More test games

We played two more three-player games in the last month.  Taking the hint from the December game, the rules now prevent trains from counting income multiple times from the same city. This works well.  We also tried a couple of different versions of the Insolvency rules and have reached what seems to be a good working set.

The main surprise in the last game was that only three companies became ten-share companies.  One player struggled to get his companies to the required £10 share value, hindered in part by the others selling some of this shares to depress the price.  My colleagues suggested that more trains in the mid-game might help boost income, although they would also take more cash out of the companies in the first place.  I may have to play about with some more spreadsheets.

It also occurs to me that perhaps the £10 price ledge isn't really needed.  Companies could convert at lower values and just receive less capital as a result.  I original added the ledge to restrict trashing, but I think the other rules in place should be sufficient.

I have made a few changes to the map and tiles.  Single-station cities now increase in value at the start of the green phase, which makes those companies that start in such cities more competitive.  It also makes the West Coast Main Line reach a potential 50 income.  The East Coast Main Line can still score more, which thanks to a tweak in the Stock Exchange means that companies can double-jump one step higher.

My players are getting used to wooden cubes as share tokens.  This is just as well, because I haven't had time to design, print and cut certificates.

One thing that didn't work was a trial with a simultaneous auction for the Private Railways.  What worked in 18NEB didn't work for our second game in 18GB.  All the players refused to buy the cheapest Private Railway until it dropped in price.  This in turn perturbed the starting cash so that we were able to start five companies in the first turn, which promptly messed up the flow of trains into the game.  So I've returned the system to auctioning one Private Railway at a time.  Possibly an 1830-style auction might work as well.

The design is definitely progressing.  It still needs more testing and tweaking.  It's all fun.