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From: doug@cornell.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.games.board
Subject: Truly fair Rail Baron rules
Message-ID: <1284@cornell.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 2-Dec-85 19:37:40 EST
Article-I.D.: cornell.1284
Posted: Mon Dec  2 19:37:40 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 5-Dec-85 07:22:01 EST
Sender: doug@cornell.UUCP
Organization: Cornell Univ. CS Dept.
Lines: 63

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}