The strangest expansion never created

Coming soon

I was coming back from ESSEN05 with the latest Winsome games and I was very impatient to play the Netherlands expansion from John Bohrer. I read the rules in my hotel in ESSEN and i was surprised by so many changements.
So an age of steam expansion could have more than one or two modifications... interesting...

But i had to wait for 2 months to find 6 players. The idea of stacking disc was a very good one .That rule allowed two players to have the same link. I liked also very much the creative use of variable city colours which is handled by a special display . That confered to the game a kind of dynamism.

As i imagined my first expansion in the north of africa, i thought to expand the game in Egypt with pyramids. So stacking cubes in a definit order could be an interesting idea. But this idea has never worked, and it was difficult to stack more than 4 cubes on my table... But stacking disc was possible that meant cubes should belong to player and disc should be goods. 

Yeah!!! all is possible... I was enjoying to stack discs and designed my first map with no theme inside. Immediatly after this first map, disc's stack could symbolize a skyscraper and i think that my expansion could take place in New York. I have never been in USA, but for me New York City and skyscrapers are the same things.

In my first protoyp, skyscrapers have no color, except the color of the disc in the bottom, so this expansion will be compared to South Korea with an order of disc deliveries. It was natural to only move the disc on the bottom of the stack. 

I tried many tests alone, without special rules for building or delievring, but it did'nt work as i wished, too chaotic, and too difficult to anticipate the moving phase. I hate also the green disc (see why HERE), and it was also a problem to add a new color of skyscraper... too much possibilities. I tried to stack all discs with only 5 green discs that could be like rainbow in the Switzerland expansion. But that did not satisfied myself.
I gave up this idea of stacking discs on the map....

When i was young, i liked to watch the bus plan, with links of different colors and numeroted links, stations...I remembered my expansion in NYC... Cubes could be stations that belong to players. So digging the subway is the next biggest idea in this expansion. If you dig something like te subway, you should first create a kind of hole (flip the hex on the black side to show that there is a hole) and then buy stations near skyscrapers...
In the same time, i colored defintive places for skyscrapers, like in the basic game. But as we can move only one disc, i had to design more cities (colored hexes) I drew 20 cities, but removed 4 in our first testing game
Now it was the time to test with players all these ideas. I designed a small map (bigger than the last) .
I explained for the first time all my ideas to my group found them very nifty. But they asked to me if i have already taken my medecine !!!! We discussed 3 hours before beginning our first game on this map. With my first ideas, there was not enough cubes, so we have to change the role of stations that could be placed only near skyscraper and not along all hexes as i was previously thinking. 

My idea before testings..                                 Conclusion:
                                   

At this time building phase was very close from the final version. digging 2 hexes and placing 3 stations. Enginner can increase to 3hexes and 4 stations. At our first test, it was a too powerful action.
We immedialtly realize that this expansion will be interesting with 5 or 6 players only. And there is only 5 colors for the station. So it could be more expensive to produce this expansion if it work one day...
Many tests removed the green disc in the box (Yessss), add a new special action that allow a player to reorder a stack in a sckscraper that we called 'SWAP', add special victory points at the end of the game, modified the engineer action to a completly different role. Now he could remove one station and replace it anywhere. It add some dynamism in the game, and increase its role at the end of the game. In the basic game, the enginneer action is less interesting at the end of the game, but not in this expansion. With the bonus we add to the normal victory point, the bidding phase still interesting, even for the choice of enginneer 

Production phase was also a problem. How to supply 20 or 16 skyscrapers with the production chart of the basic game  ? And as we can only move the first disc, it will be a too challenging game to see wich disn can be  moved in te next turn. Never mind... I tried the game with fillling with dics the production chart. 

If we didn't trow dices, and if discs come automatically at the production phase, turn after turn, it could work. But i forgot that there wouldn't have enought disc to play an entire game.. If i have to buy green cubes to add a sixth player, i should have to buy disc to complete the basic game... to expensive. I canceled the production phase and in our first game, we placed the moving disc under the stock of the skycraper.. It workd very very well. It was still a balance problem. How much disc should we stack on the skycrapers ? 
One : enought for the first move player only!!! 
Two, interesting... We tested it, but i shlud have to design a bigger map with more skyscrapers, and we had to change also the building rules: No! 
Three was also very interesting, enought with the size of the map, easy to stack, it left interesting choice with the Swap Rule... 
Four, also very interesting, probably some very well known skycrapers will get 4 discs in the set up of the game.
Finally, and to sum up the final solution for the production phase : no production phase, We will only play with the discs we stack in the setting phase. 

The Urbanization action has not changed, but as there is no production phase, we added a new rule to regenerate the discs on the board : we placed two discs on the New City tiles in the setting phase. So when you urbanize a new city, you also add  two discs in the game.

The idea of stacking discs to create "Euro skyscrapers" like eurogames can simulate goods with cubes..., was very fun, but i felt a little bit disappointed at the end of the game if the high of them could not count as a bonus.
So i changed the final scoring : At each skycraper , the number of discs present in that skyscraper is muliplied by the number of station a givent player owns there. As Engineer would be an interesting choice at the end of the game

Replacing discs by cubes was also a problem : 5 colors of cubes allows 5 players, but in the basic game, there is 25 discs for each player and only 20 cubes of each color (16 black cubes). So it was natural to give at the begining of the game twice more stations than the number of turn players would play : 20 stations (cubes) in a 3 player games (that forbid a black player) 16, in a 4 player games, 14 in a 5 player games,12 in a 6 player game. I bought green cubes for a sixth player because this expansion support easyly a sixth player.
As we can build 3 stations per turn, if you build all your allowed stations at each turn, there will be a problem at the end of the game. The new Engineer is very powerfull, even more with the final scoring. You will try to place your station near a future very high skyscraper...

Building stations and the rules with them were discussed in so many testing games that i can not remember who found THE good solution. At the beginning of the prototype, it was allowed to build station on each side of a given skyscrapers hexes. Further in the developemt, other players can build stations on the same side, but have to pay to the bank and to the present player ($1). We added a limit for the number of the stations, and they may never be more than number of player minus 2 stations on each side of a given hex. And finally to congestion even more the game, each individual player may only ever buid one station per hex side. 

And the final map designed by Claude Parenteau (thanks very much)