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From: rick@ucla-cs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.games.board
Subject: Rail Baron ... revisited
Message-ID: <7527@ucla-cs.ARPA>
Date: Sun, 10-Nov-85 17:13:35 EST
Article-I.D.: ucla-cs.7527
Posted: Sun Nov 10 17:13:35 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 12-Nov-85 06:26:02 EST
Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department
Lines: 25

<<< not even-6-even-8, not even-6-even-8, ... argh >>>

After playing a game of Rail Baron last night we decided something needs to
be done about getting nailed with *bad* destinations. They can unfairly
shift the game to one player, or make it impossible for some player to do
well much less win. There was a suggestion made here some time ago about
allowing a person to decline 1 of their first 3 destinations. We will give 
that one a try next game. We thought about the following:
If these were real companies they wouldn't make a long haul run that would
cost them a small fortune (eg. Miami without owning the SAL or the ACL).
Instead they would pay some penalty and go somewhere else. The first
suggestion we had was to allow someone to decline *any* destination, but
their next trip would then be 1/2 price (ie. they would lose half the money
they should make). And they could continue to decline, and continue halving
(1/2, 1/4, 1/8, ...), until they got something they like. The problem with this
is that a person with enough money to win would just keep trying to roll his
home city as a destination. So we thought that it might work if they could
only decline one destination when they were rolling for new destination, and
would be stuck with the second one (and half the money). I am uncomfortable
with this idea though. Anyone out there got any ideas?
-- 
   Rick Gillespie
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