Buildings

Let's talk about a building list.

But to talk about a building list, we have to talk about victory conditions. How long should the game last? If it's only ten turns, then buildings that return 10% interest will have only pay themselves back by the time the game ends if you build them at the start.

A turn will have a rent collection period (give it a minute, maybe), an auction period (depends on the number of lots that are for sale, but we'll guess five minutes), and a building period (two-three minutes, probably). That estimate seems high- almost ten minutes per turn? But it's probably better to overestimate and then lengthen the game (or just keep it short) than it is to underestimate and have to cut a game short. So, if we want to cap game time at around 2 hours (anything longer for something that needs to be playtested quite a bit is probably a bad idea), we're looking at a game running between 12 and 15 turns.

So what makes for a good stopping point? It seems that one of the more convenient places to end the game would be when there aren't any more lots to be auctioned. If we're auctioning n lots a turn (where n is the number of players- this would probably make the game take roughly the same amount of real-time regardless of the number of players, but make the game-time fluctuate wildly), then there should be at least 40-60 lots- a 6x8 grid would work out well.

I'm not sure that I like that you could end up with a critical lot on the last turn, just because that's where it was on the stack. But I think I'm happier with lots going up randomly than I am having people just choose which lots to auction off- it seems like the middle road is adding, later on, a way to buy/put up for auction the lot that you want and then reshuffle the remaining deeds.

So, let's talk a bit about what types of buildings there should be:

• Residential- start off low-rent, but have high synergies with other building types (both positive and negative).
• Commercial- start off medium-rent, have decent synergies with each other and residential.
• Industrial- start off medium-rent, few synergies.
• Government- things like a courthouse, decent synergies with surrounding commercial/residences.
• Parks / Open space- no rent, but high synergies with nearby buildings.

There should be differently sized buildings- ones that go on 1 lot, 2 adjacent lots, and a square of 4 lots, with higher rates for the larger lots. There also might be a height or capacity- you should be able to decide whether a residential building is a group of townhomes or a high-rise, but whether it's a tenement or Trump Tower will be determined by the location.

Numbers will come soon, and hopefully I'll get a playtest in sometime in the near future.