Varying the setup

Most existing 18xx games start with a fixed setup – a given number of companies, each starting in a fixed location. Although they do have a variety of opening moves available, depending on what the other players do, they can become susceptible to analysis and even being “solved”.

There are some minor exceptions. In Steam Over Holland, for example, each game starts with only some of the available private companies. (1825 is worth a mention because all the extension kits add a variety of options).

I’m wondering if I can add more variety to the setup, to prevent formulaic play. Some ideas I’ve had:

• Randomly deal special powers to each company at the start (rather than assign them to private companies and let players choose which company they end up with)
• Add special powers for players, such as the ability (once per game) to seize the priority, or start a new company at a discount, or to sell shares without affecting the stock price.
  
• Have more possible start hexes than companies, so that companies have a choice of where to start
• Randomly assign start hexes to companies in each game
• Make companies available in tiers, so that some are available at the start of the game, some later on, and so forth. Randomly deal companies to each tier.

It’s worth noting that some of these ideas will produce unbalanced companies. This reflects my preference for players-as-investors over players-as-entrepeneurs, which I must blog about...