iancanton wrote:cairnswk wrote:does the Ivory Coast Express bonus increase from 3 to 4 or stay the same?
with consecutive non-border stations, this will be the only bonus that resembles the archetypal
rail usa bonus. +3 is perfectly good, though i'm happy with +4 too if u prefer that.
cairnswk wrote:Towards starting positions....answer these for me please....assuming there is a drop where nobody benefits from bonuses
1. If you have 26 stations for 2/3 players, how many does the first player get?
2. If you have 19 stations for 4 players, how many does the first player get?
3. If you have 15 stations for 5 players, doesn't someone lose out as soon as they loose a territory?
26 stations gives 8 to deploy, 19 gives 6 and 15 gives 5. 15 stations each isn't a good number, but 5-player is one of the least popular formats, whereas 6-player, for example, is the only number possible for someone who wants to gain a triples medal. i've just checked the similar-sized
forbidden city, which has 85 finished 5-player games compared with 281 4-player and 167 6-player games; neither of the latter formats is well-served by having only 74 non-neutral stations.
cairnswk wrote:If ian and nobodies want start positions, where do you want them placed, because to my way of thinking they have to be very strategic in order to stop any first players losing bonuses as a result of the first round assaults.
if we have ATV-O neutral (because la madagascan is the easiest bonus to hold) plus 78 starting stations, then how about LYN-E with CAI-C for start position 1 and TUN-E with PSN-C for start position 2? i don't like TUN-E with CAI-C so much because that combination becomes strong if BGZ happens to drop in this player's favour. in 1v1, it's not easy to conquer 3 of ur opponent's stations on turn 1. in 3v3, conquering 2 stations on turn 1 is also against the odds. in 2v2, player 1 has maybe a 60% chance of being able to conquer 2 stations to reduce player 2's deployment to 5 troops while rolling sensibly, but there's not much we can do about this unless we have 80 non-neutral stations (and we're already pressed for room in the most likely locations).
is there a different abbreviation that u can use for khartoum, perhaps KRT? i always find myself thinking kathmandu when i see KTM, but maybe that's just me!
ian.
