18GB vs. Britain Under Steam

Way back when I started this project, I stated that my aim was to produce a game in the mould of 1829, 1830 et al that will be popular with euro-gamers. What I currently have is more of a traditional 18xx game. I did get rid of paper money (or poker chips) by simplifying the system for distributed income, which is a step along the right path, and the game isn't too complicated by 18xx standards, but I doubt that it will appeal to Eurogamers.

I should say at this point that I'm happy with this situation. I think the game has the potential to be a good 18xx game, if I can find more time to refine it through playtesting. The point of this post is to speculate on how I could create a new game, based on the same ideas, that really did appeal to Eurogamers.

The first thing to do would be to have companies lay their track directly on the board, rather than using tiles. Coloured train markers would be good, similar to those in Ticket To Ride. I could either let companies lay them from hex to hex, or have predefined routes on the map on which the markers could be placed. This would get rid of the tiles and all the rules about tile placement. (I note that Poseidon has already embodied a similar approach, using round markers on a hex grid).

This change would produce a rail network more akin to those of crayon rail games. These are popular and easy to understand. They also take up less space, as you don't need table space for all the different tiles of an 18xx game, and the board itself can be smaller too. The network would behave differently from 18xx games, in which companies often share track, and I might need rules to govern junctions and other details, but it should still work.

On the financial side, I'd be inclined to remove the transition from 5-share to 10-share companies. Several possibilities arise, including only having 5-share companies or only having 10-share companies. Another intriguing idea would be to have 6-share companies, funded incrementally (i.e. with share purchases paid to the company), and dividing all income by the number of shares in play. So if one player has 2 shares of company and another has 1, the first will get 2/3 of the dividend and the second 1/3. If someone else buys a fourth share, the amount paid out will drop to 1/2 and 1/4.

In other parts of the game, I'd be tempted to simplify the rules for receivership. Companies without a train or a director would receive a fixed amount into their treasury each turn (increasing by phase), rather than having to lease a train. This is an optional rule for insolvency in 1860 and is simple to use. I'd probably also simplify the rules for private railways.

All in all, this is something to think about. From now on, I will use the name 18GB for my 18xx game, and reserve Britain Under Steam for this putative new game. Unfortunately, I barely have enough time to work on one game, let alone two!