A precis to the beguine

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.