Re: Rail S America [21.11.13] BETA READY

[cairnswk]

It's a shame the Ecuador Railway can't be represented adequately
this article looks like a spectacular journey.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/galler ... 61&index=0

One option i had considered was to give Ecuador 4 stations, including a shipping link to the Galapagos from Guayaquil

[cairnswk]

Version 21.
115 Stations - MGA Managua has been added to Central American H Line, the neutral and hat removed from PAC and placed on SCI.
This still leaves the neutral and hart on UIO Quito, but since it is a two station line, it is necessary requirement.
Central American bonus lifted to +2

[koontz1973]

Two more options then.

How easy would it be to add another line of stations on SJO, PAC and BRR. PAC then becomes a 3 line station,central America can be attacked from 2 regions.

Second one would be to split up Columbia. Start the new set at SCI, heading west to SJO. Again PAC gets a third station which becomes neutral. You then only add one extra region to the board, so one more neutral to add. This would mean PAC would have two lots of 3 neutrals for a +2. Not really worth it for the start of a game but becomes attractive mid game. This also allows the central line to be attacked again from two directions onto two of its three stations. North Columbia at a +1, south Columbia at a +2 or 3.

Thoughts?

[cairnswk]

Two more options then.

How easy would it be to add another line of stations on SJO, PAC and BRR. PAC then becomes a 3 line station,central America can be attacked from 2 regions.

Second one would be to split up Columbia. Start the new set at SCI, heading west to SJO. Again PAC gets a third station which becomes neutral. You then only add one extra region to the board, so one more neutral to add. This would mean PAC would have two lots of 3 neutrals for a +2. Not really worth it for the start of a game but becomes attractive mid game. This also allows the central line to be attacked again from two directions onto two of its three stations. North Columbia at a +1, south Columbia at a +2 or 3.

Thoughts?

Nah! Sorry. I like the way we have it now, and it fulfills the requirements that you were discussing before without removing the hats.
Now you're just getting too fancy and making it more complicated than it really needs to be.

[koontz1973]

Fine, central American line still needs to be a +1 only though. Still to easy to defend to warrant a +2. Another rule that you seem to of broken, well not broken but put to the side is dead ends . It has always been my belief that dead ends longer than one or two are a no no. You have it at four. H line is just one long dead end.

Moving the hat to SCI is a good idea, for some reason, I did not get the map up yesterday when I logged on. Must of been my laptop not working fully on the train. But it is nice to see SCI with the hat now. Can you raise the neutrals though to a 4 for all two hat stations please?

[cairnswk]

Fine, central American line still needs to be a +1 only though. Still too easy to defend to warrant a +2.

OK, can do.

Another rule that you seem to of broken, well not broken but put to the side is dead ends .

I didn't know that was a rule.
If it is a rule, it seems to have got broken in Classic with the Australian continent with no connection to S America, as well as USA2.1 on Hawaii and England in Rail Europe; and there is probably one or two others out there.

It has always been my belief that dead ends longer than one or two are a no no. You have it at four. H line is just one long dead end.

So it is a belief for you, but you still have to acquire it to get the bonus, and being only worth +1...meh, not much of an incentive to gain and hold it with only +1, especially when it sits next to a +4

Moving the hat to SCI is a good idea, for some reason, I did not get the map up yesterday when I logged on. Must of been my laptop not working fully on the train. But it is nice to see SCI with the hat now. Can you raise the neutrals though to a 4 for all two hat stations please?

two hat stations?? there is only one hat on any terminus, so not sure what you mean there...
and ...

u will need at least n4 for any neutral stations that combine a hat bonus with a short line.

...did you discuss this with ian, please

[iancanton]

MGA Managua has been added to Central American H Line, the neutral and hat removed from PAC and placed on SCI.

Fine, central American line still needs to be a +1 only though.

adding MGA and moving the PAC hat to SCI works well, as long as u reduce the H line bonus to +1.

Moving the hat to SCI is a good idea, for some reason, I did not get the map up yesterday when I logged on. Must of been my laptop not working fully on the train. But it is nice to see SCI with the hat now. Can you raise the neutrals though to a 4 for all two hat stations please?

two hat stations?? there is only one hat on any terminus, so not sure what you mean there...
and ...

u will need at least n4 for any neutral stations that combine a hat bonus with a short line.

...did you discuss this with ian, please

koontz isn't contradicting my quoted statement by asking for n4 neutrals on all 2-station hat bonuses (i think!); i covered only the hat bonuses that are combined with a short line because they were more obvious, without saying anything about the other hat bonuses. n4 for the 2-station hat bonuses is somewhat similar to the n4 tiki bonus on taranaki and ruatoria in new zealand.

thanks for adding the antofagasta line. however, can u make it brown instead of red and have UYU (C) (creating a 3-station hat bonus there) instead of ATG (V)? part of the thinking behind removing LTC (V) and adding UYU (C) is to make the centrally-located V line easier to hold and increase the difficulty of the peripheral C line.

ian.

[cairnswk]

MGA Managua has been added to Central American H Line, the neutral and hat removed from PAC and placed on SCI.

Fine, central American line still needs to be a +1 only though.

adding MGA and moving the PAC hat to SCI works well, as long as u reduce the H line bonus to +1.

Done!

Moving the hat to SCI is a good idea, for some reason, I did not get the map up yesterday when I logged on. Must of been my laptop not working fully on the train. But it is nice to see SCI with the hat now. Can you raise the neutrals though to a 4 for all two hat stations please?

two hat stations?? there is only one hat on any terminus, so not sure what you mean there...
and ...

u will need at least n4 for any neutral stations that combine a hat bonus with a short line.

...did you discuss this with ian, please

koontz isn't contradicting my quoted statement by asking for n4 neutrals on all 2-station hat bonuses (i think!); i covered only the hat bonuses that are combined with a short line because they were more obvious, without saying anything about the other hat bonuses. n4 for the 2-station hat bonuses is somewhat similar to the n4 tiki bonus on taranaki and ruatoria in new zealand.

OK. but i ask koontz for that discussion to ensure absolute once only outcome for that part.
i have increased all two hat stations to n4.

thanks for adding the antofagasta line. however, can u make it brown instead of red and have UYU (C) (creating a 3-station hat bonus there) instead of ATG (V)? part of the thinking behind removing LTC (V) and adding UYU (C) is to make the centrally-located V line easier to hold and increase the difficulty of the peripheral C line.

ian.

Done!

[cairnswk]

Version 22.
Also I thought the C Line should be increased to +4 since it now has 4 bordering stations.

[cairnswk]

Is gameplay done on this ?

[koontz1973]

Is gameplay done on this ?

cairns, sorry but was on holiday (still am but back). Just sent ian a PM to make sure he is happy with a couple of points then we can move you up.

koontz.

[koontz1973]

Sorry for the double post, just want to make sure you get this.

Spoke to ian and we are both sort of fine with things as they are now apart from one or two minor changes.

Central American line. Both ian and I are happy to see a slight change here. SJO to connect to TGU as well as MGA. This would make me really happy to see. But we are also happy for it to stay the same as now as it ties in with the theme. This is only a slight change and should not take to long to do but it is up to you.

Chile +5 please.
Bolivia +4 please.

Going to sticky this now as it really is only small alterations to do. Stamp you ASAP.

koontz

[cairnswk]

Sorry for the double post, just want to make sure you get this.

Spoke to ian and we are both sort of fine with things as they are now apart from one or two minor changes.

Central American line. Both ian and I are happy to see a slight change here. SJO to connect to TGU as well as MGA. This would make me really happy to see. But we are also happy for it to stay the same as now as it ties in with the theme. This is only a slight change and should not take to long to do but it is up to you.

Changed for you guys. Can i ask the reasoning behind this please.

Chile +5 please.
Bolivia +4 please.

Done

Version 23.

[koontz1973]

Changed for you guys. Can i ask the reasoning behind this please.

You can but I think the reasoning is not that easy to explain. If you remember I mentioned the 4 stations in a row was bothering me (still does but no specific reasoning behind it), well I was trying to think a way to solve this without turning that into Oceania on classic. This seemed to be a nice solution. When I mentioned it to ian, he said he was OK.

no objection to the suggested change, though it's certainly not essential.

Hence the reason I said it was your choice.

My reason for it is in trench games means you need to spend 4 rounds to get to MGA and find TGU as another neutral. Even in non trench games, you will have to send a sizable amount of troops down a dead end to see what is at the other end. A sod for chained and adjacent reinforcement games. As it is now, it should stop a lot of frustrated players hitting their computers.

[cairnswk]

Changed for you guys. Can i ask the reasoning behind this please.

You can but I think the reasoning is not that easy to explain. If you remember I mentioned the 4 stations in a row was bothering me (still does but no specific reasoning behind it), well I was trying to think a way to solve this without turning that into Oceania on classic. This seemed to be a nice solution. When I mentioned it to ian, he said he was OK.

no objection to the suggested change, though it's certainly not essential.

Hence the reason I said it was your choice.

My reason for it is in trench games means you need to spend 4 rounds to get to MGA and find TGU as another neutral. Even in non trench games, you will have to send a sizable amount of troops down a dead end to see what is at the other end. A sod for chained and adjacent reinforcement games. As it is now, it should stop a lot of frustrated players hitting their computers.

Thanks koontz, i understand now.

[iancanton]

try reducing the guyanese bonus to +1 because, including the hat bonus, there will be a total of +2 for holding 5 stations, of which 2 are border stations.

if Guyanese is reduced to +1, that makes +2 bonus for the guyanese line and the hat station GEO.
and there is a +2 M line right beside it, and +4 J line on the other end?
I'm not totally in favour of this.

+2 is the standard reward for a 5-region bonus zone with 2 border regions, which this is when we have +1 for the guyanese line and +1 for the hat bonus. this is easier than a standard 5-region bonus because there is a stepping-stone: u can conquer the hat bonus first then the line bonus the next turn (or vice versa). not only that, but u've given two reasons, the proximity of two decent-but-easyish bonuses in the +2 M line and the +4 J line, to reduce the line bonus to +1.

no other issues.

ian.

[cairnswk]

i'm just bumping this current image so i can discuss ian's proposal above.

[cairnswk]

try reducing the guyanese bonus to +1 because, including the hat bonus, there will be a total of +2 for holding 5 stations, of which 2 are border stations.

if Guyanese is reduced to +1, that makes +2 bonus for the guyanese line and the hat station GEO.
and there is a +2 M line right beside it, and +4 J line on the other end?
I'm not totally in favour of this.

+2 is the standard reward for a 5-region bonus zone with 2 border regions, which this is when we have +1 for the guyanese line and +1 for the hat bonus. this is easier than a standard 5-region bonus because there is a stepping-stone: u can conquer the hat bonus first then the line bonus the next turn (or vice versa). not only that, but u've given two reasons, the proximity of two decent-but-easyish bonuses in the +2 M line and the +4 J line, to reduce the line bonus to +1.

no other issues.

ian.

ian, i understand what you are saying...however...
...my bonus calculator (same as from templates available) gives +2 for 4tert/2def/2att/2neighbours
what if i only have that line as my only bonus and am threatened by building armies on either J or U lines.
If someone already has either end J MCP or U GEO, then i am going to be really hard pressed to defend this K line and hold it.
because the hat bonus only applies if i hold both stations on GEO...
we have H line as +1 which i can understand since there is only one connection to O PAC.
we have D line in ecuador as +1 also, however, that is OK since there are only 2 stations on D Line (for me)
If we apply any logic here, D LIne should be worth +0 since it gets the hat bonus if taken while H line has no hat bonus but is worth +1
then it might make sense with +1 for K LIne.
but i simply think for defense purposes K line should be +2 since there are 2 ends to defend with 4 stations in total.
also if we don't have some +2 bonuses in the north, the south argentinian lines would make the entire map unbalanced
and it would be too easy to lose the small bonuses in the north and defend them against larger bonuses when gained.

[koontz1973]

what if i only have that line as my only bonus and am threatened by building armies on either J or U lines.

If that is your only line bonus, you would naturally try to build of that into the hat bonus. Hence the +3 (current with hat).

but i simply think for defense purposes K line should be +2 since there are 2 ends to defend with 4 stations in total.

If someone already has either end J MCP or U GEO, then i am going to be really hard pressed to defend this K line and hold it.

But once you hold those four stations for a +2, you are giving an easy extra bonus with the hat for +3. Whilst the hat covers both lines in GEO, line U is 6 stations with 4 borders. Not as easy to take or defend so line K should be the one grabbed and expanding from.

The bonuses from the hats should reasonably reduce the line bonus on lines like K (if not reduced rounding down any decimal point to the lower whole number to make those lines fairer). Looking at D line which is a +1 bonus for the 2 stations, But it becomes a +2 line when you hold the next logical territ. Why would anyone go from D to P (gives no extra bonus) when D to O gives an extra 1.

[cairnswk]

what if i only have that line as my only bonus and am threatened by building armies on either J or U lines.

If that is your only line bonus, you would naturally try to build of that into the hat bonus. Hence the +3 (current with hat).

but i simply think for defense purposes K line should be +2 since there are 2 ends to defend with 4 stations in total.

If someone already has either end J MCP or U GEO, then i am going to be really hard pressed to defend this K line and hold it.

But once you hold those four stations for a +2, you are giving an easy extra bonus with the hat for +3. Whilst the hat covers both lines in GEO, line U is 6 stations with 4 borders. Not as easy to take or defend so line K should be the one grabbed and expanding from.

The bonuses from the hats should reasonably reduce the line bonus on lines like K (if not reduced rounding down any decimal point to the lower whole number to make those lines fairer). Looking at D line which is a +1 bonus for the 2 stations, But it becomes a +2 line when you hold the next logical territ. Why would anyone go from D to P (gives no extra bonus) when D to O gives an extra 1.

i understand, but i still think it should be +2

[iancanton]

...my bonus calculator (same as from templates available) gives +2 for 4tert/2def/2att/2neighbours

But once you hold those four stations for a +2, you are giving an easy extra bonus with the hat for +3.

The bonuses from the hats should reasonably reduce the line bonus on lines like K (if not reduced rounding down any decimal point to the lower whole number to make those lines fairer).

the K line with the hat is a 5-region +3 bonus, while the bonus calculator gives +2.1 for for 5/2/2/2.

what if i only have that line as my only bonus and am threatened by building armies on either J or U lines.
If someone already has either end J MCP or U GEO, then i am going to be really hard pressed to defend this K line and hold it.

this argument is fallacious, since it can be used for virtually any bonus that is next to another good bonus. the logical extension of the argument is that, if good bonuses are nearby, then this bonus ought to more than calculated, so all bonuses in this area must be more than the standard values.

because the hat bonus only applies if i hold both stations on GEO...

if the hat is causing the trouble, then how about keeping the +2 for the K line, removing the hat and reducing the GEO neutral to n2?

we have H line as +1 which i can understand since there is only one connection to O PAC.
we have D line in ecuador as +1 also, however, that is OK since there are only 2 stations on D Line (for me)
If we apply any logic here, D LIne should be worth +0 since it gets the hat bonus if taken while H line has no hat bonus but is worth +1
then it might make sense with +1 for K LIne.

we can certainly do something equivalent by removing the UIO hat and reducing its neutral to n3.

but i simply think for defense purposes K line should be +2 since there are 2 ends to defend with 4 stations in total.
also if we don't have some +2 bonuses in the north, the south argentinian lines would make the entire map unbalanced
and it would be too easy to lose the small bonuses in the north and defend them against larger bonuses when gained.

there are already 4 northern bonuses of +2: D line with hat, PVH hat, M line and Q line; K line with hat becomes a 5th. the three best hiding-places (being corner bonuses that can be attacked by only 1 or 2 stations) in a large multi-player game are also in the north: H line, D line (with or without hat) and K line (with or without hat). it's a basic design principle that corner bonuses must not be comfortable enough for players simply to sit there, stack and watch their opponents weaken each other. +3 for K line plus hat crosses the line between adequate and comfortable.

the south argentinian lines would make the entire map unbalanced

the larger northern and eastern bonuses do look low. increase U line (venezuela) from +3 to +4, O line (colombia) from +4 to +5, B line (belem) from +4 to +6 and R line (rio) from +7 to +9? i'm using a modified bonus calculator with multiplier of 3 instead of 1.5 for number of regions and deflator of -2 instead of -1, in line with an earlier comment about having to raise some many-station line bonuses to compensate for having to give at least +1 for holding a 2-station hat bonus.

ian.

[cairnswk]

ian, before i answer the above comment, there is now 120 stations less 25 nuetrals - less 5 double ups = 90 statons < not a golden number.
We did have 89, but i think adding the fourth station to C American line, has bumped this to 90.
So if you want to keep the fourth H line, i am thinking that maybe B FOR can be alleviated.
Do you agree to return to 89 GN ?

[cairnswk]

Click image to enlarge.

[cairnswk]

Given there is removal of one region, as proposed above.
these are the new bonuses i propose...
These are worked with adjustments made for
1. minus hat bonuses
2. minus double station

I would be happier with these

[iancanton]

So if you want to keep the fourth H line, i am thinking that maybe B FOR can be alleviated.
Do you agree to return to 89 GN ?

i seem to remember that koontz suggested removing a whole load of neutrals to move up to the next golden number. do we have enough non-essential neutrals to do this? if not, then keep B FOR if possible because fortaleza is a well-known city, one of the largest in brazil. ESG in paraguay or VVI in bolivia are better candidates for removal, since they are obscure places whose elimination hardly changes any of the gameplay on the map.

these are the new bonuses i propose...
These are worked with adjustments made for
1. minus hat bonuses

the hat bonuses haven't been deducted correctly: they have to be done at the end of the calculation, not in the middle, since each hat reduces the bonus by only 0.17 at the moment (the correct deduction is 0.5 for a 2-station hat and 0.67 for a 3-station hat).

ian.