Backing up the Ooze

The L&MR has moved back to Liverpool and the smal town of Selby has inserted itself between York and Sheffield (which is at least mildly historically accurate). This puts both the L&MR and L&SR three builds away from the hinge-point in Peterborough, and gives the three southern companies time to start soaking up the northern connectivity to London (Peterborough/London or Peterborough/Cambridge/London), thus moderating the early income power of the northerns, weakening the hinge point of Peterborough and encouraging the northerns to more strongly nest their track around Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield while remaining positioned for both mutual merger and possible assault on the EUR via Peterborough. I’d guess that in a third or more of games the northerns won’t reach London before the 3rd General dividend, which is a nice quality point of variance and control. As a side effect it also makes the Peterborough/Grimsby link a lynch pin in the southern’s assault on the northerns, which seems reasonable, while also making complete northern/southern segregation until the late game quite surprisingly viable – if turn order is good it is now possible for the northerns to prevent the southerns from merging into them quickly/easily.

So far so good.

Another thought model struck however. Instead of simply auctioning the first shares of the 5 initial companies in order, how about allowing it to mess about a bit?

Proposal: The game starts with the auction of a share of the L&MR. The next player can auction either a share of the L&SR or another share of the L&MR. The player after that can auction the next company in order that hasn’t sold a share yet, or a share from any earlier company which still has unsold shares. Each share sale would be accompanied by a free track build.

This feels like an astoundingly Bad Idea (tm), but it is also kinda cute and appealing. I’m pretty sure I shouldn’t do it.