Has anyone ever seen an explanation from the designer of what design problem he felt was solved by the AoS income reduction mechanism? If (as would seem obvious) the goal was to alleviate some of the "rich get richer" issues with the game and give the trailing players a slim chance of catching up, then why is the AoS version of the rule so much less effective at accomplishing that than the one that appeared in Lancashire Railways? This version not only is bad at helping the trailers (most often, they benefit rarely), but it also introduces extremely gamey behavior such as "helping" a fellow player by riding on them to push them over a boundary on the income track.

I'm just curious what went into the design.

Randy...

I haven't seen one.



That isn't obvious to me at all. To me the income reduction mechanism is a rather startlingly elegant system for ensuring that players have to continue to work hard in order to progress; that the hill remains steep and the game does not necessarily become inherently easier the more successful you are. As all players have to climb this increasingly steep trail, and will hit the same steep slope, usually harder, when they get to that same point makes the claims of hindering the leader seem questionable at best.



Yeah, the 10 dollar cliffs are a bit odd. I've been playing lately with removing it in some of my designs (income reduction ever $5, starting at $6) and it really has very little effect other than delaying the end-game by about a turn (see recently posted images for AoS:Wales and AoS:Launch!). I imagine that Martin added the $10 cliffs simply because they added another interesting decision/risk for players to manage in the game. Certainly that would have likely been my reason in his place.

Martin's design submission "The Winsome Rail Game" that became "Lancashire Railways" had no income reduction. The income reduction mechanism in Lancashire Railways (see "Determine and Record Market Changes") was created in 1998 during development here in Pittsburgh. Regarding the movement to the Income Reduction mechanism developed for Age of Steam, the reasons are:
>Simpler, Faster, easier for the gamers. Brain dead simple, yet effective.
>Fixed, Predictable, less randomness. We were charged with developing a 'gamer's game'.
>Interactive, Player Influenced. Yet another capability for player 'screwage' added to the overall player interaction.

Have fun!

John
Pittsburgh

and in case anyone is trying to follow along at home:

The Early Railways games also used an income reduction system, but it was dictated by a roll of the dice instead of being at a certain, set level.

Respectfully, effective at what? Was the goal, in fact, to slow down leaders so that early misfortune or mistakes could potentially be recovered from?




This sounds like another reason beyond reining in runaway leaders. I'm uncomfortable with "interactive" mechanisms that are disproportionately harsh on trailing players, but I can see how tastes might differ.

Randy...

It is not even a runaway leader that is the problem, but the fact the game has extreme runaway exponential growth. Because each shipment increases your income permanently, as the game continues, your abililty to increase your income improves (longer link count, more routes, etc.) Income reduction steepens the hill meaning you have to keep increasing THE INCREASE in your income for your income (& score) to keep going up.

I apologize for the extreme highlighting--but I think the distinction is extremely important.

This table shows what happens if Income Reduction were not there. 8 turn game, player always upgrades their train on the first shipment (Locomotive is never taken) and make 2 shipments once the train reaches the maximum 6 link level and is always able to ship a cube their maximum links every time:

| Income reduction | No income reduction
Turn L | SI PSI FI G | SI PSI/FI G
1 2 | 0 2 2 2 | 0 2 2
2 3 | 2 5 5 3 | 2 5 3
3 4 | 5 9 9 4 | 5 9 4
4 5 | 9 14 12 3 | 9 14 5
5 6 | 12 18 16 4 | 14 20 6
6 6 | 16 28 24 8 | 20 32 12
7 6 | 24 36 30 6 | 32 44 12
8 6 | 30 42 34 4 | 44 56 12
L = Links, SI = Starting income for turn, PSI = Post shipment income,
FI = Final income for turn, G = Income level gain

Under income reduction, except the big bump when a player starts to deliver two 6-link cubes per turn, the gain in their income is relatively flat--and it drops quickly to its pre=bump level.

Under no income reduction, the game literally explodes out of control.

BTW, even if you were allowed to upgrade past 6 under this scenario, the player would not do it, unless there were no other cubes of length of 5 or 6 to deliver. The time (and increase in income) lost in the upgrade does not get replenished before the end of the game.

Income Reduction is NOT a "catch up" measure, but "exponential growth brake". With or without it, there are only 2 ways to catch up in AoS:
- Deliver longer routes than the leader can. (i.e. get to 6 level trains first. Locomotive comes into play here.)
- Prevent the leader from delivering any long routes without sacrificing your income growth. (That means you have to be able to deliver those same cubes effectively or maybe build track to block access of the leader to access those valuable cubes.)

Nicely stated!



John
Pittsburgh

In other words, there is no effective way for someone who gets behind to catch up? Getting behind in cash seems to virtually guarantee that you'll have no chance in the turn order auctions later in the game and thus, on turns when it's important, little chance of beating a leader to a key build or delivery. Maybe I'm missing something. Maybe the designers consider it desirable. (Plenty of people are happy with a game rewarding good early performance with an overwhelming chance for success at the end.)

Thanks for giving me some insight into the purpose of the mechanism, even though it doesn't sweeten the game much for me.

Randy...

Did you read Richard's post?

There are many ways for someone who is behind to catch up, some of which Richard itemises above. They require good play however, good play and a lack of later errors. There are many many examples of players losing income in the early rounds clawing back into contention with good play. It is hard certainly, but quite possible.



Then issue an extra share or two, use Turn Order Pass as appropriate (third most valuable action in the game), and get the auctions you really need. After all you have the advantage of being late in the turn order and knowing exactly how much you'll need to get what you want. Use that to your advantage -- they don't have that luxury.



A player who does very well in the early game in AoS is often likely to win, yes. This is true in many games. No guarantees tho and it isn't overwhelming. The classic case is short term income sacrifice versus long term deliveries. This is where I got waxed in this weekend's game of AoS:Wales. Richard simply timed his end-game runs better than the rest of us and had the extra Links capacity he needed to run them. A very nicely executed seemingly come-from-behind victory on his part. Ted was profitable on turn 3 while Richard and I were still paying ~$8ea in expenses and continued to be in the hole for many more turns. The difference was that Richard built his Links up faster and had the deliveries to feed it -- we didn't.

I was going to write about the comeback game--but JC beat me to it!

JC, Ted Alspach and me were playing JC's new prototype: for purposes of understanding the game there were two rules we were playing with:
- It had a way to allow longer than 6 link deliveries to be made.
- Because it was a three player game we using the "Temporary + 1" Loco rule from the Japan map.

Ted, chose to use the Locomotive to make 2 profitable runs, to boost early income and take the lead. By about turn 5 his income was about 27, mine was about 20. And he was no longer needing to take shares--while I would use my full allotment. But I had upgraded my train (permanently) once each and every turn--and could dliver 7 link routes. Ted was behind by 2 upgrades.

How'd I catch up?
Turn 6: Ted had urbanized a town to black city (he it needed badly), I was able to make a vital connection to start delivering black cubes. Ted upgraded and made only one delivery. I made 2 deliveries (in part due the black city Ted placed.) I actually took the lead in income on this turn due to Ted's upgrade--though I was still well behind since Ted took 5 fewer shares.

Turn 7: I took Urbanization, and placed a black city at the other end of my route and started a bypass--so I could deliver most of my remaining cubes for 7 or 8 links. Ted had to upgrade again. I now had a high enough income, I could beat Ted in the Auction.

Turn 8: I win the auction and get Locomotive--the pattern repeats over the final turns. I finished my bypass but needed to one link to a purple city in the south end of my line, which I started. Now I have routes for all my black cubes, With Loco I was now delivering 8's to Ted 7's.

Turn 9: I finish the route to the Purple city giving 4 key deliveries of length 8--enough to finish the rest of the game. Ted starts to run out of 7's and is forced deliver 6's. (I had taken all of the cubes in my area that Ted might have been able deliver for 6--leaving the cubes he had no interest in for later deliveries.)

In income, I went form 7 behind to 9 in front at the end. With a 5 share differential and 5 more tracks in Ted's favor--final result a win by 7 points.

The key was I had set myself up with a strong locomotive Stonger than the leader. I set up cubes for the long deliveries I'd need later in the game and made sure that they weren't useful for either Ted or JC to "steal". I made key builds to get all of the value out of my cubes.

In order to catch up you have:
- Develop your track network and improve your train. If haven't laid the groundwork, a comeback will never happen.
- Always look for your next delivery and ones after that and the ones after that. Not that you can plan everything, but if you don't plan for it, comeback won't happen.
- If you can see a delivery or track build that hurts the leader that you can take advantage of effectively (i.e hurt the leader, but don't hurt yourself too much to do it.)

All excellent comments. Thanks for the thoughtful replies. I'll look forward to taking another stab at it.

Randy...