Playtest #3...

The third playtest of a two player version game of the train card game ensued a couple days ago after work.  Like the other playtests before it, this was a solitaire affair with me playing both hands.  Also like the other games so far, some tweaking of the rules happened in real time.  However, unlike the prior runs, this game finished within an hour.

All in all, things went well...  The pace on this game was a little slower than games past.  I'm not sure exactly why other than cards just weren't dropping into place as easily as I'd liked.  A lot of later route cards played early.  Left started up the C&O and built.  Right started up the CP.  Both companies played what they could.  Scoring stayed low and a few cards were played pretty well that restricted hands, took cash away and made things miserable for the front runner.  Train rush moved well.  The final score was 29 to 26 with 5-Trains making it out on the scene.

Stuff to Tweak:

- The one change I made that I wasn't happy with was dropping visible cards from the draw pile from 5 to 3.  I liked having the other cards out there.  Back they go.

- Partial Owner Cards:  As much as I want these to work, they seemed too powerful and too arbitrary.  I thought about their initial function which was to level the field a little bit.  The boost they were intended to give was small and temporary - VP piggy back for a dividend and to help with track building on multi-player games.  However, since there's no shares in this game, there's little incentive to do that except to play a lesser value destination on an opposing railroad.  There simply aren't enough working parts in this game to justify such a card.  Out they go.  Sniff.

- Scarely Used Resources:  Another issue that keeps coming up is that the resources are almost never used.  I'm thinking that a player could trade in three alike resources or three of the same resources from their hand to purchase one wildcard route for a railroad or to cancel effects.  This would force some bad routes out of a player's hand and give another option for resource cards to be used.  The resources in general haven't been used that much at all because of the small payoff until later in the game, but in the grand scheme of the game, the route-building and hand management is the thing.  So this is in the back of my mind but doesn't bother me greatly.  It is fixable.

- Cosmetics:  Most of my ideas mid game for improvements were cosmetic.  I'm thinking a small 'stop sign' next to any card that counts as a stop in order (since stations and towns do not count).  I have had bigger ideas since regarding the card layout (see below).

- Card Mix:  The card mix needs to change.  The Build! cards can go away for the most part since the 3 card sets are going to come in.  My initial effect cards were supposed to be limited in nature to simplify testing.  I think I'm ready to try different things now, so I'm not too worried about this.

- Railroad Limits:  One rule I came up with on the fly involved just running 2 incomplete railroads.  This further elevates the smaller companies to be taken up quickly.  In short, I liked it.

Stuff That Worked Right:

- Trains!:  I liked the train rusting.  I liked having the trains being available after first in class was purchased.  I liked the decreasing cost of the trains and it pushed them to come out a little faster than merely phasing them out would with rusting.  The costlier trains emptying out hands of cards is an interesting decision - but a necessary one to win.

- Building Roads, Buying Trains versus Events:  If one part of the game froze up, other stuff opened up.  Can't build routes?  Add a train for later!  There was stuff to do and effects to play even if routes weren't being built.  It was an alternate story line.  I liked this aspect.

- Pacing:  The game has a subtle dance of timing, phases and sub-phases.  Initial runs to build routes, times to build your hand up, times when you'd pitch a fit because someone would make you kill your hand.  There's a lot there in this pack of cards.

- Scoring:  Scoring was tight.  Although the bulk of points is in RR management, other tactics during the game affected point totals.  I liked that too.

Bigger Stuff To Try:

- More effects.  Empty stops, added topography, (rivers/mountains/etc), temporary train bonuses, broken trains, bonuses for highest resource totals on routes, more payment cards, etc. are all possible.  The game is too solitaire but this element would add some interaction.

- Dividend Idea - Delayed Card Drafting:  Give VP for who draws last (1 or 2 VP) and let players stash a couple cards for use during the final dividend round.  It lets players get rid of higher price cards for use later in the game, reduces scoring penalty, encourages hand management and allows players to stash some cards for later.  I like combining this with reshuffling the discard deck, taking the top ten cards and letting the players go at it in the final dividend round.  Reminds me of 1960 a little bit.

- More players - I think this would be an interesting partnership game.  A three player game with seven railroads to fight over might be interesting as well.  Not sure how the deck breakdown works with that regard.

- Backup Wildcard - I'm thinking a way to produce a $0 value wildcard consisting of all three resources would be good.  Simply place one of those spent cards upside down on the route and you've got yourself a stop.  One per railroad.

Meta Game:

- Scoring:  Scoring seemed to be about right.  The notion of going into debt to charge back is an interesting one in this game.  VP's are about in the range I want them to be.  Finishing RR's is big and even the B&M can be a worthy company to own since it builds quickly and counts for 2 VP at the end of the game.  Playing resource cards may also help get someone over the top.  I like the balance of screw the opponent versus playing cards to your routes.  Ultimately, its your own score you want but it was amazing how some cards could decimate an opponent's building by removing a delicate balance of cards to build to the next region.  

- Negative Scoring:  Related to scoring is that the game tends to go into negative VP for a couple rounds.  I like this from a theme stand point (think loans, starting up, etc) but makes scoring a complete bear as the human mind just doesn't like negatives.  I think starting with 10 VP and forcing players to stay above 0 or getting kicked out of the game works well.

- Interaction:  This game is too solitaire at the moment.  Again, more cards with cooler effects.

- Effect Canceling:  I am really liking the idea of the 3 of the same suit/3 different suit (or $5?) to cancel a card effect.  It forces flushing of bad routes from player hands and gives players further decisions to make regarding losing VP or cards to a player versus discard.

- Deck Recycling:  For the 2 player game, it seemed to work well to have the deck split into three dividends and then ending the game after one shot through.  I'm thinking that one extra round would be good, but I think it would extend the game too long.  However, the other idea I'm thinking a round where discards are reshuffled and the first 12 cards are placed at the bottom for the final round.  Not sure about this, but I like the idea of discarded destinations being allowed back into the game.  

- Retheme:  It may make sense to "color-code" the regions and force cards to be played in color order with generic railroads to be used.  I like this on several reasons.  One big reason is the deck at this point is unwieldy and for a print and play game, smaller is better.  The notion of sticking with 18xx's colors of yellow, green, brown, gray and red and building railroad systems does have an allure that makes the game more interchangable - instead of upgrades, they would simply be the regions and building out (or upgrading earlier stops with the next color region later on).  It would make creating fictional railroads more interesting and craft game balance a little better.  It also makes the game easier to theme into something else if so desired.

- Deck Size:  The deck feels too big to me even though I like the dividend cycling based on drawing into quarters.  If I can retheme the game down and go through the deck twice, that may work. I wish I could get down to a 54 card deck, but I don't see it seeing how much building I like to see in the game, but that's a lot of cards to trim for print and play.  I have to tinker.  We'll stay big for now.

- Stocks and Shares:  Finally, with a retheme, it may be possible later to introduce a share game.  Not sure exactly, but it seems easier to do.  The notion of each company with its own cards in its "bank" similar to Monopoly Deal has an allure to it as well at least for a solitaire variant.

- Strategy:  Finally, yes, building routes is the name of the game - but does it pay to be defensive?  Hoard cards?  Buy excess trains?  Invest in smaller railroads or get bigger ones?  Upgrade routes?  I think there is some room for strategy although the game is admittedly more tactical than I would like.

Final Thoughts:

All in all, I'm happy with how the design is flushing out.  I like game designs that have different directions in which they can go and this design is breathing and moving about on its own.    It is definitely breaking out in different ways than I expected and I am really enjoying this particular design.  It feels more complete than my last shot through with tiles for 18XX.

We'll see.  I see myself putting together a new deck tonight!