J C Lawrence's and Helmut Ohley's reworking of 18FR | 18FR

United States
Somerville
Massachusetts

ceci n'est pas une pipe

excellent project! is 18FR a longer winded game, compared to 1889? Can you summarize the basic features such as: full capitalization? one or two yellow tile lays? government railroads? mcguffins?

Posted Wed Nov 11, 2009 12:14 am
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J C Lawrence

United States
Campbell
California

photocurio wrote:

excellent project! is 18FR a longer winded game, compared to 1889? Can you summarize the basic features such as: full capitalization? one or two yellow tile lays? government railroads? mcguffins?

It is 1830 on a new map, and witha few rules tweaks. As such the scale, length etc is comparable to 1830. Hopefully the rules file will be approved soon.

Posted Wed Nov 11, 2009 12:24 am
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J C Lawrence

United States
Campbell
California

brauerle wrote:

Nicely done!

It would be nice, if you could also provide the map on A4 paper sheets for easier production.

Helmut has already done that with his map: see his website for the files. The only difference between this map and Helmut's is that it is more decorative. There are not substantive changes. (There are also many tools readily available to do the segmenting you describe, using whatever criteria you prefer rather than the ones I may pick)

Posted Wed Nov 11, 2009 12:26 am
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Breno K.

(BrenoK)

Brazil
Brasília
Distrito Federal

Will the files be sufficient or will we have to own a copy of 1830 to play this new version too?

Posted Wed Nov 11, 2009 1:31 am
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J C Lawrence

United States
Campbell
California

You will need several things from 1830, specifically: the trains, the money (hehn), and the track-tiles. I suspect you'll also want additional #8 and #9 tiles, more than 1830 provides and more than this kit (directly) provides, but I can't support that directly yet.

ObNote: My files don't cover the additional track-tiles, not even the additional track-tiles for 18FR. You'll need Helmut's original files for the special 18FR track-tiles and your own source for the rest.

Edited Wed Nov 11, 2009 7:39 am
Posted Wed Nov 11, 2009 7:37 am
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J C Lawrence

United States
Campbell
California

Please note that the rules are not yet cast in stone. There may be some small adjustments.

Posted Wed Nov 11, 2009 7:30 pm
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Scott Petersen

(scottredracecar)

United States
St. Louis Park
Minnesota

clearclaw wrote:

ObNote: My files don't cover the additional track-tiles, not even the additional track-tiles for 18FR. You'll need Helmut's original files for the special 18FR track-tiles and your own source for the rest.

Just curious, why not include the variant tiles? Should be a minimal effort to save a little confusion. ...not that the Helmut's originals are difficult to obtain by any means...

Posted Wed Nov 11, 2009 8:15 pm
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J C Lawrence

United States
Campbell
California

scottredracecar wrote:

Just curious, why not include the variant tiles? Should be a minimal effort to save a little confusion. ...not that the Helmut's originals are difficult to obtain by any means...

A fatal combination of laziness, lack of time, no room on the current pages/sheets for them, and a mild disinclination to make a tile sheet, an additional sheet, with the additional tiles.

Caveat: I may yet revisit this. I don't like Helmut's tiles (minor art problems), and I'm already playing with how to properly draw 18xx tiles in an another arena.

Posted Wed Nov 11, 2009 8:26 pm
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the track tiles formerly known as

(jimb)

United States
Berkeley
California

clearclaw wrote:

I'm already playing with how to properly draw 18xx tiles

The new stock certificates for 18FR show JC's promise as a tilesmith.

A gradient-fill matte screen ages the certificates, and hints at his firm handling of the naked warrior princesses.

Posted Wed Nov 11, 2009 8:50 pm
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Breno K.

(BrenoK)

Brazil
Brasília
Distrito Federal

"This naked warrior princess tile lets you cast fireballs that do 2D6 damage to any trains belonging to other companies that run adjacent to this tile"

Posted Wed Nov 11, 2009 9:04 pm
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J C Lawrence

United States
Campbell
California

jimb wrote:

A gradient-fill matte screen ages the certificates, and hints at his firm handling of the naked warrior princesses.

Unfortunately the gradient-fill privates do not print as they appear. I like how they appear, and they appear exactly as I intended, but they print very boldly, and neither Helmut nor I am satisfied with them.

The track-tile area is mostly just a question of getting the right object hierarchy drawn to build tiles. I know a great many ways to do it poorly (and have done several). Doing it right however requires rather more work and I'm not there yet. This is also made slightly more interesting as the solution needs to cover 38mm track-tiles and 41.5mm map tiles (the latter for pre-printed track). (Some of my demands for good tile art are also unrealistically excessive, such as affording a 6-token city tile which contains three distinct internal routes, with each route adjoining two tokens -- and this, combined with my natural stubbornness, is slowing things)

Edited Wed Nov 11, 2009 9:19 pm
Posted Wed Nov 11, 2009 9:14 pm
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J C Lawrence

United States
Campbell
California

BrenoK wrote:

"This naked warrior princess tile lets you cast fireballs that do 2D6 damage to any trains belonging to other companies that run adjacent to this tile"

Being of a reductionist mind and not really wanting to add additional components to the game, I suggest that those so interested consider that the 20fr/OR bonuses for port tokens are in fact profits from the brothel concessions that are so popular with the sailors at the ports. One assumes that such players would thus handle the ports and related items with suitable firmness.

Edited Wed Nov 11, 2009 9:20 pm
Posted Wed Nov 11, 2009 9:16 pm
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Jack Neal

(Raiderjakk)

United States
Madison
Ohio

jimb wrote:

clearclaw wrote:

I'm already playing with how to properly draw 18xx tiles

The new stock certificates for 18FR show JC's promise as a tilesmith.

A gradient-fill matte screen ages the certificates, and hints at his firm handling of the naked warrior princesses.

(snicker)

Posted Wed Nov 11, 2009 9:31 pm
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Bruce Murphy

Australia
Pyrmont
NSW

clearclaw wrote:

Unfortunately the gradient-fill privates do not print as they appear. I like how they appear, and they appear exactly as I intended, but they print very boldly, and neither Helmut nor I am satisfied with them.

Given how they appear, I am now strongly disinclined to print them.

B>

Posted Wed Nov 11, 2009 11:17 pm
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peter mumford

United States
Somerville
Massachusetts

ceci n'est pas une pipe

clearclaw wrote:

I'm already playing with how to properly draw 18xx tiles in an another arena.

good question. one possibly helpful piece of the puzzle is the illustrator plugin [geekurl= http://members.shaw.ca/spvincent/plugins/Tessella_files/Tess...]Tessella[/geekurl]. this lets you create hexagonal tiles. Maybe more helpful for map drawing than tile page drawing..

Posted Wed Nov 11, 2009 11:34 pm
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Bruce Murphy

Australia
Pyrmont
NSW

Something tells me that the hexes weren't the primary impediment.

B>

Posted Wed Nov 11, 2009 11:38 pm
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J C Lawrence

United States
Campbell
California

Illustrator already fully handles hexes -- that's part of the shape tool. The trick was figuring out what the correct symbol hierarchy should be. It turned out to be something like:

A 41.5mm hex (across the flats), colourless interior and stroke.

A 7.5mm circle with a white interior and a 0.25 black stroke.

The string "10" in Arno Pro I-forget-the-size, centred in that circle and made into a sympbol.

Similar symbol made for 20,30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 & 100.

A symbol of an 8pt black line cross the middle of such a hex, edge-to edge.

A symbol of a 12pt white line cross the middle of such a hex, edge-to edge.

A symbol of the above two above (white behind black) combined with a transparent hex to make a straight-track hex.

A symbol of a white 12pt line approximately 7mm long.

A symbol of a black 8pt line approximately 5mm long.

The two towns symbols arranged on the straight track symbolso that white outline is behind the straight track, the town is centred, and combined with a "10" value circle to make a straight track with a town.

Repeat with three hexes in a triangle and a circle etc for sharp-curve track, using an extra-hex laid over the top to clip the circle down.

Ditto sharp-curves with towns.

Repeat with a ring of hexes to make broad curves and broad curves with towns.

Now take the above black lines and white lines etc, and stack in appropriate orders and leveling to make switches and cross-overs.

etc etc etc etc.

Next do the city variants. Note that all the hexes are still uncoloured. To use them lay them atop coloured map hexes.

When you're all done you'll have track images for map-drawing.

Next repeat all the above except now with 38mm hexes (flat-to-flat). These are the track tiles. Again, leave them uncoloured and when using lay them atop coloured track hexes.

Note: I didn't do this for 18FR. 18FR was originally drawn by (I think) Helmut using Corel Draw. I just edited the file to add annotations etc.

Edited Thu Nov 12, 2009 3:23 am
Posted Thu Nov 12, 2009 3:18 am
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J C Lawrence

United States
Campbell
California

thepackrat wrote:

Something tells me that the hexes weren't the primary impediment.

The largest impediment is that the game I'm now working on requires several dozens of track tiles which are not currently in the 18xx tile database, but that's another story.

Posted Thu Nov 12, 2009 3:21 am
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J C Lawrence

United States
Campbell
California

thepackrat wrote:

Given how they appear, I am now strongly disinclined to print them.

Please feel free to submit replacements. I'm unlikely to get back to them soon. FWLIW the only one that prints reasonably like the way I'd hoped is the priority card.

Edited Thu Nov 12, 2009 3:26 am
Posted Thu Nov 12, 2009 3:24 am
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peter mumford

United States
Somerville
Massachusetts

ceci n'est pas une pipe

clearclaw wrote:

Illustrator already fully handles hexes -- that's part of the shape tool.

It does, but it won't tile hexes across the canvas. Illustrator CS won't anyway. It only makes orthagonal tiles. Getting them to align perfectly manually is not so simple.

Posted Thu Nov 12, 2009 6:41 am
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J C Lawrence

United States
Campbell
California

photocurio wrote:

It does, but it won't tile hexes across the canvas. Illustrator CS won't anyway. It only makes orthagonal tiles. Getting them to align perfectly manually is not so simple.

I have AI CS4. It is a little laborious but not that hard to get a perfect tiling. Two hexes, flat to flat, center with each other, slide down the centre line until they report as intersected, group, rotate 60 degrees, add another hex positioned so that it reports alignment with both, group, and then have fun with cut'n'paste, checking the alignments at every step.

Edited Thu Nov 12, 2009 7:51 am
Posted Thu Nov 12, 2009 7:50 am
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Bruce Murphy

Australia
Pyrmont
NSW

clearclaw wrote:

Note: I didn't do this for 18FR. 18FR was originally drawn by (I think) Helmut using Corel Draw. I just edited the file to add annotations etc.

Those smell rather more like the output of AutoCAD to me.

B>

Posted Thu Nov 12, 2009 9:35 am
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Bruce Murphy

Australia
Pyrmont
NSW

clearclaw wrote:

thepackrat wrote:

Given how they appear, I am now strongly disinclined to print them.

Please feel free to submit replacements. I'm unlikely to get back to them soon. FWLIW the only one that prints reasonably like the way I'd hoped is the priority card.

I agree that the vignette effect on the flag is quite nice.

I have to see if I have a copy of a non-ancient illustrator somewhere.

B>

Posted Thu Nov 12, 2009 9:37 am
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J C Lawrence

United States
Campbell
California

thepackrat wrote:

Those smell rather more like the output of AutoCAD to me.

The typefaces used are consistent with Corel Draw. Helmut used Corel Draw for his other designs.

Edited Thu Nov 12, 2009 6:06 pm
Posted Thu Nov 12, 2009 5:56 pm
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Bruce Murphy

Australia
Pyrmont
NSW

clearclaw wrote:

thepackrat wrote:

Those smell rather more like the output of AutoCAD to me.

The typefaces used are consistent with Corel Draw. Helmut used Corel Draw for his other designs.

Are you talking about this file?

http://www.ohley.de/18fr/TeileundPrivatbahnen.pdf

While I've seen more recent stuff from him that could well be Corel Draw, the text on a lot of these tiles and certificates look a lot more like the plotter-friendly fonts of a CAD program and makes me personally think of AutoCAD. This is consistent with some other older stuff (1895 & 1862)

However, it doesn't matter

B>

Posted Thu Nov 12, 2009 6:42 pm
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J C Lawrence

United States
Campbell
California

I've posted a rules update (Paris costs 40fr for all upgrades) and a new version of the privates (much lighter/paler).

Posted Thu Nov 12, 2009 7:26 pm
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Ron K

(RaDiKal)

United States
Marcellus
New York

clearclaw wrote:

I've posted a rules update (Paris costs 40fr for all upgrades) and a new version of the privates (much lighter/paler).

How much play testing is the reworked 18FR rule set getting before each time you publish it here?

Posted Fri Nov 13, 2009 9:01 pm
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J C Lawrence

United States
Campbell
California

The Paris change was the result of an ongoing discussion between Helmut and me. Neither of us expect there to be any more changes.

Edited Sat Nov 14, 2009 8:06 pm
Posted Fri Nov 13, 2009 10:36 pm
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J C Lawrence

United States
Campbell
California

I have updated (pending approval) the tokens file (to version 3) to use a lighter brown for the PO tokens. The old colour for the Po tokens printed as black on some printers, making the PO tokens easily confused with the CEN tokens. The new lighter brown colour colour does not have that problem.

I've also posted a file containing only the tokens for those users who with so use different manufacturing processes for their tokens and private companies.

Oh, and there should be a picture in the gallery of my set pretty soon...

Edited Sun Nov 15, 2009 7:57 am
Posted Sun Nov 15, 2009 7:56 am
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Bruce Murphy

Australia
Pyrmont
NSW

thepackrat wrote:

clearclaw wrote:

The typefaces used are consistent with Corel Draw. Helmut used Corel Draw for his other designs.

Are you talking about this file?

http://www.ohley.de/18fr/TeileundPrivatbahnen.pdf

While I've seen more recent stuff from him that could well be Corel Draw, the text on a lot of these tiles and certificates look a lot more like the plotter-friendly fonts of a CAD program and makes me personally think of AutoCAD. This is consistent with some other older stuff (1895 & 1862)

However, it doesn't matter

However, even thought it really doesn't matter, I've confirmed with Helmut that the tiles I was talking about were actually created in a CAD program (but not AutoCAD).

B>

Posted Sun Nov 15, 2009 6:58 pm
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J C Lawrence

United States
Campbell
California

thepackrat wrote:

However, even thought it really doesn't matter, I've confirmed with Helmut that the tiles I was talking about were actually created in a CAD program (but not AutoCAD).

Yup, Nemetschek.

Posted Sun Nov 15, 2009 7:39 pm
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J C Lawrence

United States
Campbell
California

The observant may notice that I added another yellow #57 to my track-tile files above. I strongly recommend adding that tile to your mix when playing 18FR. Running out of yellow #57 tiles happens in 1830, not hugely frequently, but it happens. With just the 4 yellow #57 tiles from 1830 I've been finding that more than half of our games have seriously cramped on yellow #57 tiles, in two cases with company floating and then having to wait for several ORs for a tile to be freed (and to remain free for long enough). That's...a little often for an 1830-style game. Adding one more tile to the mix drops the rate down to around 1830's territory. It can still happen, it really hurts when it does, but it isn't frequent and it isn't almost every game like it is now for us without the added tile.

Edited Mon Dec 28, 2009 8:01 am
Posted Mon Dec 28, 2009 7:59 am
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J C Lawrence

United States
Campbell
California

I have posted train cards for 18FR. David Hecht very kindly donated the images used on the 3-trains and Diesels. (I'm about to make a change which also has the 6-trains use an image from David) Thank you David! The observant will also notice that the other trains are variously British or German and thus are not-quite-historical. I apologise for this. They are all fairly close to period however, but only fairly close. I found a great lack of suitable images for French trains of the period online.

Posted Wed Dec 30, 2009 6:41 pm
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peter mumford

United States
Somerville
Massachusetts

ceci n'est pas une pipe

Cool.. I love early locomotives. but whats with the diesels? They look like steam locomotives to me.

Posted Wed Dec 30, 2009 8:03 pm
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J C Lawrence