THE ORDER LINE IS NOW CLOSED. ALL AVAILABLE COPIES HAVE BEEN ACCOUNTED FOR!

The P100 for Pampas Railroads P100 sold out and still the orders kept on coming in! Winsome Games has kindly agreed to do yet another reprint, this time for at least 50 more copies. Due to the smaller print run, the additional commission to the BoardgameGeek marketplace and (frankly) the larger than previously estimated effort level these pre-orders take from me, there’s been a small US$5 increase in the S&H fees over the previous P100. The game order will be placed with Winsome Games when we reach 45 fully paid orders. As before, if the orders are still coming in thick and fast, I’ll delay placing the other until the order rate subsides.

If you are local to San Jose California and can collect the game directly from me, please use the following payment button to order Pampas Railroads (US$40 + US$5 S&H):

If you are elsewhere in the continental USA or Canada, please select the following payment button to order Pampas Railroads (US$40 + US$15 S&H):

For buyers in the rest of the world, please select the following payment button to order Pampas Railroads (US$40 + US$20 S&H):

The S&H charges are sufficient to cover up to two (2) copies. If you’d like to order 3 or 4 copies, please make multiple purchases. If you would like to order more than 4 copies, please contact me on BoardGameGeek (user: clearclaw) for specific S&H costs for such a larger order.

Note: Like the P100 edition, this reprint will also come with a standard linear income track rather than the first edition’s clunky 0-10 track with x1 and x10 markers for each company. This reprint will not come with crayons. Winsome Games has run out of crayons. You will need to supply your own drawing implements. Do not use Crayola or similar children’s crayons or dry-erase/whiteboard pens as they will stain the board. I strongly recommend using wet-erase/overhead 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. TEST THE PENS YOU WILL USE ON THE BACK OF THE MAP FIRST!

I will report progress on the collected payments toward the required total in the Pampas Railroads forums on BoardGameGeek. As soon as enough orders are collected I’ll send them to John Bohrer at Winsome games, he’ll do the reprint and send the games to me and I’ll send them out to all you lucky players! Of course if progress is too slow and the money simply isn’t appearing fast enough I’ll cancel the order line and reverse all the transactions – which would be a real shame. Pampas Railroads is a great game and deserves to be far more widely known and played.

I’ve been struggling with the text for the Expand action. An abortive version of the current not-so-good stab follows:

The Expand action connects cities and foreign ports to railway companies.

General restrictions on Expansion:

• A player may only choose the expand action for a company if they own a share of that company

• Expand may not be selected for a company with insufficient funds

• Only one company may build a given route (dashed line) between cities

• Companies indicate the city connections and foreign port connections they’ve built with route markers

• The first route a company or merged component-company builds must connect to its home station. Subsequent routes may connect to the home station or to any city already connected by the (component-)company’s railway track

tables of initial and secondary home stations here

• Route building costs are paid from the building company’s treasury to the bank

• Routes may be built to the home station of a not-yet-operating company

• A company may not build more than three connections from any city, and may not build all the connections from a city with more than two connections. These limits are only checked at the time of building track

• The limits on railway track building change after the third General Dividend. Before the third General Dividend:

• Only a single track link may be built each turn. The cost is $5

• When track is built the building company’s income increases by the sum of the current values of the cities at the ends of the new track

• Track may not be built to another active company’s home station

After the third General Dividend the following are also allowed:

• A player owning a plurality of shares in a company may build two track links for a cost of $15:

  • The first track build must connect the company network to a city which is not part of the entire company network and the second track build must connect that city to another city which is also not part of the entire company network. In the case of merged companies the networks of all component-companies are considered for both builds
  • All track built with a double build must be for the same (component-) company
  • Connecting to another company’s home station or to London immediately ends the Expand action (and may cause a merger, see Mergers)
  • The company income is increased for each link as if each it were built separately

• Foreign port connections may be built if the company is already connected to their city:

  • Foreign port connections cost the price listed against them
  • Foreign ports do not increase the income of the bulding company but do increase end-game share value (see [sub:Game-End] Game End)
  • A route marker is placed on the port to indicate which company built it.
  • Foreign ports may not be built as part of a double track build.
  • Immediately after a foreign port is built the building company pays a Special Dividend (see Dividends)

• When building track for a merged company, all track built must be for the same (component-) company

• Track may be built to other company’s home stations. Connecting to another active company’s home station causes a merger (see Mergers)

Not the most brilliant piece of wordcraft I’ve done, but better than the exception heavy piece of paragraphed flat prose I’d before. I still need to make the language among links, connections, and track consistent among other changes.

The Slow Start is probably the easiest of the two problems to address, at least initially.

Proposal:

1. Players start the game with 2 explorers. More cannot be bought. The Explorer track is removed/defunct. Prestige can still be used to buy a third explorer for the current turn only.

2. Players start the game by claiming two free routes. This would be done settler’s style with the first-to-last and then last-to-first. Once the free claiming was done exploring a single new route (and bidding on it) would happen in the normal fashion

This would tend to have the effect of making the big islands with many exits a bit more valuable than they already are in the early game and it may (slightly) accentuate the value of the centre of the map, but I suspect these factors are counter balanced by the values of tieing in with those centre placements from the fringe. It is a tough call but it feels about right.

Solving Opaque/Confusing is harder. Ben Keightly pointed specifically to the currency translations surrounding kula as being a little over-wrought. I suspect he has a point. His proposal was to lose the kula fish/shell typing entirely but that seems like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Something a little more delicate and incentive grid torqueing is needed – something that maintains the value justification for shells as well.

Proposal:

1. Same kula tokens, same VP values and costs (I’m uncertain on the costs – I’ve not run the production volume models yet)

2. No more mixed fish/shell kula items. Every single token is now a kula item

3. When a kula item is given the recipient may also give the giver a gift of opposite fish/shell type that’s also of lesser value

4. Both directions receive the normal VPs/prestige for their gifts with the addition that the initial giver receives an extra prestige if they receive a return gift

5. All other kula rules like rot and upgrades remain unchanged except for those aspects sundered by splitting the kula token/item concept

I’m nervous about this last proposal. It feels about right but I’m quite uncertain the numbers actually work out. I’m particularly concerned about excess Prestige inflation from the new give-back prestige. Tough call. I’ve a hunch that the costs and rewards both will need adjusting. I’ll try and run some models on Sunday.

BTW: The new kula model is rather thematic. Kula primarily consisted of shell armbands (mwali) and necklaces (veigun or soulava). The armbands moved one way around the kula ring and the necklaces the other. Upon receipt of a pair of armbands one was supposed to give a set of necklaces and visa versa. Theme baby!

Benjamin Keightly and Morgan Dontanville were both kind enough to blind playtest ‘Ohana Proa recently. Both played 5 player games. Both had similar and related complaints and praise. Paraphrasing and summarising heavily:

1. The early game is too procedural
2. The game doesn’t get started fast enough
3. The first third of the game seems like setup for the real game
4. It takes too long
5. Kahunas are wonderful (A neat quote here that I hope the poster doen’t mind me revealing: Nowhere is your famous line about torquing the incentive grid more palpable than with the way kahunas operate. Every one of us thought they were fantastic.)
6. Income rates were far lower than usual for here (eg about 2-3 whole turns lower)
7. The turn order auction is too chaotic
8. The network is too large
9. There are too many currencies and currency bookkeeping tasks

The first four complaints clearly form a set which can likely be summated as Slow Start. The lower income is probably explicable by inexperience. The last three also seem a set which I’ll generously lable Opaque/Confusing.

After getting over the traditional they’re criticising my baby reaction I think they have a point or three and likely very good ones. They’ve made a variety of proposals for addressing the Slow Start none of which appeal directly as they lose other qualities I still (wrongly?) feel significant. Ben also has a bunch of quite credible suggestions for the Opaque/Confusing which make sense but also head off in the woods from the problems I’d like the game to address. It will take a bit to digest that impedance.

The idea of different merger and floatation rules is growing on me.
Proposal: 1. All companies are limited to 3 bank pool shares each (!)

1. Merger shares continue to operate as before

2. After the 3rd General Dividend shares in the secondary companies may be sold in the normal manner with a minimum bid of $5

3. After 2 shares have sold a secondary company is active and operating with an initial income of $0

4. Companies merge by building into another other company’s home station, with a special dividend etc just like before

5. Secondary companies which start already connected by track cause insta-merges as before

6. The rule-of-3 still stands but secondary companies only have to honour it for their colour track – thus the NER may continue building links from Sheffield even though its component companies already have 3 links built

I kinda sorta maybe like the feel of this. Maybe. As I wrote, it is growing on me. It may be fungus.

I’ve also been a little annoyed by how to handle the plethora of bank pool and merger shares given the current merger rules. No answer seems good: cards, slips of paper, glass bits, cubes, chits, whatever. Time to retreat back to good old charts and tables and wet erase pens to mark off shares to players from the tracks:

Which required an update to the map to remove the pool squares. I also clean up the foreign ports to something that at looks like the values make sense.

I got talking with Aliza Panitz (BGG: Morganza) last night about the merger model in Muck & Brass and in the process realised that the first or second merger is liable to be too powerful. There are a few primary early merger paths:

1. Both northerns via the loop around Sheffield
2. One of the southern companies with the L&SR via Peterborough
3. One of the two northern companies with the EUR via Peterborough
4. Two of the southern companies via Peterborough or any of the other London orbits

The problem is with the mergers with the northern companies and with anything that involves the B&GR from the southerns. If anything in the north merges, and they start the NER, then it will auto-merge, thus generating a second special dividend for those players before the General Dividend. If anything involving the B&GR merges and they start the GWR (which the B&GR has also certainly built to), then the same problem repeats to the south. That’s 3 and a bit of the four early merge cases where a small subset of players get two special dividends in quick succession without any ability for the other players to do anything about it in advance.

That may not be good. Another related problem is the turn ordering which puts the cash richest players first. As soon as the mergers hit they are liable to remain the cash richest as they steamroller as above. To give a quick sense of the problem in concrete terms from this morning’s solo play:

The first expansion after the 3rd General Dividend merged the LB&SRC with the L&SR via Peterborough. The special dividend went to the LB&SRC. The NER was then started, merging the L&SR& (which now contained the LB&SCR) and the L&MR into the NER. A second special dividend was paid to the original LB&SCR share holders. The next expansion merged the B&GR into the EUR and started the GWR which insta-merged into the B&GR for another two special dividends paid to the B&GR share holders. The GWR then merged into the NER via Peterborough and paid a third special dividend to the original B&GR shareholders and a second to the EUR shareholders. They started the CR which was won by a player with so much cash they could simply throw it away on the CR and still win. The next player, who was already low on cash, had no chance at any of the merger shares, built a foreign port as did the last expansion. The game then ended on the fourth General Dividend as there were only two operating companies: GWR & CR.

An obvious partial solution is to require that a merging player pick a secondary company which:

• is not connected by track

or if that’s not possible:

• is not connected to the company which just merged

Such a rule is unpleasantly clunky, if historic and reasonable from a financials market perspective. It pretty much guarantees that the SWR is going to be the first secondary company out with the GWR and LNWR in the next round. The CR is a knife aimed straight at the L&SR and has all the subtlety of the Wabash in Wabash Cannonball. Likewise the The LNWR is a somewhat similar knife aimed at the L&MR and by extension at the B&GR. The SWR conversely lurks between the B&GR and the L&MR and can’t insta-merge in one build like the CR and LNWR can, but it potentially controls many foreign ports and is thus interesting for that reason alone. The NER is just a pig – whenever it starts it will isnta-merge into whatever the current shape of the L&MR/L&SR pair is. The GWR is a similar inst-merge into whatever the B&GR is then.

At least there’s now some subtlety to the mergers with the ugly delay rule.

Sigh.

Another potential model struck this morning:

1. Scrap all the current merger rules
2. Starting after the third General Dividend players may start capitalising the secondary companies. As soon as a share sells (two? three?) they may start operating.
3. Should a secondary company build into another operating companies home station (using its own track) the other company is absorbed, shares trade up etc and there’s a special dividend for the secondary company

ObNote: This model may unduely protect the LB&SCR and EUR and unduly weaken the NER. It may also require adjusting the rule-of-three track building rules.

The port pricing is still a problem but the base game seems to be cleaning up well. I’ve also made the art a little more functional, noting the starting stations and the like, fixing a few small track problems (eg Blackpool) and such forth. Nothing major.

Today’s comment should amuse the punters. From Games with strong theme:

Ra is dripping with theme. Look at your role in the game as the steering patriarch of a family dynasty that invests in the Egyptian civilisation over generations. What balance of investments will best carry your people forward? Feeding them with floods? Monuments to their glory? The favours and wealth of the gods? More pharoahs to carry the torch? Perhaps the technologies of civilisation: mathematics, weights and measures, granaries etc. Which family line will hold the first rank in creating Egypt’s status in the world and history?

And yet is is merely a set collection game. The depth of theme, like any game, is merely in how one chooses to look at it. It is a pure elective. All games are abstract. The rest are the trappings of self-deception that we distract and amuse ourselves with.

Seth Jaffee commented approvingly on the BGDF chat on my making actions in Muck & Brass mandatory, unlike the optional actions in Wabash Cannonball. I replied that while I’d have a hard time phrasing a strong argument for making them mandatory, I was convinced that it was necessary.

Later in the resulting (brief) conversation it struck me: A significant portion of good play in Wabash Cannonball centres around controlling the game length in terms of General Dividends. For instance in a 3 player game selecting Capitalisation once without auctioning a share will often add an additional General Dividend to the game, doing it twice makes that near guaranteed, thrice and you’ll sometimes get a second additional General Dividend. As a result Wabash Cannonball has control of game length as a central challenge in the game. But control of game-length is not central to Muck & Brass so supporting a strong mechanism to affect game length would distract from the actual core foci of the game (network potentials, financial leverage, emergent alliances etc) and should thus be avoided.

ObAside: The sway point in Wabash Cannonball appears to be at 3 passed Capitalisations for 3 players as past that and games start ending more frequently from track cubes than they do from shares, thus requiring passing on Expand to gain further General Dividends.

Several small changes based on simulation runs:

1. Setup vs game start rules clarified
2. As each initial share is auctioned that company builds a free link
3. Initial turn order after auction is now cash-based rather than starting with the L&MR player
4. Action rotation clarified
5. Actions are now explicitly stated as mandatory (unlike Wabash Cannonball)
6. Foreign Links may not be built until after the 3rd general dividend. (not sure this is needed)
7. Expand action requalified to limit builds to not more than three connections out from any city, and not all the connections from any city with more than two connections. This allows the dead ends (like Thurso and Penzance) to be interesting as well as the many two-connection way-stops
8. Clarified cases of merger shares auctioned without bids.