Streamlining

Someone commented that I haven't given an update here for six months, which is a fair point.  We have been testing during that time and I have continued to tweak the design in response to feedback, so it’s reasonable to give an update now.  Some games have been proceeding online and they have been quite slow, which accounts for some of the delay, although the online experience has been useful in testing the clarity of the rules as well as the game itself so it has its advantages.  It is definitely time for an update or two.

Apart from one significant exception, I'd describe most of the changes as tweaks.  There have been a lot of them; almost every aspect of the game has been tweaked in some way, including the map and tiles, the train mix, the private railways, and advanced features like the characters.  This is “game development” rather than “game design” and as a newcomer to the design & development process I’m finding that development takes more time than the original design.

I addressed some of the concerns about players gaining too great an advantage too early by changing the value of green tiles. To counter the impact this had on company income in the mid-game, the 4+1 trains have become 4+2 trains instead; the increased income come less from the extra +1 per se and more from the fact that this allows trains to run longer routes.  The impact of stock sales on share prices has been simplified further, which again helps to pull back a leader.

The extra cost for the LNWR directorship has been replaced with a new Private Railway that requires the owner to start the LNWR and reserves that right to that player.  This fits more in the spirit of 18xx than the extra cost for a particular company.  The other private railways have been adjusted a bit to compensate. The special ability of the Midland Railway company has also been replaced by a more general change to the tile mix.

The rules for building track across hills have been simplified.  The cost of building across estuaries has been halved.  Various minor map changes have improved the game.

A recent change has been to remove the yellow 3-trains. This simplifies the train mix and speeds up the start of the game.  I am also changing the cost of yellow and green trains in order to balance the game start.

I removed the WW1 rules completely.  Although they worked, they added fiddlier route calculations to the end game, when I just want the game to be resolved quickly.  The only remaining reference to WW1 is the ability of one of the characters, who gets to run an extra train starting in Inverness with the ability to run through blocked-out stations, once per game, as an homage to the endeavours to ship arms and supplies to Scapa Flow in the north of Scotland.

I have also moved the characters back to being an optional extension, rather than the “advanced game”.  If you use this variant, there is now a random selection of characters to include in each game, adding to the variety, while the process for players to choose characters is simpler than before.  Some characters are more valuable than others and have a small upfront cost.  Most have been tweaked for balance and playability purposes.

Overall, these changes have made the game smoother and more balanced.  Game development is a slow process but the game is better as a result.