Skip to Content
 

Airlines game

5 replies [Last post]
Thu, 12/11/2008 - 17:09
comfect
comfect's picture
Offline
Joined: 11/13/2008

So I've been kicking around the idea of an airline board game, in contrast to all the train board games around, for a while now. The key was to have a game that tried to simulate what it is like to build a network of intangible routes for moving people, rather than one made up of physical track. I've built up a ruleset, which I've attached, with the following basic mechanics/ideas:

1. Route capacity for any two-city connection based on the size of the two cities
2. Planes that can transport some fraction of that capacity based on their size
3. Planes flying between gates owned by the airline at two different airports
4. Range between two airports affecting which planes can run which routes
5. Different pricing schemes for airlines affecting
a. how many people fly the airline and
b. how much money the airline makes
6. Technological change over time, as new aircraft come into use.
7. A constantly expanding route network for each airline

I would greatly appreciate any comments, either on the specific rules or on the general concept.

Thanks,
comfect

Top
Thu, 12/11/2008 - 17:13
#1
larienna
larienna's picture
Offline
Joined: 07/28/2008
Aerobiz

There was a video game on the SNES called areobiz made by koei. it simulated the management of an airline company. Maybe you could get ideas from there.

Top
Thu, 12/11/2008 - 18:52
#2
ilta
ilta's picture
Offline
Joined: 12/05/2008
I really love the concept,

I really love the concept, the way that new planes are introduced in a regular manner that slowly phases out the old planes, and the simultaneous route selection. I have two critiques:

1) Having players write down their routes is cumbersome and hard to visualize. In effect, it makes the board more of a giant reference card, as the important information is on the route sheets instead, and you'll probably go through several per player, per game. The big advantage of the train games is that you can get a quick visual approximation of the game by looking at the board; here the only thing you have are the gates and hubs, which may or may not be used, and possibly not in logical ways.

In conjunction with this, you have a rule that if players got money on a previous route, they have to keep serving the route. While I think this is good in that it will ensure competition, it places a burden on players to keep their books accurately and consistently, and also opens up a high price-point airline to an easy undercut exploit by a low; if the low price-point airline is really smart, he'll ensure that he eats up just enough population to give the high price-point plane a few leftover passengers, thus tying it up for an infinite number of unprofitable rounds.

With these rules, together with the fact that each gate can serve multiple routes, you'll get a really slow route-selection phase, which is mitigated somewhat by the fact that it's simultaneous, but still very AP-prone.

What I'd really love to see in an airplane game would be those cool branching lines that connect cities, like in this image. You'd need a whole lot of bits here, but fewer than, say, Ticket to Ride has trains. Even cooler would be lengths of string or something, and gates that attached to the board somehow to serve as anchor points. Other options include a dry erase board and an expendable paper board.

Additionally, it would be great to see a route be selected through, say, cards, rather than on pen/paper. Maybe if each time you built a gate, that allowed you to collect two cards for that airport. Hubs let you pick up an additional number of cards. You then arrange three cards in your hand, along with a plane, and lay them down -- that's a route this turn, from card A to B to C; mark it on the board. Whether you decide to continue using that route next turn is up to you, and any negotiation you engage in with other players, but if gates are sufficiently expensive you probably won't change things around too much.

2) The ending. I like that the ending is a little unpredictable, but the "market capitalization" criteria seems like really heady stuff, again relies on information from the previous round, and the sudden cut-off strikes me as abrupt. I wonder if players would feel satisfied not to be able to complete the round? Unfortunately, I can't think of a solution for these problems.

I think what you have here is a great multiplayer video game design idea, since a video game is great at keeping track of all of those things that people aren't (previously successful routes, market capitalization, available resources, ticket capacity), and can represent everything on a dynamic, interactive map. Translating it to a board game may be a bit trickier but I think it's worth trying. Good luck!

(Caveat: it's possible that I'm just too lightweight a gamer to want to wade through all of this, but that heavier simulation grognards will eat it up. I find Memoir '44 about as simulation-y as I like to get with my board games; anything more substantial and I'd rather play Medieval II: Total War and Civilization on my PC.)

Top
Fri, 12/12/2008 - 10:28
#3
comfect
comfect's picture
Offline
Joined: 11/13/2008
Hmm...interesting thoughts

Thanks, ilta, for those comments - they look well thought out. That said, I have these responses:

  • 1) I took the idea for writing down orders from Diplomacy. I know there are parts of it that are ugly, but here's why I rejected every other option I could think of (and please, I would LOVE more ideas. I'm not in love with writing down routes myself).
    a) Cards for routes
    There are too many potential routes (and I wanted to catch the flavor of being able to fly from anywhere to anywhere). 25 cities = (25*24)/2 = 300 routes, and then a card for each player. That's 1500 or more cards.
    b)Cards for cities
    Again, too many routes. Even with your ingenious idea of giving a few cards per gate, there are simply too many possible routes (I calculate somewhere near 1300 if you give each player a set). That said, I like the idea of recombining in your hand.
    c)Dry erase/disposable maps
    I really wanted to do this one, but I tried it and it's impossible. The USAirways current route map gives some idea of what I'm talking about. Things get crowded, especially with more than one player trying to claim a route between two cities, or more than 3 routes running from one city. And then someone rips the paper board/smudges the dry erase...it just doesn't work out.
  • 2) I may not have been clear about this, but drawing the event card is the first action of the round. That means that there is no being "unable to complete the round" since it doesn't really start before the Game End card is pulled. It would just be that a round would end, and then the next round would not start.
  • 3)Here's what I'm considering doing about the low-price poaching high-price routes. First, the events are primarily weighted towards getting more money for high-price airlines (things like business conferences that will only fly high-price because they want the best). Second, I'm cutting the amount of money in the game down (by about a factor of 5; every number in the game was divisible by 5 already except the price point modifiers) so that it's a lot harder to survive your costs as a low-price airline, meaning that high-price airlines will have flexibility to fly where low-price airlines can't due to lack of planes and gates. Third, and this isn't new, remember that low-price airlines have to keep flying their routes too. This can be a problem if the high-price airlines suddenly branch out into newer, profitable routes (particularly at deregulation).
  • 4) As for the market capitalization rule, it's really only used at game end. It's also pretty intuitive to keep track of (since you know other player's market shares because of turn order). "Hmm...do I have more or less than him? A lot more? OK, I don't need as much money." I would not use it each turn, but I think (emphasis on think) that it should work for the end-game. But I'll definitely keep an eye on it.

Thanks so much for the feedback. I really appreciate it! I'm personally a weird hybrid player; I love 18xx, but I also really enjoy simplified, stripped down games. So I'm trying here to create a more simulation-y experience, but I'm very sympathetic to trying to simplify as much as possible (for instance, I already cut the different airports at each city in favor of a "NYC" space or a "DC" space...LaGuardia vs. JFK and National vs. Dulles was getting crazy).

Top
Fri, 12/12/2008 - 12:57
#4
Raiderjakk
Raiderjakk's picture
Offline
Joined: 10/19/2008
Simplicity....

Would serving regions vs. serving cities simplify one aspect of the game design and make it more board friendly? There's a lot going on with this game, and any simplification of some of the numbers might be worth considering.

My $0.02.

J.

Top
Sat, 12/13/2008 - 15:27
#5
comfect
comfect's picture
Offline
Joined: 11/13/2008
Alternate thoughts

In respect to the complication idea, I have thought that maybe I could design a smaller subgame in which one attempts to start a regional airline. This would involve perhaps 10 cities in a specific region (ie, to take on with which I am familiar, the Pacific Northwest: Portland, Seattle, Spokane, Eugene, Bend, Bellingham, Pendleton, Yakima, Wenatchee, Walla-Walla), which makes for (10*9)/2=45 route cards, which would be manageable. The number of plane types would also decrease (and the planes would change...) but that could be a legit way to try out the general system without straining the bounds of possibility.

Top
Syndicate content


forum | by Dr. Radut