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.