18NY Rules updated to 0.99

[John Tamplin]

https://sites.google.com/a/proto.deepthoughtgames.com/www/18ny

A changle-log of changes made from 0.98 to 0.99 is provided as well.  The components aren't yet updated to reflect the changes, but I hope to get to that soon.

-- 
John A. Tamplin

[Chris Nasipak]

Quick clarification question on the new rules (thanks much, I see some much-needed improvements in this).


1) The rules (8.1) suggest that a player can buy more than 60% of a company despite the certificate limits, but they cannot buy the shares from the IPO (IE, the company treasury). Is it intended that shares can be bought from the Pool if they would put the player's total ownership above 60%?

2) The Erie Canal private still seems to be a dog. Any plans to reconsider this?

3) Will there be a "yellow zone" added to the stock market, where stocks inside it do not count against the certificate limit?

> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "dtg-proto" group.
> To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/dtg-proto/-/WK90YZNXd-YJ.
> To post to this group, send email to dtg-...@googlegroups.com.
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to dtg-proto+...@googlegroups.com.
> For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/dtg-proto?hl=en.

[Pierre LeBoeuf]

Thanks for your feedback, Chris.  Here are my clarifications to your 3 questions:

• Yes, shares may be bought from the pool in excess of 60% (but not from the IPO)

• With the initial immediate return of $100, it makes back most of its cost immediately.  I'll have to review what records I have, but my guess is that it makes in the $250 range while it is alive, certainly not a dog when considering how hard it can be to get double the cost of the other privates out of a share or minor company.

• I am resisting the complication of a yellow zone for holding stock in excess of total cert limits, but I guess I'm open to discussing it.

[cro...@rochester.rr.com]

---- Pierre LeBoeuf <pierre...@verizon.net> wrote:
> Thanks for your feedback, Chris. Here are my clarifications to your 3 questions:
>
> Yes, shares may be bought from the pool in excess of 60% (but not from the IPO)

This will make things interesting. I wish we'd seen the update before our last game. :)

>
> With the initial immediate return of $100, it makes back most of its cost immediately. I'll have to review what records I have, but my guess is that it makes in the $250 range while it is alive, certainly not a dog when considering how hard it can be to get double the cost of the other privates out of a share or minor company.

In our experience it makes less, because the other players tend to actively work to lay track along the Canal in order to kill its income. We doubt it returns more than $200 in income.
Also, other privates have the advantage of being able to be sold in to a company in order to return additional cash; the Erie lacks this.

>
> I am resisting the complication of a yellow zone for holding stock in excess of total cert limits, but I guess I'm open to discussing it.

I think the ability to buy pool shares in excess of 60% is an interesting alternative to this; if you want to avoid it I personally have no objections (altho I have yet to try actually playing it that way).

[John A. Tamplin]

On Tue, Dec 4, 2012 at 9:54 AM, <cro...@rochester.rr.com> wrote:

> I am resisting the complication of a yellow zone for holding stock in excess of total cert limits, but I guess I'm open to discussing it.

I think the ability to buy pool shares in excess of 60% is an interesting alternative to this; if you want to avoid it I personally have no objections (altho I have yet to try actually playing it that way).

IMHO, the main problem with yellow zones is that it means you can't plan on how many stocks players will hold based on the cert limit.  If you make the cert limit low, then you practically force people to run at least one company into the yellow (ie, 1870) and you are dictating strategy.  If you set it high, then the cert limit doesn't really serve its intended purpose of preventing runaway leaders.  Without yellow zones, you know exactly how many shares will count towards the limit and you can decide how many shares won't be sold out.

--
John A. Tamplin

[cro...@rochester.rr.com]

*nod* This is true, this is true. And it becomes a common tactic to drive a company paying good dividends into the yellow, so you can collect on that while owning high-value, low-dividend stocks.

One thought I had after reading this, though: 18NY has a mechanic for company closure, either by merger or by stock value reduction. Most games that have such mechanisms have a certificate limit that varies with the number of companies in play. Do you plan to add this kind of dynamic limit, or stick with the hard limit?

Given how difficult it is to drive a company out of business or perform a hostile takeover, it seems unnecessary to me, but I don't know how often that happens in other groups' games.

[Pierre LeBoeuf]

I"ve played a few games where players purposefully merge two of their share companies to cut down on their endgame train requirements, but you lose lots of value when you do this. I haven't given serious thought to reducing the hard certificate limits if the number of active companies is reduced, mostly because I haven't seen it happen very often. We often don't have all 8 share companies open (B & A and NH are least likely to open).

[Chris Nasipak]

On Dec 4, 2012, at 9:29 PM, Pierre LeBoeuf wrote:

> I"ve played a few games where players purposefully merge two of their share companies to cut down on their endgame train requirements, but you lose lots of value when you do this. I haven't given serious thought to reducing the hard certificate limits if the number of active companies is reduced, mostly because I haven't seen it happen very often. We often don't have all 8 share companies open (B & A and NH are least likely to open).

Yeah, we definitely have some different group dynamics going on. I don't think I've ever seen an 18xx game end with even one share company left unopened.