Game: Maloney's Inheritance

Thread: Re: Auction order

fmoros — 2008-11-01T06:22:11+00:00

interesting question,
we always played with not order? should be an order?

Thread: Auction order

skeletodoc — 2008-11-01T02:33:39+00:00

Who gets to start the next auction..........the driver of the last trip or the player to his left? Near the end of the game , the leader can use his Joker to win if he goes first after being the driver in the last round........that seems unfair.

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hejhenrik — 2007-05-11T19:41:05+00:00

Swedish edition

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hejhenrik — 2007-05-11T19:40:14+00:00

Swedish edition

Thread: Re: Question about the auctions

kenjohns — 2007-05-09T14:50:52+00:00

If you play the first auction as HOLIDAY; ignore the special days; and end when one player has run out of cards - you should have a reasonable approximation of HOLIDAY.

However, if you go to the Geek HOLIDAY page you can download a DIY version, and play the real thing!

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fellonmyhead — 2007-02-22T16:19:29+00:00

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Werbaer — 2006-10-25T12:10:06+00:00

german edition (better image)

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Werbaer — 2006-06-15T14:35:08+00:00

inside the box

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Werbaer — 2006-06-15T14:16:28+00:00

game components

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Werbaer — 2006-06-15T14:15:38+00:00

game board

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Werbaer — 2006-06-15T14:04:07+00:00

back of the box

Thread: Re:Question about the auctions

Randy Cox — 2005-01-04T21:20:45+00:00

Psauberer (#74781),

Cool. Then it does sound as though Holiday is a very good game whereas Maloney's Inheritance is, well, not. And to remove the blind first auction, I guess you could randomly generate the first day before the first auction takes place, so that one would always know what day of the week it'll be when playing.

I may well have to make my own copy, using the Maloney's Inheritance cards as the basis for the city cards in Holiday.

Thanks for all your help.

Thread: Re:Question about the auctions

Psauberer — 2005-01-04T16:08:58+00:00

Randy Cox wrote:
My only reservation about Holiday is what appears to be a random effect of the day of the week. According to a review here, when you go to a city, you roll a six-sided die to see how many days the calendar advances. That seems awfully chaotic--you plan to get to a city next door to the one you're in and, voila, it's six days later than you thought and your card is rendered worthless.

The die is only used to set the day for the first play of the game. It is rolled after the first auction and the day advanced that many spaces from Sunday. So, the first auction is a bit blind. After that, though, the days advance one at a time on each turn. So you know exactly what day it is going to be for every turn but the first. And on that one you know it's not going to be Sunday.

Thread: Re:Question about the auctions

Randy Cox — 2005-01-04T14:04:04+00:00

Psauberer (#74660),

Thanks again. There are, indeed, 64 cards and 16 locations in Maloney's Inheritance, which I think is the same as for Holiday. But the map is totally different, though I don't know that the grid is all that important.

From your picture here on BGG, it appears that on the world map, all links between cities are bi-directional and there seem to be 6 or 7 going out of each city. For Maloney's Inheritance, the links are single-direction (e.g. city 1 may go to city 2, but city 2 won't go to city 1). I think each has 7 outbound cities and 7 inbound cities. Pretty cumbersome map.

What I might do is use the Maloney's inheritance cards (just the numbers and days of the week point tallies--I figure there are 4 cards for each of the 16 cities), make my own grid of the world approximating the one in your photo, and give it a go.

My only reservation about Holiday is what appears to be a random effect of the day of the week. According to a review here, when you go to a city, you roll a six-sided die to see how many days the calendar advances. That seems awfully chaotic--you plan to get to a city next door to the one you're in and, voila, it's six days later than you thought and your card is rendered worthless.

If I ever do create my Holiday-from-Maloney's-Inheritance game, the one change I may make is to have variable advancement of the calendar (short links would move the day up one or two days depending on the roll; medium links would move the day up one to four days; long routes one to six days; or something like that).

Thread: Re:Question about the auctions

Psauberer — 2005-01-04T03:58:02+00:00

Randy Cox (#74644),

No double point days and no random travel day. Everything depends on the auction results. The key to success is figuring out how much your opponents value any given move and making sure that they don't pay any less. That and trying to cash in after someone else has paid to move the plane.

I am not sure if Maloney's Inheritance will completely come through with Holiday rules. I am not sure if the board layout is the same. Holiday has a total of 64 cards. I'm too lazy to go check how many cards there are in Maloney's Inheritance or to line up the boards.

Still, you could try stripping out the random actions and see if you like it.

Thread: Re:Question about the auctions

Randy Cox — 2005-01-04T02:01:31+00:00

Psauberer (#74205),

Thanks. If you'd be so kind to answer another question or two...

Does Holiday have the double-point days (Tuesday and Friday) or the random travel day (based on the turn of the deck) on Sunday? Or is all movement based on the auction.

It seems to me that I could turn Maloney's Inheritance into Holiday by simply removing the random elements, ditching the special days (pending your answer), and reducing start money to $10K and starting cards to match Holiday's.

Of course, the theme and world map wouldn't be the same, but I could probably live with it better.

Thanks again,
Randy

Thread: Re:Question about the auctions

Psauberer — 2005-01-02T04:40:32+00:00

Randy Cox (#74169),

I don't have my copy of the game in front of me right now, but I would definitely not put a limit on the number of bids. That would seem to break the game.

Personally, I prefer Holiday as it is a much purer auction game. The random elements in Maloney's Inheritance distract from play, IMO. In Holiday, it is much simpler. Each day, there is an auction for where the plane is going to go and the winner sends it to one of the cities linked to the current location. Then, everyone has the option of cashing in any cards they own. The starting cash is all you have for the whole game. There is no random additions or penalties. Also, Holiday can handle up to eight players and it works well with that many.

Thread: Question about the auctions

Randy Cox — 2005-01-01T21:34:02+00:00

We played our first game last night and were surprised that the entire affair took a grand total of 19 minutes. The scores were 73-51-45-25-24 (not including fractional points at game end) and we played only 7 turns (one game week).

Now, I know we played one rule wrong--we didn't prohibit use of Joker cards on the special days of Tuesday and Thursday. Otherwise, we think we played correctly.

But there is one ambiguous part of the rules. Since the English rules are written as more of a conversation, rather than as specific rules, it's hard to say what this passage means:

"From now on, by dearly beloved relatives who are all eyeing up my lolly, you're going to have to comply with my conditions. Each day you all go together from town to town driving one and the same car, all of you trying to reach a different destination at the same time (which is, of course, impossible), so as to pick up the maximum number of points." So far so good, I just wanted to get across the idea of the strange method for conveying rules. Here's the passage that matters:

"At the break of day, the stakes are placed on the car. Just like at an auction, you have to try to bid higher going up by 100 dollars each time, bidding once or twice." It goes on to say you should make sure everyone states that they are "ready" before commencing this free-for-all auction.

The question is about that "bidding once or twice" part. Does this mean, strictly, that you can't bid more than twice? I can't imagine that to be the case, because elsewhere in the rules, it states that there may be no bids at all (so, there is no "once" minimum). If one were limited to only two bids, I think people would want to lay back on making that first offering, especially since you can only bid in increments of the next 100 dollars.

Anyone have a ruling on this?

Anyone have any info on how long a game should take to play?

Anyone know the differences between this version and "Holiday"?

Beuller? Beuller?

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Rick Redfern — 2004-07-12T00:44:14+00:00

Thread: User Review

SkipM624 — 2004-07-01T07:23:38+00:00

I must, first of all, admit to a certain bias associated with my name. I purchased the game because it had my name on it. Knew nothing about it, other than what I'd read here, which was precious little. Gave it a "7" before I ever played it because I respected its designer, Sid Sackson, and a first read-through of the rules suggested that it might be fun.
Five games in, I'm beginning to think that it's not just fun, but a lot of fun. Certainly worth a "7," I'd say. Maybe more, if, as I play, it continues to evolve.
Basically, the game is a cross-country race to earn 69 points. It can also be a race to see who runs out of cards first, but the point race fuels the game.
Each player (from 3 up to 6) is dealt 12 cards from a deck of 64 (10 cards with 6 players). These cards are numbered 1-16 and are further identified by a city name ("2" is San Diego, "7" is Santa Fe, etc.) You may not hold more than two cards of any one number (city). If you have a third, like three "13"s (Buffalo), you must trade one of them in for another card from the remaining deck.
A game board features all 16 cities. In the beginning, at a randomly chosen spot on the game board, a blue car is placed on one of the cities. Beneath each city on the board are a set of numbers. Below San Diego, for example, are the numbers "1, 5-8, 15-16." These numbers indicate the numbered cities to which this car can travel from where it is.
On each numbered city card, there is a two-column chart, matching points with days of the week. The day of the week corresponding to the most points (7) is always at the top. Beneath it, in descending order, are days of the week with fewer associated points. If Thursday shows 7 points, Friday shows 6, Saturday is 5, etc.
The random choice of a numbered city card to start the game also tells you which day of the week starts the game. The day of the week at the top of the randomly chosen card's list, (with "7" points) is the chosen day of the week.
So fine, game starts in random San Diego (card numbered #2)on a Saturday. The car can now only go to cities numbered 1, 5-8, and 15-16. Players look at the cards in their hand with these numbers to determine which of the ones in their possession can earn the most points (7) on a Saturday. Everybody wants to go to the city where they'll earn 7 points, but only one can do so.
Enter the bidding process. To earn those 7 points you'll get if the car travels to San Francisco, for example, you'll have to outbid people who hold a card that nets them 7 points for a different city (San Diego, for example) on a Saturday. You want to be the one that decides where the car is going so you can earn the maximum points.
You start the game with $10,500. Minimum bid for the right to choose a destination city and further increments are $100, although in the five games I played, it didn't take long for people to start upping bids a thousand dollars at a time. Player who wins the bid pays the bank, moves the car to the city of their choice, collects the points they've just "bought" with the highest bid and collects a "reward" for being the highest bidder; a "suitcase" containing extra points or money, or sometimes negative points or money.
Other players, as well, are entitled to points based on the appropriate cards in their hands. Wherever that car goes, if you have a matching card in your hand, you may earn the points associated with the proper day on that card or cards.
So, you win the bid, everybody collects their points (turning in their appropriate cards) and it's a new round. The day changes. Now you're looking at your cards to determine which of your remaining cards will yield the most points on the new day. Tuesdays and Fridays earn double points and Sunday is a "free ride;" another card is chosen randomly and car travels to that city. Everybody earns the associated points and bonus.
You repeat the process until somebody earns 69 points or someone uses their last card.
It takes a few plays of this game to settle your mind into a bidding strategy; one that takes into account your total assets and how much of those assets you are willing to give up for a certain number of points. It wouldn't, for example, make a lot of sense to bid $4,500 for the right to go to a city that only earned you three points. You'd have spent nearly half your money on less than 5% of the points you need to reach 69. However, on "double point" Tuesdays and Fridays you might consider spending $3,000 to get to a city that earns you 26 points. How much to spend in relation to potential points earned is the linchpin of this gaming experience and subject to a variety of variables.
If your opponent has already earned 58 points, for example, you might choose to spend a little more than you otherwise might to prevent that opponent from scoring the points necessary to win the game. If you've got the 58 points, you might just let others spend their money and look to score whatever points you can from city destinations chosen by others.
What became clear through the first five playings of this was an awareness that it takes some time to fully comprehend what's at stake in each bidding round. Once that level of comprehension has been reached, however, the game becomes something of an exercise in financial analysis and management. You discover, for example, that the highest number of points you can earn (not counting arrival bonuses) is 26 (you arrive at a city for which you hold two cards; one that earns you 7 points for the appropriate day and one that earns you 6 points for the appropriate day. On double-point Tuesdays and Fridays, those two cards will earn you the 26 points.
You will tend to set the value of winning an individual bid against that ideal. You might wish to spend 1/3 of your income to earn those 26 points, which is just about 1/3 of 69. You might figure that it's worth even a little more. Or less. In any case, finding the "math" that makes the game competitive and fun is a major step in the process. If you don't get to that step and experience the game as randomly pointless with little or no texture or complexity to the bidding process, you could set it aside and miss out on a lot (IMHO).
A cost/benefit analysis is at the heart of any bidding process, whether it's a live auction or a game. In Maloney's Inheritance, that analysis is augmented with considerations of position (whose in the lead with points? where do you stand among the point scorers?), the value in terms of points earned and how you've been bidding throughout the game (have you spent a lot on a couple of bids that have depleted your cash?)
Decisions, decisions, decisions. The heart and soul of any good game. I'll stick by the "7" rating and possibly look to upgrade as more subtleties emerge.

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fuzzyfife — 2004-03-18T22:44:08+00:00