In the previous InsideGMT article, we shared how 18 India mitigates the randomness of the initial distribution of certificates in Francis Tresham’s 1829 Mainline. In this issue, we will discuss another mechanic tweak that further decreases the randomness found in 1829 Mainline while maintaining its unique fun.
The Initial Public Offering
1829 Mainline’s “discard stack” is a fun mechanic. During the setup of the game, the stack is created by flipping over the top card from the deck of shuffled certificates that were not dealt to the players. However, the way in which the discard stack is constructed during the game was not agreeable to our tastes.
In 1829 Mainline’s Stock Rounds, a player may purchase certificates from several places: their hand of certificates, the open market, the discard stack, or blindly draw a certificate off the top of the deck. It’s that last option that we sought to change, and changing it helped us to create a very fun mechanic.
A player can draw the top certificate and purchase it, putting it into play. If the certificate is purchased, the player may draw another certificate. If this certificate is purchased, this will continue until the player declines to purchase a drawn certificate. Then, the declined certificate is added to the discard stack. The luck of the draw is very prominent in this mechanic. Over the course of the game the discard stack will create a varied distribution of certificates that alternately grows and shrinks as players add to, or buy certificates.
When a player wants to purchase certificates from the discard line, they may buy as many as they can afford but can only buy certificates from the end of the line – and cannot skip over any certificates. We loved the discard stack mechanic, but we didn’t enjoy the idea of blindly flipping over certificates in the hope that it will be a certificate that we want to purchase.
Our solution to this for 18 India was to eliminate the drawing of a certificate and create an Initial Public Offering (IPO) of all of the certificates that were not dealt to the players during setup. The IPO is constructed of three lines of certificates which gives us the extra benefit of having multiple discard stacks that start the game full of certificates!
All of the certificates are available to any buyer, and the sequence in which they are available is known to all players from the beginning of the game. The distribution of certificates in the IPO can be analyzed and information can be gained. For example, if there are only three certificates of the red company in the IPO and zero in your hand you know that the other six certificates are held by the other players.
With regards to how the IPO plays, in the Stock Round during their stock buying turn, a player may only buy “up to two” certificates from the end of only one IPO row. The IPO also comes into play during operation rounds. In 18 India, a company may buy stock as their last action of their operating turnand may elect to buy one certificate from the end of any of the three IPO rows. This last change opens up the possibility of using company money to manipulate what is available from the IPO, perhaps making it possible for you to buy the exact certificate you want in the stock round. It also means that you can use company money to capitalize other companies.
By doing away with blind draws and expanding on Tresham’s discard stack idea, we have reduced in-game randomness and converted it to pre-game variability. This fresh take on an IPO adds a new decision space for seasoned players and is just one of the mechanics that, when held together, makes 18 India special, and in our very biased opinion, so much fun.
Previous Articles:
18 India: Mitigating Randomness (Part 1)
Author: TraXX
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