Astoria

It's been what, almost two weeks? I've been a little busy, if you can call it that (my fortress is going spectacularly, I've started Baldur's Gate again...). The RPG's not abandoned yet.

But I've been thinking about a board game, prompted by this. Monopoly's a horrible game for a number of reasons, but here are the things I dislike about it most:

1. Players get knocked out of play. Eurogames tend to have everyone still playing until the end- they might not have much of a chance of winning, but the point of the game isn't to give other people nothing to do.
2. The actions the player takes are almost entirely determined by chance. There are very, very few strategic decisions- do I buy this property or let it go up for auction? Do I accept a trade?
   

I feel bad making a list with only two items, but they're both pretty big ones.

Anyway, there are things to like about Monopoly- the post I linked to is another forumite discussing how they would like to improve it to make it a better game. I'm not a fan of his approach- I'd rather wipe the slate clean and start afresh than deal with legacy elements that might not add to the game.

So, what's the flavor I want? I'm not that interested in the "monopoly" aspect of the game, and I'm not that interested in the cutthroat "one-man-standing" victory condition. Having the real estate barons physically move around the map sounds like a bad idea (although maybe it could grant minor modifiers?). I do like building a real estate empire.

So, I'm thinking a game where you develop a city (not a novel idea, by any means)- named, for the moment, Astoria, after the man who enlarged his fortune developing New York City. But there's already a board game called Astoria out there, about something entirely different. So the name probably won't last.

The map will be a grid of streets, and then the actual buildable area will be divided into lots. You can build any number of buildings (that will fit and have road access) on a lot, or a building on any number of lots- all that matters is that you own the land that you put a building on.

The turn structure will be along the lines of: collect rent, buy lots, build buildings, repeat.

Rent will be impacted by the surroundings of the building- people will pay more to be on the waterfront, houses will pay more to be by a park, houses will pay less if they're by a factory, etc. If you own a large block of land and develop it the right way, you're looking at a solid fortress of wealth. There will probably also be a lot of effects to encourage diversity (or, at least, reward the sole owner of something)- the law office closest to the courthouse gets a rent bonus, lowering the benefit for building a second courthouse.

Lots will almost definitely be bought by auction. The question just becomes what order to put them up for auction- it seems like a good plan to just shuffle deed cards and then bid on five or so every turn.

There are three ways to go about buildings- the Sim City method, where each player can build whatever they want, the Puerto Rico method, where there's a low number of buildings of each type, but you can still select whatever you want from the building pool, and the San Juan method, where which buildings you can build are randomly determined (i.e. cards in your hand). I'm partial to the Sim City method; I think the San Juan method leaves too much up to chance, but the Puerto Rico method has its charms. I think I'd rather allow people to overproduce a certain type of building, and have that hurt everyone with those buildings, rather than saying "sorry, only two small markets."

I want lots and buildings to be easily tradeable between players- which means I'll have to be careful about how lots and buildings interact.

I think I'm also going to add governmental meddling and the bribes associated with it- the government decides to build a courthouse, and so all the property-owners scramble to try and get it where it will get them the most profit. There could be zoning restrictions- once I've built three office buildings, I bribe the government to prevent more from being built throughout the city- keeping my rents high and thwarting my rival's plans. Until they give the government a better offer, that is. There could also be condemning a building unfit for human habitation- that's what you get for slapping a factory in my upscale neighborhood!