Introduction

John Company: 2nd Edition is a tactical negotiation and gambling game about British families profiteering from the British East India Company to climb socially among the gentry.

Early in 2024, there was a thread on BoardGameGeek that asked what an expansion for John Company might look like. After going through a thought exercise of what that might look like, the focus shifted to some of the similarities to the 18xx series of train games. Because of its implementation of company management, stock, corporate actions, and economic conquest, John Company is sometimes compared to the 18xx series.

The 18xx series of games have a number of scenarios that utilize core concepts and rules, while each game provides its own historical context, rules and challenges. Cole Wehrle, the designer of John Company, has mentioned that there is some 18xx influence, albeit “peculiar”. In another discussion of the game, he discussed how John Company is more like a game system due to the complexity and volume of rules.

So, instead of designing an epansion that adds additional mechanics to the base scenarios, this is a different approach. We are creating an additional scenario: one that focuses on some of the other aspects of history surrounding the company that the game chose not to include. Hopefully, this does so in a manner that feels and plays like the 2nd edition of John Company.

An important note

This design is still a work in progress. Some design elements presented are key to the primary vision, other elements are merely ideas that may or may not work. Some aspects are further developed than others. The overall ambition may be too large or not large enough. Other ideas may be solid, but are burdened with poor implementations.