Starting the game

The question that is exercising me at the moment is how the game should start. I am caught between two competing desires. On the one hand, I want players to be able to invest in a range of companies from the start of the game, as a viable strategy. On the other hand, I want a range of companies to be available, as opposed to imposing a fixed order for company purchase. There is a definite tension here; if each player can start a company, why would they invest in another company instead?

One twist that I’m considering is to charge a small fee for starting a company. When a player starts a company, they would have to pay this fee to the bank (representing administration charges, or “gifts” to members of parliament to approve the formation of the new company). In game terms, this would be a cost for the advantage of holding the president’s certificate, which gives double the number of shares for one slot against the certificate limit. So some players might prefer to invest in an existing company, rather than pay the fee to create one of their own.

As a detail, one player might have the special ability to create a company for nothing, either as a special power or if play reaches the last player with none of the others having started a company. This would ensure that at least one player would start a company.

Returning to the question of how the game should start, one possible approach would be to have a small number of companies available to begin with, where that number is less than the number of players. The available companies could be dealt randomly at the start of the game (thus providing variety across games). Or the players could choose which companies to start but the total number could be limited.

Another option would be to limit the number of shares that players can buy in each company. In fact, many 18xx games limit this to 60%. So if players each start a company and have money left over, then they can only invest in other player’s companies. This does potentially leave each player owning 60% of a single company, which would be a less diverse portfolio than found in 1825, for example, but it does encourage some degree of diversity.

A variation on this approach would be to set a lower maximum. At the start, it could be as low as 20%, which would both encourage cross-investment and allow scope for buying more shares as the game progresses. Perhaps the limit could increase as the game progresses through different phases. For a while I was quite taken by this idea, which could be an interesting twist on the 18XX theme – but it has one big disadvantage, which I’ll explain in my next post.