Iowa State University - the private company, the token, and the influence

Iowa State University is a private company in 18IA. Yes, a corporation's investment into founding a land-grant college produces income, just like a normal private company. The ISU token can be placed on any town to increase the route's value by $10. Beyond that, it is the token in the game removed the last, after all other influence tokens are removed. Best of all, at game's end, the last player to have owned the ISU certificate gets an additional $400 added to their final score.

I am trying here to make a private company that's functional even after private companies are removed from play, and again, to make the role of towns distinctive and appealing in the early-to-mid game.

As a side note, both my parents and one of my sisters are ISU alumni. It may appall some that I'm leaving Ames as a town on the map (while still allowing the formation of ISU in other towns on the map), as it was created for the purpose of supporting Iowa State University in the first place. That's the beauty of historic re-creations: the joy of the what-if?

Cedar Rapids & Missouri private company - first thoughts

The Cedar Rapids & Missouri private company currently provides for a half-price token in Cedar Rapids, and a free 1+2 train. This is a novelty that I haven't seen in any 18xx game before, although the 1876 (Trinidad) 1/2 trains are close. The train's route must include a city with a station marker, and up to two towns.

With the token-placing powers of some of the other private companies, it's likely that most of the railroads can upgrade their income on the first few turns just by reaching the closest town.

The corporation that owns this company may even be able to avoid buying a 2 train, and go straight to a higher-level train, while still being able to float and run immediately.

This private company is intended to increase the initial push toward towns, and represent the role of acquiring existing local railroads as a way of increasing the territory a corporation covers.

Des Moines and the playtest train count

There is no corporation with a starting station in Des Moines.

I have the Fort Dodge, Des Moines and Southern Railroad as a private corporation thus far, as it's a relatively-local outfit. I have given this private corporation two special abilites that I think are going to result in heavy bidding:

1. second yellow-only track lay during each yellow operating round, possibly costing $30-60.
2. half-price station placement in Des Moines. This is naturally worth either $20 or $50.

My experiments with the second track placement show that it's useful in cutting off opponents until you are clear. It also makes it possible for more railroads to run during the first round; by placing a second yellow track to reach a town or city, a viable route is created. If a viable route is present, the railroad is forced to buy a 2 train on the first turn.

My current playtest train count is as follows:

• five 2 trains
• two 2+1 trains
• four 3 trains
• two 3+2 trains (yes, better than the 4 train if you've got the towns on your routes already)
• four 4 trains
• two 4+2 trains (yes, better than the 5 train if you've got the towns on your routes already)
• three 5 trains
• two 6 trains
• three 7 trains
• unlimited 8 trains

In actual practice, I doubt that most corporations will be able to run any routes more complex than 6, maybe 7. It could happen, though, if players can mutually agree to keep stations clear, or if one player controls several railroads. Indeed, this may be an excellent reason to own an under-performing railroad in the late game, as it could well double the payout.

I am also hoping to stop the so-called train rush - the push to upgrade trains immediately regardless of board position. In actual practice, individual corporations probably can force a jump upwards to green tiles almost immediately if they want to buy trains that are likely to rust without paying for themselves. I'm hoping that this mix creates meaningful decisions for players, rather than railroading (har har) them every game.

Railroad corporations' starting stations

My draft board has 5 corporations starting on the northwest, northern, northeast, east, and southeast borders of Iowa. There is a single off-board (red) location in the southwest corner. I'd post a picture, but I'm still adjusting colors and so on.

Until I get in a true playtest, I won't know for sure how their interactions will really go. Of course, which corporations float in the opening stock round, and what their order will be, is of utmost interest. I have tried to design it so that players that crave cutthroat tile-laying can float the eastern companies, and the less-interactive players can float the northwest company and hope for the best.

In my experiments, the company that makes it into Des Moines has a decided earning advantage, but this is offset by 1. the private companies' powers, 2. the bidding necessary to be in the position to take advantage of a Des Moines route, and 3. the double-station space existing on the map at the start of the game. As more track complexity becomes available, there are more options, and ultimately, there are 3 spots for station markers in Des Moines.

I am also considering an optional fast-start rule where corporations can lay a second yellow track as close as possible to their starting station marker for $30-50. This would result in more balanced development, rather than a single-minded push to Des Moines.

Threw in the towel on ps18xx PostScript tile work

After much fiddling, I posted a request for help to the Yahoo group to see about making print-ready tile sheets. Several people, particularly the old hands, already have scripts that make this a breeze. I had hoped to figure it out on my own, but the sheer number of "Magic Numbers" inside the ps18xx files threw me for a loop. I'd also like to create and release to the public a script or front-end that makes this easier to generate.

I worked out how to adjust the scale, how to increase/decrease space between tiles, change/remove the page header, change font sizes on the tiles, add/remove tile numbers, change orientations, change labels, and so on. BUT I can't figure out how to adjust the number of tiles per row/column. I suspect the key is in the main drawing loop, but how precisely to do that (to make for exactly 4/5/6 columns of tiles instead of the normal 8, I couldn't work out.

Also eluding me was how to cause my edited file to be a multi-page document. I'm not sure if it's a defect in GhostScript, or in my own edited files, but all the pages after the first were blank.

The frustrating thing is that this could be so much easier. It would be fairly simple for a better web designer than me to generate a frontend where one checked boxes to select all the desired tiles, then chose where to put them. It would also be moderately challenging to create a graphical frontend for manipulating these files. Marco Rossi's Tile Designer readme files and webpage hint at the creation of an entire tileset generator, which would also create print-ready maps.

I've been experimenting with Inkscape, and that seemed interesting. I don't know how much work in it I want to re-create, but within 5 minutes of downloading it, I was creating perfect hexes, combining them into single objects, and so on. The tough part is going to be the roads, etc.

What works against everyone is the fact that most people don't inherently "get" the idea of vector versus raster graphics. My friend Larry and I were brainstorming yesterday when he came over to see the new baby. Earlier this year, I got him hooked on Paint.NET for raster work, but he still needs to flip over to Corel's stellar, $300 program to do vector work. I know that several of the train game experts use Corel Draw 10 as well. I've seen that at least one uses Visio, which I hadn't considered before reading that.

The final issue with file creation is that web users and playtesters, for the most part, need PDFs to print, rather than the original .ps or .eps or .svg files used to create the PDFs; PDFs are universally understood, and the original file-types are not. Lowering the barriers to trying your game makes it more likely it'll be playtested, and ultimately, that determines whether the game's a success.

I just keep thinking, "If I could create a good-looking map and good-looking tiles using a better, faster, automatic method than hand-drawing everything from scratch, I could halve the time it takes to create a working prototype. That'd also make it so much simpler to release a good-looking prototype, rather than a mediocre-looking one. The reduction in time to create a commercial print version would probably also be halved, though never having done so, I can't swear to that."

The home-grown tools used by the designers aren't new. They take what works, and add on new bits incrementally, but there are still major holes in the creation process.

Is this bad? Maybe. I read that Steam Over Holland, formerly known as 18IR, took about a year to go from prototype to final version. Interesting stuff.

So close, and yet, so far

I've been poking around with Marco Rossi's Tile Designer, and also with ps18xx, both of which are designed to create PostScript files. I have the free GhostScript viewer installed now.

There is no one-click map solution, and until someone comes along who doesn't think a command-line solution involving perl & postscript is awesome, there won't be.

To do list: tiles

I've got a rough map, know the names of the railroads and private companies involved, have a rough draft of the list of trains, and have the special powers of the private companies down. Map work is being done in Paint.NET, and I'm looking into vector graphics programs as well.

The tile mix is still in development. I'm trying to get a good mix of tiles that still has some competition involved. I am trying to get a no-stocks, no-money, no-real-trains playthrough each night to see how many tiles I can eliminate from the playtest set I created.

This has definitely been a fun project so far, and I feel like I'm almost ready to find a group of playtesters to see how my game plays out.

How much do I want to tell you?

Well, I have an idea: in the style of Mark Derrick and John David Galt's 18AL and 18GA, why not a railroad game about Iowa?

I'm working on a prototype for playtesting, and that's as much as I can say for now. Comments, thoughts, or suggestions are welcome.