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J C Lawrence
Feb 29, 2016, 2:57:44 AM2/29/16
to sfbay...@googlegroups.com
3-player: Daniel, Shelby, JCL
Game ended with a $500 stock price in OR4.2. IIRC scores ranged from
$14K - $10K.
This was a fast trains game: In 11 ORs we went through 6 ranks of
trains and ~50 trains. What was particularly impressive was that nobody
ever blinked on buying trains. The train chart is mostly described here:
https://boardgamegeek.com/article/21944869#21944869
We ended with the train marker on 17, but had only played 11 ORs. That
means that we jumped forward 6 spaces during the course of the game
(third paragraph of the italics section) -- which is impressive. We
burned through the trains:
Type Count Cost Availability
yellow 2 unlimited $100 Only in OR1.1
gold 2+ unlimited $120 Only in OR1.2
green 3+ 16 $250 Starting in OR1.3
blue 3+ 7 $450
brown 5+ 10 $800
red 5D 10 $1,250
gray FLOOD 10 $2,000
Our trajectory:
Green in OR1.3 (as forced by the rules)
Blue at the bottom of OR2.1 (which is early)
Brown at the bottom of OR2.2 (which is also very early)
Red at the bottom of OR3.1 (again early)
Gray at the top of OR4.1 (Woot!)
Notes:
- Selling a blue train at the start of the first SR (and then a
brown in SR2, red in SR3) worked excellently. This future trains gig is
working wonderfully.
That said by blue train in SR1 for $180 was not clearly a great
buy. Good maybe, but not great -- especially as fast as the
trains moved. Daniel got the Brown in SR2 for ~$380, and then
the red in SR3 for ~$750. Both were good buys, with the latter
being a life-saver.
- Felt like the game needs one more blue train now that they're
also being sold at the start of the game.
Backing reason: The future trains help accelerate the train rush
as they can be assigned to companies and run as soon as that
colour is available for purchase, not just when one has been
bought. That didn't happen in this session, instead the
Government kept opening the new colours, but the tendency is there.
- Brown and Red trains were overly good. Not hugely good, but just
a little too good. They both ran long and paid well.
- End-game felt a little bit rushed and pre-emptive.
The game would have had a significantly more interesting
and-game arc with 1-2 more ORs. Maybe our game felt so short
because it was such a fast trains game and slightly slower games
wouldn't?
- Shelby managed to grow one of his privates back into a 2-share
company without it being stolen.
Impressive!
- The fact that privates continuously treble-jump and public
companies often don't means that the privates quickly pass the publics.
This in turn means that buying trains down from the privates is
easy/efficient, which in turn contributes to faster trains. Any
friction here would tend to slow the trains. Maybe that's Okay?
- It was a race between whether the game would end on a $500 stock
price or because the train marker reached the end of the track.
- Double-O tiles were not overvalued in the north.
The previous change to pull their revenues back slightly was
unnecessary and even slightly destructive.
- Big city gray tiles absolutely need to not get an extra station
hole in gray.
That change was excellent.
- Gray/ FLOOD trains may be too cheap.
According to Shelby they ran for ~$3,000, which is 20% higher
than I'd expected. I'll need to validate their actual total run
from the picture (it was late and we were tired).
- Token counts for 20 and 50 share companies were...odd and clumsy.
If my 50-share had taken over any of the good privates, as
intended, then I'd have had to peel up a lot of tokens from the
board, and that seems strictly less interesting for the final
gray trains. Daniel's 2-share company had similar hiccoughs.
- There are still ~4 companies which are too close in colours to
other companies.
In practice the maximum simultaneous company count had never
gotten past the upper-20s, but somewhere in the low 30s is
actually not unreasonable. Yeah, having 40 companies is cool --
more companies than any other game! Woot! -- but a silly if
almost 10 are never used.
- Scores were 50% lower than I'd expected.
Each OR was generating almost $8K in cash (and falling due
accelerating maintenance fees), and another $12K+ in stock
appreciation. One more OR would have increased total scores by
~$20K from a net of $36K to $56K. Another OR after that --
which would have been OR4.3 -- would have put it about in line
with my models.
- The fixed roster of 3 ORs per set, originally done on a whim, is
proving really interesting.
- Point of continuous amusement:
"/I ran for ~$430, but I have to half-pay to cover my
maintenance costs, and then pay more out of pocket because
half-paying isn't quite enough to cover it, and then the income
tax rate is 40%, so that's a dividend of $12 per share... You
know, it is really hard to make money in this game!/"
- The most common words used in describing last night's game:
"gruelling" and "epic".
But everything worked. Nothing was clearly broken or bad or in
significant need of adjustment. It all fundamentally worked, it
was all very dynamic and volatile, and it was all interesting.
Proposals:
- Add one blue train. Now that there's a blue future train we need
~one more.
- Increase the maintenance fee schedule for brown and red trains by
~one step.
- Change the brown Double-O tiles back.
- Think about adding 2-3 columns to the stock market.
- Think about forcing privates to close in gray.
They would simply close without recompense and their tokens
would turn upside down to become blocking tokens (early British
Rail?). In our game, because the first gray was clearly going
to be bought at the top of OR4.1, it meant that all the players
would simply grow their privates to 2-share companies in the
last SR and the game wouldn't have ended any differently. But
that timing is narrow -- many/most games should not align so
neatly and I'm Okay with that being a less common option.
Thus privates can end-the game in a slow trains game if they get
to $500 before the gray trains come out, but in a fast trains
game getting and keeping a high stock price with your public is
worth a lot...
- Think about increasing the price of gray trains.
Probably not a lot. Maybe to $2,500?
- Think about changing the token structure so that:
- 20 share companies get up to 10 place-able tokens (previously
they were only available by take-overs and thus weren't placeable).
- 50 share companies get up to 12 place-able tokens (same as
now), but can go all the way to 18 on take-overs.
- Remove ~5 companies from the game.
-- JCL
Game ended with a $500 stock price in OR4.2. IIRC scores ranged from
$14K - $10K.
This was a fast trains game: In 11 ORs we went through 6 ranks of
trains and ~50 trains. What was particularly impressive was that nobody
ever blinked on buying trains. The train chart is mostly described here:
https://boardgamegeek.com/article/21944869#21944869
We ended with the train marker on 17, but had only played 11 ORs. That
means that we jumped forward 6 spaces during the course of the game
(third paragraph of the italics section) -- which is impressive. We
burned through the trains:
Type Count Cost Availability
yellow 2 unlimited $100 Only in OR1.1
gold 2+ unlimited $120 Only in OR1.2
green 3+ 16 $250 Starting in OR1.3
blue 3+ 7 $450
brown 5+ 10 $800
red 5D 10 $1,250
gray FLOOD 10 $2,000
Our trajectory:
Green in OR1.3 (as forced by the rules)
Blue at the bottom of OR2.1 (which is early)
Brown at the bottom of OR2.2 (which is also very early)
Red at the bottom of OR3.1 (again early)
Gray at the top of OR4.1 (Woot!)
Notes:
- Selling a blue train at the start of the first SR (and then a
brown in SR2, red in SR3) worked excellently. This future trains gig is
working wonderfully.
That said by blue train in SR1 for $180 was not clearly a great
buy. Good maybe, but not great -- especially as fast as the
trains moved. Daniel got the Brown in SR2 for ~$380, and then
the red in SR3 for ~$750. Both were good buys, with the latter
being a life-saver.
- Felt like the game needs one more blue train now that they're
also being sold at the start of the game.
Backing reason: The future trains help accelerate the train rush
as they can be assigned to companies and run as soon as that
colour is available for purchase, not just when one has been
bought. That didn't happen in this session, instead the
Government kept opening the new colours, but the tendency is there.
- Brown and Red trains were overly good. Not hugely good, but just
a little too good. They both ran long and paid well.
- End-game felt a little bit rushed and pre-emptive.
The game would have had a significantly more interesting
and-game arc with 1-2 more ORs. Maybe our game felt so short
because it was such a fast trains game and slightly slower games
wouldn't?
- Shelby managed to grow one of his privates back into a 2-share
company without it being stolen.
Impressive!
- The fact that privates continuously treble-jump and public
companies often don't means that the privates quickly pass the publics.
This in turn means that buying trains down from the privates is
easy/efficient, which in turn contributes to faster trains. Any
friction here would tend to slow the trains. Maybe that's Okay?
- It was a race between whether the game would end on a $500 stock
price or because the train marker reached the end of the track.
- Double-O tiles were not overvalued in the north.
The previous change to pull their revenues back slightly was
unnecessary and even slightly destructive.
- Big city gray tiles absolutely need to not get an extra station
hole in gray.
That change was excellent.
- Gray/ FLOOD trains may be too cheap.
According to Shelby they ran for ~$3,000, which is 20% higher
than I'd expected. I'll need to validate their actual total run
from the picture (it was late and we were tired).
- Token counts for 20 and 50 share companies were...odd and clumsy.
If my 50-share had taken over any of the good privates, as
intended, then I'd have had to peel up a lot of tokens from the
board, and that seems strictly less interesting for the final
gray trains. Daniel's 2-share company had similar hiccoughs.
- There are still ~4 companies which are too close in colours to
other companies.
In practice the maximum simultaneous company count had never
gotten past the upper-20s, but somewhere in the low 30s is
actually not unreasonable. Yeah, having 40 companies is cool --
more companies than any other game! Woot! -- but a silly if
almost 10 are never used.
- Scores were 50% lower than I'd expected.
Each OR was generating almost $8K in cash (and falling due
accelerating maintenance fees), and another $12K+ in stock
appreciation. One more OR would have increased total scores by
~$20K from a net of $36K to $56K. Another OR after that --
which would have been OR4.3 -- would have put it about in line
with my models.
- The fixed roster of 3 ORs per set, originally done on a whim, is
proving really interesting.
- Point of continuous amusement:
"/I ran for ~$430, but I have to half-pay to cover my
maintenance costs, and then pay more out of pocket because
half-paying isn't quite enough to cover it, and then the income
tax rate is 40%, so that's a dividend of $12 per share... You
know, it is really hard to make money in this game!/"
- The most common words used in describing last night's game:
"gruelling" and "epic".
But everything worked. Nothing was clearly broken or bad or in
significant need of adjustment. It all fundamentally worked, it
was all very dynamic and volatile, and it was all interesting.
Proposals:
- Add one blue train. Now that there's a blue future train we need
~one more.
- Increase the maintenance fee schedule for brown and red trains by
~one step.
- Change the brown Double-O tiles back.
- Think about adding 2-3 columns to the stock market.
- Think about forcing privates to close in gray.
They would simply close without recompense and their tokens
would turn upside down to become blocking tokens (early British
Rail?). In our game, because the first gray was clearly going
to be bought at the top of OR4.1, it meant that all the players
would simply grow their privates to 2-share companies in the
last SR and the game wouldn't have ended any differently. But
that timing is narrow -- many/most games should not align so
neatly and I'm Okay with that being a less common option.
Thus privates can end-the game in a slow trains game if they get
to $500 before the gray trains come out, but in a fast trains
game getting and keeping a high stock price with your public is
worth a lot...
- Think about increasing the price of gray trains.
Probably not a lot. Maybe to $2,500?
- Think about changing the token structure so that:
- 20 share companies get up to 10 place-able tokens (previously
they were only available by take-overs and thus weren't placeable).
- 50 share companies get up to 12 place-able tokens (same as
now), but can go all the way to 18 on take-overs.
- Remove ~5 companies from the game.
-- JCL
J C Lawrence
Feb 29, 2016, 3:20:21 AM2/29/16
to sfbay...@googlegroups.com, Shelby Noonan, db1...@gmail.com, Bruce Murphy
Ooops, that train roster is wrong. Corrected:
Type Count Cost Availability
yellow 2 unlimited $100 Only in OR1.1
gold 2+ unlimited $120 Only in OR1.2
green 3+ 16 $250 Starting in OR1.3
blue 5+ 7 $450
brown 7+ 10 $800
Type Count Cost Availability
yellow 2 unlimited $100 Only in OR1.1
gold 2+ unlimited $120 Only in OR1.2
green 3+ 16 $250 Starting in OR1.3
brown 7+ 10 $800
red 5D 10 $1,250
gray FLOOD 10 $2,000
-- JCL
gray FLOOD 10 $2,000
Shelby Noonan
Feb 29, 2016, 12:10:01 PM2/29/16
to sfbay...@googlegroups.com
Question about the last set and our publics jumping. I don't think they should have as the per share payouts were WAY below stock price (That is the requirement right?) So it is really hard for 20/50 share companies to get any bumps at all.
Also, you made a comment about not letting privates exist in grey, but I didn't catch your reasoning. I would say that you might change the end of game to be a 'public' company hits the top, so privates stop there tripple jump appriciations, but do not end the game. Interesting as the privates (and most of the publics, but I think wrongly) were trippling up nearly every OR.
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J C Lawrence
Mar 1, 2016, 12:48:25 AM3/1/16
to sfbay...@googlegroups.com
No, the requirement is that the total dividend (ie after the halving for
a half-pay but before the division by shares or the reduction by income
tax) is a multiple over the stock price.
The idea of forcing privates closed is basically to force an exit for
them rather than leaving them as end-game viable. They were viable cash
cows and now they're not...Privates are an early game thing, not a late
game thing. That's also why I'm increasing the maintenance on brown and
red trains -- so they are not quite so good.
Sure, I could have privates bounce the top of the market, but that's
rather uninteresting and it leaves them as viable cash cows. Instead I'd
like to see them sold to publics -- because there's a lot of dancing and
finnagling to do there in getting the private sale right, and it chews
up all that capital from growing up and encourages earlier growing up
etc. You know, the end-game as a AWW-CRAP-OOPS crunch.
Which is why I'm considering killing privates in red...not gray.
Something like:
In the I&T after the first red train is bought, all privates must be
sold or closed (if not bought) or must grow up to 2-share
companies. Minimum bid for a take-over is $1, compulsory bid is
stock price (no treasury).
The stations from closed privates and stations that are discarded
because of station limits are left in place but are turned upside
down and are blocking tokens... (might need to supply components
for this)
When growing up a private to a 2-share, the player may contribute to
the new public company's treasury as they see fit.
-- JCL
> <mailto:sfbay-18xx%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com>.
a half-pay but before the division by shares or the reduction by income
tax) is a multiple over the stock price.
The idea of forcing privates closed is basically to force an exit for
them rather than leaving them as end-game viable. They were viable cash
cows and now they're not...Privates are an early game thing, not a late
game thing. That's also why I'm increasing the maintenance on brown and
red trains -- so they are not quite so good.
Sure, I could have privates bounce the top of the market, but that's
rather uninteresting and it leaves them as viable cash cows. Instead I'd
like to see them sold to publics -- because there's a lot of dancing and
finnagling to do there in getting the private sale right, and it chews
up all that capital from growing up and encourages earlier growing up
etc. You know, the end-game as a AWW-CRAP-OOPS crunch.
Which is why I'm considering killing privates in red...not gray.
Something like:
In the I&T after the first red train is bought, all privates must be
sold or closed (if not bought) or must grow up to 2-share
companies. Minimum bid for a take-over is $1, compulsory bid is
stock price (no treasury).
The stations from closed privates and stations that are discarded
because of station limits are left in place but are turned upside
down and are blocking tokens... (might need to supply components
for this)
When growing up a private to a 2-share, the player may contribute to
the new public company's treasury as they see fit.
-- JCL
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J C Lawrence
Mar 4, 2016, 3:22:10 AM3/4/16
to sfbay...@googlegroups.com, db1...@gmail.com, Shelby Noonan, Bruce Murphy
On 02/29/2016 09:48 PM, J C Lawrence wrote:
> Which is why I'm considering killing privates in red...not gray.
> Something like:
>
> In the I&T after the first red train is bought, all privates must be
> sold or closed (if not bought) or must grow up to 2-share
> companies. Minimum bid for a take-over is $1, compulsory bid is
> stock price (no treasury).
>
> The stations from closed privates and stations that are discarded
> because of station limits are left in place but are turned upside
> down and are blocking tokens... (might need to supply components
> for this)
>
> When growing up a private to a 2-share, the player may contribute to
> the new public company's treasury as they see fit.
positional play (and there's some historical backing) is to rule that
privates cannot run red or gray trains (and can be closed). That seems a
lot more interestingly flexible and puts a more interesting bite in the
end-game.
That leaves the intended set of changes for this weekend's game:
1. Add one blue train.
2. Revert the brown and gray Double-O tiles to their prior values.
3. Increase maintenance on brown and red trains by one step.
* ie brown starts at $50 and red starts at $160.
4. Private companies may not run red or gray trains.
* They may however buy them...
5. In order for private companies to double/treble jump they must
pay (pre-tax) 4x and 8x their stock price respectively.
* I want more differentiation of stock prices and of privates
in particular.
6. If a company requires presidential cash for loan interest it
moves one back on the stock market. Ditto (again) for train
maintenance.
* ie a company could move back twice.
7. 20 share companies get up to a total of 10 tokens with any
extras place-able.
* Previously they were only available by take-overs and thus
weren't placeable.
8. 50 share companies get up to 12 tokens (same as now), but any
extras are place-able and they can go all the way to 18 on
take-overs.
9. Private companies may be taken over in the normal way (if
offered), or may be closed. The minimum bid for a private is $1
and the compelling bid is the current stock-price. If they are
closed then their tokens are turned over in place and become
blocking tokens and the president receives no recompense.
10. Placed tokens discarded during takeovers become blocking tokens.
11. Companies fall on the stock market for each 10% in the pool, not
per share.
12. Priority is set at the end of the Parliament Round and again at
the end of Stock Rounds.
* Remember that players can buy shares of companies issuing
shares during parliament rounds, thus saving the priority
cost of buying in stock rounds.
And I think that's it. Other than #4, none of the above should be
revolutionary, and even #4 has pretty limited scope. Let's aim for an
19:00 start tomorrow.
Oh, and Shelby thinks that I mis-explained the costs of shrinking last
game. Sorry! We'll go over that again and ensure we're all on the same
page.
-- JCL
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