doug@cornell.UUCP (12/03/85)
From: doug (Douglas Campbell)
<chug, chug>
Reading all the discussion about changing Rail Baron's rules to make it
fairer/better (e.g. the Seattle rules), I decided that the real problem
with the game is that some railroads are wildly overpriced, while some
are wildly underpriced. Thus, there's a scramble at the beginning to
get the good deals, and if you have bad luck at the beginning, the whole
game is lost.
So, I decided to generate new railroad prices. Here's how I did it: I
used the computer to compute the odds of going to each city on the board.
Then, I assigned to each railroad points proportional to the probabilities
of each city it reaches divided by the number of railroads that reach that
city. Then I normalized the prices so that they all add up to the amount
that they do under the current price scheme. My results are below, sorted
by price:
47,000 PA - Pennsylvania
39,000 AT&SF - Atchison, Topeka, & Santa Fe
38,000 SP - Southern Pacific
31,000 NYC - New York Central
30,000 UP - Union Pacific
26,000 B&O - Baltimore & Ohio
23,000 SAL - Seaboard Air Line
23,000 L&N - Louisville & Nashville
19,000 CRI&P - Chicago, Rock Island, & Pacific
19,000 C&O - Chesapeake & Ohio
16,000 NP - Northern Pacific
16,000 B&M - Boston & Maine
15,000 WP - Western Pacific
15,000 SOU - Southern
15,000 CMSTP&P - Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul, & Pacific
15,000 CB&Q - Chicago, Burlington, & Quincy
15,000 C&NW - Chicago & NorthWestern
14,000 NYNH&H - New York, New Haven, & Hartford
14,000 GN - Great Northern
13,000 ACL - Atlantic Coast Line
12,000 SLSF - St. Louis - San Fransisco
12,000 MP - Missouri Pacific
10,000 N&W - Norfolk & Western
9,000 T&P - Texas & Pacific
8,000 IC - Illinois Central
8,000 GM&O - Gulf, Mobile, & Ohio
7,000 D&RGW - Denver & Rio Grande Western
3,000 RF&P - Richmond, Fredericksburg, & Potomac
Comment 1: This scheme of assigning prices does not take into account
the more general topologies of the rails. Thus, even though the PA or
the NYC are required to reach Boston, all the points for Boston are
assigned to the B&M and the NYNH&H.
Comment 2: The total of the above prices is only 512,000, not 514,000.
Big deal.
I'm looking forward to trying this out. I'm about to run the pricing
algorithm on the Seattle rules and see what happens. I have the
probability chart for cities if anyone wants it.
Doug Campbell
doug@cornell.{UUCP|ARPA}srt@ucla-cs.UUCP (12/04/85)
I have the same comment about normalizing the prices of the railroads as
I do about the Seattle rules. Why? The thought that perfectly normalizing
the prices somehow makes the game better is erroneous. Part of the fun of the
game is that some railroads are "deals" and some are "turkeys".
And, incidently, this doesn't even cure the ill of which was spoken,
in as much as it now becomes a scramble to see if you can get $47K to buy
the PA. The point is that the value of the PA is that it gets you a lot
of cities, not that it happens to be underpriced. Over the course of the
game the difference in price is moot.
-- Scottjeff@hpcnoe.UUCP (12/06/85)
> I decided that the real problem >with the game is that some railroads are wildly overpriced, while some >are wildly underpriced. I disagree! Sure there are railroads (like N&W) which seems overpriced and others which seems underpriced (like D&RGW), but overall I think the prices are fairly consistent. Everyone has their own ideas of the good buy railroads and bad buy railroads. So if you play with the same group all the time, you'll have a set of railroads which seems to be good buys because they go quickly. My personal preferences are: good bad D&RGW N&W PA T&P SOU C&NW MP ACL WP GN I am kind of curious if other people have the same preferences (to disprove my theory). Send me (or post) your five favorite railroads and five least favorite railroads. > Here's how I did it: I >used the computer to compute the odds of going to each city on the board. >Then, I assigned to each railroad points proportional to the probabilities >of each city it reaches divided by the number of railroads that reach that >city. The problem with the above technique is that it ignores the length of the railroad. PA covers most of the money railroads. But it lacks in length which can take you accross the country. The destinations also hurt much less than some other areas because you can get close to it. For example, if you don't have anything in the West, going to Los Angeles is going to cost. If you don't have anything in the NE, going to New York might not be too bad if you have SOU. -- Jeff Wu ..ihnp4!hpfcla!j_wu
ccs020@ucdavis.UUCP (Kevin Chu) (12/06/85)
> I have the same comment about normalizing the prices of the railroads as > I do about the Seattle rules. Why? The thought that perfectly normalizing > the prices somehow makes the game better is erroneous. Part of the fun of the > game is that some railroads are "deals" and some are "turkeys". > > And, incidently, this doesn't even cure the ill of which was spoken, > in as much as it now becomes a scramble to see if you can get $47K to buy > the PA. The point is that the value of the PA is that it gets you a lot > of cities, not that it happens to be underpriced. Over the course of the > game the difference in price is moot. > > -- Scott I couldn't agree more! I never even saw the need to change the rules or prices in the first place. I like the game the way it is! Also, if you get used to playing with your customized rules, you'll have some problems trying to play with anyone new, or at a gaming tournament. Part of the game IS luck, so I don't see the rationalization "If you get a bad roll at the beginning, you're out of the game" as being valid. I have had good games with bad starts. I have even won a game when all I had in the northeast was the C&O!. Even if you can't win, you can still have fun playing. -- -- Kevin Chu -- !{ucbvax,lll-crg,dual}!ucdavis!vega!ccs020 -- ucdavis!vega!ccs020@ucb-vax.arpa