End game

Since my playtests in the summer, I've been thinking about how a game of 18GB should end.  It doesn't use paper money or chips so the traditional 18xx end of breaking the bank doesn't apply (at least, not easily).  Until now, the game ended three operating rounds after the purchase of the first 6X train - a mechanism borrowed from 1861 and 1817.  As I reported from the Manorcon playtests, this ended the game too quickly, and although the Manorcon games were speeded up by the inclusion of optional trains, my local group have also suggested that they would like more opportunity to get more than one permanent train into their companies.

At first, I thought I'd just make the game end when all trains had been purchased or removed.  18GB has a rule that if no companies buy a train during a round, then the topmost unsold train is removed from play, thus forcing the trains to gradually come out even if no-one buys them.  So eventually all the trains will disappear and the game would end.  On reflection, I realised that this change would mean that when a company buys a train of the final type, it would bring the end of the game one round closer, which would be a disincentive to buying the train in the first place because the train might have less time in which to earn income.

Ian D Wilson suggested that the game end when any company's share price reaches the top of the stock market.  This condition is used in several 18xx games as an alternative ending to breaking the bank and I have added it as an alternative to 18GB.  Should I try it as the only one?  Would a company that withholds income to buy a train catch up with the leader by jumping multiple spaces on the stock market?  It is possible but I don't feel confident enough to make this the only ending.

Instead, I've replaced the previous rule with one that ends the game the third time that a 6X train is removed.  In other words, at the end of the third round in which a 6X is available and no company buys it.  That way, if a company does buy a 6X train, the game is extended for another round.  I am presuming that eventually no company will have the cash or that the players will judge that there are insufficient rounds left in the game to make buying a train worthwhile.  I'll have to try this in practice and see whether it works.