Turn Track and Equipment Cost

One of the first changes we made was to take the equipment out of the market. Its value would shoot up and not come down, so if you weren't a lucky early buyer you were screwed.

Kris had the excellent idea of moving the equipment value tile along the score track, and having the value depend on what turn it is. We tried it with values starting at 3, working their way up to 7, and then back down to 3. That turned out to be too high. Half the players didn't get to buy anything, and those who did made too much profit re-selling later.

Here are the values I'm thinking about trying next:

1. 6
2. 5
3. 4
4. 3
5. 2
6. 2
7. 3
8. 3
9. 4
10. 4
11. 3
12. 3
13. 2
14. 2
15. 2
16. 1
17. 2
18. 1
19. 2
20. 1
21. 1
22. 0 (four player end)
23. 1
24. 0 (three player end)
25. 1
26. 0 (two player end)

The biggest thing I'm trying to avoid here is letting people buy really low and then sell high. There's still some room for that strategy, I just don't want to allow it to give you 4x points and dominate the game.

At the start of the game equipment is valued high. It drops quickly into an affordable range, comes back up once more, then works its way down. At the end of the game when everyone wants to sell off their stuff it's hardly worth anything.