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If you have to use timers to enforce reasonable play time, I feel like the competition Scrabble approach might work. There, you have a 25-minute standard allotment, then take a -10 point penalty for every minute (or part thereof) that you use over the limit. Adjust points as necessary for different games. Additionally, you might choose a nonlinear function so that the penalty doesn't end up being too overly oppressing, e.g. -1VP for every two minutes to start, then -1VP every five minutes after ten minutes (-5VP).
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Mar 2, 2023 05:58
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PopZeus posted:Are there other games that have a final scoring twist like High Society? Specifically, that the player with the least money at the end is disqualified from winning regardless of their VPs. There’s such interesting tension in trying to spend to get the most points while not spending TOO much lest you just lose the whole game. Last week, I got Fit to Print in, and played it over the weekend. In the game, you are trying to create a newspaper by drawing and placing articles, photos, and ads, real-time Galaxy Trucker style. While you get victory points from articles and photos, advertisements only give your newspaper revenue. At the end of three rounds, however, if there is a singular player who has the least newspaper revenue, they are disqualified from winning, regardless of their victory point total. When we played, my friend got so mad when she realized that she was one dollar short from tying for last in revenue, and so could not win despite having eleven more points than any other player. Good times.
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Sep 19, 2023 22:55
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SelenicMartian posted:The Magic Realm of 18xx, Railways of the Lost Atlas, is coming eventually to annoy both camps. Honestly, after having gotten a play of my copy of Shikoku 1889 in a couple months ago as my first game in the 18xx series, I'm kind of excited about Railways of the Lost Atlas? A lot of that excitement stems from the fact that its mechanics are a vast contrast to the stylings of 1889, whilst also still being promoted as an entry-level game. When I was looking up other games in the series for what kinds of mechanical twists and variations they have, I was drawn to 1817 and 18USA for the mechanics of having companies 'grow up' from 2-share to 5-share then 10-share, and that you can 'build your own' company through the attachment of private companies. In 18USA, there's also randomization of elements like the high-value destinations and the private companies to add more variety. On the other hand, there are also shorting and loan mechanics that add complexity to the game, and their overall weight seems to be very high for the 18xx space. So on face value, it feels like Lost Atlas is kind of in the sweet spot for me in terms of 18xx mechanics I want to try playing with. I have reservations about the auction mechanic for starting new companies, but I really like how they have inherently unique properties. I'd been considering other commonly-suggested (relatively) low-overhead 18xx games like 1846 and 1861/67 to fit between Lost Atlas and 1889, but I don't know if they'd differentiate themselves enough from those other two games. It's also probably better to not overload the 18xx section of my collection without actually giving Lost Atlas a try and getting multiple plays of Shikoku 1889 in to build my general experience. (Though if there's one 18xx game that I have my eye on getting "just because", it might be 21Moon? The theme and variable setup is intriguing to me, though letting companies own shares in each other gives me a big question mark on how to approach the mechanic. I think that's a good thing, probably?)
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Feb 14, 2024 02:45
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Coincidentally, I was able to give my copy of 21Moon a spin last weekend, and it's a weird beast. You might want to take my thoughts with a grain of salt since I only have a total of two games of 18xx experience (the other being a game of Shikoku 1889). There are three major ways in which 21Moon distinguishes itself from 'standard' 18xx rules of play. (I'm gonna say a fixed turn count and partial capitalization are standard enough for the purposes of explanation.) First of all, there's some initial randomization of the board state in the values of revenue centers and the deferment of one corporation from being able to be started until the third stock round. So rather than there being different types of towns and cities or capitals, one resource type is fixed at the town-like 10 credits at all levels of hex, and one resource type decreases in value if its hex is upgraded. This provides the game some variety in replays, though one of the other players (who has the same amount of experience as me) wasn't too big on the "RNG" aspect of the game setup. Second, corporations get their own stock round (one per corporation, rather than cycling until all pass) after the players' stock rounds where they have the chance to issue shares for fundraising, as well as purchasing of certificates of other corporations (or their own from the bank pool). I didn't know what to make of this mechanic before playing, but there are ways of playing shenanigans here. For example, since it's also possible to swap a certificate between yourself and a corporation for which you are president in a stock round, you can use this mechanic to hold more than the standard 50% limit in an individual corporation. Third, each corporation has two revenue collection bases, and their transports (space trains) are split between the two. Revenue collected by trains operated from the space port are dividends, and revenue collected at the corporation's local base are withheld to its own treasury. So in one way, this makes the question of whether to withhold or pay dividends baked into a different part of the operational round. But the bigger twist is that the space port is a hex shared by all corporations. So there's a certain cooperative aspect as track laid out from the space port are clearly shared by all corporations. But competitively, there's a higher focus on how you want to use tokens to block opposing corporations. Combine this with 21Moon's tile manifest tending to be a bit limited in the number of tracks per hex or station slots, and there can be a lot of tactical grief in how tile lays shake out. I'm pretty happy with this being the second 18xx game in my collection, and it feels like a very good contrast to Shikoku 1889 and the upcoming Railways of the Lost Atlas. While I was initially drawn to the game due to its fixed turn limit forcing a controlled game length, I was kind of shocked how much the game's gimmicks / chrome affected the decision-making in the game. I like how substantial each of the private companies' abilities feels, and how the bonuses for connecting East to West maintains tension in tile lays up to the end of the game. I'm not that interested in longer 18xx experiences, so this might be where my collection will stand for a while, as long as I can keep getting good experiences with what I've got.
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Apr 3, 2024 08:51
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Tekopo posted:Does anyone have any experience with 21Moon? I’m playing through it and apart from the variable setup the gimmicks aren’t really doing it for me. I posted an overview / first impressions in this post, but I don't know how valuable that is, coming from an 18xx genre newcomer. It's certainly in my "want to play again" list, since I want to understand more about how the game's gimmicks can be used. Interestingly, the plays I've had on my copies of Shikoku 1889 and 21Moon have prompted others I've played with to get on board the 18xx train, where they've picked up their own titles. One person picked up the classic 1830, while another purchased 1880: China. While we haven't played 1830 yet, we played a very long four-player game of 1880. I don't think I was prepared for how much trouble we'd have with picking out the best routes for the X+x trains, or even the Express trains. With so many companies in the game, processing companies was kind of a slog towards the end of the game. It's kind of interesting that the plain track tiles only go up to green. There are other gimmicks like the mid-game market freeze, and bonus revenue depending on market position that I'm not really sure I have simple thoughts about. I'd definitely have to steel myself to play it again since it is such a long game to complete; my preferences so far continue to be on the relatively shorter end on the 18xx spectrum for the time being.
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Apr 28, 2024 02:48
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