The Design and Development of Age of Steam Expansion: Montréal Métro
Michael Webb
The People's Republic of Ann Arbor
Michigan
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I know there are a lot of people interested in Age of Steam, and there are a growing number of people who are working on designing their own expansions. Now that Age of Steam Expansion: Montréal Métro is complete, I thought I would share some information about the expansion's evolution, and show how much this one board has changed from its initial design concept to its current, finished status.
This is a historical documentation of the expansion's changes. I've interspersed many early prototype graphics into the list, if you want to check them out they're stored in my gallery as well:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/images/user/11694
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Michael Webb
The People's Republic of Ann Arbor
Michigan
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Revision 1, initial prototype.
So I knew that I wanted to do a board based on Montreal's subway system, the Metro. The reason for this is multifold, the two most prominent ones being that I love the city and the subway system. Beyond this, there was a certain "thank you" aspect to the choice, because doing a map based on Quebec's most prominent city also allows me to give a minor nod to the Steam Brothers, who have done some fantastic expansions for AoS.
With the idea in mind, I started doing initial research, and came up with some basic thematic aspects that I wanted to incorporate in the game.
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Michael Webb
The People's Republic of Ann Arbor
Michigan
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#1: It's a subway, it has to be contiguous. This is just common sense. I liked Viard's Moon map which forces players to stay in each other's faces due to the contiguous track rule, and it seemed like common sense to include it here.
#2: It's expensive to build a subway. This was simple, track costs were going to be high. Building under streets is very expensive. Building under the rivers would be allowed, because the real Metro system crosses under the St. Lawrence and Riviere des Prairies, but again, high cost. Similarly, urbanization was present as a special action, but it cost 5$ when you used it, because building new stations is expensive.
#3: Station colour integrity, theme through colour choice. Again, fairly easy to use because the lines in the Metro are AoS colours. Stations on the Blue, Red, and Yellow Lines could all simply match the real world colours. Green was going to have to be changed, but Purple was a logical choice.
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Michael Webb
The People's Republic of Ann Arbor
Michigan
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#4: Rounds based on years, and major events occurring at set points. The Metro's history is tightly tied into Expo 67 (World's Fair) and the 1976 Olympics. The island where the Expo was held (Ile St. Helene) was largely built with dirt excavated during the building of the Metro, and the subway system is credited with being a large reason for the Expo's success. I enacted this idea by having rounds coincide with years, and on round 3/6/9 special urbanizations occur which are based on real-world events. Hence, Jean-Drapeau becomes urbanized in round 3 (1967) for the Expo. Pie IX urbanizes in round 6 (1976) for the Oympiad, and in round 9 (the present), Montmorency opens (a new extension of the Metro that is opening this year, 2006). I decided the cleanest way to handle these urbanizations was to make them be the source of black delivery points.
#5: The Metro's trains are fast, and they are reliable. This was the basis of a myriad of ideas, all of which were included in the initial rules draft including engines that go to 8, and no expenses associated with the train. To actually make reaching 8 a possible good choice, the Ireland option (skip both ships to upgrade your engine twice) was always available.
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Michael Webb
The People's Republic of Ann Arbor
Michigan
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A few other things also were sewn into the rules during development because I wanted to try them out, and I liked seeing what they would do to the game.
#6: Subsidy. A special ability that reduced your shares by 1.
#7: An Early Railways inspired links deck ("the government links deck") which would have a card drawn from it prior to each round. The link drawn would be built on the board and marked with a neutral colour. Anyone could use those links, though no one would gain income from them. The main reason for adding this rule was to tighten the board play up, one of the main things that I think the 3 player AoS game needs to overcome is a loose feeling while building track. This can be accomplished by restricting the board (i.e.: Switzerland, Ireland), but I wanted to try something different.
A special ability was also added to take advantage of the government links called "Lease". As I anticipated this could be extremely powerful given the right circumstances, I decided to:
#8: Change the auction structure to 1/2/3 pay Full/Half/None.
#9: Locomotive was changed to cost money. When you took it, you paid the amount of money equal to your new engine level.
#10: And, finally, partially due to concern about high costs, partially in theme (we work for the government) I allowed for unlimited shares.
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5.
Board Game: MapTangle
[Average Rating:7.50 Unranked]
Michael Webb
The People's Republic of Ann Arbor
Michigan
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The map was a very rough draw, and my first experience with graphic design. Major geographical features included the open board centre, and the inclusion of Atwater station, the location of the Montreal Forum, as a combination red/blue delivery point as a minor thematic nod.
My initial draw had several stations that were close to each other, and an obvious "corridor" to the west of Berri-UQAM which would be hotly contested. To reign this in, I added another rule:
#11: You can only build 2 pieces of track each track building round, Engineer allows for 3.
The initial playtests revealed some serious limitations. To begin with, the auction was incredibly flaccid...there was just a glut of special abilities. The Subsidy was an obvious problem, and because it was far from integral to the design, it was nerfed early. The map also had some minor issues, and it was redrawn. The no expenses for your engine thing was a complete wreck, as it made the economic system, which was already cushy because of the Subsidy action, extremely fluffy. Like Subsidy, it was dropped in very short order, though the engine allowance up to 8 still remained for the time being.
Overall, things were being whittled away. I was actually surprised with the effectiveness of the government deck though, and how much it caused problems in the game for players...often forcing them to build stubs defensively even when other players were not in the immediate vicinity. Urbanization was not being taken enough, but I still didn't want it to be free, so I left it the same.
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Michael Webb
The People's Republic of Ann Arbor
Michigan
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Revision 2, tightening up a bit more
The second map changed some of the power corridors up...Atwater was now further away from Berri, and Lionel Groulx was downgraded to a stop, even though it is an important hub in the actual system. The net result of this, was it allowed the 2 pieces of track / 3 with engineer rule to be put on the bench.
The map now played quite differently, and track building was becoming tighter, though the west side of the island was still very open and clearly the best area of the board to play in. Without Subsidy present, the auction also tightened up into a fight over Lease (in the mid to late game) and the pricy Locomotive (primarily early, though late game people with money (i.e.: those in the lead) would still be able to afford it, and occasionally take it).
Urbanization was still not being taken enough though, but I was liking how the auction had tightened up, and I didn't want to put a power role back in. Clearly, a new solution was needed here.
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Michael Webb
The People's Republic of Ann Arbor
Michigan
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Revision 3, Mount Royal, new urbanization.
Revision 3 was fairly major from a play standpoint. To begin with, the map was now altered as Mount Royal Parc, a large park just outside of downtown, was added to the map, and building through it was forbidden (thematic, there is a real line underneath it, but the Metro does not go through there). This isolated one section of the board that was otherwise a tad too powerful as an aside, which was good for the way the map played. The St. Lawrence River was also quite wide in this version, and Boucherville, a fictitious stop that I added for play reasons to the SE coast, was nixed.
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8.
Board Game: Urban War
[Average Rating:7.18 Unranked]
Michael Webb
The People's Republic of Ann Arbor
Michigan
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Inspiration also struck at this point, and urbanization was removed as a special role, and instead it became a function of track building. This was, again, an idea based on the real world. Why would a new station be built in the real world? Simply put, it's a heavily populated area, with a lot of track running through. Hence, when someone built a stop tile that included 4 or more exits (The Austrian and Italian tiles were still legal at this point in the design) then they could choose to urbanize that stop if they wanted to. This also had a potentially interesting impact on the auto-urbanization locations, because one of them had the requisite 4 available open sides (the others did not, due to their placement on the edge of the map) and could potentially be urbanized prior to its appointed time. Fine by me, let the black cubes languish if the players want them to!
The track building-based urbanization added tension back into the game, and people were now more prone to offensively urbanize, and the tiles would run out. One thing I didn't like was the extreme ease with which people could opt to urbanize someone else's stop though, and I started to realize that the Italy/Austria tiles had to go to tighten the map up again and to allow players to make effective defensive builds.
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Michael Webb
The People's Republic of Ann Arbor
Michigan
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Revision 4
From a map design standpoint, Revision 4 was a combination of Revisions 3 and 1. The St. Lawrence River was shrunken again, and Boucherville reinstated. Mount Royal remained though, and other minor stop changes were integrated. This was where the non-standard AoS tiles from Italy and Austria left for good. It also saw the end of the Ireland style double upgrades, and the potential engine level of 8. I liked the idea of the aggressively high engine level, but because of the game length it was just not a good choice for a player to actually take their engine that high in all but the strangest of circumstances. Similarly, I started to doubt the necessity of the unlimited shares. Players were reliably getting into the high teens, but I had the sense that they didn't HAVE TO, they were simply going that high because it was an option. At this point, I was starting to be concerned that too many ultimately unimportant changes like the Engine level and share thing could make the map completely unwieldy, and hard for people to play with, and so I was seeking to simplify to some degree.
This was also the point where the track-building initiated urbanization was opened up to some degree...players could now cause urbanization to occur if they built the previous requisite 4 exits, OR, if the stop they were building into had less, they were allowed to urbanize as long as all of the exits were filled. This allowed some of the previously not as useful corners of the board, like Boucherville, to become worthwhile in certain cases.
At this point, I was somewhat concerned that the government links deck, one of the non-thematic, gameplay only based touches that I'd added to the map, was now the centrepiece, and the real focus of play. I liked what the links deck did, but I was conflicted at some level.
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Michael Webb
The People's Republic of Ann Arbor
Michigan
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Revision 4, while not that different from a map standpoint, did see some more extreme ideas experimented with. There was a brief experiment with deterministic goods growth, for instance, where cities would always reset to 2 goods from the chart if they were under that number, but it was abandoned because it seemed to add too many goods to the map.
There was also another Early Railways theme based attempt to reintegrate the powerful locomotives, in this case, by having players engine level set to 5 until round 6, and then to 8 for the rest of the game. This was combined with the ER "you may only ship 1 good" rule, but it seemed to make an untimely government link build too much of a random factor, because setting yourself up for 5 ships during the first part of the game, and 8's the rest of the way was such a huge focus. Having even one piece of track cut off by the government deck just felt too random.
It was during the final build of Revision 4 that I came up with a radical idea that would be incorporated into Revision 5, the Null Ship Rounds.
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11.
Board Game: Tectonic
[Average Rating:7.00 Unranked]
Michael Webb
The People's Republic of Ann Arbor
Michigan
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Revision 5
Revision 5 represented a fairly major evolution from a map perspective. Much of the west side of the board was shifted north a hex so that Lionel Groulx could be reintroduced as a red station and so Anigrignon could be pulled out of the corner and given two more exits again. The small amount of space in that part of the board had been bothering me for some time because in reality that corridor is a major part of the Metro and includes many stops along two major lines. Thus, though the real world geography had to suffer a bit for it, the changes were necessary. While the introduction of Mount Royal Park had originally been made intentionally to weaken that part of the board, I was bothered that the part of the island that actually has the highest concentration of track was, on the map, now reduced to an area where only one player could profitably venture. By shifting the western portion of the board up a row of hexes, it allowed me to add another station into the mix, and to give another player a real incentive to venture into that area as well. A couple of other changes were made, some hills were added in the Mont Royal Parc area to reflect some topographic data I was able to find, which slightly increased costs in an area of the board where those changes were beneficial. I also altered the placement of Cote Vertu, which otherwise would have slid down very close to Snowdon because of the map alteration listed above, and kept it 4 hexes away from all of its neighbouring stations.
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Michael Webb
The People's Republic of Ann Arbor
Michigan
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During this period, the Lease ability, where players could use the government links for income, finally was thrown out. I liked having the ability in theory, but in practice it was too often causing runaway leader issues in much the same way that the Scandinavian Ferry does. This ability was then replaced with one that I had had in the pipeline for some time as a possible 4 player variant: Stroll, which simulates the people (goods) walking around the city, as it allows the player taking it to move one good up to 4 hexes away. In practice, this basically works like a combination of a weak Deurbanization from Ireland with a weak Ferry from Scandinavia. The ability is both potentially offensive and defensive, but it isn't overpowered either.
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Michael Webb
The People's Republic of Ann Arbor
Michigan
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Revision 5 was a watershed in thinking as well...as I said above, I was bothered that while I had a number of minor thematic touches sprinkled into the map, the main thing that people would walk away from the map talking about was the government links deck. I like the government links deck, and I recognized that it was going to be the heart of the finished map whether I liked it or not, but I wanted to add another thematic touch into the game to bring the focus back to Montreal a bit, and inspiration struck me when I was reading about the history of the system for the umpteenth time. It was simply this: the early rounds of the game had always represented 1962 and 1964, because the Metro was being built prior to Expo 67. In the real world, the Metro didn't open until late 1966 though. This was the inspiration for another major change in the map, the null ship rounds. Simply put, the idea here was that the auction each round would only be for player order, and that for the first two rounds, all players would do is issue shares and build track. There would be no expenses, and goods growth would occur as usual. Round 3 would see the game proper get under way, and players would each start with an engine level of 3, as though they had upgraded at the normal pace in the early game.
This change really was a major design alteration, and it forced the rethinking of several things, such as the unlimited shares scheme from before, and the set engine levels, because although players had not had to pay for expenses, they still were being handicapped because their incomes would be 5 lower than normal, on average. There was also a question as to whether or not the alteration was worth the trouble.
I liked the extra options that the null ship rounds could add into the game: you didn't necessarily have to be looking at profitable ships in your first two rounds, you just had to make sure that you were going to have 3 or 4 length deliveries by the end of your third track build.
On an aside: the options of "First Build", "Last Build" and "Engineer" for the initial 2 rounds were added shortly after the null ship rounds were introduced to add some vague interest back into the otherwise dull auction. The fight with the auction was an on-going story throughout development.
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Michael Webb
The People's Republic of Ann Arbor
Michigan
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There was also a brief attempt at reintroducing the high engine levels at this point. At the end of the normal null ship rounds (i.e.: start of round 3 the game goes to normal) your engine starts at 3, and your maximum engine level is the normal 6. For a while, I tried starting the player's engines at 4, and allowing for a maximum of 8 again, with the pay for it Loco special action available and the double skip to double upgrade Irish rule the standard option. The problem was that the high engine level essentially softened the entire point of the null ship rounds, and allowed player scores to reach into the stratosphere. I added the high engine level in with the thought that it would allow players more leeway to use the government links, but still make decent income, but the high engine levels were still simply too abusive.
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Michael Webb
The People's Republic of Ann Arbor
Michigan
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But then, just as the 8 trains were fading into the distance, another idea came to me.
At this point in the development I was almost completely happy with the play on the map. The different areas seemed well-balanced, and apart from one potentially troublesome stop north of Berri, everything seemed to be kosher. I still wanted some way to make the government links a possible boon as well as a curse though.
The problem, as documented above, was that the high engine levels that I originally used tended to create runaway income growth in the mid to late game. While this is a common issue with AoS, having the higher levels exacerbated it to an annoyingly high degree.
However, one thing that I hadn't considered, but which seemed very intuitive in hindsight, was to introduce a new split level engine like one sees in the 18XX games. The idea here was simple: players would have 2 numbers in their engine level. The first number was the number of links they could run for profit, as in normal Age of Steam. A second number, after a "+" could be added to that though, with that number referring to the number of government links that that player could run over for free. The government links part of the engine would not pay out money, and players with standard engines (i.e.: 3+0, which all players start at) could still use the government links, they simply would be cutting into their income by doing so, having a high number after the plus would simply open up more shipping options for people.
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Michael Webb
The People's Republic of Ann Arbor
Michigan
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And then reality set in...
The map rules were at this point becoming remarkably dense. Nearly every phase of the game had been altered. While this sort of overhauling of the system was enjoyable for myself, and my regular group of players, I realised that for proper release the map was going to have to be stripped back significantly, perhaps with the old rules included as the "Designer's Preferred" rules.
So Revision 6, where the split level engines were added to the mix, lasted only briefly, and Revision 6.5 was put together.
The game was stripped down to allow the government links to take centre stage. The split level engines, which solve the problem of what to do with the Locomotive in the 3 player map, also stayed. However, nearly everything else was gutted. Urbanization was returned to a selected role status, albeit with a slight restriction in that it counts as one of your three track builds. Stroll was removed. The Null Ship rounds left, as did the auto urbanizations based on rounds. Share restriction were slid back to 15. The only additive change was the "all the goods start on the board, or pre-loaded onto the new city tiles" one, which actually streamlines the game.
This new revision of the map played very well, and it was much more clean than the monstrous beast that had been created during playtesting. My group mourned the passing of nearly all of the special rules that had been developed, but still enjoyed the simplified version of the map...albeit not as much as the "full experience". At this point, pragmatism was winning out though. The "full" Montreal map had such a significant number of changes to the system that most people would have been overwhelmed by it, and it had to be slimmed down.
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Michael Webb
The People's Republic of Ann Arbor
Michigan
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But there is always a last tweak to be made, the change that made Montreal skip to 7.0 was a doozy, and again, an obvious one.
I had been married to the idea of the Government Links being determined by a card deck. The reason for this was their inspiration, which was pure Early Railways. As I mentioned up above, the initial concept of this map included that deck. However, I realized eventually, that there was absolutely zero reason for those links to be controlled by a deck of cards, and that the deck actually created more of a mess than was necessary.
Hence, Revision 7.0, which finally did away with the links deck and instead allowed players to choose where the Government track was going to be placed with some restrictions in place. The actual building aspect of it was very clean, and the only real question was how to dictate who had the right to dictate the builds, and I eventually settled on the 1/2/3/1/2/3/1/2/3 progression based on the initial, random player order. I had toyed briefly with the idea of going back to the Early Railways base and saying that it would be the person with the greatest income, but the Government track is powerful enough to make that a very bad idea IMO. Having it be a selectable auction thing also seemed very bad, as I felt that the auction did not need another role available. I also briefly used different orders (i.e.: 1/2/3/2/3/1, &c.) but I went to straight 1-2-3 progression because the 3rd place player at the start of the game has a slight advantage anyway, as they are able to issue shares to win the first auction if they so choose, so saddling them with a slightly less lucrative Government Link building spot seemed a fair trade.
In general, I was also becoming increasingly happy with the "basic game" as opposed to the insane one. While all of the extra rules in the "full on" version offer added entertainment, the essence of the map, the government links and the split level engine was clearly enough to stand on its own at this point, and I was actually starting to enjoy the stripped down version of the game more.
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Michael Webb
The People's Republic of Ann Arbor
Michigan
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A final twist was added though.
The auction in the final version of the game, I noted, was tending to degenerate into two people passing, and one player paying. The problem was simple: Urbanization, while still the most powerful role (easily: a fresh good onto the board + effectively a free tile placement) was not always alluring enough to make people bid high on it, as the other player would always have the option of just taking the Government Engine bump or Engineer (depending on the game state).
I didn't like what this did to the economy though...I like a tough auction, and for a solid AoS experience, I feel that angst in that phase is an absolute must. Thus, the auction tweak...
Simply, if two players pass in the auction and pay nothing, then only the 1st place player (i.e.: the player who actually spent money in that phase) will get to select a special action.
In the extremely unlikely event that all players pass without paying anything, none of them get special actions.
This opened up a few tactical and strategic dimensions to the auction again. Starting bidders now were faced with a decision between bidding low (hoping for 2nd/1st but letting the other players have roles), or bidding higher (hoping to get the other players to pass, and thereby, being the only one to select a role, and effectively gaining First Move and First Build in the process).
The second bidder also often has a tough choice, do they want to pass, take 3rd, and hope that the next player in the order actually bids? Or do they not want to take that chance?
Of course, the extra money leaving the game meant that the shares had to be increased again to a max of 20. This is not as friendly as it seems on the surface though. With the extra share limit and the potential to further increase one's expenses by having Government Engine Levels, the difficulty in getting into the black can be exacerbated throughout the mid-game, particularly for people venturing into the SW portion of the board, which is very road heavy.
The extra shares had been coming into and out of the map forever, and I finally decided to just let them stay. The track costs can be high, and the auction tends to cost people a bit more than it normally would in a 3 player game. Taking too many shares in the wrong circumstances will still kill you here (too many lost points, too much debt), but at least the death spiral is a bit more work to enter. I find that in Age of Steam I like having things present that punish players for making mistakes, but dislike maps where bankruptcy is an actual constant concern. The increased shares help to keep Montreal from pushing into the "painful bankruptcy is a regular issue" category in certain circumstances and given certain play styles.
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Michael Webb
The People's Republic of Ann Arbor
Michigan
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Final product.
The final version of the game was now complete, after all of the arduous design and development work detailed above.
Government Track had gone from being randomly determined by a deck of cards to being player controlled.
The ability to use that track had been shifted from a special action that allowed one to use it for income for one round, to the new split-level engines which are increased via the auction but which offer permanent benefits, albeit smaller ones.
Other rules present in the final version include
* The "sum of all track must be contiguous" rule (originally seen in Viard's Moon)
* Slightly limited Urbanization (i.e.: it counts as one of your 3 track) (necessary to keep Engineer interesting, and to slightly weaken Urb)
* Deterministic Cubes (i.e.: very little randomness (only through the Repopulation action (this maps Production)), no growth phase)
* The auction tweak (i.e.: if two or more players pass without bidding in the auction, then they do not get special actions)
So why does this map work well for 3? There are several specific reasons, largely relating to design:
1) The map size was made for 3 players plus the Government Track. By the last round, there just isn't much left to build.
2) The Government Track. This could hypothetically be used in a higher player count game, but the reason why I think it works particularly well here is because of the typical weaknesses present in 3 player games. Oftentimes, one player will be left alone, while the other two go at it. The lonely player will then be able to run away with the game. This is somewhat alleviated by the "sum of all track must be contiguous" rule, but not quite enough to suit my palate. Government Track allows player to offensively interfere with another player, even if they're on the other side of the board. It also makes it much easier to filch cubes.
3) Beyond this, the way the Dedicated Government Engine Level is increased is only by selecting the Locomotive action in the auction. Traditionally, the Locomotive action presents a problem for 3 player games, because it, when combined with Urbanization, means that no one has much incentive to bid. I don't mean to imply that, in a general game state, that Loco isn't significantly better than Urb, because it is. But having two good actions present significantly decreases the incentive of a bidding war, and it is one of the things that I find weak with many AoS maps at the 3 scale.
Making the Locomotive action only increase one's Dedicated Government Engine Level means that the role is not as powerful, and it makes Urbanization the clear power action in the auction, and creates a situation where there is one very good action, a couple of decent ones, and a couple of situational ones. This makes winning the auction worth something significant.
4) The cube quantity. One of the big things that I think can weaken a map for 3 is the surfeit of cubes issue. With deterministic cubes, this can be controlled much more carefully. With normal Locomotive upgrading patterns (i.e.: everyone goes to 5 or 6 eventually), there are enough cubes to go around for the game, but not many spares. The board is, of course, flush in the early going because of this, but tightens as it progresses. This means players are less likely to be bankrupted early due to lack of ships, but are more likely to lose the overall game if they can't plan for late game deliveries.
5) The auction tweak. While this could hypothetically be used in higher count games, I postulate that it will work best with only 3 at the table. The dollar auction mechanic in Age of Steam (i.e.: 1 and 2 each pay full bid, 3 pays nothing) often fails in 3 player AoS because one player will bid, and the second will pass, the third then often has no strong incentive to bid because they are getting second for free. While this is fixed to some degree by making there be one powerful action that is clearly better than the others, I still find that the bid - pass - pass progression is a problem given some play styles. The auction tweak insures that if two people are trying to play the slum lords, they are going to pay by not having actions all game. This can also encourage players bidding first to try and bid aggressively given certain game states; if they can successfully force the other two players to pass, they then are essentially getting First Build, First Move, and an additional action of their choice. This can be a powerful option in some circumstances.
So that's Montreal and its historical development. I hope everyone enjoys playing it as much as I did making it.
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20.
Board Game: Retro
[Average Rating:0.00 Unranked]
Michael Webb
The People's Republic of Ann Arbor
Michigan
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Retrospective:
In hindsight, this was an odd design. It started with a theme. The theme inspired rules. Many of the rules didn't work, so I dumped them and came up with more rules based on the theme. This created an odd dynamic because as much as I don't actually care about theme beyond a veneer as a game player, I was letting it suggest things to me with this design and then viciously throwing away the ideas that didn't work, regardless of thematic integrity.
This map stands in notable contrast in terms of how it was designed in comparison to my later maps, where I came to the design process knowing the major rule or two that I hoped to implement. With Montreal I came to the drafting table knowing only that I wanted to make an expansion map and where I wanted to set it, and I let the design organically grow out of that. It was an interesting process and I think the map turned out well, though there are definitely some things I would tweak if I were designing this map today.
I don't know if I would ever design a map this way again, because the creative free-form process followed by continual testing with each new idea made the design and development process extremely long. On the positive side, I was able to try a lot of ideas out and the design of this map helped me to understand what goes into making a map, and some of the basic things that should and shouldn't be tried within the Age of Steam system.
I'm thrilled with the enthusiastic response that this map has generated in the community, and am glad that I have been able to add something of value to a game system that has given me so much enjoyment over the years.
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Michael Webb
The People's Republic of Ann Arbor
Michigan
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Editions
This is an odd entry. I'd never expected to have to discuss editions, as I've always taken the stance that direct reprints with only cosmetic changes are the best way to go. As of this writing, Montreal has gone through three commercial releases. The first two editions vary only in terms of the corner graphics, whereas the third actually ended up with slightly different cube counts on the map, making it slightly more generous. What happened?
The long and short of it was that my master files were lost because the computer they were on was stolen in 2009. When I went to reprint the map in 2010 I had to use graphics that were stored in a CD-R that was labeled "Master," the designation I use for files that are ready to go to the printer. What I didn't realize at the time was that I was using the Master files for not the 1st edition, but the 0th edition. Confused yet?
The 0th edition was a printing of the map that was never distributed. In 2007, when I initially had the map printed, it was at a local shop, and I had them laminate it. The problem was that their lamination capabilities were...dodgy, and the plastic would peel off the finished sheets. I had to scrap the entire print run and send Montreal off to an external printer. In the meantime, I had mildly revised the cube counts on the map.
Thus, when I went to print the 3rd edition, the Master file that I dug up was from that 0th edition print run. I'd totally forgotten the cube count revision and didn't even think to check it against the existing maps. So the 3rd edition is a little different than the other two due to a random confluence of events.
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Posted Tue Nov 11, 2003 6:57 pm
Campbell
California
Holland
Michigan
You get a gold star.
Campbell
California
http://www.bgdf.com/tiki/tiki-view_blog.php?blogId=158