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The Riding Series
J C Lawrence
United States
Campbell
California
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The Riding Series is a series of games designed by Han Heidema and published by Winsome Games. The Riding_Series is stock-based economic train game series where players purchase stock in basic companies, draw train routes for those same companies, and later consolidate the basic companies into larger groupings. Common to all the designs are the concepts of stock dilution (as more share sell in a company dividends pay a reduced percentage of earnings) and merger or grouping shares which pay in relation to multi-company patterns.
Harry Wu's wonderful Chicago Express (part of the Historic Railroads System) fairly clearly derives from the Riding Series in addition to Pampas Railroads.
The basic elements that seem to be common across the games (caveat: I own only one of the series and am working off other's comments by extrapolation):
1) Share dilution -- Shares are won at auction and pay an N'th of the company income where N is the number of shares issued for that company.
2) Share-based capitalisation -- The operating treasury for a company comes from the auction price for its shares. In general there is no other significant source of treasury funds for the companies.
3) Activity-based income -- The current turns income for a company is a compound of the actual cash income of the company, plus a measurement of the growth-activity of the company this turn. Thus active/growing companies pay much better than moribund companies as they have the extra (potentially HUGE) boost of activity-based income.
4) Deflating income -- Company income is a function of the number of empty exits on the cities their track is connected to. As more track is connected to those cities they become worth less and company incomes fall precipitously. This causes a rather fiddly constant recalculation of company incomes, but there are procedural habits which may be used in play to greatly reduce this.
5) Grouping shares -- Shares that pay out as a function of the interconnectedness of the current track patterns. Thus as multiple companies connect to a city that city contributes significant income toward the grouping shares. There usually seem to be multiple different grouping share companies that reward different and competing aspects of the track development. Grouping shares are acquired by trading in basic shares 2:1.
6) National shares -- (Later in the series only?) Shares that pay X% of all the grouping shares' dividends, reducing the grouping share dividends by that percentage in the process.
7) End-game share valuation -- Shares trade in for money in the end-game.
Many of the below games are being considered for reprinting. Thumb the matching entries on the Winsome Games -- P100 review requests geeklist if you are interested in a reprint.
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J C Lawrence
United States
Campbell
California
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While Dutch Intercity is not a member of the Riding Series it is by the same designer and shares several common traits with the members of the Riding Series. From a design perspective this is (largely) the progenitor game that the Riding Series seems to derive most from.
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J C Lawrence
United States
Campbell
California
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Perhaps oddly, this is the simplest, cleanest and most elegant of the series. It has the least chrome, the least fiddle and the most focus on the core patterns that make the game interesting. All the later games add additional mechanisms, more chrome, length and other fiddle faddle to the base game as defined in West Riding.
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J C Lawrence
United States
Campbell
California
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J C Lawrence
United States
Campbell
California
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J C Lawrence
United States
Campbell
California
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J C Lawrence
United States
Campbell
California
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peter mumford
United States
Somerville
Massachusetts
ceci n'est pas une pipe
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Looks to be a streamlined addition to this series.
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Posted Fri Apr 25, 2008 4:16 am
Campbell
California
I own Dutch Intercity (two copies no less!) and Wooden Shoes & Iron Monsters, the latter of which I've played several times. Länderbahnen and its expansion are on their way to me. I hope to play them and Dutch Intercity fairly soon.
The City of Steel
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
The games on the list derive straight from the Riding_Series Wiki page and Hans' list of published games.
Which I wrote. I've been in the process of adding pages to the Wiki on all of the Winsome Games series. I have the middle two games in the series, and I will add some comments and information to this list when I get home (presently on vacation in Pittsburgh) and have the time.
In general terms, most of JC's info is correct, though the national shares which leech from the grouping rails do not appear in Laenderbahnen...I'm not sure about West Riding. &c. &c.
Suffice to say, based on my information, none of later games will have the kind of mass appeal necessary for a large scale reprint. The Riding games all seem to be big, meat-grinder economic games with a fairly significant degree of fiddle. Dutch Intercity is probably simple enough to have cross-over appeal, and perhaps West Riding, though that is complete conjecture based on a several months ago reading of the information that is out there on it.
Campbell
California
I'll amend the header. Thanks.
Wooden Shoes & Iron Monsters may also be an exception there. It fits comfortably in about 150 minutes and while it has all the classic Riding Series fiddliness with the constantly adjusting incomes and dilute dividends, I wouldn't put it in the big meat-grinder category.
Yeah, Dutch Intercity looks clever. Obtuse and more than a little opaque, but clever. I figure we'll play with glass bits instead of all the chits -- I really can't be bothered with all that cutting!
The City of Steel
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
Wooden Shoes & Iron Monsters may also be an exception there. It fits comfortably in about 150 minutes and while it has all the classic Riding Series fiddliness with the constantly adjusting incomes and dilute dividends, I wouldn't put it in the big meat-grinder category.
I suppose I should qualify meat-grinder with a relativistic heading. In comparison to the games that tend to appeal to most gamers who frequent BGG the series are all huge in terms of fiddle and rules. RTE undoubtedly is the poster child for this, primarily because of all the extra rules added to the game to make it reflect British history more accurately.
Campbell
California
West Riding has all the fiddle of the constantly updating basic income plus track income but loses all the rest. With the very modest exception of the special handling of North and South Leeds (no company may connect both) there is almost no chrome in the game. There's no equivalent of WS&IM's NS, no private companies, no polders or dikes, no edge cities with bonus basic incomes, no contorted map characteristics rife with curious side-effects for later track builds etc. The map is plain and almost without terrain. There are 6 basic companies and 2 grouping companies with the basics are either assigned randomly to the grouping companies or along historical lines, and that's pretty much it.
West Riding is the minimal form of the Riding Series. I look forward to playing it.