There's always the risk, when designing a game, that you miss something obvious. I've just noticed such an example. I essayed a simple rule for difficult terrain: certain hexsides may not have track laid across them until a certain point of the game. The idea is that by that time, Victorian engineering had advanced and could build routes such as the Severn Tunnel, the Forth Bridge or the Settle-Carlisle line. It's a nice, simple rule.
What I hadn't noticed was that it allowed a company to build track straight along the Pennines and into the Scottish Lowlands, by-passing both Newcastle and Carlisle. This would be rather unhistorical and would affect game balance too.
So I have to do better. One obvious fix would be to make companies pay every time they build across such a hexside. Then someone could build the Pennine Way, if they had enough money and enough incentive. And this would be entirely consistent with other 18xx games.
Another fix would be to add some impassable hexsides, so that the route would not even be possible.
I need to experiment to work out which is best.
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
The design that began as Britain Under Steam morphed into 18GB: The Railways of Great Britain, and that game was published by Deep Thought Games in 2018. Meanwhile, I've left this blog to languish. But today I wrote up some thoughts about "The 1835 Family" and I need somewhere to post them, and I've decided to use this blog as a suitable site for this article and any other gaming articles that may or may not follow.
Followers
About Me
- Dave Berry
- Work: I am the Enterprise Architect in the Information Systems group of the University of Edinburgh.
Play: I like board games, particularly those in the 18xx family; music, although I don't play myself; and reading, especially science fiction.
No comments:
Post a Comment