Feedback-based changes...

[JC Lawrence]

-- An 80fr river was added to Lille, the NOR's home station. The NOR is a particularly strong company in 1843, and good game balance requires other players and companies to play directly against the NOR in their tile-laying and timing of private buy-ins in order for the game to be balanced. As some are finding that overly difficult and the learning curve thus too steep, this change slightly slows and weakens the NOR's early game.

-- As a second part of slightly curbing the NOR, the teleport charge for using the Cie de Boulogne - Amiens's special private company power has been reduced from 120fr to 100fr.

-- The rules continuously described the doubled side of the yellow trains as "2x2 or 3+1" while the train certificates read "2x2 or 3/4" instead. Gahh! After lengthy argument and being beaten about the head, I've relented and have changed the train certificates to match the rules.

-- An image of the matching company token has been added to the company charters as some said that they found the colour matching "not enough" and the typeface used for the masthead of the charters has been changed to (hopefully) also be more clear.

-- The rules around buying rusted trains have been extended to allow buying a yellow "3+1" Despite it being on the "x2" side of the certificate.

-- Small corrections have been made to the language describing when the various game phases start.

If there is interest, I'll make a a small overlay for the new Lille hex so that y'all can simply stick it on your maps rather than scribbling in a blue triangle by hand.

-- JCL

[JC Lawrence]

I do not agree that the NOR has been too strong.  The NOR has been strong, yes, but was easily hindered by other players playing against it.  The correlation between the NOR and winning has been about 3/2N.  What the NOR did require however was the other players to directly and aggressively play against the NOR from the get-go, and if they didn't, then they lost.  These attacks happened in terms of stock, timing of private sales, and control of priority against privates at the end of the auction.  Locally we've been pretty good at the first two and fairly weak at the third unless Mike or I drive the game that way (which has been the usual case).  In this line the NOR is no more over-powered and dominant than the NOR is in 1826 or the TSI is in 2038: if the other players let the president get too much of it or run it too well, then that president wins and they lost.  Finis.  Ergo they must control the beast that is the NOR; the other players need to fight and control and hem the NOR from the early game onward lest it eat them alive.

The NOR's position has always been about timing, with that timing controlled by the other players and not the NOR president.  The kicker is that the default 1830 play-style timings all fall naturally to the NOR's favor.  e.g.: 

- If the Calais private is bought while the NOR still has yellow trains, then the NOR can run a "2x" and "3/5x2" for $27/share, which simply storms away from all the other players.  This is easily prevented by ensuring that the private is only bought after the yellow trains have rusted, or that it is used for its teleport power and the tile laid so that the NOR has only one or no connections to the Double O, or by ensuring that the NOR president only owns 40% of the company.  If the yellow trains have rusted with the tile gets laid, or it is laid against the NOR,  the NOR runs with a base run of $14/share while many of the other companies are starting to break over $20.  Thus the owner of the private needs to hang back with selling the private such that the NOR won't be able to run its yellow and green trains together.

- If the NOR owner also holds the VdL private and manages to shuffle money between his second company and the NOR such that the NOR can buy in the VdL and can preserve a double blue train, then the extra stock bump and income is an easy ~$1,000 in endgame score.  However doing this is…difficult and effectively requires that the NOR buy the first blue train (e.g. second company buys out the double green, nobody else buys a blue train, and the NOR runs its yellow train and then buys the VdL, double blue train and preserve the double blue train (rusting the yellow train it just runs).   This is of course possible and I've done it more than once, but it is a remarkably fragile and delicate dance that is easily broken or interfered with by the other players (as I've done to Mike and Aliza a few times -- such as in Monday's game in LA).  The thing is, the other players have to be both aware of the potential and the necessity of preventing it, and if they fall down on the job they give the game away and lose.  If they do play appropriately offensively, then the NOR either loses an entire run and falls, or the NOR's preserved train is only a single blue train and is revenues fall and there's ample reason and opportunity to hit the NOR president again in the Red trains (if the other players setup to and understand how to attack the NOR that way).

There are other similar patterns with the #1 private (East Paris), the development of the VdL double dit, the track beside Versailles, the PStG double-dit and (amusingly enough) the development of the Le Mans Double-O and if and how the OU floats and builds early track.  If the other players are not aware how their actions with those substantially affect the NOR, then the default is that the NOR profits.  Similarly,  it is easy to give the NOR the worst late (brown/red )and end-game runs by 3:1 or larger ration in the end-game (as Daniel did to me in our game a few weeks ago, and as Eric failed to finish nailing the coffin shut in the same game).

---

Daniel's argument in the area is that so few players are sufficiently aware of things outside of their immediate focus, or able to both understand and execute on the necessary assault, that they won't attack sufficiently and thus the NOR will in practice always be over-powering,  Shrug.  I don't have much problem with bad play giving the game away to another player.  The fact that the patterns and the assaults and defenses needed are significantly different than in other games is to me more of an advantage than a problem: this game is different and requires substantially different approaches, mindsets etc in order to win.  Cool.

But, the chorus of Todd and Daniel did convince me that the knife-edge, and especially the default behaviour, was so close to the NOR's favour, as to make the early game a bit too fragile (most especially in the private auction and control of priority, which I know relatively few players have any idea of how to control, let alone predict).  By default the NOR floated for 73, bought a 2x2 for $200, and ran for $9 in yellow and then $14 in green with a double green for $500 leaving $30 in the treasury (i.e. not enough for its token).  Meanwhile the PRO (for example) was running for $9 or $14 and then ~$16 in green, and the EST was running for $8 and then $12 in green etc.   

The three core changes:

1) River in Lille

2) Bigger single version of the double yellow train.

3) Cheaper Calais teleport

All slightly hem in the NOR.  Nothing big, just a little yellow subtlety.  Specifically:

i) The river in Lille will mean that with a $73 par the NOR's capital will not stretch to double yellow and a double green train and a green home station (200 + 80 + 500 == $780, which is more than $730).  With only a single yellow train the most the NOR can run for in yellow is $6/share, which across two rounds is share's worth of income.  

ii) The bigger single/double yellow throws money in the direction of early track development by the PRO, EST and CEN/PLM, making their shares more attractive and thus more likely to sell out and thus more likely to get over the key cliff in the stock market floor.  Conversely he NOR is less likely to sell out and can thus (easily) be caught across the corner of that cliff.  NOTE: The rules around the yellow trains have not changed at all.  The change is that the yellow trains are now "2x2 or 3+1" or "2+1" where as they were "2x2 or 3/4" or "2+1".    The only change has been to move the single version of the doubled train from "3/4" to "3+1".   There's little reduction in complexity there. 

iii) The cheaper Calais teleport should fractionally increase the popularity of using the power.  Essentially it is now just a $60 premium over the first cheap token, or a same-cost token for one of the $100 tokens.  Even better, should that happen, the natural placement of the teleport tile can guarantee that the other leg does not connect to the NOR.  For example I see this as a very strong play by a CEN holder with the C or PStG.  This could be done before of course, but there was a $20 capital premium (which I disagree was particularly prohibitive).

In sum, nothing big, just a small movement of the default benefit away from the NOR and toward other companies…until mid-way through the green when the NOR recovers all of its prior strength, and has a little more of its sensitive tempo management back in its control.

-- JCL

On 6 Apr 2012, at 21:32, Eric Flood wrote:

I'm a fan of every change.  The NOR has been too strong for too long, the 3/4 rusted train rule has been confusing, and the 120 teleport was prohibitive.

I'm very interested in playing again, but my present set of circumstances lead me to believe that I will have no other 18xx games in the near future that are potentially longer than a 4p 1830.  My assertions of the week prior, relating to the future status of my 18xx plays, has been rather upheld and perhaps even streamlined into the present with significantly more alacrity than I would have imagined or liked.  It may well expedite my revival into the scene, albeit with the additional difficulty of condensing the window of time I have to focus upon my other interests and challenges.

-Eric

On Fri, Apr 6, 2012 at 8:42 PM, dan...@barnescapital.com <db1...@gmail.com> wrote:

It's also a possible for me.  But I insist on hosting (I've got Jonathan with me until May)

On Fri, Apr 6, 2012 at 8:40 PM, JC Lawrence <cl...@kanga.nu> wrote:

On 6 Apr 2012, at 18:12 , Aliza Panitz wrote:

> I'd like a chance to play the new game.  Next Saturday afternoon, perhaps?

My schedule is heavily in flux ATM, but that's a possible.

-- JCL

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SFBay-18xx: http://groups.google.com/group/sfbay-18xx

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Regards,

Daniel

Daniel A. Barnes, CFA
Chief Investment Officer
Barnes Capital LLC
www.barnescapital.com
(925) 284 - 3503

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