Second draft

[eclectic_boy]

(Again, click for the full-size version)

I'm much happier with this, thanks to BDan's and Gavin's idea that interstates be obstacles.
I've removed the parks and instead added the PA Turnpike, NE Extension, Blue Route, and I-95 -- where a single grid-segment crosses both an interstate and a river, it still only requires a cost of two to lay a track. And based on Mark's advice I shifted the location of the Ridley node closer to Chester.

Oh, and Gavin, I thought about having Swarthmore, plus Haverford and Bryn Mawr, but decided it might bring an unfair side-element of status into the game. You should think of Media as "really" being Swat just like on a real TA board we think of Washington DC as "really" being Philadelphia!

More comments, more playtesters?

Comments

[uncleamos]

Can we playtest this online, say tonight?

It would be a pain, but I would map TS cities to TA cities and use BSW to generate targets, then have everyone have printouts of the board and declare their track placements on IRC.

Yeah, it would be a pain. But awesome!

[uncleamos]

Alternatively, we could just play TA. It's a four, after all!!!

[carnap.livejournal.com]

This would be much easier for me to visualize if you had a version with all the double-cost portions marked in the usual TransAmerica style.

Also, for extra verisimilitude, do you have a map of the locations where the actual system goes through tunnels?

[carnap.livejournal.com]

Seconded. Otherwise I am going to have to bill hours.

[reldnahkram.livejournal.com]

I don't know about the interstates. Nearly all of the rail lines in the area predate the interstates, and I think the only rail line cut by an interstate was the Reading viaduct, which was replaced by the commuter tunnel anyway.

I think the Airport is now like New Orleans. Hard to get to and not near anything. Norristown is good and hosed by the obstacles, not unlike some of those northern blue cities on the TA map.

[carnap.livejournal.com]

Doylestown seems to be another Boston, but I don't think there are any cities as awful as Sacramento.

[reldnahkram.livejournal.com]

Might Chester be worse than Seattle? And yes, Lansdale-Doylestown is another Buffston. West Chester is maybe a little better than Sacramento, but it still is very far away and opens up Paoli and Newtown Square.

[carnap.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I don't think West Chester is as bad as Sacramento. Obstacles in front of a city are a big hassle because they require substantial advance planning to avoid wasting a turn building one one rail; West Chester doesn't have that issue from any direction. Not sure about Chester.

Obviously the map has to be playtested to determine how it would work in practice.

Incidentally, I wonder how the cities could be recolored? Maybe rotate the edges of the regions one city counterclockwise? Not sure what that would actually do.

[uncleamos]

It would make having Ben-Salem and Cornwall Heights a crime it what it would do.

[ccommack]

Making the Airport a green city instead of a red city actually balances it.

I would extend the grid to the right from Pattison into Camden and Burlington Counties, have the river and I-95 be one barrier, and maybe rearrange the lower right corner to move one of the Torresdale/Cornwells/Bensalem triad across the Delaware.

Conshohocken is the St. Louis of this map; it's centrally located, but surrounded by barriers that make it far from anywhere.