Easy Credit

David Hecht has just posted an excellent message on the 18xx mailing list explaining how you can really push the rate of train purchases in Steam Over Holland, and noted how this is an example of how credit in various forms can be used to accelerate the flow of the game.

I think I need to check whether my design makes it too easy for players to loot companies. Currently I'm intending to allow companies to be floated once 3 shares have been bought (out of 5). This would make 5 shares worth of cash available to the company. This company could buy trains from another to transfer the cash, or possibly just buy new trains in order to start a new phase and sell the new trains to another company. The player could then sell the company, getting some cash back from the shares.

Let's assume that the shares are valued at x. The player has to pay 3x in order to float the company. The company gets 5x. When the player sells the shares, he gets 1x back (because players do not get any money from selling the director's certificate). If the company has no trains, the player would only receive 0.5x. So for an outlay of 2x or 2.5x from the player, the company gets 5x.

This is comparable to 1830 et al - actually it's less return than in 1830, which gives 10x to the company for 2x of player money (or even no loss at all, if the player can dump the company on someone else). The difference is that it may be easier to buy the second company in Britain Under Steam.

I don't see a way of avoiding this, unless I turn to strict incremental capitalisation, without the option of selling shares from the company to the bank pool. Anyway, this sort of thing makes 1825, 1830 et al rather successful games, so my hope is that is will do here too.

I will note one balancing element about the Steam Over Holland approach. In order for the company to get all its cash, it has to sell shares to the bank pool. If it sells more than one per operating round, its share price drops. So directors have to trade off the rate at which they get cash against the value of their shares. This is quite appealing and I may decide to go down this route after all, although as I previously noted, I don't like the idea of paying dividends to the company for unsold shares in its treasury.