Re: [piecepack] New Game Uploaded: Hotel Magnate

["Mike Schoessow" <mikeschoessow@...>]

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Mark A. Biggar 
  To: piecepack@yahoogroups.com 
  Sent: Saturday, October 04, 2003 5:07 PM
  Subject: Re: [piecepack] New Game Uploaded: Hotel Magnate

  >Hi Mike

  >Read the rules and have only one comment at this time.  The "only
  >players that own a hotel in the chain can bid in the auction" rule seems
  >to imply that if I get the first one, I can buy all the rest for cheap
  >as I'm the only player that can ever bid.  Thus the only way to break
  >a player's monopoly on a chain is to get him to agree to a private deal
  >to sell something.  

  Hi Mark. Thanks for looking it over. Actually, you do misunderstand, but the fault is entirely mine because I didn't write what was in my mind. You're right that the game won't work as it appears in the rules, since all auctions would have only a single bidder! What the statement you quoted should have said is, *only the active player, plus any other players who already own at least one hotel in the chain, are eligible to participate in the auction*. The thinking behind this rule is that it will encourage early purchasing of low-numbered hotels when they are landed on, and thus speed up the early part of the game. It seemed to work well in my 1-person play-tests, but of course those are not reliable, and it may turn out after multi-person play-testing that all such auctions should always be open to all players. To be honest, I wondered about this rule myself when I thought of it. Perhaps I'm trying to be too clever :-)

  I'll correct the posted copy since you caught a major typo (I'm also fixing a couple other minor typos that have been pointed out to me, and adding a suggested clarification that rolling doubles does NOT result in a free additional turn). 


  >Unless I misunderstand something, this make be
  >broken.  If some poor player in unlucky to roll the same number on
  >their first turn as a player before them, they have a good change of being
  >totally locked out of owning hotels.

  I don't understand this comment. Are you aware that each player starts the game from a different corner of the board? Rolling the same number as the previous player does not result in landing on the same tile. In fact, it's not possible to land on the same hotel as any other player on the first turn since the highest roll is a ten, and the nearest hotel that two players could land on during their first turns, is always eleven spaces away for the second player. 

  Thanks for your comments Mark. 

  -Mike Schoessow