Alright, further down the rabbit hole 
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You’ve stumbled into it already! 1862 is a weird 18xx game, but it’s:
- A great option for 2-player, and also higher player counts
- Has setup-randomness that provides nearly unlimited replayability
- Lots of interesting mechanisms to provide lots of potential strategies to explore
- No director-obligation when a company loses its last train and cannot afford another; in most 18xx games that could cause player elimination (and is a common way for, say, 1830 to end)
Any other answer depends on whether you intend to introduce a 3rd or subsequent players to 18xx or if you simply want to explore 18xx as a couple.
If you go 3+:
- I just finished a game of 1824 at 3 players and it was very good.
- 1861/1867 just became available in some retail outlets; haven’t played a complete game of it yet, but it’s very smooth. I’m not sure it doesn’t something that much better than 1862, and 1862’s mergers are more interesting (in my book, others may differ).
- 1846 by Thomas Lehmann is on GMT’s P500 right now and is a modern classic 18xx design
If you stay at 2:
- 18CZ has a 2-player variant that uses a bot, which I rather like.
- 1860 was recently on Kickstarter and will eventually be available directly from All-Aboard Games’ website and is often hailed as “the best” 2-player 18xx; by the same designer as 1862.
If you thought “running the same companies every round and never being threatened with bankruptcy is very boring” you could pursue one of the more 1830-ish designs:
- 1889 will be on Kickstarter sometime this year, it’s very much 1830-but-Japan
- 18Chesapeake, 1882: Assiniboia, 18NewEngland are all “beginner friendly” 1830-likes as well and may or may not be available right now via All-Aboard Games’ website
- 1830 from Lookout will probably be out in another printing soonish
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Haha! Nevermind! The filter I was using was occluding 18West and 18Ireland from my collection.
So now, you must consider the dual-game boxes as single-items!
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I am officially retiring my dino laptop which I have been using for 13 years.
I mean, I only play Paradox games in there so I manage. But I did tried installing Overwatch for hours and then cried when it says my graphhic card is poop
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retire it after getting something new. just saying hardware shortages are a thing now. 
So there’s demand for old dino laptops? Is that what youre saying? 
No. Definitely no demand for old laptops 
More for those new ones… friends here who decided they were gaming more now and needed better hardware ran into some trouble. It is not just next gen consoles or graphics cards that are hard to come buy right now.
Seconded in terms of shortages.
My work had me waiting a year for a laptop to work from home. Yes they had a limited number of vendors they could use but still.
I have postpone building a pc when my flatmate said that he’s struggling to get a graphics card. So I noped out on that for now
It’s them crypto-miners. It’s always them!! 
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Not really this time. There is a general hardware shortage for all kinds of microchips.
It is so bad that German car manufacturers are shutting down their factories now when they wouldn’t do it because of the third covid wave.
The thing that is most easily available are package deals right now. Either buying a gaming laptop or some kind of hardware bundle.
Buying by the component is not a good idea.
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Ah I see. I went for a laptop, which is enough to meet my needs
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The last vestige of my bachelor lifestyle has gone: I sold my motorcycle.
I bought it 12 years ago, probably rode it about 12 times; nothing more recently than 8 years ago. Have been paying $75/yr to insure it and ~$60/yr in property taxes on it.
Sad to see it go (as a symbol of my former lifestyle with far fewer responsibilities), but glad to not have it taking up space in my garage.
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Innit! You need space for Roads & Boats
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I was sad to see our bikes go too, but that was at the end of a 3 month camping tour from Hokkaido (North Japan) to Okinawa (South Japan islands); it was getting too cold to ride back, and we were going to leave the country for a year or more, so the decision was an easier one!
Got hardly any money for them though.
We (well, H does) still talk about buying another sometimes…
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Spare our blushes!
Spiel has not been canceled yet… Tickets available from August…
It also looks as if the metal festival we were going to go to last year is happening with a very similar and equally great lineup.
(Oktoberfest is canceled though)
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I find it unlikely in the extreme that it’ll happen. But I can get a full refund on my hotel room until the week of the event.
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are there enough games to have a “Poorly explained game” guessing thread analog to movies?
f. e. “trading legumes with your neighbors”
or “meadow occupation competition”
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I think so!
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