dynamic "Remaining Tiles" window, hex coordinates in clear fonts, plotted terrain costs, and endgame "Time Machine" sliders for visual post-game analysis.

2. 1817 Implementation & Legacy Refinements

This stable architecture allowed for sweeping catalog fixes.

1817 (Native Implementation): Built completely from scratch. Natively supports short selling, variable interest loans, company liquidations, and dynamic mergers.

1835 & 1837: Brought to championship-level stability. Rebuilt the KK/UG conversions, corrected coal exchange mechanics, fixed National formation rounds, implemented strict Prussian share restrictions, and resolved Baden operational bugs.

JSON State Architecture: Under the hood, the engine now supports JSON state saving and reloading, allowing games to be kickstarted directly from a state payload rather than a chronological history of actions.

3. The Native AI Engine

The decision logic has been decoupled to build an autonomous "brain." Originally built for 1835, the expert system runs across all versions, generating legal moves using simple heuristics.

Dry-Run Simulations: Utilizes the RevenueAdapter to spin up parallel network graphs, allowing the AI to simulate and score potential tile lays before committing.

AI Building Assistant: In-game, the AI can be invoked to instantly calculate and build the tile that maximizes current train income.

Data-Driven "Opening Books": The AI loads external JSON strategy files to guide draft picks and opening moves based on historical performance and asset synergy, rather than relying on rigid, hardcoded rules.

Because of the massive scale of these architectural changes, submitting a standard Pull Request is technically impossible without causing thousands of merge conflicts.

Instead, I am opening this issue to see if there is interest from the original maintainers in officially endorsing this repository as the successor to the project, or if any of you are interested in migrating your specific game implementations over to this new framework.

Best regards,

Stefan

[erik-vos]

Hi Stefan,

I'm very impressed about what you have achieved so far. As one of the founders of Rails, and a long-time developer, I'm certainly curious about how your code looks like and fits together. After playing a little bit with the new 1835 version, there is certainly a lot that has remained the same behind the curtains of the new UI.

Whilst playing the first OR of 1835, it occurred to me that only a few of all the game options have been retained. In particular, I was interested, if the option that allowed BY to lay its extra NF token on Fürth and then build track from there, was still possible, as that variation breaks the strict OR step sequence. Alas, it wasn't there. I wonder if you are planning to add this and other options that existed in v2.

I'm certainly curious about how the new code looks like. But it's too early to say whether or not I will be able to contribute to further development. I've been out of development for a long time, and my Java knowledge beyond Java 5 is minimal. Besides,, I'm turning 80 next month. I would suggest not to count on me.

I certainly want to encourage you to continue modernizing Rails this way. I'm not able to judge whether or not your new fork can stay in this project, or that you could better start a new project.

All the best, and thanks for reviving Rails!

Erik Vos

[sbleeck]

Hi Erik, Many thanks for the encouragement! I have deliberately removed several options that, in my opinion and that of my gaming group, tend to break the rules. Regarding the NF and PfB, the rules state clearly that BY cannot build track after laying the marker. The primary reason for streamlining the 1835 options is that we intend to use this version for the next German Championship in 1835 (the 32nd, I believe). This is an annual event held in Kloster Hoechst which I helped found. Since I now live abroad, I can no longer attend in person in August. By suggesting we play online or in a hybrid format, I hope to allow expats like myself to participate. My goal was to create a stable championship release with strict time controls and no unnecessary options, though I have kept the start round included. all the best Stefan Bleeck PS: if you are interested to join us some time, we often play online Tuesday nights, and sometimes we have not enough players (tonight only 2!) and would like to see 'fresh blood' :) by the way, I am not a java programmer either, that's what the new world allows us to do though!

…

On Tue, 21 Apr 2026 at 20:36, erik-vos ***@***.***> wrote: *erik-vos* left a comment (Rails-18xx/Rails#550) <#550 (comment)> Hi Stefan, I'm very impressed about what you have achieved so far. As one of the founders of Rails, and a long-time developer, I'm certainly curious about how your code looks like and fits together. After playing a little bit with the new 1835 version, there is certainly a lot that has remained the same behind the curtains of the new UI. Whilst playing the first OR of 1835, it occurred to me that only a few of all the game options have been retained. In particular, I was interested, if the option that allowed BY to lay its extra NF token on Fürth and then build track from there, was still possible, as that variation breaks the strict OR step sequence. Alas, it wasn't there. I wonder if you are planning to add this and other options that existed in v2. I'm certainly curious about how the new code looks like. But it's too early to say whether or not I will be able to contribute to further development. I've been out of development for a long time, and my Java knowledge beyond Java 5 is minimal. Besides,, I'm turning 80 next month. I would suggest not to count on me. I certainly want to encourage you to continue modernizing Rails this way. I'm not able to judge whether or not your new fork can stay in this project, or that you could better start a new project. All the best, and thanks for reviving Rails! Erik Vos — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#550?email_source=notifications&email_token=AD2O3Y23SYNJ7GI7YRHWTFT4W7ESNA5CNFSNUABFM5UWIORPF5TWS5BNNB2WEL2JONZXKZKDN5WW2ZLOOQXTIMRZGEZDOMZTGY3KM4TFMFZW63VGMF2XI2DPOKSWK5TFNZ2KYZTPN52GK4S7MNWGSY3L#issuecomment-4291273366>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AD2O3Y2KZPDGUD6KCE352TL4W7ESNAVCNFSM6AAAAACYBD2DTSVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHM2DEOJRGI3TGMZWGY> . You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[erik-vos]

Oh, so this will not become the life extension of the general-purpose version of Rails, as I hoped for. In that case I'm less interested. But I still wish you success with your version!

No, I don't want to play on-line.

Erik

[sbleeck]

Erik, can you explain what you mean by 'life extension'? it feels we are talking cross purposes here. apologies if I am inprecise anywhere, I need to correct this obvs.

[erik-vos]

As far as I can judge, for the last few years Rails has been moribund, if not dead. I have implemented 1826 and 18VA, and had pushed a number of fixes to other titles, but no new versions have been built (an art that I never have mastered). So I rejoiced the new start you were apparently making. But then I got the impression that it would only become a special purpose version for championships or whatever. If I was wrong on that conclusion, my apologies.

[sbleeck]

Hi Erik,

Thank you for clarifying. I completely understand your reaction, and I apologize—my previous email was poorly phrased and gave the wrong impression of my ultimate goals.

To be absolutely clear: My ultimate goal is exactly what you hoped for—a full life extension and evolution of the general-purpose Rails platform (Rails 2.0). The focus on the 1835 Championship was strictly a development strategy, not the end goal. I used 1835 as the stress test to build and stabilize the new UI, the synchronous play tools, and the modernized linear architecture. Because that tournament required absolute stability and strict rule enforcement, I stripped out some of the flexible options for 1835 to ensure the core engine was bulletproof first.

Now that the new UI architecture is stable, my intention is absolutely to bring the entire Rails catalog into this new framework. In fact, the latest build in the repository (V1.1) already has all the legacy games (1826, 18VA, etc.) hooked back into the new interface using 100% of the original backend logic. Thank you for the rules, I will now be able to make a video about them! They now need rigorous play testing to ensure the new UI hasn't broken anything. (and to discover more old bugs, and there are still a few... and also new features, I just finished the automatic detection of connection runs, and will release 1870 and 1856 in the next weeks).

As for the specific 1835 options (like the BY NF token variant), I will happily restore them! You are right; a general-purpose engine must accommodate the varied ways the community plays.

I have immense respect for the foundation you built. Even if you are not coding in Java anymore, your institutional knowledge of these games and the original architecture is invaluable. If you are willing, I would be honored to have your guidance and feedback as we expand this new interface to fully support the incredible library you and the team created.

Best regards,
Stefan

[erik-vos]

Hi Stefan,
Thanks for your reaction and your kind words.
To be honest, I should mention Stefan Frey, who laid the much impoved foundation of Rails 2.0, and added the run calculation logic. Unfortunately, he left when that was done.
And Brett Lentz, who co-founded Rails, did the Map graphics, and AFAIK still is the project manager.

Of course you are free to ask for my help about anything. Perhaps I can do some testing.
Which minimum Java version are you using?
Would IntelliJ still be a usable tool to look into the code, and, who knows, do something? I now have version 2022.3.

Erik