We have played 4 games of 18Kit.  Two 2-player games on small maps, a 4 and
a 5-player game with the $10K bank.

The game is enjoyable, the different maps, and the challenge of combining
smaller companies to make bigger ones is a lot of fun.

No one has ever bought Boss Tweed.  We just don't see or understand its
value.  It just sits in the bank pool the entire game.

Priority deal early in the game is a big deal.  The person with priority
early in the game gets to open the first company and take the best token
location EVERY formation round.  It gets a bit frustrating watching the same
player form the first minor each formation round and take the best token
location.  So far, this person has won every game.  Are we doing something
wrong?

The other thing that happens in regards to priority is trains.  The person
opening the first few minor companies each get two 2-trains.  The person
last in priority gets one 2-train and doesn't have enough money for the
first 3-train.  The person last in priority has struggled every game.
Again, are we missing something?

Craig

As mentioned before, it seems underpowered for the large cost to me as
well, although Todd swears that in their group it is often too
powerful.  At CRGC08, Todd will be attending and I expect to get a lot
of playtesting of 18Kit in there so hopefully he can show us how it is
supposed to be used there if not earlier :).
Are you referring to the small games (ie, only minors)?  If so, there
are a number of issues which is why we will remove those options unless
we can come up with some ideas for improving it.
Regarding priority, it can be very valuable depending on the board and
train situation, and we have discussed several mechanisms, such as
bidding on turn order (and various ways of doing that) to balance it.

--
John A. Tamplin                                 j...@deepthoughtgames.com
Deep Thought Games, LLC                         4116 Manson Ave
770/436-5387 HOME                               Smyrna, GA  30082-3723

I forgot to mention one of the options on the table is to auction off
starting locations in some way -- ie, when you decide to start a company
you actually begin an auction for the location you want to start it in.  
If someone outbids you, you have to start somewhere else.  There are a
number of issues here, such as how to mark slots won by other players,
how long they can reserve those slots, how many slots can they have
reserved, etc, but that might be an alternative than bidding on priority
order each time.

--
John A. Tamplin                                 j...@deepthoughtgames.com
Deep Thought Games, LLC                         4116 Manson Ave
770/436-5387 HOME                               Smyrna, GA  30082-3723

I would love to see some sort of big for priority or location.  I think that
would fix the problem we had with one person selecting the prime spot each
time.  I think I really like the idea of bidding for locations if it can be
done in a simple way.  Of course, this is easy for me as a player to
request, but sometimes very difficult for a game designer to come up with an
elegant solution :)

To answer your previous question, the problem of priority was most
pronounced on a large map with 4 or 5 players.  Corporations formed on the
third formation round, so the person with priority was able to choose the
best starting location 3 times before priority deal changed.

Craig