1830: Railways and Robber Barons Game Board

In this picture, the hex labeled "Baltimore" and featuring the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad's logo is where this railroad company begins, which means that it is from here that the B&O begins building track, the specifics of which are up to the player acting as company president. Track takes the form of hexagonal tiles that are layed over the hexes on the board. In the case of Baltimore, note the track printed in this hex that runs from the bottom-left to right sides of the hex. This track means that during the early part of the game, when the B&O is most likely to come into existence, players cannot place a track tile in this space but must make use of this track instead. This pre-existing track incentivizes players to build South to Washington D.C. or East to Philadelphia very early in the game; either could be accomplished during the B&O's first turn. While the B&O did connect to Washington early on, in August 1835 (Stover 41), it did not connect to Philadelphia until 1886 (Stover 166).

Note the absence of Wheeling from this map. The B&O was authorized to build through Virgina by the state with the city of Wheeling on the Ohio river to be the terminus (Stover 67). Wheeling lies to the South-West of Pittsburgh, so it might be imagined to exist on the map in the hex adjacent to Philadelphia, to the bottom-left. During the play of the game, it would be extremely unlikely for the B&O to connect to 'Wheeling' in less than four turns, and instead is a much better play to build South towards "The Deep South" or Richmond, which is not how the railroad developed. The goal of the B&O from the outset was to reach the Ohio River (Stover 18), which is decidedly not to the south, and is in fact missing from the board altogether. 

Considering the event-process spectrum, the board and track-laying rules of 1830 lie closer to the process end. Players can choose to build track in a historically correct manner or not, and it is tempting to say that the game can represent this aspect of history in an event-driven way. But it is more accurate to say that the game represents this part of history as a process. The geography of the game board, including the location of cities, influences how players lay track because cities are sources of revenue. Just as the creation of the B&O was driven by a desire for profit, by connecting the port of Balitmore with the Ohio River, so too are players' choices regarding track driven by profit. Thus 1830 represents the processes of this aspect of history.