If you contacted me to be part of the playtesting and I haven’t sent you the download instructions, please comment below. I don’t think I missed anyone…

JC, are you wanting feedback on the rules as well, or just the gameplay? Just want to know if you want proofreading of the documents or not, which I’m happy to do if you like, as I get time to go through them.

Admin note: The following questions were sent in email with the statement that he had a problem posting them as a comment:

Question 1.

Regarding definition of bank pool. In the rules the bank pool is defined as being comprised of both the shares on the company’s treasury area as well as “unsold shares by the side of the map”.

Later in Section 5.3.3 – Capitalize, it reads “player selects a share of an available company from the bank pool or a share from their own holdings”. I had assumed because of there being 3 spaces for shares on the board, that there had to be a share available in one of those three spots for it to be available for capitalization. But as the bank pool definition includes shares beside the map (merger shares?). So what I want to clarify is whether you can continue to capitalize shares in the company when there are none in the three slots on the map?

Question 2.

Are we generally meant to use cubes as shares in this game? It seems with the square spots on the board that this is the idea. I was going to order a bunch of cubes as companies, but I would think I’d need 10 different distinct colours which might be harder to get. But then I recalled that in the rules you mentioned rarely needing more than 5 or 6 colours of felt marker. Is this because as the game plays out, it is rare that a long number of companies can possibly exist without having been merged along the way? It will be easier to scrape up 6 good distinctly coloured cubes. I’m curious to hear more about what you use…you mentioned something about glass bits? Can you elaborate?

Rules, gameplay, everything. Caveat: Yes, I know there are no examples.

Good catch. I’ll fix the bank pool definition. Every company in Muck & Brass has only 3 shares. The three shares that are put in the Bank Pool during setup are the only shares which may be Capitalised. Note that bank pool shares are used first during mergers.

The map is drawn to make using cubes as shares easy. It is what I do here. 1 centimetre cubes are readily available from educational supply stores, typically for ~14 for 100 cubes in each of 10 colours. Or, instead, you might use glass blobs from your local craft store (they look like glass marbles that melted a bit, ~$3 per bag of ~50). That’s what I used to use. If that’s not attractive, further down the blog are links to PDFs you can print out for the shares. If another solution would work better for y’all and I can accommodate it easily enough please pipe up. I’m easy.

Due to the two-sold-to-float requirement of secondary companies and the fact that several of the secondary companies start in locations that are very likely to be linked by track before they float (thus instantly merging as soon as they float), it is common to need 7-8 different colours of shares, but only 5-6 colours of track at a time in the game.

Site is back!

Hi JC. Thanks for the reply. I thought that might be the case about shares.

Do you find that having only 10 share cubes of each colour is adequate? I am going to be putting an order in to boardgamebits in the next few days to get all of the parts I will need to play M&B. I am planning to use 1x1cm octagonal cylinders as the player order/time markers (think Puerto Rico’s goods barrels). They seem like they would fit the track well and also stand out nicely from the share cubes. As for the share cubes for each company. I figured having 30 share cubes for each company made sense, but I guess 30 shares is an absolute maximum possible number of shares which could be issued, which would presumably require a lot of unlikely things to occur to necessitate this. So in practice, if you are using 10 cubes of each colour, do you ever have issues of cube shortages and having to makeshift some extra shares through a few games? Or does this really prove to be enough in all of your plays?

Also, I am curious about the way you chose to implement the tracking of available actions. Why did you choose to place markers on the board and then have players “take” actions by physically taking one of the available markers from the board? Why not just have 1 cube for each action type and slide them along the track like in Wabash? Is there a particular reason you chose to handle it this way? It seems to me it just needlessly increases your production costs (but I have missed something in my initial browse through the rules on the bus last night).

No, 10 shares per company is not enough. It isn’t unusual for a company to have more than 20 shares issued at the end of the game as a result of mergers. High teens of shares in a company is quite common in the late game. Something like this (Centimeter Cubes – Set of 500) is ideal for use with Muck & Brass as shares, action markers, etc. They’re also exactly what I use, though from a different manufacturer

There’s not a lot of reason to have markers removed rather than moving a sliding cube. They both work. A small and unnecessary habit we have here is that players put the action markers they use on their player action track as they use them. This way time costs can be trivially checked and audited at any time. But that’s merely a point of protocol. Just moving a counter along the track would work just as well for the game. Please feel free to setup your games and play it the way you find more natural in this regard.

Ohh, and I had the idea at one point of having action markers of physically varying lengths, thus a Develop action market would be a cube, an Expand marker would be twice as long and and a Capitalise marker would be thrice as long. That way players wouldn’t need markers on their action tracks, they’d merely accumulate the markers for the actions they used and look to see where the end of their stack reached. In truth however it matters little. You could also just toss the whole idea of action markers and cross off the squares with a pen as you use the actions, wiping the tracks free as each new round starts. That would also work well.

Thanks for the info. I was looking at wooden cubes from bgb, but the cost for getting all the possibly needed cubes can get very high. I might get one of those buckets because of the great price. Pain me though it will to use plastic, I just can’t justify spending nearly $50 to get loads of wooden cubes for a proto. :)

Something I like about Wabash (I only use it as a frequent example because I’ve played few other games even in this realm) is that any time there’s a question about whether a company’s income was moved up correctly, one can always simply trace the route of that company on the map to come up with the correct income (similarly in Muck & Brass). So after reading your explanation about the action markers, I actually really like the idea. I have found that there are occasions where someone will auction a share or use an expand or something and then we’ll all look at each other trying to remember if he remembered to move the dial already. Trying to think back to figure out all of the actions taken since the last payout is trying and not reliable, so your method of taking a marker from a pool eliminates that (assuming we can train everyone to always physically TAKE the marker before executing the action, which I think is easy enough to enforce).

Now I have another question about the rules. Specifically, I am trying to figure out if something has been missed on the subject of foreign shipping ports. If I understand it correctly, this is how they work:

After the 3rd general dividend, a player with a share in a company whose route connects to a city adjacent to a foreign port may choose the expand action and then choose to connect said company to said foreign port. The company pays the cost shown on the map. The company then pays out a dividend for each share to the appropriate holders in the same way it would calculate for a general dividend. After this, the foreign port is crossed off with a pen (or covered with a route marker in the conceptualized final version). The company income is not affected by this action.

Is the “special dividend” (I assume special refers only to the fact that it’s exclusive to the company and there’s no other special factor?) the only incentive to building to a foreign port? There are no other effects to this connection?

Now, I may have missed something in the rules, but I cannot seem to find an explanation for why Liverpool and London have multiple foreign port values listed. Does this mean that these cities each have access to three separate foreign ports? If that’s the case, then presumably the incentive is to be the first company to connect to the port so that the cost is the cheapest. Furthermore, if that’s the case, can a single company build all three of the foreign ports in a given city if no other company tries to get in on them?

Your summary of foreign port builds and dividends etc is correct, but don’t forget to also Capitalise a share from an unfloated company. The special dividend is only special because it is limited to that one company. Effectively it is an analogue to the Chicago Dividend in Wabash Cannonball.

The primary functions of a foreign port build are several-fold.

• It pays money to the players (which may allow a player low in the turn order to have more cash than those later in the turn order)
• It impoverishes the company (can be important WRT to mergers, incentives, future capitalisations, treasury agglomerations etc)
• It forces a share of a non-floated company to be Capitalised (can be important for control of game length)
• etc.

London and Liverpool have multiple ports. There’s no explanation, they just do. (An earlier revision of the board had many more port spaces scattered all about at the traditional habour points — I removed more than half of them) The ports may be built in any order by any companies already connected to their adjacent cities once past the third General Dividend. I’ll add a sentence to the rules in this regard for the multiple ports cases. If the company has enough cash it could even build them all over a number of turns. It is potentially possible though incredibly expensive!

There are severe opportunity costs and advantages for port builds versus mergers. I’ll leave you to discover the reasons that ports may be preferred to mergers or other action choices and why a more expensive port may be preferentially built instead of a cheaper port. There’s a rather intricate dance in there and in the share then selected to be Capitalised (as well as who wins it and for how much).

Okay, that’s pretty much what I assumed from what I read, but I hate to assume things and find out I’m doing it wrong (like paying out general dividents in chicago express before the player takes the action which caused the second red turn dial!)

Now the final thing I can possibly think of that I haven’t covered about the rules is just to confirm the order of your directions with relation to mergers, as it would be have a very different effect if the order were not exactly as written.

When companies merge as a result of one company expanding its route into the home city of another active company (after the 3rd dividend), the rules say that the very first step to take is to pay out a special dividend to the acquiring company. On the other hand, when companies merge as a result of a new company floating and assimilating companies already connected to its track, the rules clearly state to execute the merger first and THEN pay out a special dividend to holders of shares in the resulting merged company.

So, is the order in which the payouts are done in each situation intended and in the former case of merging an active company by building into its home city, the payout should happen prior to the new income being added (and as such, the payout will only benefit shareholders of the acquiring company and not those of the acquired company).

The merger instruction orders are strictly different for the two cases and have the limits you discuss. This is deliberate and does a lot to differentiate the LNWR, NER and sometimes the GWR from the CR, SWR and sometimes the GWR. Yeah, the GWR is flexible like that — actually, frankly, the GWR is just weird.

Again, don’t forget to Capitalise a share from an unfloated company after a merger. Like the Capitalisation from port builds, this does cost 3 months for the winning player but does not require a Capitalise action to be still available.

By the bye, the big argument is whether there should be a link between Southampton and Portsmouth. In reality the connection is far from direct as there’s a big lump of water and bad terrain in the way. In game terms it makes the LB&SCR a little more vulnerable than I’m comfortable with and removes more than a bit of the positional differentiation of the GWR, and I like the positional subtlety of the the GWR even it most players don’t seem to catch onto it..

There’s a faintly similar argument surrounding the absence of a Peterborough/Luton link and by extrapolation from there a Luton/Oxford link, though this has more to do with the positional differentiation and power of the L&MR and L&SR against the trio of southern companies (EUR, LB&SCR and BGR) along with some side-effects relating to the positional strength and accesses granted by the NER versus the LNWR (and thus by implication the SWR). Gahh! (Sometimes I think Peterborough is just too important — but just sometimes)

Comments and thoughts on this area are welcome. I think the current connection network is about right but I’m always open to argument. That said, the bits I suspect are mostly likely to change are the port costs. They’re roughly right by rule of thumb, gut sense and they-worked-in-our-games-validation but I’d like something a little more formal for their set costs.

Hey J C. I finished going through the rule book a day or two ago and hadn’t gotten around to posting my notes, so now there’s no one interested in gaming at lunch at the office today, so that affords me the opportunity to finally post all of this feedback. Note that most of it is simply typographical stuff, and then a few notes I put down about statements that could maybe be re-worded to ensure no assumptions need to be made about the rules (like the aforementioned multiple port spaces in some cities). So, without further ado, here’s the whole gamut of notes I put down on the printed copy:

Section 1 “Introduction”, Paragraph 2:

“Once invested, the players will…” (missing comma)

Section 3 “Definitions”:

“Bank Pool” – clear up this definition as I already noted about (shares beside the board are not part of the bank pool)

Section 3 “Definitions”, subsection “Home Station”:

The second sentence: “Connecting to an company’s home station…“

Section 5.1 “Game Start”, Bullet No. 5:

“…EUR – Eastern Union Railway (see 5.3.1 Capitalise).” (Should be 5.3.3)

Section 5.2 “Player turn order”:

“In the case of a tie for cash, preserve the…” (Missing comma)

Section 5.2 “Player turn order”:

“order the tied players in clockwise order from the player the player that started started the initial auction.“

Section 5.3 “Actions”, Paragraph 1:

“On their turn, the active player must select and do an available action.” – (Missing comma. Also, just confirming that the specific language is intended…that the player MUST DO the action, unlike in Wabash)

Section 5.3.3 “Capitalise”, Paragraph 2:

“When all players have passed, the player with…” (Missing comma)

Section 5.5 “Mergers”:

Step 2 instructs us to “Add the route markers for the acquired companies to the acquiring company’s route markers“. Step 5, however, states that “All shares, route markers and the income marker” are discarded from the game. I know this matters not for play testing, but the language is conflicting.

Step 6 instructs play testers to replace the share marker on the acquired company’s home station with a share marker of the acquiring company. Shouldn’t this rule be standard? I assume in the end version, this step would still be done would it not? Also, perhaps “station” should read “station(s)” just to clarify that in the case of a merged company with multiple stations, all stations should be replaced, right?

The second portion of 5.5 “Mergers” which deals with floated company mergers, the same conflicted language exists regarding route markers. Also the same notes about the home station markers stand for this section. Perhaps the first note should read to “Replace the acquired company’s route markers with those of the acquiring company” or something? (Assuming that’s what would happen with physical route markers)

Section 5.6 “Merger & Port Capitalisation”:

The end of the first paragraph states that if there are no un-opened companies to capitalise, the active player must capitalise a share in the bank pool or one of their own shares. Just confirming the intent of your language again. If there are no bank pool shares available, is it actually compulsory for the active player to auction their own shares??

That’s everything!

I’ve put in an order today for a bucket of plastic cubes and 8 dry erase markers to match. So, within a week or two I should finally be able to get a good 4p play test going. Thanks for your time on this, I’m very excited to introduce it to the group.

J C, would you say that Muck & Brass is playable as a 2-player game or is it basically just an exercise to learn the game as with Wabash?

Admin note: Comment copied from the Mucho Duo posting.

Commas and odd language items: Fixed. Thanks. I tend to oscillate with commas between too many and too few. I guess I’m in my too few phase.

The track marker bit is annoying. I had that fixed. I must have hit too many undos during one of the earlier editing sessions. The current text is:

• Add the route markers for the acquired companies to the acquiring company’s route markers.
• Player’s shares in the acquired company are replaced 1:1 with shares from the new parent company, starting with bank pool shares and using merger shares as needed
• The acquired company’s income is added to the acquiring company’s income and the acquired company’s marker is removed from the income track
• All shares and the income marker for the acquired company are discarded from the game

I’ve also touched the Expand section to note that multiple colours may be present.

Background reasoning: From a human factors perspective it is most clear to simply replace all the route markers for the acquired companies with the route markers for the acquiring company. The problem with this are two. It is notably fiddly and it requires every one of the 10 companies to have ~75 route markers in case they emerge as the company on top (750+ across 10 companies) and that’s rather expensive and bulky. Thus the recent rewording to simply agglomerate the route markers along with the merger.

If/when the game is published I expect the home stations of the companies to be coloured to match their route markers and shares. Thus placing a share atop their home stations doesn’t matter so much any more. Yeah, it might be a convenience for visualising the spread of a merged company, but I’m not sure it is important any more in that case given that their track supplies have now clearly merged.

Yes, actions are compulsory in Muck & Brass, like Pampas Railroads and unlike Wabash Cannonball.

Yes, in the event that a player builds a port or merges a company and all 10 companies have floated and there are no bank pool shares left, they must auction one of their own shares. This is deliberate, seemingly rather punitive in nature but is frankly both irrelevant and incredibly unlikely. There is a nasty hole which could theoretically form in the very late game of a very odd game which that rule mostly closes.

Long term I’m not entirely sure that the 2 player game works as it is likely to have the same problems that Wabash Cannonball has with two players: the game focus simply moves too heavily to the zero sum aspects of the game, the zero sum aspects are not overly interesting in themselves, and it is awfully hard to recover from any gap in Muck & Brass with sharp players. That said, the balance and flow of actions and choices across the action track is sufficiently subtle that all our 2 player games have been both challenging and close.

All faults aside, 2 player Muck & Brass does provide a richer and longer-lived learning ground than 2 player Wabash Cannonball.

Oh, and you really don’t want dry-erase pens. They stain. Get wet-erase pens. They are readily available at most office supply stores. Most wet-erase pen clean up perfectly with a little water. Another choice is china pencils, usually available from cooking supply stores.

Thanks for the comments, J C. WRT dry-erase pens, I actually purchased some overhead projecter pens (wet erase, I guess) and tried them out (I’m using a sheet of mylar over the board) and found that they took quite a bit of vigorous wiping to remove the ink (dry) and even still some colour was left behind without serious rubbing. My immediate thought was that I must have been better off to get dry-erase because when having to erase a small piece of track between other claimed bits of track, I wouldn’t want to be having a great labour of removing the lines and mucking everything up. I assumed dry-erase would come off very easily and would be better for this use. I hadn’t considered the possibility of dry-erase staining the mylar…so I may end up having to stick with the other markers and hopefully a moist towelette will solve the concerns of erasing during a game.

Also, WRT the idea of amalgamating the route markers of different colours (You would know better than I, but my obvious concern would be that players may not visualize the routes correctly without referring to the side of the board frequently to recall which colours are actually a single line. Your concerns of the high cost of too many parts are obviously very important, because shipping the game with 300 share cubes and 750 route markers would make it a costly endeavor to be certain!

Have you put any thought into printing the game map on a thin sheet (instead of a firm board) and laminating it and shipping it with the caveat that players must acquire a box of crayons or markers to use as the routes? I am not sure it’s better, of course, but just an idea. You could keep the cost very low by not having to factor route markers into it at all and I wouldn’t imagine the types of players who gravitate to these games would care one way or the other how they put routes on the map.

Wet-erase pens specifically need some water. Without water, cleaning up is quite hard, as you noticed!

Yeah, there’s a trade-off between visualisation and economy. I fear none of the answers are good. Here we just unify on the darkest of the colours of the merging companies and scribble over the previous company’s track with that colour to make everything consistent.

I’ve had a host of ideas on how the game may be presented in published form. Mostly I’ve thought that I really really don’t want to be involved in satisfaction (ie shipping, customer service etc) of orders. I learned that lesson with the Winsome reprints etc. Hopefully I can get someone else to publish it or otherwise do all the dirty work.

Hi JC,

I haven’t gotten an email with download instructions. Any chance I can get them?

-Tim

Yep, I’ll get instructions out to you in a bit.

1. AoS Denmark’s link improvement is poorly explained: you fail to mention that the minimum improvement is one link, which is only inferable by the example. (The minimum link level not yet attained by all other players may be less than your current level, which would imply you cannot improve your links.)

2. I approve of your use of LaTeX for rule writing. In Muck & Brass’s rules there’s a label error in the \ref{} command in 5.1 in the line referencing the Auction of the EUR share. (If you’re not using \ref{}, why not?)

3. Somewhere early in the rules you have to state where to find the values for cities: the def’ns section or in the expansion section (5.3.1) are the obvious places: increasing the company income by the value of both ends of the link is all well and good, but I shouldn’t have to go hunting to find out where to find that out. I realise it’s printed right on the map, but you have to say that so that the rules can stand alone.

4. What’s the game-balance reason behind Special dividend for merging being first if from an expansion but last if from a new company floating?

5. Sorting alpha-by-first-name is a bit odd in your acknowledgments section.

6. Can I get the playtest files for M&B? I can’t promise useful playtest reports due to moving in the near future, but I’ll see what I can do. (Sim. AoS Denmark, but I think that’s closer to production.)

Devin:

1. Fixed. Thanks.
2. Yep, LaTeX is wonderful. I use \ref{}s. Ooops. Fixed and new rules posted.
3. Please see the new rules. I added a comment on the city values. Better?
4. More below.
5. True. Laziness. I had to pick some order.
6. Instructions sent.

Mergers versus ports in Muck & Brass are tricky and I suspect that will cause most of the confusion among players. In particular they won’t understand when ports are preferable to mergers and visa-versa. It is pretty wonky.

The main reason behind the difference between a caused-connection merger an an already-connected merger is to give player’s choice and the potential for differentiation. In an earlier edition of the rules the player could choose which company paid the Special Dividend in a caused-connection merger. That was a little too much choice. The current split allows the two types of mergers to partially parallel the differentiation between ports and mergers, especially as regards aggregation of company treasuries and the potential later distribution of that treasury to the players at game-end (there’s no parallel to the ability of a port to impoverish a treasury).

Consider for instance the CR. Let’s say that the first share previously sold to you and that you are now considering capitalising the second. How much is it worth? How much is it worth if it builds Edinburgh/Sunderland, Edinburgh/Carlisle and Carlisle/Glasgow? Why might you build those three connections rather than running the CR headlong into either Liverpool or York? Let’s say you get those three connections built and now one of the other players capitalises the third share. How much is it worth to you? How much is it worth to ensure that another player doesn’t get it? Note that both the CR’s nearby ports are cheap. If you were also majority shareholder in the ur-L&MR/L&SR, would those values and thus decisions change?

Inital play, five players:

• Me, (Experimental Quantum Optician)
• Bill, an experienced gamer incl. various winsome titles (Quantum Computer Scientist)
• Ian, the host, with 1k board games. (Technical Consultant)
• Jen, still trying to get her head around wabash cannonball. Been gaming for years, played 18xx with me back when we both lived in Kingston (Experimental Quantum Computing)
• Bobby, the new guy. Don’t know anything about him.

Game flow: the inital shares sold for 20, 20, 20, 26, and 20 (I was the second one and immediately regretted it as I was late in the random ordering, grr) One share each.

In the first round Ian took the LB&SCR to london, Bill took the B&G to london, as did Bobby the EUR. The L&S and L&M both expanded to the nearby hexes, vaguely threatening each other

QUERY: it is intended that hex-cities cannot be developed until afterthe first time London gets bumped?

Three shares were capitalized in this round, the B&G, L&S and L&M All went for 16. Bill and I wound up with exactly the same portfolio and COH, which was a bit unfortunate as we also wound up with low cash for the next while. I think that none of these Auctions were won by the person whose turn it was: getting multiple turns in a row seems odd. Bobby came out of this like clover, having spent a bunch of time developing track for the EUR and getting handed the last of the shares on a platter.

In the second OR there was a giant “we like money” phase and the companies spread across the map until they all ran low on money. This OR both the LB&SCR and L&S went to Sheffield, later triggering the emergence of the Ur-company. I had planned on dragging the L&M along with this, but some clever track building fenced the L&M off until very late: it never did get sucked in. At some point in this round someone threw a share of the EUR at Jen. After this dividend Ian was strictly dominated by Bobby: unfortunate for him. He wasn’t sure what to do about it and was basically out of the game after this point.

In the third OR bill and I wound up low-money again, he still ahead of me on the inital tiebreaker. Bill decided that he wanted some shares, damnit, and given that the money spread was only a couple of quid this seemed not insane at the time: however, this didn’t go as planned. He auctioned off the last two shares of EUR and the last share of LB&SCR, which went to the three richest players for ~30-40. We then had a bit of a problem: our two railways weren’t capitalised (I think they had 1-2 moves each), we each had only two shares, and the rest of the companies we weren’t involved in. A minor bit of collusion later and the round was over: London, York, York, Reading and the hex SE of York were developed, and one bit of track built: Sheffield-one of the dots E of there, adjacent to Liverpool.

SIDENOTE: the Income chart is denominated in dollars, not pounds.

After dividends were paid Bill and I were high money. Given that we (or I, at least) had set up nice merger-dividend possibilities, this was extra-unfortunate. Also unfortunate: all the companies we weren’t involved in having stacks of cash. (At this point, two of the starting rails were sold out and the remaining all had two shares out)

Thus commenced the mergers. The remaining rounds went quite quickly as one expansion plus a share is five months, putting you over the threshold for ending the turn.

Ian, having a weak position, took the LB&SCR into York and auctioned off a NER, partly to ‘see how it works’, and I won the share for a bunch of money. Bobby took EUR into Brighton, auctioned off a CR which he won.

Jen capitalized L&G here, causing a brief respite in the crazy, except that it went for approximately no money: Bill mistook the NER’s money (most of my cash a moment earlier) for Ian’s cash and was worried about an auction for some other profitable share. (Everyone else was ‘broke’).

My memory gets a touch hazy at this point, but it all shook down to the following: the Ur-company (green shares, its name changed five or six times) had an income of $10/share and the shares divided 2-2-2-2-2 (communism!), having absorbed LB&SC, NER, L&S, EUR and CR. L&M was still independent, making $12/share with shares 1-1 for Jen and Bobby, and B&G was split 1-1-1 Jen/Bill/I making about $11. I think this was the end of round 5. At this point it was clearly a two-horse race between Jen and Bobby, due to their excellent cash and holdings positions.

At this point those in desperate situations and those with long-game positions started causing the relatively isolated companies to open: LNWR (seems odd, I know) and SWR were the first two to open, with LNWR bill/ian and SWR bobby/I. At some point I merged the cash-poor B&G into the Ur-company in Ipswitch to get more lucrative Ur-company shares. The SWR, blocked out of Bristol due to some track builds, eventually turned its eyes north and merged into the L&M, which had been making its proprietors a healthy profit for the great portion of the game without them doing much to attract attention: the third share was not sold until OR6, so it had been cash-starved for most of the game. At the end of the 6th OR the board was sold out of shares, but four companies were still extant: GWR, income $1/share, Ur, income ~$10 share (and loaded, at several points pushing the flush money-button would have been helpful if the appropriate people had (contrived) to have turns), SWR, income $3/share or so, L&M, $8/share.

The last OR indicated just how far into the corner we had backed ourselves. The final useful mergers, the SWR into the L&M and the GWR taking over the giant company occurred in OR7, along with one money-flush for marginal profit in the L&M. All of these actions required the sale of a personal share to execute, but their values were well enough determined that this was more or less irrelevant.

Final order: Bobby (315ish)-Jen(290ish)-Bill(260)-Me (254)-Ian(155). Big Company wound up with 21 shares out, with revenue of $8/share and $12/share in the treasury the L&M (well, the SWR technically) wound up with 6 shares, revenues of $8/share, and $20 in the treasury

Comments:

1. Bobby got a dominating portfolio early and rode other people’s actions into the sunset, winning a lot of the merger share auctions and using his occasional turns to merge the resulting companies in. He took very few actions after the 4th round, generally going late in the turn order and winning a share or two at auction

2. With so few companies after the merger frenzy (at any given time), and with startup companies having lousy dividends for a while, it was very hard to differentiate one’s portfolio usefully. While the game was rarely in danger of ending, we never used more than five colours of cube.

3. Ian got himself boxed in early, and couldn’t see a way out of it. Once one is dominated in cash and portfolio, how do you exploit turn order to fix this? I think his early mistake was sitting on cash and winding up late in the turn order, and then missing his chance to spend that money before it became irrelevant due to inflation.

4. The fact that taking the cap. action doesn’t cost you your turn if you lose the auction is questionable. Some way of causing this not to occur may be important.

QUERY: why are the auctions left-about?

1. Rounds routinely ended with one or more players having one or fewer turns due to the merger auctions and the very short time track with five players. This partly caused the general avoidance of develop actions. They’re also less flashy. Often the round would end with something like three-four expands and one-three cap. taken: this is not very many turns.

RHETORICAL QUERY: is it worthwhile to go play in the country somewhat defensively with the isolated secondary companies to make money to allow for portfolio differentiation?

1. At least some opportunities to end the game in an advantageous position were missed, but not many.

QUERY: how much blind playtesting has been done so far? Has any of it been 5 player? The balance between the action chart and the player time chart seems off, especially after the mergers commence.

1. Bill was somewhat baffled by ‘bonus auctions’ for the money-flushing action: why are these neccessary or good? The merger ones make some game-flow sense, but the ones for building to a port less so.

GRAPHIC SUGGESTION: invert the ordering of the action tracks to avoid impinging on the coastline of england and to match the player turn track.

1. Why is double-develop so cheap? $3 is hardly worth mentioning.

I’m sure more thoughts will come to me as I sleep on this. Apologies for the somewhat stream-of-consciousness nature of this commentary: trying to get thoughts on paper before they escape. Feel free to edit for your own use: all notable questions or actionable items should be set off with headings.

Game flow: the inital shares sold for 20, 20, 20, 26, and 20 (I was the second one and immediately regretted it as I was late in the random ordering, grr) One share each.

Like Wabash Cannonball, early shares are worth roughly 50% of starting capital. Which side you want to fall on 50% depends more on the other player’s bids and your seating position than anything else.

QUERY: it is intended that hex-cities cannot be developed until after the first time London gets bumped?

Yes. The typical pattern is that nobody wants to Develop London but somebody has to in order to break open the Development chest that they really need in order to bolster their own incomes. Usually this comes down to the shareholder of one of the southern three companies.

Three shares were capitalized in this round, the B&G, L&S and L&M All went for 16.

This is a little unusual. More commonly rounds at this point are ending due to Expand/Develop action exhaustion

Bill and I wound up with exactly the same portfolio and COH, which was a bit unfortunate as we also wound up with low cash for the next while. I think that none of these Auctions were won by the person whose turn it was: getting multiple turns in a row seems odd.

In truth it is common and is one of the reasons that Develop is so popular. It typically represents the same income delta as an Expand and costs only a single month, thereby either leaving the current turn with you or leaving you well positioned to get a turn in the near future.

Bobby came out of this like clover, having spent a bunch of time developing track for the EUR and getting handed the last of the shares on a platter.

Yep, you have to watch out for that. I suspect that sell-shares-to-everyone-else tactic will only work once.

In the second OR there was a giant “we like money” phase and the companies spread across the map until they all ran low on money.

This is one of the reasons that Capitalise is less popular in the first two rounds: it starves companies of cash and forces players to operate with the few companies that have treasuries. Why give another player that extra flexibility if you don’t have to? Meanwhile players suck money out in Dividends as fast as they can.

This OR both the LB&SCR and L&SR went to Sheffield,

So the LB&SCR got through Peterborough first? That’s impressive.

later triggering the emergence of the Ur-company. I had planned on dragging the L&M along with this, but some clever track building fenced the L&M off until very late: it never did get sucked in.

The typical opening build for the L&MR is Liverpool/Manchester, and York/Leeds for the L&SR, That leaves each company one step away from Sheffield, with the player operating order determining which gets to build the Sheffield/Peterborough link. Sometimes there’s a bit of positional distraction while building spokes out of the hex-cities, but that doesn’t last long. I’m wondering what y’all did instead?

At some point in this round someone threw a share of the EUR at Jen. After this dividend Ian was strictly dominated by Bobby: unfortunate for him. He wasn’t sure what to do about it and was basically out of the game after this point.

Assuming he was minority shareholder everywhere, this is where foreign ports, control of game-length, and getting shares in either the CR or the SWR start becoming important. It is hard to win once you’re in a cash and share hole. Like Wabash Cannonball, the only real way out is to force other players to commit shares which you then waste with foreign ports and to drive the game closed faster than they want.

We then had a bit of a problem: our two railways weren’t capitalised (I think they had 1-2 moves each), we each had only two shares, and the rest of the companies we weren’t involved in.

Yep, this is a concern for me. The game needs the rate of early capitalisations to be fairly low. If it stays high the mid-game lags and suffers badly while usually also spitting out a dominating winner. But, the reasons behind that are far from obvious and many/most players take a fair bit to see that. The resulting pain on the learning curve may be too large.

A minor bit of collusion later and the round was over: London, York, York, Reading and the hex SE of York were developed, and one bit of track built: Sheffield-one of the dots E of there, adjacent to Liverpool.

That’s amazingly little Development. Wow.

SIDENOTE: the Income chart is denominated in dollars, not pounds.

Urk. Fixed.

After dividends were paid Bill and I were high money. Given that we (or I, at least) had set up nice merger-dividend possibilities, this was extra-unfortunate. Also unfortunate: all the companies we weren’t involved in having stacks of cash. (At this point, two of the starting rails were sold out and the remaining all had two shares out)

That’s 1-2 shares rich, but not too too far off reasonable. That’s also a very typical position to be in for the cash rich players heading into the fourth round. It can be a real fight to get both the combination of cash and share ownership to be able to enter the fourth round with low enough cash to be early in the turn order and have well capitalised companies to get an instant foreign ports or merger.

Jen capitalized L&G here, causing a brief respite in the crazy, except that it went for approximately no money…

The first shares of the secondaries are risky. They may never float, in which case the money is lost. On the other hand if the buyer is early in the turn order, they’re rather more interesting to that buyer.

My memory gets a touch hazy at this point, but it all shook down to the following: the Ur-company (green shares, its name changed five or six times) had an income of $10/share and the shares divided 2-2-2-2-2 (communism!), having absorbed LB&SC, NER, L&S, EUR and CR.

Who bought the second CR, and why was it driven into York? Whose advantage was that?

L&M was still independent, making $12/share with shares 1-1 for Jen and Bobby, and B&G was split 1-1-1 Jen/Bill/I making about $11. I think this was the end of round 5. At this point it was clearly a two-horse race between Jen and Bobby, due to their excellent cash and holdings positions.

It is often worthwhile to get a share in such a company in order to sabotage it…

At this point those in desperate situations and those with long-game positions started causing the relatively isolated companies to open: LNWR (seems odd, I know) and SWR were the first two to open, with LNWR bill/ian and SWR bobby/I.

Usually there’s a fight for both shares of the private to go to the same player. It is horrendously expensive in terms of time of course, but the partial security of the monopoly, the certainty that you can control when/if they merge, and the fact that any cash not spent returns back to the player in end-game treasury payouts if usually compelling. Of course this is also where the fact that each company has three shares, not just two, gets painfully annoying as other player’s use the sale of that third share to bludgeon that player away from other more interesting activities.

The last OR indicated just how far into the corner we had backed ourselves. The final useful mergers, the SWR into the L&M and the GWR taking over the giant company occurred in OR7, along with one money-flush for marginal profit in the L&M. All of these actions required the sale of a personal share to execute, but their values were well enough determined that this was more or less irrelevant.

You are the first I’ve seen backed so far down the rabbit hole. Bravo! Yes, it is meant to be irrelevant. I’d like to re-examine the forced sale rule to see if there’s a cleaner way about it.

Final order: Bobby (315ish)-Jen(290ish)-Bill(260)-Me (254)-Ian(155).

Low scores, though scores in Muck & Brass can vary a lot. I’ve seen winning scores of close to $2,000 with all the other players well over $1,500 and winning scores in the ranges you saw.

Big Company wound up with 21 shares out, with revenue of $8/share and $12/share in the treasury the L&M (well, the SWR technically) wound up with 6 shares, revenues of $8/share, and $20 in the treasury

Ahh, clearly nobody tried to hide money in company treasuries in order to influence turn order.

With so few companies after the merger frenzy (at any given time), and with startup companies having lousy dividends for a while, it was very hard to differentiate one’s portfolio usefully. While the game was rarely in danger of ending, we never used more than five colours of cube.

Then why did you capitalise so often? Why Develop so rarely?

Ian got himself boxed in early, and couldn’t see a way out of it. Once one is dominated in cash and portfolio, how do you exploit turn order to fix this?

Here’s a common tactic:

1. Capitalise a share of something you own
2. Either:
   • Let another player get it for at least as much as-is required to build a port (say $40+)
   • Get the share for cheap
3. If you got the share
   • wait for your next action
4. If they got the share
   • Build a foreign port and waste their money while you gain disproportionate cash

Result: You gain advantage, they lose position.

I think his early mistake was sitting on cash and winding up late in the turn order, and then missing his chance to spend that money before it became irrelevant due to inflation.

That’s a common mistake.

The fact that taking the cap. action doesn’t cost you your turn if you lose the auction is questionable. Some way of causing this not to occur may be important.

Why?

QUERY: why are the auctions left-about?

Laziness and simplicity actually. I could have the auctions in current turn-order, but I found it a real hassle to remember and orchestrate the bidding even with all of our Age of Steam background. More than once the local tables fell into simple clockwise due to lack of attention, it worked well enough so I left it. That I’ve observed the game works well either way. I’m also quite open to arguments here. I do not have a strong opinion.

Rounds routinely ended with one or more players having one or fewer turns due to the merger auctions and the very short time track with five players.

This is common with all player counts. Actions are not constant across players in rounds. That’s a given.

This partly caused the general avoidance of develop actions.

Almost certainly a mistake BTW.

RHETORICAL QUERY: is it worthwhile to go play in the country somewhat defensively with the isolated secondary companies to make money to allow for portfolio differentiation?

It can be very worthwhile, yes. The risk is that it forces a long game.

QUERY: how much blind playtesting has been done so far?

Not much.

Has any of it been 5 player?

We’ve played a few 5 player games here, but most of the testing here has been with 2, 3 and 4 players. 5 and 6 player games are rough to scrape together locally and I greatly prefer the game with 4 players.

The balance between the action chart and the player time chart seems off, especially after the mergers commence.

I had considerably argument there as to whether the action tracks should be one longer with 5 players or the length it currently is. With a more Develop-heavy game the current short length seems to work (~2 Expands, ~2 Develops, maybe a Capitalise) but I can also see reason to add a month for 5 players. Its touchy.

Bill was somewhat baffled by ‘bonus auctions’ for the money-flushing action: why are these neccessary or good? The merger ones make some game-flow sense, but the ones for building to a port less so.

I need a way to force the secondary companies out into the open. Without them being forced out it becomes almost common for none of the secondaries to ever float. However as soon as at least a few of the secondary shares are sold the rest will necessarily follow in fairly quick order and then the big questions regarding game length and additional mergers come into play. Closing one of the two possibilities for forced secondary sales so weakens the other that it (should) pretty never happen. The problem is to get over that initial cliff of getting at least 3 secondary shares sold. At that point the rest of the game pretty much takes care of itself.

GRAPHIC SUGGESTION: invert the ordering of the action tracks to avoid impinging on the coastline of england and to match the player turn track.

Yep.

Why is double-develop so cheap? $3 is hardly worth mentioning.

It encourages use of the Develop action and hub-and-spoke track patterns that make merger positionings interesting rather than rambling leggy things. The cost is just high enough to make recovery of the expense in one dividend questionable most of the time. I’ve thought about raising it to $5, and probably should, but never gotten around to it. Nod. $5 would also give more interesting turn order control. Done.

Apologies for the somewhat stream-of-consciousness nature of this commentary:

Not a problem in the slightest! Thank you for the report.

What were the other player’s thoughts?

(Admin note: Written by Jen Fung, one of the players that played with Devin)

Mechanics:

• I’m concerned about the ability for a single player (either with no intention to buy shares, or without the cash to win one) to capitalize out the round and control the rest of the round. It seems reasonable to me that the winner  of the auction should be time-reduced, but it seems to me that the initiator should have some time-reduction, too, so that he can’t say “Capitalize!” three times and then go on to plot out the remainder of the path of his evil empire. If this is intentional, then I guess we didn’t figure out the right way to manipulate cash flow in order to change turn order.

• It seemed to me that most of the later companies came into existence and formed an instantaneous merger with a whole bunch of companies. Is this intentional? If so, it seems like a really weird-feeling way of having a bunch of special dividends occur. Also seems a bit futile to me; it’s no fun trying to start a new company if it’s just going to get gobbled up right away. If this whole course of events is intentional, then I don’t see why (except for maybe historical reasons) the initial companies can’t be a bit more spread out as we all fell into the Great Communist Railway of England really quickly. (My impression is that this wasn’t supposed to happen because then whoever has the most shares wins, without any opportunity for exceeding cleverness.) As a result of these instamergers, a lot of the third shares of companies just went away, which seems a bit like a waste.

• Related to this last point, I felt that the end of the game seemed stretched for shares. Is this intentional, too? I like the idea of being able to sell of your own shares, but I guess we must not have used this mechanic properly because by the time players were forced to sell off one of their own shares, the exact value of them was calculable. As a result, it would effectively boil down to one player paying another player an early dividend, and the payer gettting reimbursed at the end of the game. (Assuming that no one was too crazy or mathematically-impaired to figure out the actual value of the share.)

• I don’t agree that a share should be capitalized after a port expansion. We didn’t use the port expansion option much at all and, as previously mentioned, we were stretched for shares. If port expansion wasn’t tied to capitalization then we wouldn’t have been forced to sell off player shares near the end of the game. Also, I don’t understand, in a thematic sense, why port expansion should be tied to capitalization. It feels weird.

Map layout:

• I didn’t feel like we really used Scotland or Wales much and am a bit concerned about that; it’s weird to have sections of map that no one really thinks about touching. Also I don’t understand why the choice was made to have that two-lane bottleneck in northern England. Are the three dead-ends necessary? Perhaps we were playing it exceedingly strangely, but I didn’t see why these choices were made.

Graphic details:

• If the marker mechanic is the final decision (instead of using sticks or bits), I’d suggest drawing the possible paths for track with a lighter colour so that light coloured markers are easier to see.

• Given that auctions tend to go clockwise (by player) and that the companies are arranged with the initial companies to the right of the later companies, the initial companies should be arranged clockwise, too.

• The money track layout is a little odd. Why not put it on the map? Also, the background of the money track is a little noisy and visually inconsistent with the simplicity of the map.

I’m concerned about the ability for a single player (either with no intention to buy shares, or without the cash to win one) to capitalize out the round and control the rest of the round.

Such a player doesn’t actually control the rest of the round. They may delay a few other player’s engagement with the round but there’s no way they can control the rest of the round. So three other players move out by three months, or they simply let the start player get a share for cheap while they then plan out their moves. Either way it leaves the player with only 4 months to use before it is someone else’s turn. Furthermore shares are just Good. Allowing other players to get shares simply in order to work (partly) unmolested in the current round is an almost invariably self-destructive tactic. Until well into the game, no share sells for what it is actually worth in revenue; instead they all sell for rather less as players balance cash versus share value versus turn order versus short-term buying power. Why simply hand the other players control and excess profits if you don’t need to?

Unlike Wabash Cannonball, Capitalise is usually selected late in the round in Muck & Brass. It is too expensive and too difficult to control to choose early, and later in the round it is also too tempting to let the round end on exhausted actions (Expand + Develop) rather than calling out a set of Capitalises which benefit other players more than you.

It seems reasonable to me that the winner of the auction should be time-reduced, but it seems to me that the initiator should have some time-reduction, too, so that he can’t say “Capitalize!” three times and then go on to plot out the remainder of the path of his evil empire.

Capiche. I disagree but I do see where you’re coming from. There are strong advantages to being early in the turn order. Calling Capitalise three times in a row isn’t one of them.

If this is intentional, then I guess we didn’t figure out the right way to manipulate cash flow in order to change turn order.

That may be. It is something I still struggle with (but find fascinating).

It seemed to me that most of the later companies came into existence and formed an instantaneous merger with a whole bunch of companies. Is this intentional?

Partly. There are 5 secondary companies. Typically the NER and LNWR will merge either as soon as they start or very soon afterward. The SWR and CR often hang around a bit, sometimes for several rounds or even until the end of the game. The GWR is odd. It either merges immediately. or the BGR has been built such that it can’t run down to Exeter for the merger, thus letting the GWR freely run about in the Cornish hills until it determines if and when it wants to merge.

Control of game length is key here. It is the odd game here that last 7 Dividends. Most end on the 4th or 5th General Dividend, few survive until the 7th General Dividend.

If so, it seems like a really weird-feeling way of having a bunch of special dividends occur. Also seems a bit futile to me; it’s no fun trying to start a new company if it’s just going to get gobbled up right away.

The NER and LNWR (and other insta-merge companies if any) aren’t usually started in order to be interesting companies, they’re started in order to:

• prompt a Special Dividend
• change the share balance of the companies they merge
• inject capital into the companies they merge
• change the incentives of the shareholders of the previously distinct companies
• move forward on starting a new secondary company which is interesting for whatever reason (turn order position has a lot to do with this one)

Usually the capital injection and share balance are the biggies for the NER and LNWR. The other non-insta-merge companies instead provide both player differentiation opportunities as well as the ability to hide capital for turn order purposes.

If this whole course of events is intentional, then I don’t see why (except for maybe historical reasons) the initial companies can’t be a bit more spread out as we all fell into the Great Communist Railway of England really quickly. (My impression is that this wasn’t supposed to happen because then whoever has the most shares wins, without any opportunity for exceeding cleverness.)

Mergers and ports happen hard and fast. This is both historic and intentional. There is a sudden and violent change in the character of the game as the fourth round is entered. The cleverness comes in controlling turn order and setting up the port and merger opportunities you want for your position in the turn order in the prior rounds. Once into the second portion of the game the cleverness comes in the selection of ports vs mergers, where and for whom, and again, the continued control of turn order opportunism.

FWLIW I’ve lost many a game having too many shares and thus having too good income and thus late turn order, only to watch all my companies build ports and impoverish themselves, all the other companies then merge into my companies (giving me no money and removing my share advantage), followed by the new secondary companies similarly building ports to burn out the treasury before running headlong into trivially paying mergers if I dared to get a share of them or if I didn’t get their shares, then they built track I can’t touch, carefully isolated from my bankrupt companies, earning their shareholders great dividends and acting as fine hiding holes for their money (thus securing early turn order) until the game end-handed it back to them as the treasuries were dispersed. Or, even worse, the new companies just sit moribund, nothing but places to hide cash in order to secure turn order, while the players spend their time elsewhere to assault my investments. Bah!

As a result of these instamergers, a lot of the third shares of companies just went away, which seems a bit like a waste.

This is normal and expected.

Related to this last point, I felt that the end of the game seemed stretched for shares. Is this intentional, too?

Yours is the first game I’ve seen in a long time that went the full 7 dividends. It is common for the game to be share tight from about the 6th General Dividend onward.

I like the idea of being able to sell of your own shares, but I guess we must not have used this mechanic properly because by the time players were forced to sell off one of their own shares, the exact value of them was calculable.

Selling one’s own shares is mostly a rescue net for players that get themselves into a Bad Place. I’m re-examining the forced share sales in the very late game. It was required at one point. I’m not sure that’s still valid any more.

I don’t agree that a share should be capitalized after a port expansion. We didn’t use the port expansion option much at all and, as previously mentioned, we were stretched for shares.

You may want to re-examine your foreign ports versus merger balance. Foreign ports are often (usually?) better choices than mergers.

If port expansion wasn’t tied to capitalization then we wouldn’t have been forced to sell off player shares near the end of the game. Also, I don’t understand, in a thematic sense, why port expansion should be tied to capitalization. It feels weird.

As I commented to Devin above, the primary reason is to keep the value balance of foreign ports and mergers roughly similar yet different, while also forcing out the secondary companies. If I removed the forced secondary share sale for either event the result would be that few secondary companies would ever be started.

I didn’t feel like we really used Scotland or Wales much and am a bit concerned about that; it’s weird to have sections of map that no one really thinks about touching.

If players aren’t using the SWR and CR as places to hide capital, then neither Scotland or Wales will see much track. If they are being used to hide capital, then they may well see quite a bit of track as they generate good dividends and setup for quick game-end forcing mergers.

Caveat: While I have seen track to Blackpool, I’ve yet to ever see someone build to Hollyhead.or Thurso.

Also I don’t understand why the choice was made to have that two-lane bottleneck in northern England.

The Pennine mountains run down the centre of England there-abouts. Not much connects the two sides of England along that stretch.

Are the three dead-ends necessary? Perhaps we were playing it exceedingly strangely, but I didn’t see why these choices were made.

Probably not necessary, no. Occasionally useful, yes. Much like Northern Essex’ track, they are rarely built but are often game-swingers when they are. For example the last time I saw Blackpool built, it was specifically to prevent the CR from being able to merge into the L&MR due to the track limits out of Preston. In this way another General Dividend was guaranteed, which was most unwelcome.

Given that auctions tend to go clockwise (by player) and that the companies are arranged with the initial companies to the right of the later companies, the initial companies should be arranged clockwise, too.

Fair call. I tried to put them near their home stations.

The money track layout is a little odd. Why not put it on the map?

Room, mostly. There’s not a lot of place to put it.

I’m commenting on the same game as Devin and Jen: I’m the Bill from the list of players.

Much of the reason that the game went the way it did was my poor play on turn 3, which I now realize is essential. Fresh from a game of Wabash Cannonball, I was enjoying the ability to dilute the shares of the other players without losing my turn. I started turn 3 by capitalizing three times, even though I suspected I didn’t have a chance at the first two auctions. My thinking was to

• dilute the shares of the other players while protecting myself from the same
• leave Devin and myself free to make some money on our joint railways
• fill the other railways with money in anticipation of the ability to merge one of mine that was capital poor but dividend rich (the B&GR) into the EUR, to allow for further expansion.

What I didn’t anticipate, until it was too late:

• I didn’t have any money in companies, so I ended up with lousy turn order (I was prepared to accept this)
• Diluting everyone else was diluting myself, as the mergers are (somewhat) inevitable
• Filling companies with money lets people do unpredictable things — I was expecting a merger or maybe two, but I think that there were about four before I had a turn.

I’m not convinced that allowing someone to capitalize three times is a problem: in hindsight, it’s not usually a good thing to do.

I’m not sure that the mergers were always in the best interests of the players making them, but I now realize that I shouldn’t have been giving them the option. In particular, I was making the good dividends, so I think that I should have tried much harder to buy shares in the other companies and flush money with ports.

I’m interested in playing the game again, now that we have some idea how it works.

I’m commenting on the same game as Devin and Jen: I’m the Bill from the list of players.

Hello Bill!

Much of the reason that the game went the way it did was my poor play on turn 3, which I now realize is essential.

Grin. Like Wabash Cannonball, it can be hard to see how early-game decisions really set the stage for the late game.

Filling companies with money lets people do unpredictable things — I was expecting a merger or maybe two, but I think that there were about four before I had a turn.

With novice groups it isn’t unusual for the game to end in the 4th round in a vast merger frenzy, not infrequently with only one company on the board when the game ends. Voila British Rail!

I’m not convinced that allowing someone to capitalize three times is a problem: in hindsight, it’s not usually a good thing to do.

Yup.

I’m not sure that the mergers were always in the best interests of the players making them, but I now realize that I shouldn’t have been giving them the option. In particular, I was making the good dividends, so I think that I should have tried much harder to buy shares in the other companies and flush money with ports.

Without knowing the specifics I can’t comment well (and probably shouldn’t anyway as you guys should discover the game for yourselves rather than me telling you what you’ll find before you get there), but that all excused, yes, that is both generically reasonable and a common error.

I’m interested in playing the game again, now that we have some idea how it works.

Cool! Thanks.

By the way, how long did your game take?

I wasn’t watching the clock too closely, but I think we took about two and a half hours, including activities like the rules explanation and finding cubes and markers. Probably it took us around two hours to play the game itself with five players. (Does anyone else who played in the game disagree?)

I’m late to this, but I’d be interested in doing some playtesting on this if you’re still looking for feedback.

I’m late to this, but I’d be interested in doing some playtesting on this if you’re still looking for feedback.

I’ll email you the instructions.

Finally got M&B to the table. Here are some quick thoughts:

1) We played a 5-player game.

2) We were all experienced train gamers, but were nevertheless unable to grok the game.

3) Perhaps it was unwise, but at least 3 rounds began with triple caps. My fear is that, due to the weight of the game, this will be common among new players. I’d make the initiator of the cap pay 1 month as we discussed.

Here’s another possible situation:

In a 4 player game, after the initial auctions, Andy owns 2 shares and Bob, Cathy, and Dave own one. Andy begins the game capping each other player’s shares, leaving himself with 2 undiluted shares and plenty of time to develop and expand, and the other players with diluted shares and less time to develop and expand, resulting in a huge income advantage for the first round. Though he’s likely to be the last player in round 2, he probably has a lot more cash then the other players, putting him in a strong position to defend his shares (if others cap) or dilute his opponents shares even further.

Sure, perhaps none of this is good play, but again, this game is without a doubt very difficult to grasp, and thus, players will approach it like Wabash.

4) We share the concern of another playtester who said: “Rounds routinely ended with one or more players having one or fewer turns due to the merger auctions and the very short time track with five players.”

We suspect that rounds in the 5-player game needs to be one month longer.

5) You said, “The game needs the rate of early capitalisations to be fairly low. If it stays high the mid-game lags and suffers badly while usually also spitting out a dominating winner.”

Unfortunately, this was definitely our experience with the game. At least one player was bored during the mid-game lags and two others were visibly frustrated. We had a clear leader by round 4 and everyone else (including the leader) decided they wanted to call the game in round 5.

6) The other primary concern among the player was the shear difficulty of grasping the game. The other players were all very experienced train gamers (I’m not one of them), yet it was just too difficult for us to value anything with even remote accuracy. The ripple effects are enormous and often too difficult to predict, making it very easy for players to get bogged down by AP.

7) On a positive note, the other players did say they do want to try it again sometime, with an extended month (for 5) and a 1 month cost for initiating a cap.

Perhaps it was unwise, but at least 3 rounds began with triple caps. My fear is that, due to the weight of the game, this will be common among new players. I’d make the initiator of the cap pay 1 month as we discussed.

Capitalisation is rightly more frequent the further into the game it gets. I find that with experienced players roughly half of all game rounds end without all three Capitalisations being used with many early rounds having only one or sometimes two. The risks, and perhaps the time penalties, are simply too high. The result is that Capitalisation tends to be used for two purposes: To render another player tactically irrelevant by selling them a share, or to recapitalise an under-capitalised company.

I think I understand your reasoning for local month for Capitalise, but it has bad results on the game. In particular it greatly weakens the offensive use of Capitalisation as a time-control weapon. As almost the entire early game is about time-control, I don’t find this a Good Thing.

While Muck & Brass appears to be a Wabash Cannonball derivative, it really isn’t. If anything it is closer to Gulf, Mobile & Ohio in the strength of focus on positional advantage. If players look at its ancestry in Wabash Cannonball, Pampas Railroads, West Riding etc and expect something of similar character, they are bound to be disappointed. Muck & Brass is much more about time and opportunity. What temporary emergent alliances there are, tend to be opportunistic and fleeting, and are usually collusions of convenience against another player or company rather than exercises of mutual-profit.

Napolean called England “a nation of shopkeepers”. I’ve attempted to keep that character in Muck & Brass.

In a 4 player game, after the initial auctions, Andy owns 2 shares and Bob, Cathy, and Dave own one. Andy begins the game capping each other player’s shares, leaving himself with 2 undiluted shares and plenty of time to develop and expand, and the other players with diluted shares and less time to develop and expand, resulting in a huge income advantage for the first round.

Why do the other players let Andy do that? Why not let him win a share, leap forward in time and thus lose positional advantage? You seem to be assuming that share dilution is a Great Evil That Must Be Avoided. It isn’t. For much of the early game income is less important than board amd time position.

More simply, Andy will be starting the first round very close to if not broke. Each of the other players will have ~$15-$25 cash in-hand. None of the other players have much reason to bid up the shares Andy auctions, especially as they less they sell for they less they are worth, So they go cheap, probably for ~$10ea. That leaves three players at 3 months and Andy at 0 months. The result is that the rest of the first round plays out fairly programmatically:

• P1/0-C3/2 (P4/3)
• P1/0-C3/1 (P3/3)
• P1/0-C3/0 (P2/3)
• P1/2-E2/6
• P1/3-D1/4
• P1/5-E2/5
• P2/4-D1/3
• P3/4-D1/2
• P4/5-E2/4 (knows he won’t get another action)
• P2/6-E2/3 (forcing P3 to end the round)
• P3/6-E2/2

Summary:

• P1: D4/E2
• P2: C1/D1/E1
• P3: C1/D1/E1
• P4: C1/E1

P1 should end the round with ~$20, P2 and P3 with $15-$20, and P4 with ~$12 (as he should have expected). At this point P1 is screwed as his cash advantage is worth far less than his position late in turn order as the other players will exploit whatever he does against him. If he wins a share it will cost all his money and he’ll lose turn order position in the critical 3rd round, and whatever he Expands or Develops will be instantly Capitalised by the other players as the round ends while they also retain their better turn order positions. Meanwhile P4 is hurting and P2 and P3 are feeling good.

Though he’s likely to be the last player in round 2, he probably has a lot more cash then the other players, putting him in a strong position to defend his shares (if others cap) or dilute his opponents shares even further.

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p>The early-game incomes, especially the first round incomes, aren’t that high. Unless players really soak into Developing London (which is almost never to their advantage), all the company incomes are $8-12 range with most clustered around $9.

Sure, perhaps none of this is good play, but again, this game is without a doubt very difficult to grasp, and thus, players will approach it like Wabash.

Which is perhaps the problem. Especially in the early game, time is (usually) more important than shares or money.

We suspect that rounds in the 5-player game needs to be one month longer.

I’ve come to agree. I’ve lengthened the 5 player game by a month and removed support for 6 players. I’ll have a new tarball out shortly.

BtB: When I comment in the intro comments that the game is best with 4 players, I’m not joking. I think 4 is great, 3 is good, 2 is good/great for a few plays, and 5, well, it works. However, one of the local players really likes the 5 player game and says it is great, and who am I to argue?

You said, “The game needs the rate of early capitalisations to be fairly low. If it stays high the mid-game lags and suffers badly while usually also spitting out a dominating winner.”

Games with fast early Capitalisations often end in the 4th round, almost always by the 5th. The game comes to a sudden crashing close as all the merger triggers are pulled (there’s not enough Capital in the companies to afford foreign ports) and the game suddenly pops.

Unfortunately, this was definitely our experience with the game. At least one player was bored during the mid-game lags and two others were visibly frustrated. We had a clear leader by round 4 and everyone else (including the leader) decided they wanted to call the game in round 5.

Mid-game lags?

The other primary concern among the player was the shear difficulty of grasping the game. The other players were all very experienced train gamers (I’m not one of them), yet it was just too difficult for us to value anything with even remote accuracy. The ripple effects are enormous and often too difficult to predict, making it very easy for players to get bogged down by AP.

Aye, it is a difficult and counter-intuitive game.

There is an odd tendency for players to grasp at the big powerful actions, even when they don’t understand what they’ll do, especially Capitalise. I guess we’re used to games in which most actions are fairly safe, and the dangerous ones are clearly marked. That’s not so true in Muck & Brass. Money is, oddly enough, quite bad for you in the early game. You need and want it desperately, but you want no more than $1 less than the other players: thus the fight to not have money (especially at the end of the 3rd round) is strong. Shares conversely are simply good, really really good, but they have a nasty problem of also producing money and sometimes rather a lot of it, and that’s a problem. Even worse it encourages players to deliberately over-spend for spares in order to force their cash down, resulting in other players then building foreign ports and giving them great gobs of cash back again, right when they don’t want it. Yes, I agree that the game is hard to grok.

Perhaps it would be easier if you viewed it as more of a German-style resource-management game than a classical/Winsome-esque train game?

On a positive note, the other players did say they do want to try it again sometime, with an extended month (for 5) and a 1 month cost for initiating a cap.

If you do, I’d go for a 4 player game rather than with 5 players. Adding a local month to Capitalise cripples the core power of the action as an offensive weapon.

“Why do the other players let Andy do that? Why not let him win a share, leap forward in time and thus lose positional advantage?”

I was thinking that if he’s able to open the bid at $5, who’d want to let him get a third share (since he already has 2) for that cheap? Intuitively, I think most players would raise and then he’d promptly drop.

This, by the way, brings up a rule that you might want to add. If I understand it correctly, if a player caps and no one buys, it would be his turn again. Technically he could put the same share up again and stall the game. You could add a simple rule that states you cannot put the same share up again, or if you wanted, make a failed cap cost 1 month.

One more question about the rules:

A secondary company can float in the first three rounds, right? If so, then it could float into its home city that is already connected by another primary (since the rules state you can build into the home station of a non-operating company), yet mergers cannot take place until the 4th round. How is that handled? Does the merger never happen? Does it happen immediately in round 4? We weren’t sure.

Thanks for the clarifications. I’ll try it with 4 next time.

I was thinking that if he’s able to open the bid at $5, who’d want to let him get a third share (since he already has 2) for that cheap? Intuitively, I think most players would raise and then he’d promptly drop.

While such a cheap share really isn’t worth much to them, in such a case I’d happily accept the share for $6. In doing so I’ll be sacrificing tactical position in the early game for long term position in the upcoming merger game. Money is critical for the early game, but shares are the core of the late game. I’ll likely need to refrain from spending my treasury, sacrificing short term income in order to gain positional advantage for a good merger, hopefully in something I’ll already hold at least one share in.

This, by the way, brings up a rule that you might want to add. If I understand it correctly, if a player caps and no one buys, it would be his turn again. Technically he could put the same share up again and stall the game. You could add a simple rule that states you cannot put the same share up again, or if you wanted, make a failed cap cost 1 month.

Good catch. It has never happened here, but that is a nice corner case and I can see more than a few cases in which it will happen for sales of secondary shares in the late game.

A secondary company can float in the first three rounds, right?

No. The shares are not available until after the 3rd General Dividend. Hurm, I must have accidentally lost that statement in an edit. I’ve rephrased 5.3.3. pp2 to read:

Initial companies float as soon as one share is sold. This usually happens at the start of the game during the initial share auction. Secondary companies may not be Capitalised before the third General Dividend and float immediately after their second share is sold. …

And 5.3.3 pp7:

The player that wins a share during a Capitalise action selected by a player or forced by a merger or port build moves their marker forward by 3 months on the player time track. If all players pass and don’t bid when a bank share is Capitalised by a player during the game, the active player moves their marker forward by 3 months on the player time track while returning the sahre to the bank pool.

Hopefully that should clarify.

BTW: Use a ‘>” prefix to get the blockquote formatting I’ve been using. See the Markdown formatting page for details on that markup and others.

Type your comment here…In 34, you stated:

Why do the other players let Andy do that? Why not let him win a share, leap forward in time and thus lose positional advantage?

But then later you stated…

While such a cheap share really isn’t worth much to them, in such a case I’d happily accept the share for $6.

These statements seem to contradict each other. It seems like you answered your own question. I may attempt this strategy when we play a 4-player game.

In your rule above, 5.3.3 pp7, are you saying that if you fail a cap, you pay 3 months? If so, ouch. That seems like quite a penalty.

These statements seem to contradict each other. It seems like you answered your own question.

They are in fact contradictory. It is a question of balancing opportunity costs. If you are offer me a share that is paying at least $5 for $6, you can bet your bippy I’m probably going to take it. The opportunity cost in time is expensive, but that share represents company control going into the 4th round, which can mean a lot if I set it up properly. At $6 the cost is probably worth it to me. At somewhere well into the teens or so (I’m making this bit up), probably not.

I may attempt this strategy when we play a 4-player game.

Grin.

In your rule above, 5.3.3 pp7, are you saying that if you fail a cap, you pay 3 months? If so, ouch. That seems like quite a penalty.

Yep, but only for a failed Capitalisation of a bank share from a player-selected Capitalise action. (I could probably word that better) Shares Capitalised from mergers and foreign ports, as well as failed sales of personal shares don’t invoke the rule. Punitive? Yep. Either accept the risk or don’t Capitalise or start out every Capitalise action by at least bidding the minimum.