Game: Bus

Thread: Re: Question: Crossing your own line? Allowed or no?

subhan — 2008-07-21T18:26:31+00:00

OK, I see it now, thanks!

Thread: Re: Question: Crossing your own line? Allowed or no?

Great Dane — 2008-07-21T17:23:49+00:00

I believe your question is answered by the example in the rules (page 6):
"blue player could also build at B. Here he may choose any of the three roads."

So the answer is Yes.

Thread: Question: Crossing your own line? Allowed or no?

subhan — 2008-07-21T16:46:48+00:00

I'm a fairly new Bus player, & have a question regarding line expansion. Is it allowed to 'cross over' one's own line, thus producing a loop? It is clear from the instructions that you can make a big loop by running the 2 heads of your line together. However, it's a little more ambiguous as to whether or not this is allowed:

..........e__d
.................|
__a__b__c Is it permitted to expand black's line from e->b?

Subhan

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Rokkr — 2008-06-06T15:14:27+00:00

parts inventory

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Rokkr — 2008-06-06T15:12:52+00:00

rule book cover

Thread: Board scan

Tatsu — 2008-05-19T12:55:20+00:00

Does anyone have a good high-res scan of the boards that they would be willing to send me? I acquired a copy of this in a math trade, however the boards are warped to the point of unplayability and I'd rather just print and mount a new board myself.

Thread: Re: Missing Pieces

bassie — 2008-05-17T14:45:11+00:00

Try asking Splotter, see their website:

http://www.splotter.nl/english/contact.html

Here are some reports from people who did so:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/308973
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/231164

Thread: Missing Pieces

locusshifter — 2008-05-15T19:03:20+00:00

I bought this game new a while ago and finally got to play it, but I found I'm missing a passenger. Is there any way to get replacement parts, or perhaps another game with similar pieces?

I might just go with meeples, but I figured I'd ask.

Thread: Session Report

Shade_Jon — 2008-02-10T09:12:26+00:00

Jon+, Yitzchak, Nadine, Gili

We played this for the first time. I love a route creation / pick up and deliver game. This one has a cute board with gamer in-jokes. It also has a wickedly hard action bidding system, where you place your limited cubes onto the actions you want, but as further people do the same, yours become canceled. In theory, it's very good.

In practice, the game doesn't quite work. Two of the bidding areas are simply no-brainers during the game. First player places his cube onto the only slot in "Expand Your Bus Capacity" Position, and second player places his cube onto the only slot in "Start Player Next Round". That leaves five other action types.

The ordering of "Bring in New Passengers" is not very significant if you have enough passengers on your route already, and irrelevant if you don't have a station connection, and even more irrelevant when there are no more passengers to place. It could be that we were playing this wrong, as it didn't seem to provide much tension. That leaves four other action types.

"Placing new buildings" also doesn't really provide that much tension on most turns, unless you have rail tracks to empty spaces in which they can be placed. On some turns this was significant, however.

The clock mechanism was rather odd, but seems like it might have worked. It didn't work too much for us in our game.

The last two action types were "Place new rails" and "Deliver passengers". These are the core mechanisms of a pick up and deliver game, and were also the only two that really provided significant tension in the game.

We may have subject to some group think in our first game, or have played the rules incorrectly. As it was, Nadine didn't really like it, Gili was happy to run out of cubes and leave early, and Yitzchak wasn't particularly thrilled. I was the only one who liked it despite the flaws, although I've already set my mind to figuring out how to fix them.

Thread: Re: Why I no longer like this game.

MartyMcMartin — 2008-01-18T00:19:45+00:00

I think docking the start player an action cube is probably the best way to go but you do make a good point about it not being fair if the start player doesn't buy a bus.

The problem is that I still think that the start player should ALWAYS buy a bus on the first turn and that they're only hurting themselves if they don't. In fact, I would say that in a game of experienced players the player who gets to buy a bus in the first round should almost always win. I guess the table could try to play against that player and that might even things up over the course of the game but I'm not convinced. I wish there was an easy way to set up a controlled experiment to try to test that out. I guess I could always try to play a bunch of games solitaire but that would probably take too long to get a meaningful sample.

martin

Thread: Re: Why I no longer like this game.

photocurio — 2007-11-23T17:16:40+00:00

photocurio wrote:
I see two fixes:
a. dock one action cube from the start player
or
b. disallow buying a bus on the first round

After a few more plays of Bus, I found that disallowing buying a bus on the first round doesn't work at all. It slows down the start of the game to an annoying degree, and forces players to put cubes into places that are not helpful. Docking one action cube from the start player works very well however.

However if the start player chooses not to buy a bus, it doesn't seem fair. Another way to play this would be to say anyone buying a bus on the first round must use two cubes instead of one.

Thread: Re: Why I no longer like this game.

photocurio — 2007-09-28T17:06:23+00:00

I see two fixes:
a. dock one action cube from the start player
or
b. disallow buying a bus on the first round

I might try either of these fixes and report back, if this gets to be a problem. I just got the game and have yet to play it.
BTW, Marty, I appreciate your strategy tips. When I bring this to my group I will emphasize your "buy that second bus ASAP" and "don't Vroom unless you are sure you have passengers" points.

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gamephotos — 2007-09-25T21:36:15+00:00

The Pubs Open And All The Passengers Go In For A Pint, Leaving The Buses Empty

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gamephotos — 2007-09-25T21:33:35+00:00

The Yellow Bus Takes A Passenger Home To Bed

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gamephotos — 2007-09-25T21:28:40+00:00

Red Prepares To Stop Time

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gamephotos — 2007-09-25T21:21:32+00:00

Early In The Game - With Some Extended Lines And Extra Buildings

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gamephotos — 2007-09-25T21:18:02+00:00

A Score of "Kahuna" Beats "Oster Insel" Every Time

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gamephotos — 2007-09-25T21:15:53+00:00

Green Is The First To Buy Another Bus

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gamephotos — 2007-09-25T21:13:59+00:00

Four Passengers Are Initially Placed On The Board On The Purple Spots

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gamephotos — 2007-09-24T21:53:50+00:00

Tileset For Buildings And Bus (My Copy Came With Two Of These)

Thread: Re: Differences between versions 2 & 3?

cornjob — 2007-08-01T19:29:22+00:00

I noticed this was never answered. I don't know the answer, but I do know I've played a version where the board was 4 slightly warped quarters of the game board that were fitted together. They seemed to be some type of thin foam. I also have a version (Version 3?) with a mounted mapboard. The artwork is identical, unfortunately.

Thread: Re: Why I no longer like this game.

MartyMcMartin — 2007-07-25T14:10:57+00:00

I would expect that to happen to a group that doesn't completely realize the value of buying buses. I would challenge you to concentrate on buying buses in the early turns in the next game. If you can get three buses before any of your opponents gets two then the score shouldn't even be remotely close.

To quote and earlier session report I wrote:

"You should always; read that again ALWAYS choose buy a bus when it is available until you get your second (and probably third bus)."

martin

Thread: Re: Why I no longer like this game.

gmcnish — 2007-07-25T00:41:56+00:00

I've only played it a few times now, but so far the start player has been used to get the most benefit from improving the route, rather than adding buses. And being early to vrooom can really limit the passengers other people have to move-- so more buses doesn't help them.

But we're hardly experienced players.

Thread: Why I no longer like this game.

MartyMcMartin — 2007-07-24T14:30:38+00:00

I realized that the game is heavily biased towards the start player in turn one. In fact, I would go as far as to say that the start player in turn 1 gets an extra action over the course of the game.

This problem comes from the fact that it is very important to buy buses early in the game, but only one person can buy a bus per turn. If you assume that the other players understand how important buying buses are; you should not be able to buy a bus without being the starting player, therefore, you need to spend an action to become the starting player in order to buy a bus on the next turn. (This is generally what has happened in the games I've played)

However, the start player in the game gets to buy a second bus without having to spend an action to become starting player, basically giving him an extra action over the course of the game. Everybody else should be spending two actions to get their second bus while he or she gets his second bus for one action.

It is possible for better tactics to overcome not being the starting player but I've found that this tends to be because of bad tactics from the start player and not because of anything masterful that I come up with. I guess what I'm saying is that in a game with experienced players the start player should win this game almost every time.

martin

Thread: Re: How is 3p game?

JeffyJeff — 2007-05-16T20:43:16+00:00

The easiest way to try it with 3 (or any number you want) is to create an online game at http://www.spielbyweb.com/

I like it with 3, 4 or 5 myself

Thread: Re: How is 3p game?

zal42 — 2007-05-16T19:31:14+00:00

This is one of my favorite games, and I find it most enjoyable with three players. True, the stop time action is rarely employed, but so what? It doesn't really become important unless you're playing a five player game anyhow.

Thread: Re: How is 3p game?

dkeisen — 2007-05-16T18:58:41+00:00

Interesting, given one of my takeaways from playing Bus with 3 is that the "mess with time" action just happens too rarely. Maybe I should give the game a try with 4.

Thread: Re: How is 3p game?

clearclaw — 2007-05-16T17:17:06+00:00

rcarbone wrote:
Just wondering if 3-player games run well. I've tried it in 4, and it's ok. It seem to me it's ok in 5 player too. What about 3 player games?

I like Bus best with 3 players. 4 players is Okay, but is a bit too chaotic for my tastes given how strong the incentive is for players to mess with time. 5 is right out as too chaotic.

Thread: How is 3p game?

rcarbone — 2007-05-16T14:17:16+00:00

Just wondering if 3-player games run well. I've tried it in 4, and it's ok. It seem to me it's ok in 5 player too. What about 3 player games?

Thread: Re: Why I like this misunderstood game.

jeffles3 — 2006-10-10T17:47:55+00:00

MartyMcMartin wrote:

The red player goes first and chooses..."starting player." No offense to this guy, but this move baffles me. Even the amazingintern can't figure it out. Why would you waste an action stone to go first in turn #2 when you're already going first in turn #1. You should always; read that again ALWAYS choose buy a bus when it is available until you get your second (and probably third bus). No matter how you try to explain it this move makes no sense; in fact, I'll give geek gold to anyone who can come up with a scenario where this makes sense in the FIRST turn of a FIVE PLAYER game. Good Luck.

Simple, I did this in my last game. In fact, I choose first player EVERY turn. Why? Because I was throwing the game to player number 2. Player 4 was doing WAY too much trash talking and irritated me greatly and my primary goal in the game became for him to lose.

Thread: Re: Why I like this misunderstood game.

colleens — 2006-10-06T12:21:49+00:00

Just got this game this week. I was turned off to Bus because it looked like a kid's game. I only bought it because I was so impressed with Splotter's other games that I decided to try it out. I have not played it yet, but it looks pretty intense. I enjoyed the session report. I will keep these strategies in mind when explaining the rules to my group.

Thread: Re: Why I like this misunderstood game.

AmazingIntern — 2006-07-13T20:10:48+00:00

What's really annoying, Martin, is that I joined that "newbie" game thinking I might actually get to win for once, but then you hopped on as well, coming away with the eventual victory.

Next time, Mr. McMartin... Next time...

Thread: Re: Why I like this misunderstood game.

MartyMcMartin — 2006-07-11T15:38:54+00:00

I'm not dissing BsW players as much as a general misunderstadning of the game. I would add though that I have a slight problem with BsW players who join games without knowing what to do unless the game is specifically set up for that. I played one game of bus with two other players who clearly didn't know what was going on because the kept choosing actions with no benefit (line expansion for zero expansions or VROOM! when there were no passengers to VROOM on their line).

My problem in that case was that neither of the players were willing to ask any questions about what was going on. I and a co-player asked them on a couple of occassions if they had any questions they wanted to ask and their only reply was their silence.

Thread: Re: Why I like this misunderstood game.

sbszine — 2006-07-10T23:20:10+00:00

Don't be too hard on the SBW players. A lot of people there are learning as they go, because Bus isn't a game many people have had the chance to play face to face (compared with, say, Tikal). I'm currently playing a game there where we all fumbled around randomly choosing actions until we started to get the hang of it.

Thread: Re: Why I like this misunderstood game.

MartyMcMartin — 2006-07-10T18:40:20+00:00

Yeah, I definitely think the artwork might also contribute to some people thinking that it is a "light" game at first glance.

Thread: Re: Why I like this misunderstood game.

AllenDoum — 2006-07-10T17:51:46+00:00

Good write-up. I too have a hard time getting tis game to the table.

The artwork is definately a turn-off for some players. Only a Geek will get the references, and it looks amatuerish.

Thread: Why I like this misunderstood game.

MartyMcMartin — 2006-07-10T16:02:55+00:00

BGG user joelee told me the other day that he was thinking of putting bus on his trade pile because it didn't seem to get much play in his group. He checked his geekbuddies and noticed that I had rated this game an 8 and he wondered why I liked it so much. In reflection of that conversation I decided to write a brief session report of my last game of bus on Spielbyweb along with some strategies and other editorializations about why I think the game does not seem well respected.

I think that part of the problem with bus is that it is a pretty complex game, but I don't think that people approach it as such. I'm not sure if it is the artwork or what but I feel like a lot of people don't give the game the mental energy it requires and then feel that the game is flawed if they don't do well.

As far as general strategies; I try to emply the following.

1) Don't take VROOM! as an action if you only have one bus unless there is no other good action. You should get that second bus at the EARLIEST possible time, but I don't think you should waste action stones on getting a single point.

2) Don't choose VROOM! unless you are ABSOLUTELY positive that you will have passengers to move. This seems to be the issue that most players have a problem with because I've seen countless players choose VROOM! as an action when it is fairly obvious that they won't have passengers to move when it gets to their turn. It is important to look at who has VROOM! actions before you and where you think they will move people before you spend your action stone.

3) Make sure there is only one kind of building on intersections you have access to and try to place two different buildings on intersections your opponents control. This should maximize the mobility of passengers you control while poisoning the mobility of those your opponents control. I try to get one intersection with two houses, one with two offices, and one with two pubs. This set-up will allow me to move two passengers at will. When you have two different buildings on an intersection you run into an effeciency problem. For example, imagine an intersection with an office and a pub. If you move a passenger to that intersection on turn #1 you will not be able to move that passenger on turn #2 because he will go right into the pub. Not only do you lose the ability to move the passenger, but you also lose the ability to move someone to the pub.

4) Always be on the look-out to use the clock to your advantage. This is when all of your opponents have already taken VROOM! and you have no other good actions (see further below for an illustration).

Now on to the game. As I stated earlier, I played this game on Spielbyweb and I won't bother to mention players names except for amazingintern who happens to be a friend of mine. The game is a five player game with me going last. This is bad news because it means that I probably won't get good actions this turn and it might be a while before I can buy my second bus. I am already assuming that I will have a hard time with this game.

The red player goes first and chooses..."starting player." No offense to this guy, but this move baffles me. Even the amazingintern can't figure it out. Why would you waste an action stone to go first in turn #2 when you're already going first in turn #1. You should always; read that again ALWAYS choose buy a bus when it is available until you get your second (and probably third bus). No matter how you try to explain it this move makes no sense; in fact, I'll give geek gold to anyone who can come up with a scenario where this makes sense in the FIRST turn of a FIVE PLAYER game. Good Luck.

Amazingintern goes second and chooses...you guessed it "buy a bus." Not everyone dropped off the turnip truck.

Green goes third and chooses "line expansion" which is a good choice since he will get to drop an extra section because we are at five players.

Yellow goes fourth and chooses...VROOM! I immediately remove yellow from my list of opponents that I am worried about.

I decide to choose "line expansion" for my first move since I want to make my way to one of the bus stations early.

On our second round of actions I am happy to see that red, amazing intern, and green all choose VROOM! I can't blame intern since he has two buses, but I still don't think it is worth the action stone to score a single point early in the game when you could use a stone to place buildings.

Yellow chooses..."New passengers." I conceive of a new rule for bus strategy; if the actions in your first turn are "new passengers" and VROOM! you will likely not win. You really need to spend the early game working on a network.

I'm am absolutely shocked to see that I can place two new buildings with the tenth action of the first round. Mindboggling.

The first rounds actions were pretty normal. I placed an office and a house to create a double house and a double office intersection. Red and yellow each VROOMED a passenger and due to poor planning amazingintern and green were not able to VROOM a passenger. You simply can not waste actions in bus.

I won't describe every turn in detail, but I will summarize the rest of the early game by saying that Red's master move of taking starting player on the first turn was compounded by him passing on "buy a bus" again to take "new buildings." Amazingintern also struggled a little but by choosing VROOM! again on turn two without being able to move any passengers.

By the third turn I has set up a decent starting run so I choose "starting player," and then VROOM! since I had nothing else good to do. Turn #3 also saw amazingintern be the first person to spend three action stones in a turn as he needed new buildings to VROOM! passengers to. This turn also saw red choose "line expansion" despite the fact that the slot he choose gave him zero line expansions.

In turn four I was able to buy my second bus and figured that I would try to ride the house to office intersections for a while. Everyone else choose VROOM! and green was once again not able to move any passengers. Did I mention that you really need to look at who else has chosen VROOM! and who they will ship before you choose that action?

Turn five marked the rough half-way point in the game. Green went first and choose VROOM! while yellow became the first player to buy a third bus. At this point, I begin to rethink my earlier dissing of yellow, but I feel fairly confident that green and red have played themselves out of the game. I move my two passengers to join the rest of the vanguard and the scores look like this after five rounds:

Red - 2 pts - 1 bus - 2 wasted actions (VROOM! and line expansion)
amazing intern - 4 pts - 2 bus - 2 wasted actions (VROOM! x2)
green - 2 pts - 2 bus - 2 wasted actions (VROOM! x2)
yellow - 3 pts - 3 bus - 0 wasted actions
me - 3 pts - 2 bus - 0 wasted actions

Red was in a huge hole because he only had one bus but everyone else was fairly even. At this point, I would have had to give yellow the advantage since he had three buses and amazingintern had one less action stone. I was behind but I thought I could close the gap.

Turn six saw red finally get his second bus and also saw everyone choose VROOM! I actually choose it twice because at the time, there weren't any other good actions and there was a chance that I could have passengers to move when it got back to me. Ultimately, there weren't any passengers when it got back to me, but my first wasted action was joined by yellow's first wasted action as well. amazingintern was now in the lead with six, but I was just being with five (and one more action stone), while green was in third with four.

Turn seven saw amazingintern get his third bus and green went second and choose to VROOM! Ultimately, I don't think that this was a good move by green since he only had two buses. I really think that you need three buses to win a five player game and that, generally speaking, "starting player" followed by "buying a bus" is a better move at this point. Luckily for me green's stumble was my gain as I was able to take "starting player" to buy my third bus. As an added bonus I was able to take VROOM! later in the turn and still score a point although I think that ultimately this was a bad move for reasons that I will explain in the next paragraph. The VROOM! did not go well for amazing intern as well since he was only able to move a single passenger with his three buses.

As we got ready for turn eight I realized that I did not have the greatest board position. I had worked up a good early game but other people had integrated into my lines and I had not expanded since turn four. As a result, I was starting to get closed off and I didn't have that much ability to move three passengers. Since I noticed this, I decided to not buy a third bus, but to move two passengers with my first action stone. I know that this violates my rules above, but I was starting to think that I would have to win the game with two buses while possibly taking double VROOM! actions to close the gap. However, when it came back to my turn I was surprised to see that "buy a bus" was still available and I decided to jump on it with my second action stone.

That move may have been turning point #1 for me in the game since it allowed me to score three points in a turn I was only expecting two and I wouldn't have to worry about buying another bus since I didn't think I needed a fourth. Heading into the last two turns the score looked like this:

red - 5 pts - 2 buses
amazingintern - 7 pts - 3 buses
green - 8 pts - 2 buses
yellow - 6 pts - 3 buses
me - 9 pts - 3 buses

At this point I figured that I was in pretty good shape. I was in the lead and had the most buses but I soon realized that I would need a little extra as amazingintern, green, and yellow, all went before me in turn nine and they all choose VROOM! At this point there was going to be no one left for me to VROOM! (we were also VROOMing to the pub which was my weakest building) so I instinctively took "starting player" to set myself up for round 10, but as I looked at the board I realized that I was in bad shape because amazing intern and green had set themselves up to pass me on the scoring track and green was able to buy his third bus later in the turn. I was more worried about amazingintern than I was about green because amazingintern had also built an isolated set of office buildings in the northeast part of the board that he would easily be able to ship three passengers to.

I quickly put my thinking cap on and scanned the board for an opportunity to upend the intern. I found it in my little friend the "clock" action. I noticed that all the pubs on the board were populated so I could stick everybody if I stopped the clock. Even though I would lose a point, I would lose less ground to each player by taking the minus than I would by letting everyone else score. I also had the added bonus of now winning the tiebreaker (which I think the game does to reward the player who can figure out how to effectively use the clock).

I hoped that no one else would notice my move (especially green or the amazingintern) and take the clock action as a defensive maneuver but no one did so I jumped on it. amazingintern had managed to take "new buildings" so he was able to hedge against my move a little bit, but he was only able to score one point.

The rest is, as they say, history. No one else was able to score in round nine so I was still in the lead and going first heading into the final round. I selected VROOM! and was promptly followed by the other players. There wasn't a chance for a "clock" action to stop me since no one had enough action stones to choose it and place another pub to move to and I was able to select line expansion and drop four lines to get me to my third house. The final scores were (along with total VROOM! actions):

me - 11 (6)
green - 10 (8)
amazing intern - 9 (8)
red - 8 (7)
yellow - 7 (7)

So why do I like this game? I guess because it does reward the player who plays efficiently, and it does take a little effort to figure out what is most efficient. I also like how the choice that may seem intuitive may not be the best choice (should I take the first VROOM! or buy another bus?). And finally, the clock action looms as last minute surprise that can leave people reeling. I also like the flexibility of the clock action; you can choose to utilize it and take the negative point or you can simply choose to not use it with no ill effect.

The problem with the game is that I think that it does take a lot of analysis to figure out what moves are the best and that makes it (in my opinion) and better spielbyweb game than face to face. I might not look at a board long enough to notice my game winning turn nine clock action if I was sitting at a table with people because I might feel some sort of pressure to move quicker or I might get distracted with conversation or whatever. Ultimately, I think that once you know what to look for you could probably play a pretty good game of bus in a decent amount of time without all the need to study the board.

Edited on 7/25/07 for spelling errors.

Thread: Session Report

jbluestein — 2005-08-30T20:54:11+00:00

Mike had enough mojo for one more game, so I suggested Bus. I've
played this a lot online, but never managed to get my actual copy to
the table before last night. Great game, very strategic, no
randomness at all after the initial determination of who goes first.
(Funagain was selling copies last fall for $15, so I felt it was my
time to buy.) This was another first-time play for Jeff, although
Mike had played before.

The dynamic of face-to-face play is a little different, but the game
is still the same excellent, frustrating game. You have to balance
being able to do what you want to do with being able to do it in the
order important -- most of the crucial decisions (road building,
building placement) allow the last person choosing the action to take
it first (although with diminished capacity). So if you need to place
buildings, you can take the guarantee of being able to place a lot,
but possibly after someone else has already filled the spots you want
to fill...oops.

Networks got pretty big this game, in part because Mike bought himself
up to five buses, which made line building easier (most actions are
limited by the maximum number of buses anyone has). I managed to take
a two-point lead in the next-to-last turn of the game, and then
stopped the clock for the final round. Mike, with one stone committed
to Vroom!, couldn't get enough points on his own to do better than tie
my score, which would give me the win on the tiebreaker due to having
the clock stone. Jeff was placed into a kingmaker position -- he
could build offices on Mike's route and give Mike the win, or he could
decline and let me win. Unfortunately for him, his route was so
overlapped with Mike that he couldn't do too much to improve his own
score -- he would have needed four points in any case, and only had
three buses.

So, final scores:
Josh: 11-1 stone = 10
Mike: 10
Jeff: 8

I enjoyed the face-to-face aspect and was pleased with how quickly the
game played. The board is a little busy, which can be a bit of a
problem sometimes when you're trying to keep track of all the lines
and buildings and passengers...but even so it's a great game.

Thread: Bus session report

dougadamsau — 2005-05-30T01:08:55+00:00

A new game for all of us. The rules were explained, and it didn't sound too complex. This is definitely a game where turn order is vital, as many of the actions are capped at the limit of the player with the most buses. However, that limit is reduced by one for every subsequent player after the first one taking the action. Therefore, making the most of your actions is vital. Roger and Debbie seemed to comprehend what was going on quicky, and jumped out to an early lead before Doug and Tina had scored any points. Doug froze the clock on turn three, as it was obvious everyone was going to score at least a point for two but him, so he took the -1 hit. Doug ran two bus turns late in the game where he delivered 3 passengers each, and jumped out to a five point lead. However he had used up all his action cubes and was forced to watch the final turn. The final turn saw the destination as pubs, of which there were hardly any on the board. This caused hardly any points to be scored for delivered passengers, and Doug took the win. This is a clever design - can't quite work out how it could take 2-3 hours, as stated on the box. We played in 45 minutes.

Thread: Re: Differences between versions 2

DougOrleans — 2005-01-14T15:43:54+00:00

jmdsplotter (#77386),

What are the differences in production quality?

Thread: Reifferences between versions 2

jmdsplotter — 2005-01-14T11:18:23+00:00

tool (#77232),

The production quality is the only difference between the two. The rules have remained the same between the 2nd and 3rd edition.

Jeroen

Thread: Differences between versions 2 & 3?

tool — 2005-01-13T20:48:57+00:00

The English rules posted here are translated from version 2 of the German rules, but the German rules are now in version 3 (according to my copy). Does anyone know what differences there are between the two?

Thread: Re:Variant suggestion: eager passengers

DougOrleans — 2004-01-13T08:21:09+00:00

Two plays later, I'm thinking the game works okay as it is. It helps if you put duplicate buildings at intersections, to minimize the "walk across the street" thing, although this can be a useful tactic to lock down a passenger (or building) on someone else's line. I also think that early deliveries are not that worthwhile, so there shouldn't be as much early demand for passengers as we had in that first game.

I still don't know what to do about the clock. In three games, the clock was only stopped once, and the player who chose it ended up losing by quite a lot (he pretty much only did it to see what would happen). It just never seems worth taking a negative point, but maybe it's the sort of thing you have to build a strategy around. On the other hand, I'm thinking that the "reverse the clock" variant will be even less useful, because everyone will still be likely to score, it just adds more uncertainty and chaos so that players have to hedge their bets. My "eager passengers" variant would similarly make time-stopping a less useful option. Perhaps the best variant to consider is to simply make clock stones worth zero points instead of negative points. But for now I want to keep playing with the rules as written until I figure out some more of the subtleties.

Thread: Variant suggestion: eager passengers

DougOrleans — 2003-12-26T06:38:16+00:00

I played Bus for the first time tonight, and I enjoyed it, although I found it a bit frustrating: often when it was my turn to execute the "Vrrooom!" action, there were either no free passengers or no empty buildings, so I had no opportunity to score points. This would have been even more likely to happen had someone chosen the "stop time" action, because every passenger that had been delivered in the previous round would be guaranteed to be filling a building; however, no one ever chose this action, because it never seemed to be worth both an action stone and a negative victory point just to prevent the few scores that would otherwise happen. Instead, players often chose the "add passengers" action, because it seemed the only way to guarantee there would be free passengers in that round; this meant that all 15 passengers were on the board after the third or fourth round, and for the rest of the game there was no reason to choose that action.

Ben Baldanza's review suggests the variant of making the "stop time" action become "reverse time", i.e. you move the time indicator backwards one tick instead of standing still. This would make it less likely that all the passengers will just stay put and no one gets to score. I have another suggestion that's a bit more drastic: passengers never stand still (or cross the street), but always prefer to take a bus. In other words, at the beginning of the "Vrrooom!" phase, all passengers are removed from buildings and put onto the nearest crossings, and then only enter buildings if players move them along their bus lines. To use the terms from the rule book, passengers are never "satisfied", but always "want to get away".

I think this would change the dynamics of the game, making it easier to score and giving players more options (e.g. the "add passengers" action would be taken less in the early game and thus still be useful in the late game). But I'm hesitant to make changes to the game after one playing. Has anyone else considered this change, or something like it? Does anyone see any serious problems it might cause? Does the "reverse time" variant fix the problems enough so that my variant isn't needed?

Thread: Session Report

batman — 2003-12-18T00:11:05+00:00

We then hit the big games. Tim was anxious to give Bus a try and had it all set up ready to play with warped boards and all. The warped boards was definitely a nuisance but the game play was good enough for it to be overlooked.

This game is about developing a network of buses in a city to transport the citizens of said city to where they want to go. Players have only 20 actions per game to do with as they please. At least two each turn must be used but a player can play as many of them as they want. Care must be taken that the actions aren't spent too early because once the actions are gone that's it. It's possible that a player could be done and everyone else is still playing. There are also some restrictions on the actions that can be chosen so that there are diminishing returns on each action taken.

At first glance the game seems really simple, just a matter of building track and moving people along that track. There are many nuances to the game, however, that complicate matters tremendously. A lot of screw-you opportunities exist that aren't readily apparent, many of these are built into the game and don't require action on the part of your opponent. For instance, a person that you are intending to transport to a bar along your track will opt to visit a pub across the street rather than spend money and time on a bus. That's one less person riding your bus and one less fare for your coffers. An oversight like that can really hurt because each fare you receive is a victory point and the winner of our particular game had only eight victory points.

As I mentioned earlier the screw-you opportunities are abundant and often very subtle. It was a particularly effective one that won the game, but more on that later. John was the first to feel the bite as he tried to score several points in an early round. He overlooked the laziness of the citizenry (see above) and futility wasted an action.

I was fortunate to build a track on a busy street and connect to one of the two railroad stations where most of the new customers were coming from. Because of this I scored some early points while most everyone else was developing their lines. Despite John's snafu he was close behind me for the lead.

At one point I managed to duplicate John's feat of wasting an action trying to deliver people who were simply content to stay where they were. I was just trying to level the field.

As the game progressed John and I pulled a little more ahead of the pack as we spent our actions on moving people instead of building our company's infrastructure. Time would tell whether the others could use their more developed routes to pass us in the end. Midway through the game I felt confident that I could maintain my lead because I had both ends of my track in areas of the city where nobody else was. With this minor monopoly I could sequester a sampling of the population and score points with them every round. I was happy. This happiness was duly noted by my opponents and evil plans formulated in their heads. They also noticed what I was doing and that I was in the lead. That could have had something to do with it. Both John and Jeff were able to finagle their way into MY territory and put an end to my wonderful life. I approached the teamsters with this issue but, apparently my opponents were union as well and they wouldn't intervene.

I still had a play that could protect my interests but Tim, another evil opponent, had other plans. One of the actions that can be taken is to stop time. Normally the citizens of the city have a routine where they go from home to work to the pub and then back home. After the round in which they go to work they then want to visit a pub. This is only natural. If a player decides to stop time then all of the citizens must stay at their jobs and work overtime. Since most everyone is already at work it is difficult to transport people to get victory points. This is a very effective way to stop people from getting points. Because it is so potent there are restrictions to its use. Only one person can use it per turn and you lose a point if you perform the action. Tim saw that everyone was well setup to move the thirsty meeples to bars on their lines and that he wasn't going to benefit as much. He stopped time as much to see what would happen as to prevent us from scoring points. I was forced to make the exact play that I was trying to prevent at the beginning of the round. It was a very odd twist and one of Cosmic Encounter proportions. I love it.

We were on the second to last round and I had used an action the round before to go first. At this point everyone was using actions to move people along their lines to try to score points. Because I was first I could deliver first and assure myself some points. This helped me to pull out to a two-point lead going into the final round. Jeff decided that he wanted to go first which made me go fourth. Not the best position to protect my lead. Again the contest for transporting people was on with me going fourth and unable to assure deliveries. This would make it hard to keep the lead, or would it? If I could stop time then very few deliveries could be made since everyone was already where they wanted to be. There were only a couple transferable people. If I revealed my plan too early than the others could change their plans thereby ruining my plans. I had two actions to spend. I had to nonchalantly place my first action as a decoy so that by the time it came around to me again I could reveal my coup d'etat and chuckle gleefully. I had to wait through a round of action selection first though. If somebody else decided to stop time, or to block me from stopping time then my plans would be ruined. It was tense waiting to see what everyone would do. Nobody saw this option, however, and they played towards delivering their people as if time would continue normally. When I finally got to choose to stop time it was with relief that I placed my cube. This immediately sent everyone into a panic but with very little options left to them there wasn't much they could do.

I was able to stop time and prevent the mass transfers that would have followed thereby assuring myself a victory. With the negative point I ended up with eight points to John's close seven. What a great game. I was impressed with the game, if not so much with the components. I'm looking forward to playing this one a lot more.

Thread: User Review

BoardGameGeek — 2001-05-08T03:52:57+00:00

Bus

Splotter Spellen
3-5 Players, 1.5-2.0 hours

Bus is one of two full-size box games released by Splotter at Essen 1999, along with Roads and Boats. Through the game, players use a limited set of actions to build a road network in an attempt to deliver passengers to their desired destinations. The mechanisms employed in this basic concept are quite original and lead to a contemplative and close game play. While Bus has some peculiarities, it is one of the better games released last year and is definitely worth a play if you’ve not had the chance to try it.

The great-looking board shows the city plan with a series of intersecting streets, locations for buildings to be constructed, and two train terminals. At setup, each player gets one bus, places two buildings and places the first two sections of their road network in “Settlers” fashion. After passengers are set on each of the four center corner intersections, the game begins with the first set of actions.

The idea of the game is to move passengers from where they are to where they want to be. Where they want to be is determined by the time of day; in the day, they are at work, in the evening at the pub, and at home overnight. Each building (work, pub, and home) is built at intersections, so if a passenger is delivered to a pub when it is evening, the player that carried them gets one point. Since the clock rotates from home to work to pub continually, every successfully moved passenger starts the next round on the previous time’s building. Our pub passenger next turn would want to go home, so the bus that carries him to a “home” building gets another point.

The Action Board, a separate strip from the main board, is the heart of the game mechanic and includes seven options. You only have 21 actions to use during the whole game, however, and must use at least 2 per turn, limiting the flexibility. Colored cubes represent the 21 actions that each player is given at the start, although the first is used in the setup to place a bus in the parking lot (one of the seven actions available on the board.) No actions are taken until everyone places each action cube that they plan to use for that round, beginning with the start player and only choosing one action at a time until everyone else has the chance to place. While you must choose at least two actions, you can choose as many as you’d like up to your limit of cubes. In practicality, you will use three actions once in a while and rarely find use for four in a single round. Once everyone has placed, the actions are executed in the manner that they are laid out on the Action Board, left to right. This has real implications, as you will see.

Some of the actions can be chosen by multiple players, while others, once chosen, are closed for the rest of that round. Three of the actions are limited by a concept called the “maximum number of buses.” This is simply the most buses owned by any single player, and it limits the number of players that can choose the action and the number of buildings that can be constructed, passengers that can enter the city, and roads that can be built. Importantly, this limit decrements for each player after the first to choose the action. For example, if Dave has three buses in his fleet and this is more than any other player, only three players can build buildings. The first player to choose the action builds three, the next builds two, and the last builds only one. The same is true for road construction and new passengers, although sometimes the first player to place gets to move first and sometimes last for the chosen action because of the left to right rule.

Understanding each action is key. Here they are in order from left to right on the Action Board as they are executed:

1. Build Roads – Using the concept above, the roads built equals the maximum number of buses from the previous round. This is because, as the first action executed, even if someone chooses to add a bus they would not have their action implemented until after the roads are built. In most cases, once a road is built it will be unique for that block, but there are rules that allow multiple roads in the same lane when routes are cut off or two different lines meet at their heads. Multiple people can request this action.
2. Add a Bus – Only one player per round can do this, and when they do the action block is pulled into a parking spot with their other bus(es). This gives an easy visual reference to the number of buses in each fleet, and the maximum number of buses concept described earlier. When run, each bus can carry one passenger at a time.
3. Build Buildings – Using the maximum buses process, players can build their choice of buildings on spots still open. Spots are labeled A, B, C, or D and all the A’s must be filled before the first B, etc. This keeps development roughly toward the city center early, spreading out as the bus lines grow. Since some intersections serve two building spots, placing different building on the two spots can make a passenger just jump across the street with no bus movement needed when the time changes. Each building, like the buses, can only accommodate one person at a time.
4. Add Passengers – People enter the city at one of two rail stations, and from there can be taken by any bus to their desired location. There are a fixed number of people in the game, and often all the potential passengers are in the city by mid-game. This is the last action to use the maximum buses limit.
5. The Clock – Only one player can affect the clock, and if no one selects this action the clock moves ahead as normal to the next 3-way position (Home to Work to Pub). If selected by one person, that player has the right to stop the clock (not allow its advancement) at the cost of one victory point. This freezes many passengers, since by definition those successfully delivered last round will already be where they want to be. This tactic can be used both offensively and defensively and is one of the issues discussed below where an improvement may help.
6. Run the Buses – This is the only action that allows you to score points. Beginning with the first player to choose the action, each player runs each bus in their fleet, attempting to deliver one passenger on their line to an appropriate building elsewhere on their line. No other lines can be used, and if there are no appropriate empty buildings or available people then the action is wasted. Like all multiple-player actions, this can be chosen more than once for multiple scoring opportunities.
7. Start Player – The one player to choose this action will be the start player the next round. If not chosen, the start player rotates, but this likely will never happen as the ability to place your action first gives the ability to build the most roads, run the first bus, or other “he who is first wins” actions.

How these actions are used determines the speed, flow, and scoring opportunities in the game. The mechanic works well most of the time, although smart play usually results in very low scores as people try to block scoring opportunities for others if they will not disproportionately benefit. This is the first weakness in the game: it is too heavy for its theme. Studious gamers will spend a lot of time analyzing their action placement and implementation, creating a serious mood for what otherwise could be a strategic yet faster moving process.

The good points of the game clearly outweigh the weak, however. There are real choices in the action phase, although typically building roads and running buses will take precedent. Being locked out of first place, or in fifth place in a five-player game, can be the difference between scoring multiple points or nothing at all. This brings up the second flaw in the game: very low scoring with four or five players. The world loves soccer except for the US, so maybe it’s my national bias that makes me cringe a bit at a high score of seven after a two-hour play. That said, the game is clearly exciting and keeps everyone interested due to the constant changing road networks, passenger flows, building constructions, and scoring potentials.

The last issue that raises some question is the clock. As mentioned before, choosing to stop time effectively freezes out many possible plays since the location preference doesn’t change. Speaking with Gerard Mulder at the Gathering of Friends, he told me of a discussion whereby instead of stopping the clock the player would advance two spaces instead of one, ensuring that people could move but possibly not where most had planned. I’m eager to try this idea as it makes sense and may make the clock play both more strategic and less frustrating.

The production value of Bus can’t be overlooked. The board shows a city nicely populated with buildings and fixtures all named after other games (“Axis and Alloys Wreckers” is a personal favorite,) and a scoring track made of islets named after other games. All of the other Splotter titles appear, of course. The naming has nothing to do with the game, but makes for a very nice appearance and generates a lot of smiles when people first realize what they’re looking at. While only a limited number were produced, Splotter has promised to have more available for this year’s Essen so those interested should be able to find a copy soon. Get one for yourself, and get on the Bus!

Thread: Session Report

BoardGameGeek — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Bus - I'm reading that this game is broken although my one game didn't reveal what the problem was. I loved the artwork and the components and found the balance of resource management and timing in the game made for some hard decision making. The big problem with the game that I played was that one of the players didn't hear that the beads one collected for freezing time cost them a victory point. He kept chugging along freezing time to screw over other players until there was only one left. At that point we figured out that he had missed the rule and so someone froze time for the fifth time to end the game. The ending was underwhelming because of this so I'd like to try the game again. All in all I thought the game rather intriguing and I'm curious what mechanical problems are present in the game.

Thread: Session Report

BoardGameGeek — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Joe Huber, Chris Kovac, Michael Tsuk

I liked it quite a bit, though I can see what Joe didn't like. Our group was punchy,cracking jokes and making it terribly fun. It could fall prey to analysis paralysis-Even I was thinking too hard, and I seldom do. I did well, but Michael pulled ahead and beat me in the end.