Having fought through much of the three day weekend with the Neuland-style action track for Muck & Brass, I’m calling it quits. It is not a good fit for the design. The mechanism has a number of interesting properties but they will be better used elsewhere.

In the prior discussion I defaulted without examination to moving forward in the event of a collision¹. Why?

If collisions do not trigger slides then either it must always be possible to avoid a collision (easily proven impossible in 4+ player games) or there must be an ordering function for players resident at the same action slot, perhaps a FIFO or LIFO. Both queue forms have their interesting aspects with LIFOs perhaps being the more interesting as later players can get an instant second turn by ending atop a prior player, perhaps to the earlier player’s discomfort (making turn prediction more difficult and yet more valuable).

Stacking seems inevitably less interesting. Collision sliding offers a few clear interest-benefits:

1. A slide moves the subject player further around the ring thus making their next dividend closer/sooner
   • Situations can be crafted which allow multiple positions to be collision-slid
2. Collision sliding encourages players to chose actions which use/absorb the lost action point. Because this value cuts in both directions, Development gets an extra boost encouraging a slightly more Development-centric game than Expansion-centric
3. Unpreventable slides (can) force players to waste action points in non-income producing movement

Meanwhile almost the same multiple-turn opportunity remains, just trimmed by one action point to not include the collision point.

More simply collision-sliding offers an additional decision: To slide or not to slide. Each side of that decision has significant effects on turn order – effects which are interesting for the subject player and interesting for other players to predict and arrange afore-hand.

The Neuland action-track, even Thebe’s simpler version, is just an action costing/selection mechanism akin to the rondel that Mac Gerdts has been so fond of using. The track controls turn order and expresses choices in terms of action versus cost where the cost is implied against turn order. Key to the whole pattern is differentiation both in terms of board position and action track position. This localises values to that the turn order ramifications of subsequent action choices are significant.

Neuland does this through the combination of three patterns:

1. Food and Wood must (nearly) always be protected through occupation/production
2. Players must consume their products each turn or lose them at the end of their turn
3. Players ending with their action market on a slow already occupied by another player must slide forward to the next free slot

The result is an accelerating wave front of consumption, driven from behind by the constant input of food and wood and fanning out into ever more orchestrally difficult complexity in the mature mature products. The wave front collapses when products must be discarded rather than consumed¹ and around point-producing buildings consume of mature/complex products, allowing the player to reset back to a simpler world² and begin the next heady climb³.

The key here is differentiation. Differentiation is required by any temporary emergent alliance game else the alliances have no value gradients to form around. Like both Pampas Railroads and Wabash Cannonball the current initial share auction in Muck & Brass establishes a couple primary points of differentiation:

1. What shares are held by whom at the end of the auction
2. Total cash holdings (and resulting turn order)

However those differences are too small for Muck & Brass. Unlike Wabash Cannonball and Pampas Railroads, companies are poorly differentiated in Muck & Brass as their long-term income potentials are mostly dependent on action selections that surround the early mid-game (access to London and merge opportunities). Again like Wabash Cannonball and Pampas Railroads, Muck & Brass uses competition for limited action supplies to provide the rest of the differentiation. Any replacement action selection and turn order system will need to at least equal that level of differentiation if not improve on it, and there are a few problems.

Unlike Neuland, Muck & Brass does not have an oscillating wave-front of commitment. Actions will generally not be selected in large sets, rather a player will take an action (sliding forwards Neuland-style as needed) and the player furthest behind on the action track will take the next action (usually a different player). The result is that opportunity cost becomes significant – not opportunity for self but opportunity afforded to others. A large/expensive action which passes over other players affords them the opportunity to perform multiple smaller/cheaper actions before the expensive-action-player can react.

This has large implications for the numbers selected. If, for instance, all the costs are even values, then the players will rapidly sort themselves into sets, the odds and the evens, with transfers between sets occurring only on collisions⁴ All odd costs also has the same behaviour. Having the action cost values close to each other suggests that collisions will be more frequent, but also suggests that players will select actions in part to avoid collisions (they might as well spend the action they’d otherwise lose by sliding forward). The intersection of these two patterns arrives when some costs are multiples of other costs. Multiples suggest phase relationships with the parity of the modulo affecting action selection in order to avoid collisions, Additionally there’s a relationship between the size of the average action cost and the number of players. For instance if the costs are 1/2/3 and there are 5 players in the game, then after a few turns every action choice will result in a collision.

The significant attributes appear to be:

1. Odd/even spread of costs
2. Ratio of average cost to number of players
3. Density of action cost values
4. Average rate of collisions
5. Strength of set-formation among players along parity lines
6. Breath of action cost range in terms of cost-multiples

And of course:

1. Length of action track as a function of action costs as a determinant of dividend rate

Hurm. I was looking at 1/2-2/3-4 as action costs, but that seems clearly poor, especially when compared to player counts. 2/5-3/5-7 seems attractive. This is going to take some work.

As a total aside, I’ve also been toying with an extension to the Capitalisation action:

- In addition to the normal behaviours a player holding a clear plurality of shares in a company may have that company reclaim any one of its shares held by any player for a sum equal to twice the current dividend value of the share

I ran some thought models last night. They didn’t work so well. Today’s talk with Tim on #bgdf_chat summarises well enough:

[2008-08-29/12:51] <clearclaw> The Neuland action system has problems as described – it forces all players to ally equally.

[2008-08-29/12:51] <gamesonthebrain> How so?

[2008-08-29/12:52] <clearclaw> You want to make money on every player’s turn when they cross the boundary. Thus you want to invest in everything they hold a plurality in.

[2008-08-29/12:52] <clearclaw> Similarly you only want to forward companies you at least hold an equal share in.

[2008-08-29/12:53] <clearclaw> But that’s due to the definition of when/how dividends get paid.

[2008-08-29/12:53] <gamesonthebrain> Right, which can be changed

[2008-08-29/12:53] <clearclaw> Yep. Changing that constraint can change everything.

[2008-08-29/12:54] <clearclaw> I’m toying with having everything the player is invested in pays out, just to that player.

[2008-08-29/12:54] <gamesonthebrain> I did’t realize until today that Neuland’s turn order system is fairly different from Thebes

[2008-08-29/12:54] <clearclaw> That does really interesting things to the incentives.

[2008-08-29/12:54] <clearclaw> I’ve never played Thebes so can’t comment.

[2008-08-29/12:54] <clearclaw> Neuland is a favourite though.

[2008-08-29/12:54] <gamesonthebrain> In Thebes, the person in the back of the line always takes the next action

[2008-08-29/12:55] <gamesonthebrain> So the actions would be much more broken up

[2008-08-29/12:55] <gamesonthebrain> If I was on space 4 and you on 3, it would be your turn

[2008-08-29/12:55] <clearclaw> Ditto Neuland except that in Neuland players get to keep using actions until they quit, as long as they don’t pass themselves.

[2008-08-29/12:55] * clearclaw nods.

[2008-08-29/12:55] <clearclaw> That is finer grained.

[2008-08-29/12:55] <gamesonthebrain> If you took a 1 AP point action, you’d then be on “top” of me, and thus still your turn

[2008-08-29/12:55] <gamesonthebrain> Ya

[2008-08-29/12:55] <clearclaw> I’m thinking of that graining for this game.

[2008-08-29/12:56] <clearclaw> Tinner’s Trail is somewhat similar.

[2008-08-29/12:56] <gamesonthebrain> Yes… the only real difference is the fixed round in TT, and the “top” person does not go again…

[2008-08-29/12:57] <gamesonthebrain> Like you said in our chat the other day, the finer grained Thebes system might make the game substantially longer

[2008-08-29/12:57] * clearclaw pondering.

[2008-08-29/12:58] <clearclaw> I am liking the idea of paying just the active player for everything they hold though. It feels like it might work.

[2008-08-29/12:58] <gamesonthebrain> It certainly would be easier

[2008-08-29/12:58] <gamesonthebrain> Less fiddly

[2008-08-29/12:58] <clearclaw> As for game length, that’s also a question of end-definition. That can be adjusted.

[2008-08-29/12:58] <clearclaw> It also makes the play decisions, especially Capitalisation, much harder.

[2008-08-29/12:59] <clearclaw> Very odd tempos.

[2008-08-29/12:59] <clearclaw> Very hard to predict.

[2008-08-29/12:59] <clearclaw> Strange effects on alliances.

[2008-08-29/12:59] <clearclaw> I don’t think I understand what it will in fact do....

[2008-08-29/12:59] <gamesonthebrain> Sure, but at least it is completely controlled by the players

[2008-08-29/12:59] <clearclaw> There is that advantage. Players are my favourite source of randomity.

[2008-08-29/13:00] <gamesonthebrain> It’s hard to say without testing it, but it sounds perfect to me

[2008-08-29/13:01] * clearclaw grins.

[2008-08-29/13:01] <clearclaw> I have more models to run.

[2008-08-29/13:01] <gamesonthebrain> Let me know about the results… my email is gamesonthebrain@---------.com

[2008-08-29/13:02] <gamesonthebrain> As I said the other day, I have an experienced train gaming group ready to playtest

[2008-08-29/13:04] <clearclaw> Hehn. Wilco. I suspect the blog and the IRC here are the best channels until it gels.

[2008-08-29/13:05] <clearclaw> Thanks

[2008-08-29/13:06] <gamesonthebrain> Fine… I’m on here a lot more now with the new IRC channel

The real key is the control of what pays when as that drives the incentives that drive alliance formation. That prediction by the players is (going to be) the base on which they determine their interest and thus their action selections.

I’ve been wanting to get back to work on Colonial Zoo for a while now but every time I start re-assembling my thoughts they veer off and turn into odd ideas about Trade Winds and/or Muck & Brass or some collision of the two. It has been frustrating.

The main thought for Muck & Brass is that the Pampas Railroads-style action selection mechanism isn’t sufficiently expressive. It provides interesting choices, but they tend to short-term tactical due to the ever-shifting turn order¹. Both Pampas Railroads and Wabash Cannonball exploit right/left binding as a way of providing enough certainty for alliance formation. My largely certain assumption is that fixed turn order isn’t required for emergent alliances, just merely helpful. Emergent alliance formation can still operate in games with variable turn order, as seen with Han’s Riding Series.

Without admitting a problem, perhaps a more free-form action system would make the game more interestingly phase-driven and thus cast a stronger structural light on the game of mergers? Additionally such a system might offer some of the long-term certainties that are missing with variable turn order and thus allow for more interestingly strategic decisions.

The thoughts were solidified by a discussion with Tim Harrison (GamesOnTheBrain) on #bgdf_chat:

[2008-08-27/10:46] <gamesonthebrain> hmmm… JC… I just had an idea… you remember my basic description of my holy grail train game above… I wonder if the Thebes/Neuland AP thing would work well in a game like that

[2008-08-27/10:50] <clearclaw> The Neuland turn-order pattern will tend to drive a longer game.

[2008-08-27/10:51] <clearclaw> Think about it this way: How many turns per player and how many rounds per player per game.

[2008-08-27/10:52] <clearclaw> In general players should have 10-14 turns in non-epic games which feature non-trivial turns. Less and the game is too short to build interest, longer and it bloats.

[2008-08-27/10:52] <gamesonthebrain> Ya, you’re right

[2008-08-27/10:52] <clearclaw> (there are of course exceptions)

[2008-08-27/10:53] <gamesonthebrain> I do tend to like games that have a lot of short turns rather than few long ones though

[2008-08-27/10:53] <gamesonthebrain> like the rondel games

[2008-08-27/10:56] <clearclaw> The Rondel games are interesting. All the rondel really does is present a specific choice-costing structure on each turn.

[2008-08-27/10:56] <clearclaw> His next game does exactly the same sort of choice-costing, just without the rondel and thereby affords a somewhat more interesting graph of choice-relationships.

[2008-08-27/10:56] <gamesonthebrain> I’m really looking forward to princes

[2008-08-27/10:57] <gamesonthebrain> sounds like a must buy for me

[2008-08-27/10:57] <clearclaw> My sense however is that for a game turn to be interesting a player must manage 5-7 (not more!) discrete elements, and must make at least 3 significant and inter-related decisions.

[2008-08-27/10:58] <clearclaw> But that may be more revealing my own preferences than setting an abstract guide.

[2008-08-27/10:58] * clearclaw nods. It does sound interesting.

[2008-08-27/10:58] * clearclaw says things about the implications of the rule of seven etc.

[2008-08-27/10:59] <gamesonthebrain> with the AP thing, wouldn’t a successful player have to be thinking several turns ahead in order to do well? thus, it seems, they would have to be managing 5 or so elements and be making 3 significant decisions per turn.

[2008-08-27/10:59] * clearclaw nods GamesOnTheBrain

[2008-08-27/11:00] <gamesonthebrain> I agree that it might make the game way too long though

[2008-08-27/11:00] <clearclaw> That think-ahead can be one of the dimensions managed on the turn, thus allowing the choices contained within the turn to be simpler. Goa does that trick particularly well.

The brief thought is to make the following changes:

1. A Neuland-style action point track (length TBD, probably in the 7-9 range))
2. One location on the track is called out (colour or other marking)
3. Players may perform any of the standard Capitalise/Develop/Expand actions in the normal manner
4. Each action has an associated AP cost, eg Capitalise 3 AP, Develop (single) 2 AP, Develop (double) 3AP, Expand (single) 1AP, Expand (double) 2AP
5. APs result in the player’s token orbiting the Neuland-style track in the normal manner
6. Turn order is dictated by the action point track Neuland-style (very uncertain about this)
7. Should a players action take them to or past the specially marked location on the action track (cf Imperial’s Investor rondel location) then all the companies of which that player is the plurality shareholder pay dividends

Methinks I need to run some simulations.

I previously simplified the implemented definition of a future down to:

1. Buy goods now to be delivered at time X
2. Sell goods now to be delivered at time Q

That was a mistake. A necessary element of the core problem of Modern Mogul is that fact that the players should (nearly) never be playing the game as it exists in present time. Instead they should be playing the game as they hope it will be some number of turns in the future. In the above simplified definition the capital is both committed and spent now and only satisfaction is delayed. The more interesting and useful form has the commitment occur now and the capital expenditure when the future matures. In this way the players will not only have to juggle the vagaries of the future market, but also the vagaries of their future liquidity as a result of market activity between then and now. Much better.

I’m not getting to play with Muck & Brass as much as I’d like lately – Lords of the Spanish Main is occupying too much of my attention – so a little disclosure seems in order: Rules for Muck & Brass!

I also give you the brief graphical evolution of Muck & Brass.

A thought model; just a skein of partial ideas to consider hanging a game from:

External markets phase

• A graph, nodes connected by edges. Some nodes are identified as (potential) start nodes.
• Nodes bear a die indicating the current market demand at that node. cf The future market die (central collumn) in Lokomotive Werks
• The die or node may be coloured to indicate a specific transport type (passenger, freight etc)
• Players may claim edges between start nodes and other nodes, or between nodes already connected and other nodes (connected or unconnected). In this manner the network grows and becomes incestuous
  • Possibly an auction of the nominated edge?
    • cf Dutch Intercity’s blind-bid edge within a very small graph
  • The Riding Series method of rotation auctions until at least one player has spent all their cash and all players have auctioned at least once may be interesting
  • Ordering by cash holdings, or inverse, may also be interesting. cf The Riding Series and Lokomotive Werks for value considerations
  • Possibly there are limitations on contiguous networks, costs for non-contiguous networks etc.
    • Should claimed edges be coloured by player and if so, what is the value?
• By claiming a connection a player has acquired commits them to supply transport in that volume in N-turns (N = 3?)
  • The auction for the edge sets the price for that product-type ($/volume) and this is tracked/recorded
  • Future auctions produce new values, also tracked
  • Minimum bids may be set as a function of projected values from this history
• As additional edges are claimed new markets enter the game with their own demands for volume
  • Represented by a new “line” of dice for that node, possibly in a different colour or a higher value of a current colour
  • Thus a thriving market for one sort of transport (eg freight) prompts a market for passengers etc etc and so forth (yay theme)
• In a later phase players may sell the futures among each other
  • Again an auction, modifies the tracked price?

Production phase

• Effectively Lokomotive Werks redressed
  • D4s? – lower variance
  • Number of dice in future orders column equal to total of all dice-values on nodes connected by claimed edges
• Building new factories unchanged.
• Building capacity unchanged
• Players don’t claim dice, they auction them (and receive the money personally)
  • What is auctioned is a commitment to supply Q product of that type in N turned (N=3?)

Future fulfilment

• The current turn’s contracts are resolved
• Each buy must be matched with sells of the same type etc.
  • Open negotiation?
• Unmatched buys are satisfied by the hidden market which operates at a cost of X% of a function of the tracked market prices and those funds are covered by the players
• Unmatched sells force the market price down and penalise the holding player by n% of the then market value?
  • Simply losing the future may be enough penalty
• What is resolution order of what buys and sells are matched and in what order?
• Monies are paid from the bank to players holding satisfied buy futures (they ship the goods?)

Market maintenance phase

• Each dice line on a node grows or shrinks by one die Lokomotive Werks-style
  • Possibly this is a global function across all nodes, a local function/property of the node, or a mix of both
  • Possibly a function of the properties/types of lines in neighbouring nodes (reflective/communicative/memetic markets)?
  • The dice are rolled, establishing total orders within the period (may be less or more than total futures)
• Each player in rotation claims either auctions a die at a currently connected node (assumes uncoloured edges?), or auctions a new/additional edge
  • A new edge may connect a new node, in which case they automatically get that die/contract, or if between already-connected nodes, may affect market maturation patterns in those nodes (see above)
  • Not clear what auction value an edge between connected nodes has?
• Limit to total growth of dice lines on nodes?

A fractured thought model to be sure, plangent and struck through with gaping flaws.

After some odd thoughts about how the network growth potentials of ‘Ohana Proa could be mapped as a pseudo-futures market, i’ve been thinking about representing futures in games quite a bit lately and I’m having a really hard time of it.

The simplest way to present a future seems to be as a pair of contracts:

1. The agreement to sell at time X for price Y
2. The agreement to buy at time Q for price R

The two are of course reciprocals. There are more complex forms of futures, but they are just that, more complex. The basic form would have PlayerA selling a contract to PlayerB, PlayerB giving PlayerA money in return for the guaranteed market (to buy or sell). The complexity is that PlayerB has to have the money now to buy the contract, and depending on the type of the contract, will also either have to have the trade goods or the money to satisfy the contract when it comes due. The primary justification for futures is to guarantee both the pricing and the existence of the marketplace into the future against the vagaries of market dynamics. Thus a wheat producer can not only set his effective price for next year’s tonnage now, but can also guarantee that there is in fact a market to sell his wheat next year. A wheat buyer can do likewise, protecting themselves against price spikes due to bad weather and a reduced crop (for instance). But you know all this – I repeat myself, re-tracing the pattern in hope that repetition reveals something new and useful.

The challenge is to (literally?) transcribe this into a game. There must be risks sufficiently large that the inefficiencies of futures are worth it. The range of extent of the risks must also be knowable (supply may be high or low, prices may be high or low, demand may be high or low). Additionally, if a futures market is to be represented, the actual trade of futures and the tracking of futures prices as a discrete market entities, then fulfilment must be sufficiently postponed that the value of the future has the opportunity for multiple significant changes and can be reasonably traded multiple times.

This suggests a future length of between 3 and 5 rounds¹. The future would be sold and there would then be 3-5 rounds of market evolutions and potential trading of a given future before it matures and is fulfilled. A good rule-of-thumb is that a game has 7-10 rounds, with each player making at least one strategically significant evolution per round. 7-10 rounds gives sufficient time for player investments to mature, carrying player commitment and value, and for game arc to develop. Given that futures must have a maturation time of 3-5 rounds and assuming that all the maturation periods will stack as densely as possible, that means a game duration of 10-15 rounds.

This of course assumes that the players start the game with positions which require the sort of risk abeyance that futures provide: another problem to resolve. But, so far so good. The remaining problems are to establish the risks and the market variance controls which can express reasonably in 10-15 rounds.

The future definition could also be simplified to :

1. Buy goods now to be delivered at time X
2. Sell goods now to be delivered at time Q

In essence the transaction occurs now except the fulfilment, the actual movement of goods, happens later. The pattern is similar to the mail order market model (given guaranteed delivery times) except that fulfilment is delayed by more than the postal system². This is almost the same kettle of fish except that all the capital is required up front for the purchaser to abey the risks.

If the simplified model is combined with a loans/temporary-liquidity system ³ it becomes remarkably similar to the more classical and complex split contract/fulfilment/payment futures model.

Now for the risk system, and this is where I’m running dry.

The system needs a market with the following properties:

1. High potential price variance
2. Increasingly difficult to predict the longer the prediction (early-, mid- or late-game), not exponentially, but probably worse than linearly
3. Reasonably predictable market volume demands

That last is a doozie. If I simulate supply and demand then either the supply and demand is highly unpredictable, or there is another large random factor in addition to supply and demand which affects market prices. One appealing possibility is using Lokomotive Werks’ novel dice-based market system, as it does provide a highly dynamic market with high variance supply and demand relationships⁴.

Positing Modern Mogul as an extrapolation of Lokomotive Werks is appealing as Lokomotive Werks is a fine game (review). Lokomotive Werks internally simulates the demand side through a combination of the number of dice rolled (which is a function of competition), the values that are rolled on those dice and the individual player’s turn order but leaves the supply side for players to construct. Somehow this needs to be split so that players can occupy both the supply and demand sides of the equation.

Demands are supplies for the next stemp in the consumption pipeline. What if there were the equivalent of two Lokomotive Werk’s tracks, one of factories for production (much like the current game) and the other with second stage demand? Thus, keeping with the train/transport themeing, one system would generate erratically growing sequences of transport demands (passenger, livestock, freight, etc), perhaps using a very similar system to Lokomotive Werks, which the players would then attempt to fulfil by representing back to the train production market as demands in some value distribution. Thus on the one hand players would attempt to gauge their position against the variations in transport demand, and by reflection from that, against the variance in production vehicle demand.

Much as I like perfect and certain information games, the use of dice (as a stand-in for any random system) seems suitable. here. The requirement is to create a high-risk difficult to predict system. A random system obviously does that and has the advantage that the range and distribution can be relatively precisely tailored. Building the system from player-interactions is likely possible but seems a difficult butterfly effect challenge and runs the risk of being fragile/crackable.

Hurm. Back-to-back Lokomotive Werk’s-like systems with a full futures market (time-based contracts to buy-and sell, plus dynamic price tracking). This needs musing on.

Harrumph. I started writing this post indending to explain how impossible it was to reasonably represent a futures market in a game and I had a stack of good solid (swiss-cheese) reasons in-hand. However, as hoped, as I assembled and articulated the reasons they built something else.

Seth Jaffee has made images for the tokens in ‘Ohana Proa and graciously allowed me to make them generally available.