New rules for Muck & Brass. There are no substantive changes, just a few minor clarifications for items already raised in the playtest discussion. The changelog:

• Many missing commas fixed
• Few typos fixed
• Clarified bank pools
• Clarified multiple ports in Liverpool and London
• Fixed bad reference
• No more merger shares (finished the job)

This is not an official re-release of the prototype (ie it doesn’t have a new release number). It is just a touch-up of the rules in attempt to say the same things they did before, more clearly. Enjoy.

One of the Muck & Brass playtesters has been unable to post comments using Google Chrome. I don’t know why as I can’t test here with Chrome as I don’t run Windows on any of my machines. I’ve tested with multiple test accounts under Firefox, Safari, Konqueror, Lynx and W3: all have been able to post comments without trouble.

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Author: Test User | Date: Saturday 21 February 2009 | Time: 11:20

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I have posted revision #65 of Muck & Brass¹ to the distribution point and access instructions are about to be sent out². Future releases will bear their own release numbers. Please append commentary, questions, reactions, thoughts etc as comments to each version’s announcement³ post so we may easily track exactly what is being talked about⁴.

The playtest files for Muck & Brass are ready and I’m braced to let them rip on the unsuspecting. Those that have contacted me should expect to be receiving a message with the super-secret (hush now!) instructions on how download the files.

I’d like all textual feedback (session reports, questions, reactions, commentary etc) posted as comments on this blog, I’ll post an entry to the blog with each new release of the game files (hopefully there won’t be many) and y’all can append comments to that for feedback etc. Then as I make a new release, there will be a new post and an associated comment stream etc for that version of the game. I’m hopeful that the only needed changes to the game will be small rules tweaks for clarity and perhaps the odd adjustment of a port or city value¹. Pictures, movies and other media are always welcome and may be sent to me via email or even better, uploaded to my anonymous FTP server at ftp://ftp.kanga.nu/incoming. Please mention the FTP upload in a posted comment so I’ll know to get the files!

Brace yourself Edna, they’re comin’ ovah!

Another realisation that struck during last night’s 2 player game of Muck & Brass was the value and utility of using the secondary companies as capital sources for primary companies via mergers. For some reason that use hadn’t struck me but as a technique it worked out well in last night’s game. It also clarifies the strange see-saw of incentive and interest that run among clear plurality holdings, ports, mergers, capitalisation and turn order control. The end-game is rife with cases of money-losing investments being the levers necessary for even more profitable returns. The classic example from last night was a share of the LB&SCR which was purchased for $61 and rewarded a lifetime revenue of around $16, but enabled other activities and incentives with the L&SR that generated ~$200 in dividends.

It is a strange thing to discover one’s own game.

Work and local testing is continuing apace. I’ve gotten in several games with the new rules (and scores of simulated games) and so far it is all looking good. The big surprise was today’s two player game which worked far better than I expected.

I shouldn’t be so surprised. Muck and Brass, unlike Wabash Cannonball / Pampas Railroads etc is not primarily an auction game, but is much more about positional and timing advantages than auction values. As such with only two players the auction becomes a linear extension of that two player tactical battle and really works quite well. Of course eventually one player will tend to run away and be simply uncatchable, but that’s to be expected in any two player zero-sum perfect and certain information game, and this should be recognised when it occurs and the game conceded at that point. Don’t be too quick to pull the trigger though: there’s an awful lot of ground that can be recovered with careful exploitation of the default turn order. Still, it is a pleasant surprise and I’ve added two player support to the map and rules (a small change in all).

The last change, and this is a small one, is that I added another port to Liverpool and London with costs around $100. The current distribution of ports and their costs is a mix of guesswork and inspiration. So far it has mostly seemed about right in our games. I’ve added the very expensive ports for Liverpool and London simply to allow trimming back late game behemoths with egregiously expensive (and historically accurate) ports, thus providing a dramatic and welcome turning point in the late game.

The next round appears to be done:

Changes:

• Images scaled to fit on US-Legal sized paper
• The winner of a share pays time for a Capitalise, not necessarily the action selector
• Time limit per round changes with player count (Thanks Tim!)
• Moved the charters spaces off their own sheet onto the board edge, Wabash Cannonball-style
• Put marked spaces on the charters for shares, sample colour markers etc
• A few notes for playtesters in the rules
• Several small clarifications of prices and edge/corner cases (eg no bids on a share)

New rules. I’ve worked through a few dozen simulated games with the changes and they worked well. The goal is to play face-to-face tonight and tomorrow night. If that proves out I’ll start sending copies to playtesters.

It is common wisdom that the box is often the most expensive item of a published game, and it is true. For small bespoke/vanity publishers box pricing is often prohibitive. It is a Catch-22. Boxes that display well and which retailers are happy to shelve (a significant concern) simply cost too much to afford, but without such well displaying boxes retail success is elusive.

Some choices that I’ve considered for my yet-to-be-named vanity press¹:

1. Paper envelopes as popularised by the many Cheap Ass Games analogues. Often simply monochrome images are printed on the outside of the envelope. Sometimes the rules are printed on the envelope. Many of the small press Age of Steam map products are sold in plain manilla envelopes.
2. Polyethylene bags, seen recently for Sierra Madre Games and many Cheap Ass Games products. Typically the rulebook cover is the art (as seen through the bag).
3. Small white display/shipping boxes as used by Cheap Ass Games (again) and various small card games. Large format labels can be applied to all the major faces. Despite the labels they tend to look rather packing-boxey but can deliver a professional albeit small press appearance. They shelve and stock reasonably well at the retail level but don’t display well. 1 Collectible card boxes as used by The Realm of Fantasy for Atta Ants. A paper insert, visible through the plastic on the various sides forms the box art. They can shelve, stock and reasonably display well.
4. Polystyrene clamshells. Cambridge Games Factory have been using plastic clamshell cases, as recently seen for Aapep and Glory to Rome. There are a number of suppliers but Placon have been made well-known among small publishers as Winsome Games have used them extensively, but there are many other suppliers. Like the bags and card cases, a simple insert or the rule-book, visible through the plastic forms the display art. They are disliked by retailers as not only hard to shelve, stock and display, but fragile and prone to damage (sun/heat).
5. Tubes, usually plastic. Plastic poster tubes have mostly come and gone for small press publishers but they used to be de rigueur for small press games. They are loathed by retailers and are usually consigned to the floor or other dead corners as impossible to display effectively.
6. VHS cassette cases. Usually black plastic, sometimes white, not the sort with padded edges but rather the (usually) four-clip hard cases. GMT uses such cases for the expansion armies to Wizard Kings. It can be difficult finding cases without the posts for the cassette reels. Art is either a slip-in for three sides of the box, or a cardboard sleeve. They shelve, stock and display well given that the box-size is in an awkward middle-size range that doesn’t fit the display systems used for most other games, too big for card games, too small for big-box games.
7. White single-piece shipping boxes. Mostly recently well used by Deep Thought Games and Hangman Games, these are readily available from shipping companies. Simple large format adhesive labels may be easily applied to the main faces for branding and display. Despite the labels they tend to look rather packing-boxey but can deliver a professional albeit small press appearance. They shelve and stock reasonably but don’t display well at the retail level.
8. White telescoping boxes. Also available in black (harder to find). Most recently used by Deep Thought Games as their premium game box and by Vainglorious Games for Cambria, they are often readily available from shipping companies. Large format adhesive labels may be easily applied to the main faces for branding and display. They can can deliver a (more) professional albeit small press appearance. They shelve and stock well and display reasonably well at the retail level. Note: Most readily available telescoping boxes tend to be made of thinner/weaker/lower density material than the single piece packing boxes. The big advantage are that the telescoping box presents a cleaner top display surface (no gap where the lid tucks in along one edge) and they meet the basic expectation of buyers as to what a game box should be. As such they are preferred by retailers.
9. Custom printed/full-wrap box. Two forms: full-wrap lid and plain base or full-wrap lid and base. Expensive and typically requires a large print run. The expense comes in two forms: the custom printing (which requires a large print run for an economical rate) and (if necessary) a custom die for a custom box-size/insert to cut/mark/score the cardboard appropriately. These are the boxes most liked by retailers as the easiest to shelve, stock and display. Caveat: Pick your custom box sizes carefully and after consultation with multiple experienced retailers from the market segments you are interested in. More than a few nice boxes simply don’t work at the retail level.

For my own interests I’ve been considering plain manilla envelopes for the Age of Steam maps, clear collectable card game boxes for card games and white single piece boxes ala Deep Thought Games’ products if I do anything larger.

Capitalisation may be too expensive. Too often the only correct bid is however much or one more than the player with the second most cash has. Sometimes the correct bid is to even bid more in order to fund the company or to hide cash for turn order advantage. Surprisingly rarely is it to bid less than the second richest player. The result is that the only player who has an incentive to choose Capitalise is the player with the most cash. This is a problem of the first water, exacerbated by the ability to hide capital in company treasuries for recovery in end-game payouts (admittedly a loss) in order to gain preferential turn order.

In noodling the area last night I came up with a curious idea:

What if the player that wins a Capitalised share has to pay the 3 months, not necessarily the player that selected the Capitalisation action?

Among other things this would give the ability to fork the other players. They either allow the Capitaliser to get a share (cheaply) or they sacrifice positional advantage. That can be a hard position, especially in the setup for mergers and ports. The buyer-pays-the-time pattern would apply to both the directly selected Capitalise choice and those forced by ports and mergers. A player already past the round-cut-off would not be excluded from bidding – thus weakening or at least bounding the fork-ability.

I wrote previously on Duck Dealer and got it all so embarrassingly wrong. Here’s the corrected version I promised.

Duck Dealer is a far simpler game and is a much closer derivative of Merchant of Venus than it first appears. Like Merchant of Venus there are only a few things in the game which are important. The rest is incidental.

There are only two things in the game which are really important: 50 point factories and 50 point consumer tiles. The 50 point consumer tiles are consolation prizes for the people who didn’t get there in time to build the 50 point factory. The 30 point consumer products are consolation prizes for the people who were dawdled and didn’t get either. With rare exception nothing else in the game matters; only the 50 point factories and 50 point consumer tiles are important. Everything else is either an incidental, a consolation prize or a stocking stuffer because there’s nothing else better left to do.

Examine the consumer tile table board carefully before the game starts. One of the bottom two tiles is not going to be placed. Which one won’t make it? Look at the mine placements. Look for synergies in the patterns of mines that lead toward specific 50 point consumer tiles as contrasted to the order of availability of those consume tiles. There should be 2-3 obvious opportunities. Those are what you and the other players will be heading for. Your goal is to get ownership markers on all the buildings in one or more production chains that have a 50 point consumer tile at their end. With good players you won’t get everything in the chain so compromises will need to be made. Look to the efficiency points along the way. Where in that process chain will you be spending the most discs? Forgo ownership markers on buildings which are used less frequently in your chain than those used more often. The goal is to be able to cycle from mines all the way up to 50 point consumer tile products as quickly as possible (least number of energy-taking turns required).

Your teleport link has two main purposes:

• To add efficiency to your production loop

or:

• To get you to or from your production loop when re-jiggering your ship configuration before another player can interfere with your efficiency

Offensive use of teleport links is almost irrelevant. Using other’s teleport placements to increase your own efficiency is delightful.

The ideal situation is a loop of four mines in a row, needing only one red disc for each move between them, each mine paired with the proper adjacent factory, no back-and-forthing required for ideal production, and a telport from the end back to the start where the 50 point factory and consumer are placed (or one of the trivial variants of that pattern).

Once you have secured a 50 point factory tile and its matching consumer tile and built/flipped them both as applicable, there is a simple choice. Which is more efficient: to cycle on your loop for 30 VPs per product or to run off and cherry pick other 50 point factory or consumer tiles? If your ownership markers are well placed it will usually be to run your own cycle. However there’s a potentially interesting tactical decision, especially if it also provides the opportunity to bork other player’s hopes and plans.

Opportunism is everything. The other players will also see the same opportunities you do. They will be pursuing the same goals and possibilities you re looking toward. Getting there first and sewing up the key points along the way is critical. In doing this the key question is opportunity cost. By acting early you can get the jump on them, but by waiting you’ll have more energy and will be able to do/secure more. Attempting to correctly time the relative advantages of that decision forms a large portion of the game. This is the race portion of the game. It is entirely a question of who gets there first. Who gets the 50 point factory first? Remember: consumer tiles are a consolation prizes for the player(s) who didn’t get the factory. Careful timing and watching of the energy potentials of the other players is key. Count carefully and often.

All ship sizes are viable – for different purposes. A 1 hold ship can be very effective at sewing up the early stages of a production route before the players building out their ships can get there. However you’ll need to go back and reconfigure for more holds to make your 50 point tile runs. A 5 or 7 hold ship seems about minimal for making efficient 50 point tile runs but bigger can be better. Depending on your success in securing your production chain, bigger ships of various configurations make sense. Final ship configuration is entirely a question of minimising energy-taking turns per VP earned (or VP blocked from another player).

As the end-game approaches and players start sewing up their runs the VPs should come flooding in. 200 points in a single action is not uncommon an I’ve seen as many as 300 in a single action. This is why the little 3 and 10 etc point returns for smaller factories and consumers are just noise. In a tight game they may make the difference but that can’t be planned and accounted for at the start of the game and thus should be ignored. The big 50 point and 30 point runs at the end of the game are the goal to focus on and the primary determining factor in the game. One delivery of 5 top-level consumer products earns a minimum of 150 points. The real question is: How often can you do that or better?

The primary value of the 10 and 25 point consumer tile placements is to reduce the efficiency of other player’s production loops. They’re not worth bothering with otherwise. Flipping them yourself wastes a product that could be better spent building a 50 point factory or flipping a 50 point consumer. Put low value consumer tiles where other players wanted to ideally put their 50 point consumer tiles. Low value consumer tiles are more valuable as blocks than for points. There’s a similar though much reduced value for the lower point factories (the one’s you don’t need for your loop but others do for their’s). Put their desired factories in the wrong places and force them to be inefficient. The ideal is to have the factory adjacent to one of its inputs and logistically after its first input location. It is sometimes possible to ensure that a given 50 point factory is never placed and can never be placed. Also remember that one of the 50 point consumer tiles cannot be placed in every game. There is often advantage in ensuring that the factory or consumer tile another player was building towards is the one that won’t be placed, or if it will be placed, that it is on the opposite side of the board from their production chain. Of course they’re also thinking the same thoughts about your chain, so some attention to preventive defence may be in order. Opportunistic collateral damage is a wonderful thing.

Beware of the end-game. Most of the game consists of setting up for massive point runs in the end-game. It is not unusual for a player to have almost no points before they start their big end-game runs. In this way the game is extremely end-loaded. Most games end with players acting every turn and forcing the end-game, thus forcing other players to accelerate out of efficiency or else never get to act at all. It is not uncommon for a different player to have won if only they’d had one more energy-taking round or a slightly different mix of energy in-hand before the end-game rush started. Count, calculate and plan carefully.