Orange paper tactics

An interesting point arose during a game at Tringcon last weekend.  When a stock falls into the lowest-valued part of the stock market, the shares of that company count as only half a certificate against the players' certificate limit.  This gives an incentive to buy lower-valued shares.  A similar feature exists in several other 18xx games (as discussed in a very old post on this blog).  In some of these games, it is a valid strategy to keep stock in this zone.  This is sometimes called a "yellow paper" strategy.  In 18GB, the zone is coloured orange, hence the title of this post.

The difficulty with this tactic in 18GB is that companies jump multiple spaces on the stock market when their income exceeds a multiple of their stock price (to a maximum of four spaces).  The price of stock in the orange zone is so low that a four-space jump is almost certain. A jump of this size will take the company out of the orange zone and so the shares will now count a normal against the player's certificate limit and he or she will have to sell some shares.  This isn't necessarily a bad thing but it does mean that an "orange paper" tactic is only temporary.

The playtesters at Tringcon felt that this was a lack in the game.  One suggested that I add an extra space on the stock market so that a share in the very lowest space would not exit the orange zone in one move.  But I think that would be tinkering at the edges of the design; it would only have an effect when a company's share price was in that one space on the market.

Instead, if we want to give more longevity to this tactic, a better change would be to make stock prices in the orange zone only ever increase one space per move.  Then players could buy such stock in the knowledge that although the price wouldn't increase immediately, they would get payout for potentially longer.

The main reason I'm not rushing to implement this is just that it doesn't feel right.  Why should low-valued stock not increase in price once it starts paying decent dividends?

One player also noted that in other 18xx games, stock in this zone doesn't count against certificate limits at all, and that our game was so close that this difference would have let him win.  The argument about winning works both ways, of course; the actual winner might feel aggrieved if the rules were changed for that reason alone.

From my point of view, I'm happy to explore changes that remove a difference between 18xx and other games.  The reason for the current rule is discussed in this post but I can think of a different way of avoiding the problem described therein: I can rule that sales of stock never drop a company's share price into the orange zone. Given this protection against the old problem, I may well change the rules back so that stock in the orange zone does not count towards certificate limits.