30xx Update 2: Brief Round Overview

Brief Round Overview

Stock Round

30xx will implement a very standard 18xx style stock round. During their turn, the player will have the option to sell as many shares as he likes (with your standard restrictions), then they may buy up to one share. I want a lively stock market here, so the share price will drop down one step for every share sold.

Standard restrictions - 50% of a single company is not allowed to be in the bank pool. You can not sell the director's share.

Operation Round

30xx will implement a somewhat typical operation phase. Companies will operate in order of stock price. Quantity and type of tile laying will be determined by phase. Tiles available will consist of various track tiles and production tiles. The production tiles can be placed on resources. Every tile lay will cost money. The goal here is to connect your company to resources you need. Initially, most of the technology cards will require level one resources, which is what the board will be seeded with. Divergent to standard 18xx, this is not the phase where you will make money.

Worker Round

This is totally different than 18xx, let me go into a little detail here. Still subject to change.

Each will collect all of the workers they want to use from all of the companies. Each incremental worker taken from each company will incur an incrementally more expensive cost. This cost will be paid as workers are allocated for use, from the company that is using them. Near the beginning of the game, it will not be prudent to send all of the workers from one of your companies in this phase due to cost. In this way, I want to somewhat simulate the progression of trains in 18xx. Initially, you can't do much as you only have a 2 train, but as the game progress, you find your options open up and the game provides much more flexibility.

So you have your workers allocated, what can you do with them?

In turn order, each player will be able to place one worker either on a research spot to bid on a technology card, or one of his own technology cards to produce income. The more I think about it, the more I think it might be hard to implement hidden information for the technology auction here. Maybe it would be better if the research value (remember, the company with the most research value invested in a technology card will win it) is not hidden. But it would be expensive to use your best researchers.

Technology cards in your possession will have multiple designated spots to place workers. The card itself will not bring in money if worked, so it's necessary to allocate some workers to utilize the technology cards to bring in income. Each subsequent spot on the technology card will bring in less income, so say the first one gives 100, the next would give 50, the next 40 and so on.

Once all players have placed all of their workers, the round is over.

I am also considering an auction for turn order. Say if there is an technology card you really want, you would need to invest some workers into going first. But these would be from the same worker pool used to bid, adding some difficulty to the choice.

Technology Round

In this round, the results of the technology auction will be examined. The winning companies will receive their tech card and place it into an open slot, or replace a tech card in the slot. Workers will be returned to the company. All companies will receive income for any utilized tech cards, and share price will adjust accordingly for each company.