I know this is a game that is poorly suited to asynchronous play, but it occurs to me it might work as play by forum, and there might be enough people interested to give it a go?
I’d probably run it in a slightly unusual way (for me), with each player responsible for rolling “their” dice when appropriate, so the pace of the game would be set by the players instead of the moderator.
Let’s do it!
Not sure I would be up for this, but if another player is needed I will step in.
I’m up for it if you get enough people.
I’m game 
Same here 
OK, that’s plenty.
@COMaestro in or out?
Also, quick rules check, who knows how much?
It’s a game that can and probably should be played without a full rules explanation up front, but at the same time it’s hard to negotiate when you have no concept of the stakes.
Very briefly, you are all participants in running the company, and company profits lead pretty directly to personal profits (basically via graft, aka theft, and via dividends) but it isn’t a cooperative game - if someone else is making more money from company success than you are, it’s probably in your interest to change things up.
Nearly everything is up for trade, and every action can be used as leverage.
Final score is based mostly on who had the most family members retire to rich estates. But those estates have upkeep costs. Bonuses include which family has the most power at the end, shares in the company that can be positive or negative depending on whether the company fails, side businesses that score only if the company fails, purchased luxuries, and marrying into old money families. Finally, if the company fails, someone/something is going to get blamed, and you might get caught in the fallout from that.
We’ll be playing the “short” 1710 scenario, meaning that deregulation cannot happen and players will not be able to start their own competing firms.
So how far into familiarising myself with the game should I go?
What the heck, let’s go for it.
I know none of the rules, so I share Ross’s question.
Ok, so that’s at least two people who only know what I’ve posted so far. I’m about to go to sleep, but tomorrow I’ll work up a rules overview along with an image of the board as we’ll be using it, along with a link to the full rules for anyone that’s interested. You are of course free to read only what I post, or to read the full rules, or even to go searching for (shudder) rules poorly paraphrased by people recording themselves explaining the rules in real-time.
Played solo of it twice but will brush up on some rules.
I’ve played two games using the 1710 scenario, so I have at least a passing familiarity with the rules.
OK, I think I have the module (which I did not make) in a usable state.
Rules are here, for anyone who is keen:
This is how the game looks after setup.
Families have been randomly assigned:
RossM: Hastings (blue)
Whistle Pig: Benyon (pink)
GeeBizzle: Paxton (grey)
LLV: Sykes (purple)
COMaestro: Walsh (green)
There’s a black pawn starts on 1 on the red ribbon running through the map, it will stop at 5, for a span of approximately 100 years, from 1710 to 1813ish.
5 times, the silver pawn will go the length of the red ribbon, and each step on the red ribbon gets resolved. At the start, the London Season (first step) is skipped, and there’ll be a bonus retirement phase at the end if the company doesn’t fail. This is where most of the rules explanation will happen, in a later post.
Going around the map itself:
Around the board, there are things that can be bought, markers, spare cards, the london season deck, the laws deck, the India deck, the company failure deck, and one law that starts in play: Royal Protection.
Overview of the roles and stuff randomly assigned to each player coming up next.
Explaining the gameflow ribbon, based on the order things happen.
Skipping London Season for now (and in the game), first is Family actions:
The firms step is completely ignored for this game.
Hiring is when vacant positions get filled. There are rules about nepotism and priority, but we can skip that all for now because no positions are vacant.
Success on a special envoy action means you can open any one order on the map of India.
Then transfer up to two pieces - writers to different presidencies, ships to different seas.
The president themself may take any number of trade actions, using the same dice system. The number of dice rolled each time is the money spent minus the number of extra regions you want the trade action to span.
Success brings in the money and stops further trade attempts: company money equal to the filled orders, money from graft (in green) is 1 per filled order, and 1 to each writer who filled an order.
Governor actions I’ll cover when they come up.
Commanders may choose to deploy. Dice is number of regiments and officers and allies exhausted (so unable to defend later this turn), minus the strength of the defending region (tower, or towers if an empire). Can only deploy into the port region or an adjacent region if the port region is company controlled.
After deploying, roll for every officer - on a 6 they died.
Success brings in the loot: 4 pounds per tower level, plus the one-off bonus for the first time a region is looted, distributed evenly among commander, officers, regiments, and allies (loot going to the latter two effectively being lost). Clears unrest, opens closed orders.
China I’ll cover if it comes up.
Bonuses is when shipyards and workshops pay out.
Revenue is when company expenses are paid, 1 pound per debt, regiment, officer, and ship. Then company standing (expectations) is checked. In the first turn, if the company doesn’t have at least 10 pounds left after expenses, it is perceived as failing, and standing falls. Then if there is money to spare, the Chairman may pay out dividends to shareholders, which may increase standing.
Then (probably) shit hits the fan in India, which I’ll cover when we get to it.
Then parliament meets and a new law or crisis is voted on. The player with the ear of the prime minister, a very malleable fellow, has a lot of control over this step, but again, I’ll cover it when we get there.
Finally there’s a short upkeep phase.
@Whistle_Pig you start with 8 pounds, the president of Madras, a fitted ship in the West sea (Bombay), a blackmail card (messaged), and 1 share.
@GeeBizzle you start with 5 pounds, the manager of shipping, control of the primer minister, a blackmail card (messaged), commander of the army of Bengal, a writer working for the Bengal presidency, and a share.
@lalunaverde you start with 4 pounds, the chairman, the president of Bombay, a Luxury, and 2 shares (in addition to the chairman)
@COMaestro you start with 5 pounds, director of trade, president of Bengal, commander of the army of Bombay, a writer working for the presidency of Bombay, a fitted ship in the South sea (Madras), and a share.
Finally, every player starts with the following set of promises, which many be exchanged in any trade, and returned back by the recipient for the effect listed at any time, or traded on:
Other things up for trade are:
Luxuries, shipyards, workshops, other enterprises, unused blackmail, cash, and shares.
