In an attempt to reduce the amount of printing, laminating and cutting that I have to do, I've decided to buy coloured wooden cubes to represent shares. An octogan will represent the director's "certificate" while eight cubes will represent the ordinary shares. This is a more expensive solution but should save me time. The pieces match the discs that I have already bought to be station markers.
I reckon it will also give the game more of a "euro" feel, which fits with my overall aims. Although the rules are too complex really to be a true eurogame.
My source has 11 colours available. This has limited the maximum number of companies in the game, forcing me to abandon the option of 2n+1 companies (where n is the number of players). Instead of a formula, I'm currently using 7 companies for 3 players and n+5 for 4 to 6 players. I think this will work OK. As always, playtesting will give more guidance. When these tokens arrive, I will be another step closer towards a playable game.
Thursday 24 June 2010
Saturday 12 June 2010
Certificate limits
I did a quick bit of analysis yesterday and found that most 18xx games set the per-player certificate limit so that approximately 85% of all shares in the game could be held by players, if each player was at their maximum. The percentage is usually a bit lower than this for 2-player games and a bit higher for 5 or 6 player games. This seems a reasonable rule of thumb.
However, it is based on the assumption that all companies have ten shares. In games where companies start with five shares and only some might convert to ten shares, its not immediately clear how to set the certificate limit. 18Ardennes addresses this by increasing the limit as more companies convert to 10 shares. This works, but adds one more number to keep track of during play.
I'm wondering whether it would be simpler just to treat each ten-share certificate as half the "weight" of a five-share certificate. It might be simpler still to change the limit to the number of shares, rather than the number of certificates, with 10% shares counting as 1 and 20% shares as 2.
In my game, I want to always have shares available for purchase, either from new companies on from the open market. So I don't want to set the limit so high that all or most shares can be bought. This means that even in 6-player games I'll keep the limit to around 85% rather than letting it rise over 90%.
This is enough analysis to be going on with. We can always tweak the limits during playtesting if need be.
However, it is based on the assumption that all companies have ten shares. In games where companies start with five shares and only some might convert to ten shares, its not immediately clear how to set the certificate limit. 18Ardennes addresses this by increasing the limit as more companies convert to 10 shares. This works, but adds one more number to keep track of during play.
I'm wondering whether it would be simpler just to treat each ten-share certificate as half the "weight" of a five-share certificate. It might be simpler still to change the limit to the number of shares, rather than the number of certificates, with 10% shares counting as 1 and 20% shares as 2.
In my game, I want to always have shares available for purchase, either from new companies on from the open market. So I don't want to set the limit so high that all or most shares can be bought. This means that even in 6-player games I'll keep the limit to around 85% rather than letting it rise over 90%.
This is enough analysis to be going on with. We can always tweak the limits during playtesting if need be.
Tuesday 8 June 2010
How to Encourage Balanced Portfolios?
A basic aim of Britain Under Steam is to encourage players to invest in each others' companies without restricting which companies are available to start. This will combine what I see as the best of two different strands of 18xx games. 1825 and its descendants force cross-investment by making the companies available in a set order, so that players have to buy shares in those that are currently available. 1830 and its descendants let players start any company, with the result that they tend to focus on buying shares in the one(s) they have started themselves. The question is, how do I design the start of the game to encourage cross-investment?
One promising approach is to be fairly conventional, by requiring 60% of a company's shares to be sold before it floats, limiting each player's holdings to 60% of a given company, and giving players enough starting cash to buy shares equal to 100% of a cheap company. This means that a player can start her own company and have enough cash left over to buy shares in other players' companies.
I was wondering whether I could encourage more cross-investment if I companies floated when 40% of their shares were floated. This would leave more player cash available to invest in other companies. This idea does immediately run into a flaw: if a player has enough cash to buy 80% of a company, she could start two companies instead of investing in other players' companies. I have worked out rules to balance the options of starting one company or two (including the potential for asset stripping), but these don't address the basic aim I am considering here.
In 1830-style games, of course, directors are forbidden from selling the directors certificate, and companies without a train must buy one. This combination ensures there is a risk involved in starting a second company. Britain under Steam doesn't have these restrictions, which removes much of the risk. This is intentional, as it also removes the risk of cross-investment, but perversely it also discourages cross-investment if players have the option of floating a second or third company instead.
I could add an administrative fee for starting a company, which would perhaps encourage players to buy existing shares instead. However, this might have the unintended consequence of making it too unprofitable to start a company at all, which would hardly be the desired behaviour!
A variant on that idea would be charge no administrative fee for a player's first company, introduce a fee for their second, and a higher fee still for their third. The cost could be based on the number of directorships that the player currently holds, or the number of companies they have floated since the start of the game.
Another take on this variant would be to deal the companies in order at the start of the game, then make the one at the head of the queue free to start and ones further along cost a small fee. This second version would restrict players more than I would like.
A different approach would be to limit players to holding a single directorship in the first phase of the game. As soon as phase three begins, this restriction would be lifted.
It's worth noting that in the advanced game, I'm thinking of adding auctions for the right to start a new company. A player can nominate a company and a par price; whoever then bids the most wins the right to buy the directors' certificate at that par price. I'd have to work out how this would sit with any additional fee for starting a company.
At one point I thought about charging a administrative fee every new company, but giving the owners of some private railways a fee waiver. I haven't revisited this idea until now; perhaps it is worth some reconsideration?
One promising approach is to be fairly conventional, by requiring 60% of a company's shares to be sold before it floats, limiting each player's holdings to 60% of a given company, and giving players enough starting cash to buy shares equal to 100% of a cheap company. This means that a player can start her own company and have enough cash left over to buy shares in other players' companies.
I was wondering whether I could encourage more cross-investment if I companies floated when 40% of their shares were floated. This would leave more player cash available to invest in other companies. This idea does immediately run into a flaw: if a player has enough cash to buy 80% of a company, she could start two companies instead of investing in other players' companies. I have worked out rules to balance the options of starting one company or two (including the potential for asset stripping), but these don't address the basic aim I am considering here.
In 1830-style games, of course, directors are forbidden from selling the directors certificate, and companies without a train must buy one. This combination ensures there is a risk involved in starting a second company. Britain under Steam doesn't have these restrictions, which removes much of the risk. This is intentional, as it also removes the risk of cross-investment, but perversely it also discourages cross-investment if players have the option of floating a second or third company instead.
I could add an administrative fee for starting a company, which would perhaps encourage players to buy existing shares instead. However, this might have the unintended consequence of making it too unprofitable to start a company at all, which would hardly be the desired behaviour!
A variant on that idea would be charge no administrative fee for a player's first company, introduce a fee for their second, and a higher fee still for their third. The cost could be based on the number of directorships that the player currently holds, or the number of companies they have floated since the start of the game.
Another take on this variant would be to deal the companies in order at the start of the game, then make the one at the head of the queue free to start and ones further along cost a small fee. This second version would restrict players more than I would like.
A different approach would be to limit players to holding a single directorship in the first phase of the game. As soon as phase three begins, this restriction would be lifted.
It's worth noting that in the advanced game, I'm thinking of adding auctions for the right to start a new company. A player can nominate a company and a par price; whoever then bids the most wins the right to buy the directors' certificate at that par price. I'd have to work out how this would sit with any additional fee for starting a company.
At one point I thought about charging a administrative fee every new company, but giving the owners of some private railways a fee waiver. I haven't revisited this idea until now; perhaps it is worth some reconsideration?
Sunday 6 June 2010
The Stock Market
I now have a first version of the 18GB stock market chart. It is a one-dimensional chart without ledges, which means that shares can always fall in value. I will have rules in place to stop mindless trashing of stock prices, but companies that are unpopular or not paying dividends will always fall in value.
The values on the chart are all multiples of 10, to allow my plan of dividing all values by 10 in the final version. Some values at the low end are repeated, so that companies gain value more slowly. In the middle of the chart, values increase by as much as 30 per step, falling back to 10 at the top of the chart (so that there should be incentive to sell expensive shares and make more money on cheaper ones). The top of the chart may be too high, given that companies will have to earn their current value in order for the price to increase. Playtesting will tell.
I'm thinking of using the same chart to record company income. This would require a more fine-grained track for those parts where value increases by more than 10 per step. One approach might be to subdivide those boxes on the chart, for the purposes of tracking income. Another approach would be to make the whole chart just have steps of 10, relying on the dividend rules to increase share prices more rapidly when companies earn 100 more than their current value. I'll probably go with the graphical option rather than changing the behaviour.
This is a small but significant step forward.
The values on the chart are all multiples of 10, to allow my plan of dividing all values by 10 in the final version. Some values at the low end are repeated, so that companies gain value more slowly. In the middle of the chart, values increase by as much as 30 per step, falling back to 10 at the top of the chart (so that there should be incentive to sell expensive shares and make more money on cheaper ones). The top of the chart may be too high, given that companies will have to earn their current value in order for the price to increase. Playtesting will tell.
I'm thinking of using the same chart to record company income. This would require a more fine-grained track for those parts where value increases by more than 10 per step. One approach might be to subdivide those boxes on the chart, for the purposes of tracking income. Another approach would be to make the whole chart just have steps of 10, relying on the dividend rules to increase share prices more rapidly when companies earn 100 more than their current value. I'll probably go with the graphical option rather than changing the behaviour.
This is a small but significant step forward.
Saturday 5 June 2010
Short selling
1817 has brought a new feature to the 18xx repertoire: short selling. (Actually, 1817 has several other new features too, but this is the most radical). The idea is that a player can sell a share in a company that he doesn't own. This puts the sold share in the open market and gives the player the corresponding cash from the bank. It also gives him a "short share", which he will have to redeem some time later.
A short share is an opposite of a share - a sort of anti-matter share or a negative share. If the company pays dividends, a player who owns a short share must pay that dividend to the company, instead of receiving it. If he is unfortunate to own the short share at the end of the game, it has negative value equal to the company's current value. At any point, the holder may buy back the short share, provided there is a matching ordinary share in the open market. At that point, the player pays the current cost of an ordinary share to the bank and both shares are removed from the game.
Short selling pays when a company is losing value. When you sell short, you receive the current value of the company. If the company loses value, you then buy back the ordinary share at a lower value, thus making a profit. If the company pays and dividend or increases in value, you make a loss. If there isn't a share in the open market to close the short share, you end up in more trouble.
In 1817, the effect of short selling a company is quite marked. It will drop one space on the stock market for each unsold ordinary share in the open market at the end of the stock round. So the company often takes loans in order to buy up the newly generated shares. Taking loans also depresses the price once per loan, but this tactic allows the company to pay dividends, receive some of the income itself, pay off the loans and regain some of the share price. This is a more complicated financial model than Britain Under Steam.
It might be possible to adopt a simpler version of this mechanism in Britain Under Steam (as an optional rule). A player could short sell a company in the same way, but the effect on the company would be much less. Its price wouldn't drop one space per unsold share, nor would the company be able to buy the shares. Other players might buy the new shares - even the Director could, if there is no limit on ownership when buying from the open market. So the timing of short selling would have to be well-judged.
An even simpler system would be to sell short imaginary shares, just receiving the short share in return. This would run the risk of having to pay dividends or of losing out if the share price increased, but would always be possible to sell.
It could be fun to try, anyway.
A short share is an opposite of a share - a sort of anti-matter share or a negative share. If the company pays dividends, a player who owns a short share must pay that dividend to the company, instead of receiving it. If he is unfortunate to own the short share at the end of the game, it has negative value equal to the company's current value. At any point, the holder may buy back the short share, provided there is a matching ordinary share in the open market. At that point, the player pays the current cost of an ordinary share to the bank and both shares are removed from the game.
Short selling pays when a company is losing value. When you sell short, you receive the current value of the company. If the company loses value, you then buy back the ordinary share at a lower value, thus making a profit. If the company pays and dividend or increases in value, you make a loss. If there isn't a share in the open market to close the short share, you end up in more trouble.
In 1817, the effect of short selling a company is quite marked. It will drop one space on the stock market for each unsold ordinary share in the open market at the end of the stock round. So the company often takes loans in order to buy up the newly generated shares. Taking loans also depresses the price once per loan, but this tactic allows the company to pay dividends, receive some of the income itself, pay off the loans and regain some of the share price. This is a more complicated financial model than Britain Under Steam.
It might be possible to adopt a simpler version of this mechanism in Britain Under Steam (as an optional rule). A player could short sell a company in the same way, but the effect on the company would be much less. Its price wouldn't drop one space per unsold share, nor would the company be able to buy the shares. Other players might buy the new shares - even the Director could, if there is no limit on ownership when buying from the open market. So the timing of short selling would have to be well-judged.
An even simpler system would be to sell short imaginary shares, just receiving the short share in return. This would run the risk of having to pay dividends or of losing out if the share price increased, but would always be possible to sell.
It could be fun to try, anyway.
Wednesday 2 June 2010
When companies fail
I've started to work on the stock market for Britain Under Steam. One question I hadn't thought of before is what special zones, if any, to add for low stock prices.
The classic example from 1829, 1830 and many descendants is the yellow zone. Shares of companies valued in this zone do not count against certificate limits. This encourages players to buy these cheap shares. It can also encourage a player to keep one company withholding income, so that it stays in this zone while transferring its wealth to the player's other companies.
1830 added a brown zone and an orange zone. When a company is valued in the orange zone, a player may own more than the usual 60% of the company. When valued in the brown zone, a player may buy any number of shares in that company in one turn. This allows for quick "refloatation" of a company. (I had to look these up, which suggests to me that 1830 has too many zones to remember easily).
Many 18xx games have a value below which companies go bankrupt and are removed from the game. 1860 is unusual in that bankrupt companies continue to exist and can be restarted, at slightly lower par prices than before. This allows companies to be recycled into the game.
1817 has a zone in which companies can be acquired by other companies.
In Britain Under Steam, I'm looking to have share prices £10 apart. This is different from many other 18xx games, which have smaller steps at the bottom of the market. It means that the bottom of the stock market could be reached quite quickly. (I could conceivably add extra rows at the same price to compensate). So I think I do want some penalty for reaching the bottom. However, I don't want companies to disappear from the game - the whole point of the game is to have companies moving up and down in price throughout.
My initial thought is to have companies automatically go into receivership at some point. I.e. players will lose their shares for no recompense. The receiver will run the company, eventually bringing it into shape for repurchase.
It will be interesting to see whether an 1860-like restart will be needed and/or useful. In 1860, the restart gives the company new capital (although it is not run in receivership in the interim). This may work better than the receivership option, but might it also encourage people to run companies into the ground?
I'm not sure whether to also have a yellow zone. I don't want to over-egg the benefits of continually withholding income in one company, but encouraging players to buy into cheap shares might be worthwhile. I definitely don't want a brown zone, as I want to encourage cross-investment.
There are lots of options to try. I think I'll start with a small yellow zone and automatic receivership at the bottom of the chart.
The classic example from 1829, 1830 and many descendants is the yellow zone. Shares of companies valued in this zone do not count against certificate limits. This encourages players to buy these cheap shares. It can also encourage a player to keep one company withholding income, so that it stays in this zone while transferring its wealth to the player's other companies.
1830 added a brown zone and an orange zone. When a company is valued in the orange zone, a player may own more than the usual 60% of the company. When valued in the brown zone, a player may buy any number of shares in that company in one turn. This allows for quick "refloatation" of a company. (I had to look these up, which suggests to me that 1830 has too many zones to remember easily).
Many 18xx games have a value below which companies go bankrupt and are removed from the game. 1860 is unusual in that bankrupt companies continue to exist and can be restarted, at slightly lower par prices than before. This allows companies to be recycled into the game.
1817 has a zone in which companies can be acquired by other companies.
In Britain Under Steam, I'm looking to have share prices £10 apart. This is different from many other 18xx games, which have smaller steps at the bottom of the market. It means that the bottom of the stock market could be reached quite quickly. (I could conceivably add extra rows at the same price to compensate). So I think I do want some penalty for reaching the bottom. However, I don't want companies to disappear from the game - the whole point of the game is to have companies moving up and down in price throughout.
My initial thought is to have companies automatically go into receivership at some point. I.e. players will lose their shares for no recompense. The receiver will run the company, eventually bringing it into shape for repurchase.
It will be interesting to see whether an 1860-like restart will be needed and/or useful. In 1860, the restart gives the company new capital (although it is not run in receivership in the interim). This may work better than the receivership option, but might it also encourage people to run companies into the ground?
I'm not sure whether to also have a yellow zone. I don't want to over-egg the benefits of continually withholding income in one company, but encouraging players to buy into cheap shares might be worthwhile. I definitely don't want a brown zone, as I want to encourage cross-investment.
There are lots of options to try. I think I'll start with a small yellow zone and automatic receivership at the bottom of the chart.
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