Wealth of Nations | BoardGameGeek

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Rules:: Re: Wealth of Nations V.2 - Why and How

Samuelw3 — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 12:55:35 +0000

All of the new starting commodity packages have a lot more $$. This helps balance them against the industry packages and also mitigates the need for early loans.

One thing that I felt was strong in our game, was the limit of approximately 3-6 loans that we chose to have. It wasn't so much enforced, just a risk management strategy that we all started out conservatively. But I think it added greatly to the game play so that the slower start allowed us to develop a stronger economic base, before expanding.

A way to codify this would be to create an escalating interest rate...
1-5 notes would incur $1/note (for all notes) at the beginning of the trade phase.
6-10 notes would incur $2/note (for all notes) at the beginning of the trade phase.
11+ notes would incur $3/note (for all notes) at the beginning of the trade phase.

In my second game, I started in Ore production, and after expanding 1 hex on the first turn, I started to feel I was quickly falling behind because I was not able to afford to keep the mines producing. But with a few savvy trades in the 3rd/5th round, I got the mines automated. (along with 3-4 notes) About the same time the value of Ore was peaking, so I was able to expand and build a bank (maxing out at 8 notes) before the Ore market crashed with a 2nd player diversifying into Ore. But 2.5 rounds later the ore and bank (automated it too) and had paid off most of the loans. I was left with the decision, build a second bank, or expand into factories. Before I could choose, we decided to call the game so we could all try some other games at origins 09 also.

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Rules:: Re: Wealth of Nations V.2 - Why and How

Samuelw3 — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 05:08:44 +0000

by Samuelw3

SPEED: I haven't played it any other way, so I'm not sure how much faster the 1 cube/3 cube process changes it in speed. BY FAR the biggest impediment to game speed is the need for players to decide what they want to do, and push cubes they are willing to trade forward, so offers can be made. Both games I played where with new players (or players who had not played since origins 2008). So each turn one of use typically got pulled into analysis paralysis as he/she tried to plan and re-plan (re-re-plan) his/her trades and actions for the upcoming turn.
But I agree that the 'available for trade' pile does allow skilled players to see what another player is planning on doing, and taking steps to counter just by the stock piling of goods. If a screen is added, there should be fee of some kind... Industrial secrecy is typically not in-expensive. :-P (Or not. :-D )

Balance: I think the 'controlled' barter along with the 3 cube limit work together to make the trading slightly more balanced, and slightly faster. Once we got the hang of what we could do each turn, how the market reacted to trades/selling, then it got faster. But I think the 3 cube limit lets a player sell off goods and impact the market while not completely crashing it for later sells. (And vice versa for buys.) And I think that it is a good step in the direction of speedier trade turns rather 12 rounds to buy/sell single cube of food...

New Maps
I saw a glimpse of some of the new maps, but we didn't play with them nor did I get to study them much. Nor did I know much of how the land-o-lakes 'lakes' would work for 'industry groups'?
->One idea I did have was if the map had hexes that were pre-disposed to specific industries... i.e. A hex in one area could only be labor (i.e. a city); a Hex in another area could only be a mine,... or one area of the map could not be setup as a farm due to poor soil quality. (Maybe for the 3rd expansion. :p )

Thanks again for the feed back and support. I look forward the the coming expansion. And I can't wait until the next CABs meeting to pull out WoN and play more!

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Rules:: Re: Wealth of Nations V.2 - Why and How

RaDiKal — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 21:11:43 +0000

by RaDiKal

Samuelw3 wrote:
2. You have to pay $1 interest for each promissory note at the beginning of the trade phase, before any buying trading.

Samuelw3 wrote:

7. To speed up the game play, we also did 'controlled' bartering where prices could be sold to another player for the current barter prices of the given goods.

I've gotten to the point where I always play with these two rule revisions.

"2" serves to put a bit of a damper on free for all loan-mania at the very start so we actually get to play a somewhat more paced expansion of territories rather than an initial mad grab for land and then more loans to develop the acquired land. Not sure if $1 is enough of an incentive but it does seem to slow the mad rush down to a managable level.

"7" is the single largest contributer to a game of reasonable length (for the decisions to be made and the fun/minute factor).

I haven't tried multiple cubes per trade to/from market but found the barrier to speed isn't the number of cubes, it's the person knowing what they need and what they have that they're willing to sell/trade away. To address this, we also play with the convention that goods available for trade are placed off one's mat and goods a player intends to keep are kept on the mat. We also encourage organizing the kept goods on the production icons to encourage having a plan and then executing the plan. I suspect we'll eventual want to have a screen to hide our production plans but that just doesn't seem to be enough of a surprise to bother yet.

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Rules:: Re: Wealth of Nations V.2 - Why and How

Peteloaf — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 15:13:38 +0000

by Peteloaf

Hi - thanks for the feedback

Samuelw3 wrote:
we tried to limit our promissory notes to 3-5, rather than 6-10+ notes. And it created a greater need to build economies for expansion, rather than just expanding at all cost.

This is good news. The promissory notes were always intended as a emergency measure or bridge loan - the fact that they are too cheap makes them almost manditory.

Samuelw3 wrote:

We played with as much of the V.2 rules as Trevor had access.

If you geekmail me I can give you the URL for the V.2 pdf for you to have at Cabs.

Samuelw3 wrote:

1. If you get 10 promissory notes, you lose.

This is not actually a rule. It would be pretty easy to avoid anyway.

Samuelw3 wrote:

4. The generator package includes $10 at the beginning.

All of the new starting commodity packages have a lot more $$. This helps balance them against the industry packages and also mitigates the need for early loans.

Samuelw3 wrote:

5. You can buy/sell up to 3 cubes to the commodity markets per turn of the trade phase.

Did this help speed up trading?

Samuelw3 wrote:

6. I got to see a glimpse of some of the new maps, and those sound very intriguing.

Give them a try at your next play. They are intended in part to speed up the game by reducing the number of playable hexes as well as creating new strategic play areas.

Samuelw3 wrote:

7. To speed up the game play, we also did 'controlled' bartering where prices could be sold to another player for the current barter prices of the given goods.

please be forthcoming with any other strategies for speeding up the trade phase.

Now my daughter wants an emoticon - :meeple:

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Rules:: Re: Wealth of Nations V.2 - Why and How

Samuelw3 — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 02:14:15 +0000

by Samuelw3

I played WoN at Origins 2009 twice. Granted each game was only partially completed with 3-6 new players, so we never made it all the way to the final end game. Each partial game seemed to take 2-2.5 hours or more. Because of the different Promissory rules, we tried to limit our promissory notes to 3-5, rather than 6-10+ notes. And it created a greater need to build economies for expansion, rather than just expanding at all cost.

We played with as much of the V.2 rules as Trevor had access.

The 3 rules I remember that I felt helped make the game more challenging and greatly improved.
1. If you get 10 promissory notes, you lose. (Or something? I remember this being very bad, but I don't remember what specifically this triggered. If not losing, what did happen?)
2. You have to pay $1 interest for each promissory note at the beginning of the trade phase, before any buying trading. The promissory notes create a great strength of taking promissory notes to expand, but also let them be a drain on one's economy if you take too much risk and can't pay them off promptly. Combined with the $20, $19,$18... process it seems to reduce the desire to just use promissory notes to do massive expansion to just create self-sufficiency... I wouldn't be opposed to a higher interest rate, so that the risk is even greater.
3. In 5 player game there is only 1 farm package to start with.
4. The generator package includes $10 at the beginning.
5. You can buy/sell up to 3 cubes to the commodity markets per turn of the trade phase.* (If you traded/bartered with another player you could trade greater number of goods instead.)

6. I got to see a glimpse of some of the new maps, and those sound very intriguing.
7. To speed up the game play, we also did 'controlled' bartering where prices could be sold to another player for the current barter prices of the given goods.

All in all, I had a blast and I'm looking forward to playing WoN at CaBs in 2 weeks.

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Strategy:: Re: Labor drives the game

MrWeasely — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 05:10:04 +0000

by MrWeasely

One frustrating trend of our game group is for the same people to play the same goods again and again. I happen to think Capital is the best, so if I'm first, then I really hate not to take it. There's another guy who prefers Labor, if he's first he takes labor (leaving me Capital) and so on.

Anyway, we finally broke out of our specialities tonight, and I finally got a crack at Labor (the only one I've never tried). I went all-in with 5 tiles of it early, automated it, and kept the monopoly, and kept the barter price at $16 or thereabouts all game. In the endgame, other markets crashed, but not really Labor, thanks to the monopoly.

With labor the time to exert your power is at the end of a Develop phase, when you still have ~3 red cubes and maybe a black, you can set up your bank (or whatever) without worrying about a concerted effort to block you. Usually people are all tapped out from a certain point.

New Image for Wealth of Nations

jstalica — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 04:49:55 +0000

by jstalica

The competition is intense!

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Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Rules:: Re: V.2 Revised Trade Phase

Admiral_Ritt — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 18:46:06 +0000

by Admiral_Ritt

I like multiple Buys but I think 2 should be max, or the advantage

goes to the first 2 players on prices, compared to the last 2 players

The Trades need to be structured to go faster. The trading takes
up about 40% of the game time.

If it's your turn you ask who is WILLING to trade.

Then You get to PICK One Player and make One offer to him/her
His choice is to
Decline,
Accept
OR counter offer. (you may accept the counter offer)
NO FURTHER Negotiation Is Allowed, (until it the trade phase comes around to you again)

If you cannot agree to terms
You may purchase from the Market.

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Rules:: Re: V.2 Final Selloff

Peteloaf — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 16:47:06 +0000

by Peteloaf

Malacandra wrote:
Has anyone scored a game using the published rules and also the V2.0 suggestion?

I got a playtest report that did this. They said that the rankings were not changed in their game although the 2nd and 3rd place players differential was much smaller.

I hosted a game where we did a quick comparison of selloff systems looking at 3 possibilities. Original method, lowest barter price method and player with smallest cube counts sells first. None of these calculations changed the outcome of the player rankings. The lowest barter price system was the most different and made the final cubes worthless - especially for the farmer who saw their value fall by more than 1/2.

Right now I am leaning towards the smallest cube count version. It is very fast, has little math and keeps the game close to the original intent. I think it will only make a significant difference in a game where two players are producing the same high value commodity and have a lot of cubes at the end. One will get quite a bit more $$ than the other.

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Rules:: Re: V.2 Final Selloff

Malacandra — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 03:39:52 +0000

by Malacandra

No matter what procedure you use for the final selloff, you won't know if it's any good unless you score a game both by the printed way and by the variant way to see if there is any difference.

As for the "each tile is $40" nothing has changed! But the goal is not to have the most money, it's to have the most VPs, which means that part of the goal is get lots of cash, yes, but part of the goal is to do a good job of expanding your "market share" or territory, the "area control" goal as well.

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Rules:: Re: V.2 Final Selloff

The Prophet — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 01:09:04 +0000

by The Prophet

Hi all,

just played my 1st game earlier today. 6 players, all newbies at WoN but otherwise experienced gamers.

Pretty good game overall & even if we couldn't play the whole game, I can see how the final part could become very tedious. Most of us had a hard time staying focused on the game because of downtime. It would have been worse if we would have got to that final phase.

I see how experience will lower that but it will leave a bad 1st impression on the more casual gamers. Less players for a first game could have helped too. Anyway...

To my point.

This just poped up in my head as I was reading this thread.

So here's my suggestion

Drop the VP. The goal of the game is to have the most money at the end of the game. Period.

So... Since the tiles are worth 4vp & $10 is 1 vp, tiles would be worth $40.
Add cash (See below for the price you get from goods)
Substract $30 for each loan still unpaid. (-3vp = -$30)
Most money win. Tie share the win.

Now, for the last selloff & the final sell price of goods...

IMHO, this seems to be fast, fair & simple enough.

Do this for each type of goods.
Use the value INSIDE the circle as the price.

1- Add all the cubes owned by all players.
2- Divide that number by 2, round down, minimum 1.
3- Count down the market track, starting from the 1st empty space, a number of space equal to the # you got from step 2 to find the final sell price of that good.
4- All players sell all cubes of that type for that final sell price.
NOTE: If the track is full, use the Market Full value as the final sell price.

Rince. Repeat for each type of goods.

So everyone sells their stuff for the average price they would have got pretty much anyway overall at the end of the by-the-rule version.
I think...

What do you guys think ?

Nick 'The Prophet'

New Image for Wealth of Nations

Guantanamo — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 06:10:30 +0000

by Guantanamo

Rygel and Thoia playing Welath at Mike's Mini Meet V

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Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Rules:: Re: V.2 Promissory Notes

rdsmith — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 02:39:52 +0000

by rdsmith

Peter,
I'm always of the KISS faction. Just having to pay $1 per turn per note is a simple and logical penalty for the notes without adding any other tracking mechanism. Otherwise, I like it the way it is.

Thanks for the great game!

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Sessions:: Re: WoN V.2 at Kublacon - It lives

GamesOnTheBrain — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 01:24:25 +0000

by GamesOnTheBrain

Peteloaf wrote:
Louis wrote:
...make it a trade action.

We tried this and it was quite a bit slower. Sometimes you had to wait a whole cycle around the table until a player could take a trade action and borrow money.

Louis wrote:
...allow one loan per turn

This is an interesting fix. I was hoping to discourage loan abuse by making the ongoing cost higher instead of limiting access.

Like JC said, limiting the player to one loan per round is practically useless. Every experienced player would take this action every turn, so why have it?

$2 interest per round is a much better solution, imho.

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Sessions:: Re: WoN V.2 at Kublacon - It lives

Peteloaf — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 22:38:18 +0000

by Peteloaf

Louis wrote:
...make it a trade action.

We tried this and it was quite a bit slower. Sometimes you had to wait a whole cycle around the table until a player could take a trade action and borrow money.

Louis wrote:
...allow one loan per turn

This is an interesting fix. I was hoping to discourage loan abuse by making the ongoing cost higher instead of limiting access.

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Rules:: Re: V.2 Final Selloff

Malacandra — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 21:46:05 +0000

by Malacandra

Has anyone scored a game using the published rules and also the V2.0 suggestion? I'd be interested to see how the scores match up. I have a hunch the original published way would be more "accurate" and fair to those who produced a lot of something.

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Sessions:: Re: First play, with comments

Malacandra — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 21:44:12 +0000

by Malacandra

pitris wrote:

After thinking about it, I have one main concern, which is how much of the game is decided on the first turn. The market fluctuation mechanic seems to suggest that a good player is the one that can successfully anticipate the market trends and react accordingly.

Umm, yeah, that's, like, the whole point of the game. :laugh:

However, I'm not sure how much capacity does a player have to actually change directions. There's a relatively high entry cost to start an industry, so it doesn't seem feasible to abandon it to take advantage of an anticipated future market trend.

You don't abandon, you diversify which means making more than one thing, but indeed making some of both or all that you're producing.

In other words, if I built an ore block and spent a lot of resources to do it, I can't just abandon it and start building black hexes, just because I think the ore market is saturated.and capital will be worth a lot of money soon, right? And if this is true, then the initial builds will define the whole game and... well, that doesn't seem good. Need to play it more to figure out if this is the case.

I've had a hunch that the person who starts with capital is generally the winner. We played this past Saturday and I was happily proved wrong. In fact, Neither capital, nor Ore nor Labor made it past the first space of the top market line. What really counted was food because even though there was some automation, four players meant a full board and food was always in demand (and I was the good farmer).

Don't forget, you don't HAVE to produce all your blocs will produce. If the market if the price is dropping, you can hold back some commodity to drive the price up a bit.

After several games, I am quite pleased at the different paths to victory (and don't underestimate tile VPs, regardless of commodity type: get those flags some tiles!).

Another concern, is the end game sellout, which takes a long time and is very, very, very tedious. I think that in our next game, we'll just sell all the goods at the same time, at the current market sell price. I don't think it'll produce radically different results and it will make the endgame sale much faster.

Our gaming group must be the only four people for whom this is just not a big deal. I read this particular gripe often and I really don't get it. First of all, more than one person has a commodity, then we just have one person sell all of theirs first, leaving gaps in the market where the other player'(s') cubes will go. We do that one commodity at a time and it really doesn't take that long. I'm not sure I like the idea of everyone selling off at the lowest trade price: that doesn't seem to reward those who have worked hard to gain supply.

Has anyone done a game and scored it both ways? (Published and V2.0?) I'd be interested to see what sort of variation there was.

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Sessions:: Re: WoN V.2 at Kublacon - It lives

clearclaw — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 22:48:06 +0000

by clearclaw

Louis wrote:
Rule Suggestion: A local rule change was only allow one loan per turn and make it a trade action. This discourages loans as it takes one round to collect the money. Test games with this rule were successful and even.

I see no reason for such a rule to change the number of loans a good player takes, it merely takes them longer to do it as there's a lot of time spent with everyone taking a loan in turn.

This rule prevents the apparently best practice of taking many loans early and the game then becomes over in a few rounds.

Perhaps I'm missing something. How does it prevent that? If you are limiting players to taking one loan per entire trade phase, then all you've really done is removed the loan decision. Every player now always takes a loan on every trade phase up until the end-game approaches.

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Sessions:: Re: WoN V.2 at Kublacon - It lives

Louis — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 22:42:26 +0000

by Louis

Rule Suggestion: A local rule change was only allow one loan per turn and make it a trade action. This discourages loans as it takes one round to collect the money. Test games with this rule were successful and even. This rule prevents the apparently best practice of taking many loans early and the game then becomes over in a few rounds. The proposed $1 per turn loan fee is not enough to discourage many loans on the first turn. There is too much advantage for the experienced player who knows how many loans to take early.

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Rules:: Re: Wealth of Nations V.2 - Why and How

Peteloaf — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 05:44:25 +0000

by Peteloaf

The free market is simultaneous in a way that the game can't replicate. This forces players to take turns to give fair access to trading.

I have played a few games with the v.2 trades of up to 3 cubes and it feels less constrained.

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Rules:: Re: Wealth of Nations V.2 - Why and How

NickDanger42 — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 20:24:14 +0000

by NickDanger42

Well, I'll be on the lookout for the v2 rules. I enjoyed the game, but felt it ran longer than it needed to. My only major issue is with the buy/sell mechanism. In short, In a 'free market' economic game, I don't like the limits imposed on buying and selling. Not sure what the solution is, nor what was tried in playtesting, only know that the current system is artificial AND takes too long.

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Rules:: Re: V.2 Final Selloff

ehoward777 — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 18:28:44 +0000

by ehoward777

How about this for final sell off:

For each commodity check to see if the current price is above game start parity price. If so calculate the number of cubes required to be sold to get down to parity and divide that number by the number of players, rounding up (minimum number is 1). Each cube of that commodity scores that number of VPs. (e.g. if Labor ends the game at 25 in a four player game and parity is 18, then each red cube scores (25 -18) /4, two points.

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Rules:: Re: V.2 Promissory Notes

Joshuaaaaaa — Thu, 28 May 2009 04:08:24 +0000

by Joshuaaaaaa

Peteloaf wrote:
LordStrabo wrote:
Will there still be the 'Each promissory note gets you less than the last one' rule? Or does it replace it?

As JC points out it is clumsy and can be confusing. It is also kind of fun to see your opponent take out an 8th loan and only recieve a pittance for it. How much for that 8th loan - I am not sure I would have to do some math.:cry:

The sliding returns system does encourage trading loans since a player with a big pile of loans is looking for a better deal and will often purchase another players loan.

The bottom line for me is - Is the current system, with the sliding return, and open loan trading fun? Is their a reason to keep it or should it be changed to a more real world and possibly faster system. Maybe a poll here?

I like the current system for the reasons you mention. The declining returns and making them a valuable thing to trade. I always looked on the declining returns as effective interest. I'd rather keep that than have to worry about paying interest each turn.

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Rules:: Re: V.2 Promissory Notes

Flashcubes — Thu, 28 May 2009 02:56:13 +0000

by Flashcubes

Peteloaf wrote:
Early versions of the game did not have debt and it was totally broken. You could end up without enough money for food and energy in the trade phase and then not be able to run your factories. There was a downward spiral of death.

We introduced the notes and they took on a life of their own. I now love the promissory notes secondary market. Unfortunately is going away as the game moves away from debt in general.

You are welcome to keep playing the game as written or try some of the variants. It is there to put a curb on a group who are debt maniacs and feel it is broken. I would like to try the debt track variant as well.

Peter

Thanks Peter! We may just try this next time :-)

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Rules:: Re: V.2 Promissory Notes

clearclaw — Wed, 27 May 2009 18:44:52 +0000

by clearclaw

Flashcubes wrote:
The fact that you borrow 1 note you already lose $5 when repaying so there is a penalty there for sure, but look at the scale when you are on your 5th 6th or as I have seen 15 notes, WOW you borrow $5 and pay back $25... ain't that penalty enough for ya? LOL

In the first edition rules I will, without fail, take between 8 and 12 loans in the first trading phase. It is simply an automatic no brainer as the game heavily rewards deficit spending. The playes that don't take such debt will lose. It is that simple. The lost money from repayments is more than offset in increased earnings from the installed plant funded by the early debt.

We all understand that you need to borrow money to start building your business, however you better be good at bartering or you could be bankrupt by the end of the game.

Uhh, no. Really: no. bartering is just an efficency argument. It saves some time and a few mostly ignorable dollars. It is rarely important.

Planning for a variety of small factories to self generate food and energy is a great way to play this game for beginners.

Economies of scale reward better.

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Rules:: Re: V.2 Promissory Notes

Peteloaf — Wed, 27 May 2009 18:12:33 +0000

by Peteloaf

Early versions of the game did not have debt and it was totally broken. You could end up without enough money for food and energy in the trade phase and then not be able to run your factories. There was a downward spiral of death.

We introduced the notes and they took on a life of their own. I now love the promissory notes secondary market. Unfortunately is going away as the game moves away from debt in general.

You are welcome to keep playing the game as written or try some of the variants. It is there to put a curb on a group who are debt maniacs and feel it is broken. I would like to try the debt track variant as well.

Peter

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Rules:: Re: V.2 Promissory Notes

Flashcubes — Wed, 27 May 2009 16:32:51 +0000

by Flashcubes

The fact that you borrow 1 note you already lose $5 when repaying so there is a penalty there for sure, but look at the scale when you are on your 5th 6th or as I have seen 15 notes, WOW you borrow $5 and pay back $25... ain't that penalty enough for ya? LOL

We all understand that you need to borrow money to start building your business, however you better be good at bartering or you could be bankrupt by the end of the game.

Planning for a variety of small factories to self generate food and energy is a great way to play this game for beginners. People will come to you later in the game for bartering, I promise you that :-)

Another strategy I have seen is my friend going labor intensive and owning most of the red tiles generating more red and flagging early the majority of the board strategically blocking any development of 3 Hex where a bank could be built later on, very effective and also the rest where unable to build anything significant as Red commodity' price sky rocketed to a sell out completely to the max price.

Great game no matter how we play it, we always try to stick to the game as it was designed to be played and usually stay away from variations, unless of course the game allows it in its optional play

Thanks!

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Sessions:: Re: WoN V.2 at Kublacon - It lives

Peteloaf — Wed, 27 May 2009 01:31:55 +0000

by Peteloaf

That's great - thanks. I am working on something similar but a hopefully more interesting. Peter

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Sessions:: Re: WoN V.2 at Kublacon - It lives

GamesOnTheBrain — Wed, 27 May 2009 00:12:20 +0000

by GamesOnTheBrain

Peteloaf wrote:
Hey- that would be great. I know we did some 40+ versions of the game so it may have had a short lived conflict system.

OK, I couldn't find the PDF file, but the printout I have includes "MOVING FLAGS" which as I understood it was meant to be a conflict option.

Basically, you could pay 1 food cube to the supply per flag (very expensive) to move any number of flags from one hex to an adjacent hex. You could have multiple flags in the same hex, and you havd to "leave one behind" as you moved.

You could move flags to:

1) an empty hex.
2) a hex containing only flags (belonging to any player).
3) a hex containing one of your own industries.

Flags would destroy enemy flags at a one-to-one ratio. This allowed a player to take over ownership of a tile that had already been claimed by another player but didn't yet have an industry tile on it.

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Sessions:: Re: WoN V.2 at Kublacon - It lives

Peteloaf — Tue, 26 May 2009 23:12:49 +0000

by Peteloaf

Hey- that would be great. I know we did some 40+ versions of the game so it may have had a short lived conflict system.

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Rules:: Re: Wealth of Nations V.2 - Why and How

Peteloaf — Tue, 26 May 2009 23:11:30 +0000

by Peteloaf

I am definately going to make the V.2 rules update available free as an official update. This may take a while to complete.

I may not make the war rules available free until after the product is on sale for a little while.

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Sessions:: Re: WoN V.2 at Kublacon - It lives

GamesOnTheBrain — Tue, 26 May 2009 22:57:53 +0000

by GamesOnTheBrain

Peteloaf wrote:
Now I am scratching my head. This is all new stuff formulated over the past 18 months.

My early playtest copy (which I think I still have) definitely had "war" rules. I know this because my playtest group argued for removing them.

I'll see if I can find the original PDF file of them.

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Rules:: Re: Wealth of Nations V.2 - Why and How

Iceberg1 — Tue, 26 May 2009 21:58:50 +0000

by Iceberg1

Will you consolidate the rules in a file and upload them to your website or here?

--James

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Sessions:: Re: WoN V.2 at Kublacon - It lives

clearclaw — Tue, 26 May 2009 21:19:16 +0000

by clearclaw

Peteloaf wrote:
We did not use the final sell off the was proposed but the alternative suggested by JC: The player with the fewest cubes of one type sells first and sells all of their cubes normally. Then the player with the next lowest amount sells. It worked well and did not have the same penalty level as the proposed rule. The only issue was a clear rule for what happens in a tie was not available.

The last player in turn order from the start marker wins the tie OR they both sell all their cubes together and split the resulting revenue.

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Sessions:: Re: WoN V.2 at Kublacon - It lives

Peteloaf — Tue, 26 May 2009 21:13:42 +0000

by Peteloaf

Now I am scratching my head. This is all new stuff formulated over the past 18 months.

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Sessions:: Re: WoN V.2 at Kublacon - It lives

GamesOnTheBrain — Tue, 26 May 2009 20:26:22 +0000

by GamesOnTheBrain

Are the War rules similar to the conflict rules in the original, pre-publication version of the game?

Session: Wealth of Nations:: Sessions:: WoN V.2 at Kublacon - It lives

Peteloaf — Tue, 26 May 2009 19:41:47 +0000

by Peteloaf

We played a 3 player game with the both parts of the new rules: the V.2 game changes and the War rules.
Since only the V.2 rules are up on the geek I will mostly focus on them. Unfortunatly the impact of the V.2 rules were pretty small compared to the ability to conduct war operations against your opponents.

V.2 Starting Packages
The additional $40 per Commodity Package meant that each player had $160 or $170 at the beginning in the 3 player game. This is alot more available cash than before. Everyone was buying like crazy and no one took out any notes because they had enough to lay 2 tiles each and still have some money in the bank.

We played with the #6 industry package as 2 farms and 1 generator. This was not 100% successful. There was too much power and too little Labor. Next rev will be to make #6 2 farms and 1 academy. This package should be unavailable to the 5 player game.

Revised Trade Phase
This did make the trade phase go much faster and had minimal impact. It does make it so that you need to really know what your are doing since you buy up to 3 items instead of 1.

Promissory Notes
Because everyone had so much initial $$ there was very little debt taken on. No one had more than 2 notes. I think the peanalty of $1 per 2 notes per turn is too small to have much impact. It will be changed to $1 per note per turn.

Impassable Terrain
We used the land of lakes which was super for a 3 player game. Each player had a land mass with the lakes between. It created a very real sense of "my territory" and when players crossed between the lakes it appeared to be aggressive.

Final Sell Off
We did not use the final sell off the was proposed but the alternative suggested by JC: The player with the fewest cubes of one type sells first and sells all of their cubes normally. Then the player with the next lowest amount sells. It worked well and did not have the same penalty level as the proposed rule. The only issue was a clear rule for what happens in a tie was not available.

War
Since the War rules are not out I won't really go into depth but - WOW this really changed the game.

Early game Showa went between the lakes and marched a Military unit right into the middle of the Feds mines breaking the bloc in two. The Showa player managed to extort 2 ore per turn out of the Fed player to allow him to run the bloc. The Fed then paid additional extortion money to get Showa to move the army agains the Arrazaq player. This was really fun and there was a lot gnashing of teeth and threats.

Later in the game Showa built 2 pieces of a 3 piece bank bloc in the back. Arrazaq transported a single troop across the board and conquered one of the bank tiles. Because it was in the middle of the Showa area it was easily reconquered the next turn. But this meant that Showa was delayed in building the final bank tile and running it for 1 turn.

There was a little more combat but it did not impact the control of tiles of board spaces so it was of little consequence except that it chewed through a lot of resources. - war is expensive!

Because we were in the open gaming area quite a few WoN veterans came by and chit chatted about the War rules. Comments ranged from mild outrage (Its a trading game and should remain a trading game!) to excitement about the new possibilities.

People were concerned that they would have to use the War portion. To be clear it is a separate addition that can be played independently of the V.2 modfications.

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Rules:: Re: Wealth of Nations V.2 - Why and How

Peteloaf — Tue, 26 May 2009 18:55:13 +0000

by Peteloaf

I would use these new rules
- Starting Packages
- Revised Trade Phase
- final sell off.

These still need some tweaking
- Prommisory Notes Interest ($1 per note per turn)
- Impassable terrain but only for 3 or 4 players. I need to do new maps for 5 and 6 because it is too crowded - use only 3 of the 6 pieces for 6 players.

These rules may still (will) change but I feel that the first 3 are important improvements to the game and make it better right now.

Peter

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Rules:: Re: Wealth of Nations V.2 - Why and How

rockusultimus — Tue, 26 May 2009 14:50:47 +0000

by rockusultimus

I just purchased WoN and I'm eager to play it.

Should we play based on the original rules or skip to v2?

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Rules:: Re: V.2 Starting Packages

IcemanQc — Sun, 24 May 2009 05:42:26 +0000

by IcemanQc

Played with this setup (6 players) : shortened the game a bit but we had long trading phases (~180 minutes playing time). A fisr-feeling suggestion suggestion : the board is a bit too small for six... Having one more ring (plus water hexes placed at random) could bring something.

: ::

Fri, 22 May 2009 10:50:02 +0000

: ::

Fri, 22 May 2009 08:41:57 +0000

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: General:: Re: War Clouds playtest at Kublacon

clearclaw — Fri, 22 May 2009 05:35:23 +0000

by clearclaw

I'll be playing 18C2C tomorrow but I'd love to read the rules (and will have time). My schedule on Saturday and Sunday is fairly wide open.

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: General:: Re: War Clouds playtest at Kublacon

clearclaw — Fri, 22 May 2009 05:16:03 +0000

by clearclaw

I'll be playing 18C2C tomorrow but I'd love to read the rules (and will have time). My schedule on Saturday and Sunday is fairly wide open.

Thread: Wealth of Nations:: General:: War Clouds playtest at Kublacon

Peteloaf — Fri, 22 May 2009 04:17:09 +0000

by Peteloaf

I am bringing the Wealth of Nations: War Clouds set to KublaCon. I am going to be there Fri-Sun. If you want to playtest it I will have it with me on Sat in open gaming - Upstairs in Cascades? You can also ask me to borrow it.

Peter

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Rules:: Re: V.2 Two Player Game

Peteloaf — Fri, 22 May 2009 04:13:19 +0000

by Peteloaf

I am hoping that the two player game works well with the addition of the combat system. The ability to conquer and blockade tiles will add layers of strategy that will make the two player game more fun. With the terrain creating more interesting map dynamics it could be a very tight head to head game.

I am going to bring WoN with the Military Units to KublaCon this weekend to try to get in some games.

Peter

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Rules:: Re: V.2 Two Player Game

Eldard — Fri, 22 May 2009 01:25:03 +0000

by Eldard

I have a hard time imaging Wealth of Nations with 2-players. It can certainly be p[layed without the trade element, but it has to be rather dry.

Has anyone played with 2 players and care to comment?

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Rules:: Re: V.2 Two Player Game

QBert80 — Fri, 22 May 2009 01:16:52 +0000

by QBert80

I think it is workable as a 2p game. Planet Steam, which is a lot like Wealth of Nations without the player-to-player trading, is decent with 2 because you always have to balance your need for cash now with the potential to get more cash later by holding onto a resource only you are producing (in great quantities).

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Rules:: Re: V.2 Two Player Game

dagibbs — Thu, 21 May 2009 01:43:49 +0000

by dagibbs

Yes, things will be more expensive, but you will also be far closer to self-sufficiency. Compared to a 6-player game, 2/5ths of your normal trades will be done "internally" since you will be producing stuff.

There will be an interesting tension, though, between hording to force the price up for your opponent & selling to raise cash for your own purchases.

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Rules:: Re: V.2 Two Player Game

Peteloaf — Wed, 20 May 2009 22:46:12 +0000

by Peteloaf

I was thinking that the economics of the buying and selling at the listed prices instead of exchanging with the other players makes the game much more challenging. Everything you buy and pay for is going to cost a lot more.

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Rules:: Re: V.2 Two Player Game

QBert80 — Wed, 20 May 2009 22:15:02 +0000

by QBert80

I believe Nico was right. The players have no incentive to trade, since their opponent's gain is their loss. I would just eliminate the barter element altogether, requiring players to buy/sell at market prices. There's still plenty of interest in the game without all the haggling.

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Rules:: Re: V.2 Two Player Game

dagibbs — Wed, 20 May 2009 20:04:58 +0000

by dagibbs

As a 2-player game, it is zero-sum. If we barter, one of us made a mistake. (Or, we broke exactly even, but why would I barter for break-even?)

Thread: Wealth of Nations:: Rules:: V.2 Two Player Game

Peteloaf — Wed, 20 May 2009 19:04:04 +0000

by Peteloaf

What do we need to do to make WoN a two player game?

Nico maintained that the barter portion of the trade phase would break.
What if there was no barter and only buying and selling at market prices?
What if the barter price is fixed at the printed amount with no haggling allowed?

Thread: Wealth of Nations:: Rules:: V.2 Impassable Terrain

Peteloaf — Wed, 20 May 2009 18:38:32 +0000

by Peteloaf

Impassable Terrain

War Clouds is shipping with impassable terrain tiles that go on to the map an act in the same way as the central non-playable space. (You will need to print out 2 sets of this file to play with the tiles).

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The tiles reduce the number of available spaces from 60 to 48. Since the game ends when all spaces are not empty the game reaches this end condition more quickly. There are several arrangements that will be defined in the rules but the possibilities are endless. The terrain tiles also make the map more interesting in that there are more blocked spaces and tile placement planning becomes much more important.

Currently in the first few turns you have empty land all around and you can build any way you want. The situation does not get complicated until the third or fourth turn when the map is getting crowded. This part of the game is generally much more fun and now happens earlier in the game.

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Rules:: Re: V.2 Final Selloff

medicalchick — Tue, 19 May 2009 12:13:50 +0000

by medicalchick

Then chose food at the beginning :p

No really, Just kidding!!

I can see that over valuing food. Why not just make them increase by 1 VP incrementaly by value in the game...having food at 1 VP and capitol at 5 VP (everything in between would be 2,3,4 in regard to worth)?

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Rules:: Re: V.2 Final Selloff

dagibbs — Fri, 15 May 2009 18:12:10 +0000

by dagibbs

medicalchick wrote:
I have seen too many times the final sell off decide the winner of the game.

Since it is only 1 VP per $10, you could do 1 VP per cube instead, that might equal out what the average sell value in the final round might have been.

1 VP per cube values all cubes equally. This will overvalue food in the final scoring.

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Rules:: Re: V.2 Final Selloff

clearclaw — Fri, 15 May 2009 18:06:52 +0000

by clearclaw

Peteloaf wrote:
I like the idea that the player with the fewest cubes sells first. If it were the player with the most I think that they could buy cubes on the last turn to drive up the prices for their entire sale.

Quite. It also creates something of a min-game in getting as much as possible while retaining advantageous ordering.

I am still thinking that this proposed system is a little fussy and will take some (less) time without a real benefit.

I can't and won't argue fun or benefit. I don't care much about the former and as you know most of my games were blowouts. The problem with removing resource selling entirely is that it denudes the end-game. Why produce anything at all in the last round? It doesn't make sense -- you're better off selling everything in the previous round and waiting out the last round with your net worth already maximised.

I was driving towards abolishing the final selloff alltogether. Why do we do it at all? Is it fun - does it change the order of the final winners. I think not.

That's not the problem. If end-game resources have no value, why bother producing at all in the last round?

What will happen if the final sell-off is eliminated? Probably will have some impact on the penultimate turn. How much?

Smart players sill simply do nothing in the last round, leaving only one player to creep over the game-end condition.

I think that most players sell and utilize their resources completely each turn. So the final turn will still have the players selling and using all their assets.

Production comes late...

Maybe you get 4 vps for each industry tile that you feed and power in the final turn.

That makes tiles worth even more, further accentuating the value of the cheap tiles (yellow, blue, etc) and increasing the value of fast flood-fill strategies. This is not necessarily a problem, but probably is not an improvement.

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Rules:: Re: V.2 Final Selloff

medicalchick — Fri, 15 May 2009 17:44:58 +0000

by medicalchick

I have seen too many times the final sell off decide the winner of the game.

Since it is only 1 VP per $10, you could do 1 VP per cube instead, that might equal out what the average sell value in the final round might have been.

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Rules:: Re: V.2 Promissory Notes

medicalchick — Fri, 15 May 2009 17:34:50 +0000

by medicalchick

I like the idea of imposing penalties for the notes but have seen players plan part of their stradegy on when the best time to pay off a loan.

I can see $1 penalty per note per round. I also think paypack at $25 for the $20 is good too.

If you do not keep the sliding scale for the notes, then the $1 per round 'penalty' would have to be raised. I am seeing lots of fat cash that way. If all I have to do is pay $1 for each loan each round, I am grabbing all I can and making bank after bank.

If you keep the physical notes, you might consider adding more of them. With changes that might enhance their popularity, they may well be in high demand.

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Rules:: Re: V.2 Final Selloff

dagibbs — Fri, 15 May 2009 14:27:25 +0000

by dagibbs

Peteloaf wrote:
Maybe you get 4 vps for each industry tile that you feed and power in the final turn.

Peter

I don't like that idea. It doesn't seem to mesh well with the idea of the victory conditions are "who ever has the most stuff, wins". This changes it to a mixed condition of owns (for money and, essentially, cubes) and uses (for industry tiles).

Let people make a produce/not-produce decision purely on the economic basis of the value of the production -- will they make more profit ($) than it costs them to run the industry ($).

And, I agree that final sell-off is a bit slow. It may be faster with the sell 3 items/turn, rather than one. Doing it does feel very natural though -- it just fits with how the game works.

Where it may make a difference is if there is a close run between someone going the route of banks and someone not.

And making it faster at the end -- definitely a good thought. Though, again, I haven't found final sell-off to be the main slow point. Trade was usually that.

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Rules:: Re: V.2 Promissory Notes

dagibbs — Fri, 15 May 2009 14:18:46 +0000

by dagibbs

I like the sliding loans. I like the options for loan arbitrage that it presents. (Which is an incentive to NOT take out a whole bunch of loans early on.) I like the ability to trade loans as well -- in a game with this much trading, having yet another tradable items gives another step of flexibility in creating trades.

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Rules:: Re: V.2 Promissory Notes

Peteloaf — Fri, 15 May 2009 13:28:24 +0000

by Peteloaf

LordStrabo wrote:
Will there still be the 'Each promissory note gets you less than the last one' rule? Or does it replace it?

As JC points out it is clumsy and can be confusing. It is also kind of fun to see your opponent take out an 8th loan and only recieve a pittance for it. How much for that 8th loan - I am not sure I would have to do some math.:cry:

The sliding returns system does encourage trading loans since a player with a big pile of loans is looking for a better deal and will often purchase another players loan.

The bottom line for me is - Is the current system, with the sliding return, and open loan trading fun? Is their a reason to keep it or should it be changed to a more real world and possibly faster system. Maybe a poll here?

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Rules:: Re: V.2 Final Selloff

Peteloaf — Fri, 15 May 2009 13:19:54 +0000

by Peteloaf

clearclaw wrote:

Who has the least black cubes? PlayerA, then PlayerB, thenPlayerC, then PlayerD. Look at the market. What is the highest open suggested barter price? PlayerA sells all their black cubes for that much. What is the second highest barter price (before PlayerA sells)? Player B sells all their for that. Etc PlayerC, etc PlayerD.

Another option is for PlayerA to sell their black cubes for the highest available barter price. Then PlayerB sells all their black cubes for the next highest barter price after PlayerA has sold all his, etc. This would promote larger value differentials while promoting similar sorts of jostling for order and position.

I like the idea that the player with the fewest cubes sells first. If it were the player with the most I think that they could buy cubes on the last turn to drive up the prices for their entire sale.

I am still thinking that this proposed system is a little fussy and will take some (less) time without a real benefit. I was driving towards abolishing the final selloff alltogether. Why do we do it at all? Is it fun - does it change the order of the final winners. I think not.

What will happen if the final sell-off is eliminated? Probably will have some impact on the penultimate turn. How much? I think that most players sell and utilize their resources completely each turn. So the final turn will still have the players selling and using all their assets.

It may happen that you choose to sell your energy cube instead of feeding and powering your blocs. Other than that I do not see a big impact. Maybe you get 4 vps for each industry tile that you feed and power in the final turn.

Peter

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Rules:: Re: V.2 Revised Trade Phase

N9IWP — Thu, 14 May 2009 17:54:14 +0000

by N9IWP

I only played 1.5 times with teh old rules and 1.7 times with the new, but I remeber the full old rule game took ~5 hours (with some meal breaks) where the full new rule game took ~3 hours. Both situations had some new people.

Edit to add - but the games didn't have the same # of people - the v1 game had more so some of the speedup was due to fewer people. It seemed faster though.

Brian

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Rules:: Re: V.2 Final Selloff

ropearoni4 — Thu, 14 May 2009 16:11:56 +0000

by ropearoni4

clearclaw wrote:
ropearoni4 wrote:
clearclaw wrote:
Players order themselves in terms of who has the most/least of the given trade in. The player with the least gets the highest available barter price, the one with the second most the next lowest and so forth on down.

So what is the second lowest barter price? the next one on the list that is usually only $1 cheaper? or a mid-range of the top to bottom?

Another option is for PlayerA to sell their black cubes for the highest available barter price. Then PlayerB sells all their black cubes for the next highest barter price after PlayerA has sold all his, etc. This would promote larger value differentials while promoting similar sorts of jostling for order and position.

I like this version better. It is close to the idea I mentioned, but the trade-in price will not be as drastic if you have a bunch, and no one else has many. I think this would be the best idea to test. I'm going to mention it to the FLGS and see what they think and could possibly test.

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Rules:: Re: V.2 Final Selloff

dagibbs — Thu, 14 May 2009 14:54:48 +0000

by dagibbs

The Schaef wrote:

Aside from the final production run, all this does is take the tedious selloff in the post-game and shift it to the last trade phase, where people are taking turns selling their goods at 11 now rather than 4 later.

It won't be as long, though. That is, people won't be selling as much stuff since they'll have other uses for their cubes in the penultimate turn. (Production and building.) But, yes, it will move some of that jockeying and sell off back one turn.

Of course, you still have to judge the last turn *right*. Someone sells off as if it is the penultimate turn... then the game doesn't end for one more turn. Oops.

And, with the sell 3 items, this will speed up the penultimate turn sell off. (And, in fact, could speed up the last turn sell-off, too.)

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Rules:: Re: V.2 Final Selloff

The Schaef — Thu, 14 May 2009 14:44:24 +0000

by The Schaef

What I like about clearclaw's idea is that it retains some strategy in holding cubes versus selling, holding cubes for value versus selling cubes for positioning in the price "line" versus selling cubes to drive down the sell price for the other players.

The downside to Pete's idea is that everyone will sell all extra cubes at current market price rather than hold them and sell for lowest market price. Aside from the final production run, all this does is take the tedious selloff in the post-game and shift it to the last trade phase, where people are taking turns selling their goods at 11 now rather than 4 later.

The one thing about this idea is that it would seem to necessitate an ordered selloff good by good, to make it easier to determine the order of valuation. Otherwise I can see this getting a little scattered as well, trying to figure out who has how much of what. Another possibility might be to order the payout by who had the most/least total number of cubes, for simplicity, but the obvious problem with that is that there is a balance between value and supply, so food people would almost automatically be hosed on the last production run.

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Rules:: Re: V.2 Promissory Notes

LordStrabo — Thu, 14 May 2009 09:54:40 +0000

by LordStrabo

Will there still be the 'Each promissory note gets you less than the last one' rule? Or does it replace it?

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Rules:: Re: V.2 Final Selloff

clearclaw — Thu, 14 May 2009 09:32:58 +0000

by clearclaw

ropearoni4 wrote:
clearclaw wrote:
Players order themselves in terms of who has the most/least of the given trade in. The player with the least gets the highest available barter price, the one with the second most the next lowest and so forth on down.

So what is the second lowest barter price? the next one on the list that is usually only $1 cheaper? or a mid-range of the top to bottom?

An example:

Who has the least black cubes? PlayerA, then PlayerB, thenPlayerC, then PlayerD. Look at the market. What is the highest open suggested barter price? PlayerA sells all their black cubes for that much. What is the second highest barter price (before PlayerA sells)? Player B sells all their for that. Etc PlayerC, etc PlayerD.

Who has the least yellow cubes? Repeat.

Yes, the value differentials will typically not be large.

Another option is for PlayerA to sell their black cubes for the highest available barter price. Then PlayerB sells all their black cubes for the next highest barter price after PlayerA has sold all his, etc. This would promote larger value differentials while promoting similar sorts of jostling for order and position.

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Rules:: Re: V.2 Final Selloff

clearclaw — Thu, 14 May 2009 09:25:07 +0000

by clearclaw

Reply: Wealth of Nations:: Rules:: Re: V.2 Promissory Notes

clearclaw — Thu, 14 May 2009 09:20:59 +0000

by clearclaw

Peteloaf wrote:
clearclaw wrote:
I'd lose the loans entirely at the component level. Instead have a simple track with each player having a marker that slides up and down the track

(Not really loosing a component but changing it for another.)

True. The sliding scales could be represented on ac heat sheet as easily.

I am planning on shipping a new ref card with possibly some designated areas for cubes for trade planning purposes. This would allow for a personal loan track.

If possible I would use a single shared loan track -- makes accidental errors harder and review of player relative positions easier.

I also have the space on the terrain board to include 6 loan chips. This would eliminate the notes all together. This could be done for little additional cost. (Immediately it seems appealing :-)

Such a terrible thing.

- Bad: I dont think the loan bartering will be as visceral of an experience.

I am perhaps not the most visceral player. I've certainly little interest in the visceral or simulationist aspects of the game's mechanisms. I really don't care what happens to my game bits. I do care, and rather a lot, about what happens to my victory potential.

I grab that note from you with an Ore cube. Very tactile and interactive. Also you have to trust the other players to manage their slider carefully and not make mistakes.

Thus I suggest a single shared track. It makes such errors harder and more visible.

The current system is pretty safe for player error in the number of loans that they have.

Fair point.

- Would the repayment rate be the same as the loan? $20 for a $20 loan?

I imagine not. I don't have a specific suggestion yet as I've not done the math. My general thought is $22+int((total_#_of-Loans)/N+0.5), where N is probably 2 or 3.

- What would be the rate function ($1 per loan per turn)? Something more interesting?

I was thinking a sliding scale: $1/loan for the first N loans, $2/loan for the next N-M loans, $3/loan for M-O loans. Another model would be a flat fee of $X for 1-N loans, $Y for N-M loans, $Z for M-O loans etc. Both patterns have advantages. The latter pattern for instance encourages a stair-stepping approach which is even more interesting if the interest break points do not align with the repayment-cost breakpoints.

clearclaw wrote:
At the conclusion of their turn the player would pay the interest on the loan they hold -- not at the end of the round.

When is the end of their turn? At the end of the trade phase?

Sure.

I do like the current decreasing loan value. It has a fun factor that can drive people nuts. It is very unrealisting but it really punishes you for taking out too many loans

It makes for clumsy and often confusing arithmetic. How many loans do I need to raise $XX? Bah. While it is cute, I don't see that the complexity there adds actual game value. Let the punishment come from opportunity and financial costs.

Which is another aspect and opportunity. What are the opportunity costs of taking and having loans?