The map and tiles for 18GB were, I thought, pretty much settled. The interesting problems lay in the cash flow and train mix. But recently I played a game of 1830 – not something I do often – and I was struck by the tight tile set and the impact that a few key hexes had on the routes available. So I thought a bit and decided to add three double-town hexes to the 18GB map.
The beauty of these hexes lies precisely in that there are only three of them and the supply of tiles is strictly limited. This means that players may be in competition for the particular tile they desire. So by adding these hexes, I have added an extra element of player interaction and competition.
By comparison, the single-town hexes, plain hexes and most city hexes are more numerous. Therefore they have more tiles available and the element of competition is not so great. The exception is the four major cities – Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and Glasgow, which have similarly tight tile sets.
I’ve taken this opportunity to change the single-town tiles as well. Previously, the green tiles had four prongs (K, X, or peace-sign). Now they only have three (doglegs and Y), thus making tighter track development. This wouldn’t have worked before because the three hexes that are now double towns really need crossing track. It will be interesting to see whether how this change affects the game – it may make it too hard to build intersecting track, which would potentially reduce player interaction rather than enhancing it.
Wednesday 17 August 2011
Saturday 13 August 2011
Converting to Ten-Share Companies
A fair amount of my recent testing has looked at the process of converting companies from five shares to ten shares. Converting gives the company more capital, more station markers and a higher train limit, but halves the income from each share. So the director has to make a trade off between owning a more effective company or keeping a higher percentage of a company’s shares. The questions are, how this should affect the share price, and how much money should it give the company.
At first, I halved the company’s share price when it converted, reflecting the fact that each share now represented 10% of the company’s value instead of the 20% it did previously. This didn’t work in practice. It made the shares too cheap to buy and their value quickly increased thanks to the multiple jumps from a high dividend. Players ended the game with too much cash that they couldn’t spend. Also, the company didn’t get much extra cash from the halved share price, which made converting less worthwhile.
So I looked at what happened if the company’s share price is unchanged by conversion. With this approach, the number and cost of shares available works out much better. However, this also gives more money to the company, to the extent that it seems too easy to buy the expensive trains and even have a little left over for tokens. I could increase the cost of trains to compensate, but this would effectively eliminate the option of withholding income instead of converting.
One option would be to make the money coming into the company be set by its original, initial, share price instead of the share price at the time of conversion. This is what 1880 does. However, this would remove a trade-off. As things stand, a director has the choice on the one hand of converting early, to gain markers and key routes, and on the other hand of converting late, to get more money into the treasury. I like to have more decisions in the game and having a fixed amount of money arising from conversion would shift the decision towards converting early.
Currently I am experimenting with dropping the share price by two spaces when a company converts. This reduces the amount of money it receives and inflicts some cost on the director’s share value. In the first run through, this seemed to work OK. I'll do a few more tests and see how it goes.
At first, I halved the company’s share price when it converted, reflecting the fact that each share now represented 10% of the company’s value instead of the 20% it did previously. This didn’t work in practice. It made the shares too cheap to buy and their value quickly increased thanks to the multiple jumps from a high dividend. Players ended the game with too much cash that they couldn’t spend. Also, the company didn’t get much extra cash from the halved share price, which made converting less worthwhile.
So I looked at what happened if the company’s share price is unchanged by conversion. With this approach, the number and cost of shares available works out much better. However, this also gives more money to the company, to the extent that it seems too easy to buy the expensive trains and even have a little left over for tokens. I could increase the cost of trains to compensate, but this would effectively eliminate the option of withholding income instead of converting.
One option would be to make the money coming into the company be set by its original, initial, share price instead of the share price at the time of conversion. This is what 1880 does. However, this would remove a trade-off. As things stand, a director has the choice on the one hand of converting early, to gain markers and key routes, and on the other hand of converting late, to get more money into the treasury. I like to have more decisions in the game and having a fixed amount of money arising from conversion would shift the decision towards converting early.
Currently I am experimenting with dropping the share price by two spaces when a company converts. This reduces the amount of money it receives and inflicts some cost on the director’s share value. In the first run through, this seemed to work OK. I'll do a few more tests and see how it goes.
Wednesday 10 August 2011
Trains and Asset Stripping
When I last discussed asset stripping on this blog, I listed several possible rules that might contribute to a balanced game. Since then, I have tried various combinations of these rules in solo games and spreadsheet simulations. It's now time for a review.
I've decided that the key problem is when a company in receivership collects enough money to buy a new large train near the end of the game. The company probably won't cost much, so the player with the priority can buy this company, strip the new train from it, and dump the company for little or no cost. This gives a huge advantage to that player. You could say that players have to assess the situation and juggle the priority accordingly, but I suspect that the effect is too large.
To counter this, I have adopted the rule that works well in 1860. A company may not buy another company's last train, unless it has no trains itself. So if a company in receivership buys a train, another company can't asset strip it. A player can buy a company that has accumulated money in its treasury and buy a train from one of his existing companies, in order to get an injection of cash, so there is still some judgement required about how long to leave a company in receivership, but you also need trains to sell.
When I first tried this rule, I found that it limited train shuffling in the early and middle game more than I wanted. Since then, I have reduced the cost of individual trains (to nearer the norm of other 18xx games) and made a few other changes that seem to have resolved this problem.
Other rules that work well are that shares of a company with no trains are sold for half price (another rule from 1860) and that the director's certificate is also sold for the value of one share rather than two. (It is not permitted to "make change" for selling the director's certificate).
One rule that didn't work was to require new companies to buy their first train from the bank. This restricted players' options too much.
In the blog post referenced above, I suggested dropping a company's share price if it bought a company for more than full price, or if it sold it for less than half price. In practice I kept forgetting to do this and it made the calculation of train value too fiddly. Then I tried restricting the sale price to between half and double price. The half price restriction was too restrictive but I might keep the upper limit. I have also experimented with simply dropping a company's share price every time it sells a train, which is easier to remember, but I'm not convinced this is worthwhile.
I think I've reached a workable set of rules in this regard. Much more playtesting will be required.
I've decided that the key problem is when a company in receivership collects enough money to buy a new large train near the end of the game. The company probably won't cost much, so the player with the priority can buy this company, strip the new train from it, and dump the company for little or no cost. This gives a huge advantage to that player. You could say that players have to assess the situation and juggle the priority accordingly, but I suspect that the effect is too large.
To counter this, I have adopted the rule that works well in 1860. A company may not buy another company's last train, unless it has no trains itself. So if a company in receivership buys a train, another company can't asset strip it. A player can buy a company that has accumulated money in its treasury and buy a train from one of his existing companies, in order to get an injection of cash, so there is still some judgement required about how long to leave a company in receivership, but you also need trains to sell.
When I first tried this rule, I found that it limited train shuffling in the early and middle game more than I wanted. Since then, I have reduced the cost of individual trains (to nearer the norm of other 18xx games) and made a few other changes that seem to have resolved this problem.
Other rules that work well are that shares of a company with no trains are sold for half price (another rule from 1860) and that the director's certificate is also sold for the value of one share rather than two. (It is not permitted to "make change" for selling the director's certificate).
One rule that didn't work was to require new companies to buy their first train from the bank. This restricted players' options too much.
In the blog post referenced above, I suggested dropping a company's share price if it bought a company for more than full price, or if it sold it for less than half price. In practice I kept forgetting to do this and it made the calculation of train value too fiddly. Then I tried restricting the sale price to between half and double price. The half price restriction was too restrictive but I might keep the upper limit. I have also experimented with simply dropping a company's share price every time it sells a train, which is easier to remember, but I'm not convinced this is worthwhile.
I think I've reached a workable set of rules in this regard. Much more playtesting will be required.
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