Moving Business

Currently the L&SR is the only northern company likely to reach London. When the share sells it builds from York to Sheffield and on its furst turn, from Sheffield to Peterborough. That puts it one or two hops from London (tho it may be blocked) and two hops from a merger with the EUR. If it does reach London it is in easy snapping distance of the L&SCR. In short the northern company that reaches Peterborough likely has good options before it. Unfortunately the L&MR is cut out of this game. Unless the L&SR player simply screws up or fails to pay any attention to turn order control, the L&SR will always get to Peterborough first, leaving the L&MR with a rather more rote set of choices. Conversely the L&MR’s only early prospect is to merge into the L&SR either before or right after it merges into something down south. For shame – the decisions should be more interesting.

For the nonce I’ve moved the L&MR’s home station to Manchester from Liverpool. That still leaves the Peterborough question in the L&SR’s control via turn order, but it is no longer an automatic. I’ve also tentatively changes the initial company auction order to be be a little more interesting and a little more historic:

1. L&MR (started 1830)
2. L&SR (started 1830)
3. B&BR (started 1840)
4. EUR (started 1846)
5. LB&SCR (started 1846)

While not only in approximate date order (caveat: the actual parliamentary petition processes started much earlier than the above dates), that gives three opportunities after the first two shares sell to determine the initial please turn order and thus set Peterborough’s fate.

A more interesting decision set; these seem fine changes.

In other news I’m still tempted by two changes:

1. Allowing a player to simply sell one of their shares back to the bank for an instant dividend on that one share.
   The concern about this particularly lies in the first three rounds. PlayerA buys a share of CompanyX and then buys another at auction when another player capitalises CompanyX. PlayerA then immediately capitalises the share and sells it to the bank for a one-share dividend. If that’s the last dividend, then PlayerA is now both cash-richer to the noise of one share’s dividend, but also owns a company with a far better capitalisation future as it will now potentially capitalise for 3+1 shares instead of the normal 3. This is clearly a potential problem, but, I’m tempted. Something sings to me here, just not enough yet to make the change.
2. Increase the rule-of-three (company may build no more than 3 exits from a city) to a rule-of-four.
   This one doesn’t have such strenuous drawbacks as the share sell-back but alarum bells are ringing none the less. I wish I knew why. It seems like the rule-of-four would allow for more clever track play.