Simply to reduce play length and in partial paean to Roads & Boats, I’d like all player turns within a City State to be simultaneous. The problem is when player product movements conflict. Multiple players may want to move product markers to the same locations at the same time. I created a forum thread to examine the area here. There have been interesting replies.

What makes the situation a little more complex than even that thread describes is that players may move a single product marker once or several times. Within the single player’s logical space this is not a problem. The problem enters with multi-player coordination and the effective input of iteration. Consider:

1. PlayerA moves product marker to LocationX.
2. PlayerB moves product marker to LocationY. PlayerB then wants to continue and move their marker to LocationX. Should they make the move and thus create a conflict, or shoud they wait until later in the same turn to see if PlayerA moves their product marker off LocationX with their own double-move first?
3. Now add a PlayerC with their own interesting dependency graph.

I’m not sure this is inherently solvable. Much as I discuss, the simple cases can be mostly suitably handled by defining a preset order of resolution of conflicts and a policy for loopbacks. Some problems remain for very large loopback structures, but those may be containable in other fashions (eg simply limit the total number of conflicts that any give player may initiate per turn). The problem is that the problem isn’t that simple, it never is. If I add the multiple-move option described immediately above (which I really need to do for efficiency’s and interest’s sake), then the problem is a lot more complex and I’m not sure that any simple knife can cut that knot.

David Pontier’s approach to a Tech Tree:

It is far too large and long for Colonial Zoo, I’ll need something roughly a fifth the size in each dimension, but it has some nice relationships in it.

The money must flow.

Players start with a base fortune.

They may invest that fortune in City States so that they are able to construct buildings useful to the players.

Some buildings accept money as inputs to produce their product.

Some buildings accept resources as inputs and produce money as their output.

City States will accept resources from players to construct buildings or perform actions. If done during the player phase this purchase will be reflected as an increased investment base for the player even though no money explicitly moved. If done during the City State phase money will move from the City State treasury to the players.

Some buildings may only be constructed during the player phase, other during the City State phase.

Some buildings instantly reward the constructor with money from the bank.

At the end of each round the City States levy taxes. Money is paid from the bank to the City States for each building in that City State. Players must give money to the City State for each product marker they have on a building in the state.

Not all buildings or product markers tax at the same rate.

Players may trade ownership of product markers. They may accompany such trade with money.

City States may conquer or subsume other city states. In short this is done by gaining control of the other City State’s centre. Upon successful conquest much of the treasury of the conquered state is divided among the larger investors of the winning City State. The remaining funds are added to the winning City State’s treasury. Investments in the old state translate linearly to the new larger state.

The turn order pattern can be interesting.

During a City State’s turn all the players with presence in that City State may act, moving and using their product markers as appropriate. This is the micro-economics exercise portion of the programme. Such movements are usually entirely self-interested but they need not be. Players have a limited number of actions they may perform and beyond that limit must pay exponentially for continuing. Any given product market can move at most once for free, with additional movements also raising (slower) exponential costs. The result is that players must optimise a two and a half dimensional field:

1. Limiting the total number of product markers within a City State so as to retain efficiency and flexibility in the face of player competition. The key risk is that every product marker that hasn’t been used or moved by the end of a turn must be discarded (deliberate shades of Neuland). Given that a product market on a late-building may represent actions across a dozen turns, losing such a product marker is expensive.
2. Securing a production line by saturating all the buildings in the production line with product markers. The result is that turns become simple: just bump the whole chain forward one step. Of course if the production chain is longer than the maximum number of free actions, then the costs will need to be balanced. The primary risk is that another player will attempt to pre-empt a later portion of the whole chain, possibly causing a large number of product markers to rot and be lost. The current expectation is that players will attempt this pattern but segmenting their production line across multiple City States. Each City State would contain a smaller number of steps and markers, but the player would need to bear the cost of transport feed for the products between City States.
3. Risk. Production lines will generally represent single technology levels. Too many product markers committed to a single production opens the player to the risk of losing some or all of them due to one of the City States upgrading to a higher technology, causing key buildings and the product markers on them to be lost. It is expected that long production chains will be absurdly profitable. Thus it is in the key interest of all players to push the technology tree quickly so that the players that do secure those long production lines can’t profit from them too heavily and sustain a considerable recovery period when moving to the new technology level (deliberate shades of 18XX: 3 trains cannot be allowed to live for too long).

What makes this interesting is the effect of player and City State turn order on this balance.

On a City State’s turn players first operate in turn order, and then the City State operates. In general the first phase should consist of the players running the micro-economy and the second phase will have the City States gearing up for the next layer/scale of the micro-economy. But not always.

During the player phase players may force the City State to build and do anything they wish just as long as the player also presents all the resources necessary. This has two primary results. First it allows a City State to act (beneficially or not) during the player phase, effectively giving the City State am extra free turn (and multiple players could do this together for multiple extra City State turns) while the players donating that extra turn also increase their investment in the City State, thus possibly becoming the investment leader and thus dictator of the City State’s actions on its turn. Secondly the City State on its turn may purchase goods from players in order to perform City State actions, thus effectively giving money and actions back to the subject player (may be the primary investor/dictator).

ObNote: Players may also purchase products from each other in a limited form auction,

It is hoped that this will create a multilevel market:

1. Players will sacrifice actions and money to gain the buildings etc they want along with influence and control of the City State. The increased investment can change the controller of the City State, the rewards for war (discussed later), and can move the City State higher in the turn order of City States.
2. Primary investors will cause the City States to purchase products from players, thus pushing investment money back out to the players and thus granting them liquidity and flexibility, and reduging the total investment volume of the City State and thus possibly moving it lower in the turn order of City States.

I’ve temporarily renamed the game to Capitalist Zoo. I’m not fond of this name either, but it is at least better than Shadow Clan. More changes to come.

Upcoming topics (not in order, mostly just notes for myself):

• War
• Conquest
• Rewards for conflict
• Extracting money from products
• Extracting money from City States
• Move sequence optimisation
• Turn limits
• Interplayer conflict arbitration
• Player trade
• Negotation
• Use of rusting
• Technology umbras
• Cost structures

Producing the relatively large number of terrain tiles for prototypes has been a concern. In fact I just bought a copy of Roads & Boards plus &cetera just because I expected that I’d also be able to use the many hundreds of bits from those games in the prototypes for this one. Of course it didn’t hurt that I also like Roads & Boats.

And of course I’ve pretty much decided that hexagonal tiles (such as in Roads & Boats) are an unnecessary complexity for this game. Oh well. The problem remains: How to produce the several hundreds of terrain tiles needed?

Solution:

1. Thin wood tiles about 1.5” square from the local craft store.
2. A big sealed storage or fridge container
3. Cheap poster paint.
4. A good-sized dollop of poster paint in the container, some water as solvent, toss in the tiles, shake vigorously, remove and let tiles dry on a piece of chicken wire from the home DIY store.

Two types of buildings:

1. City State centres
2. Other

City State centres occupy a contiguous block of tiles of a certain shape with specific terrain requirements, When upgraded to a larger city centre the new location may not be more than one tile removed from the prior location. Each type/scale of city centre comes with a range. All contiguous buildings (contiguous with the City Centre) within that range or which are connected by state own transports to contiguous buildings within that range, are part of the City State.

Other buildings are production buildings. They are of three types: buildings Producers, Translators and Money Producers (need a better name for this one).

Producers accept no inputs and produce whatever it is they produce. This process is identical to the farms and shepherd shacks in Neuland.

Translators accept a specific mix of inputs of specific types of products and in return output of a product of yet another type. This process is identical to most of the buildings in Neuland.

Money producers accept a specific mix of inputs of specific types of products and in return give the moving player abstract money in their account.

Physically buildings consist of one or more contiguous tiles with terrain limitations. Contiguity will usually require tiles sharing edges but in certain very limited cases may be defined by sharing corners or even by range measurements. Uncertain.

Building tiles are placed on terrain tiles.

Product markers are placed on building tiles. Typically there may be only one product marker per building at any one time, no matter how many tiles the building covers. Some special few buildings may accept multiple product markers (function of tech level?).

Some buildings produce transports given the right inputs. Thus a stable that is adjacent to a paddock may accept food etc as inputs and output horses. Similarly shipyards produce ships, wainwrights produce wagons etc. The produced transports are owned by the city state. The producing player is rewarded with investment value in the city. The producing player may move the transports out from the production centre, and in fact all the transports of that type that are members of a set contiguous with that production centre with the following constraints:

1. No more than N transports may occupy a production site.
2. Transports may be moved off the production site
3. Different transports have different terrain limitations. Those limits may be how many may occupy a given terrain type, if they may share the terrain type with other transports, with other buildings, or the total number of things that may also be present on the tile (crowding).
4. Every moved transport must be able to trace a parth from its location, through other transports of the same type, owned by the same City State, to a production site for transports of that type owned by the same City State.
5. A chain of transports joining two production sites of that type of transport may never be broken by the City State that owns the transport. The chain must remain. Other City States may attack the chain and break it, in which case the original City State has one turn in which to reconnect the disconnected transports before their ownership transfers to whichever City State owns the production site they are connected to.
6. Transports which connect two production sites may still move, perhaps to join yet other production sites, but may not in the process sacrifice connections previously gained.
7. Should a connection be removed by the owning City State destroying or losing that production site then the transports may move away freely.

Players may move products over transports to buildings in connected (or same) City States. Such movement requires payment for use of the transport to the owning City State. The product must continue to move off the transport to a building which can accept it for production. Any required fees for this additional movement must be paid.

Remember, players don’t own transports or buildings, cities do.

Different transports have different capacities. Transports cannot carry loads of too high (or low) a tech level. They are also limited in capacity. This limits the transfer bandwidth between cities.

Orchestration of transport logistics and timing is expected to be significant to good play.

This game has occupied my commutes, my showers, my pre- and post-sleep musings, and even a few of my dreams. A great many things have been assembled. It is now time to try and get that melange out of my head and assembled into an externally logical system.

The assumed presentation is a modular map built from square tiles. The square tiles would represent one of six terrain types: ocean, marsh, plains, hills, mountains, impassable. The players would start the game by assembling the tiles into a pleasing pattern. Possibly there would also be preset patterns of scenarios for more canned experiences.

Once the map was established the players would in turn each found one city state in some location on the board. A city state would be defined by its central location, initially something like a meeting hut, later something akin to a City Hall, Palace or other capitol building. Subsequent buildings within range of the central building would be considered to be part of the city state.

City states consist of contiguous sets of buildings. City States are defined by their centres and a range factor from their centres. That range gets larger as the city cntre is upgraded. City states may overlap, in which case one either overtakes (war/conquest) the other, one simply absorbs the other, or they co-exist with clearly defined (possibly porous) boundaries.

City states will be invested in by players. These investments will initially take the form of straight cash. Later investments may take the form of building contracts, logistical supplies and material supplies. The lead investors in a city state will guide the city’s decisions. Minor investors will not have a part in this decision process.

This is not a negotiation game.

The basic expected pattern:

1. City states are ordered in terms of descending bankroll

2. In order Each CIty State takes a turn. A turn consists of:

• Each player with presence in that city taking a turn and moving their product markers among buildings within the City State, or moving them out to buildings in other City States, and other like activities, selling material to the City State, investing in the City State, etc
• The primary investors in the City State making decisions for the City State. This will mostly take the form of building construction, investments in material, wars, etc.

1. Repeat #2 for the next City State

2. When all City States have been processed, repeat from #1.

Buildings would be largely analagous to the buildings in Neuland or Roads & Boats. Player participation however would be strictly along the Neuland pattern. Players would only own product markers and product markers would decay across turns. Like Roads & Boats, players would not own buildings or transports, just product markers. Thus the challenge becomes one of sequencing product marker translations across chains of buildings both within and across City States efficiently. Additionally the challenge is to sequence the City States so that their order of operation allows for most efficient action sequencing. Finally the challenge is to cause City States to construct buildings that most advantage your action sequencing without undue benefit to others.

Assumptions:

1. A player may cause a City State to build any requested building merely by providing all required resources.
2. Buildings gall within technology levels in different vectors. Some builds are not constructable until the City State has mastered specific prior technologies
3. City States can “borrow” the technology of their neighbours (connected by transports) without investing in the technologies themselves.
4. Construction of a building at a sufficiently high technology level causes all buildings and any product markers they may contain and any transports which depend on them of a sufficiently low technology level to vanish instantly from the game. They are obsolete. This effect may extend to City States directly connected by transports. Thus for instance a City State may research Internal Combustion Engines and then build a Internal Combustion Engine factory only to see all stables, horses, donkeys and carts instantly vanish from the City State’s domain. This pattern is deliberately directly comparable to the 18XX train rusting pattern.
5. A players turn starts by laying down each one of their product markers that are in the currently active City State. They may move up to N product markers on to subsequent buildings for free. In doind so the product markers stand up (shades of Neuland). They may move product markers additional steps forward through the building chain or add additional action markers or start-location buildsings in the City for an exponentially growing cost. Product markers may be moved across transports to other buildings or to remote City States for a fee paid to the owning City State.

The thematic premise to date has been competing city states (cf early Greece) with players variously investing in the city states and potentially guiding their life cycles, or exploiting the facilities the city states proffer to generate profits. As such the core pattern is a mix of macro-investment tightly combined with micro-investment. A player may guide a City State to built the QRS building so that they can then use that building to produce products which they sell/use to make large profits with another or the same City State, or another player, or perhaps at another building nearby or elsewhere. Thus it is expected that the relationships and connectivities of the city states will provide a large and evolving context which the players will build and evolve, all the while also exploiting the details of the imbalances in that system to their own advantage.

I realise that many players yearn for in-game identities. They want to be the…XYZ. They want to have an identified anthropomorphic role. It has been difficult to determine such a role for this game. Several concepts cam to mind: clan heads, apocryphal jewish investors, Illuminati, conspiring hidden hands etc. I’ve been rather fond of a forced misinterpreation of the Commonwealth term “Shadow Cabinet”, which while it means something else entirely, by name suggests the sort of hidden role the players would take in guiding the lives and fate of the City States.

I am increasingly unfond of the current name of Shadow Clan. It is too melodramatic and suggestive of things this game is not intended to be.

At core this is an attempt to design a game-type I strongly dislike, but in a manner that I’d enjoy playing. I strongly dislike economic system/snowball games (eg St Petersburg, Phoenicia, Power Grid, Das Zeptor von Zavendor, Outpost, Civilisation (and all the other 4X variations) etc). However I do like logistical graph manipulation games. The result is that in many ways this is an attempt to make an economic snowball game which is also an interesting logistical graph manipulation game.

The core game problem is assumed to be competition for share of the pie. The player with the largest percentage of the pie at the end of the game wins. Most likely this will be expressed in terms of money, and thus the pie will effectively be the bank of all money in the game universe with the game ending when the game system runs out of money. The player with the largest net worth at that point (largest fraction of the pie), wins.

The parallel to the 18XX is deliberate. However I’m not interested in producing an 18XX clone and thus will be resisting thinking about or phrasing this game in terms of 18XX comparisons. I expect that this and future blog items will show that this is difficult.

The 18XX are effectively all about owning the most valuable shares at the end of the game. Cash is important, but pretty much only as a way of gaining the most valuable shares. I do not want to follow that pattern. The loose expectation here is that players will build and iteratively exercise logistical systems in order to make profits. However the key element is that they won’t build a profit engine in the 18XX or Outpost, sense, but rathr engage in a game-long sequence of logistic moves and relationships which variously result in net profits (and re-investments etc). Thus it is expected that the game will rely much more on timing, presence, and connectivity than systemic relationships.

To give a sense of where I’m heading the primary game inspirations from the logical perspective are things like:

• Neuland
• Roads & Boats
• Logistico
• Atta Ants
• Bridges of Shangri-La?
• Kogge

And on the investment vehicle side are games like:

• the 18XX
• Imperial
• Greentown
• Antike
• Container
• Traders of Genoa

Hopefully this will give a sense of where I’m heading, or perhaps trying to head.