Hextrail and The Oregon Trail Boardgame
Some Thoughts on Terrain
Hello Wargamers!
I received the Oregon Trail boardgame for Christmas (from Santa!), and was able to play with family on Christmas Day. It was a lot of fun!
It was relatively simple to learn, but the movement mechanics were very, very interesting. First of all, since none of us had ever played it before, I am not sure we were doing parts of the game correctly. It didn’t seem as deadly as I was expecting, though reviews tend to describe the minor gaps in the rules. Jeff the ViperMan has a typical review on BGG:
Of course, the rules make this look fairly simple on the surface, but unfortunately end up leaving more questions than answers. We found ourselves wondering if stores ran out of stock, if calamity cards requiring "reaching" a fort meant having to stop there, wondering if rivers could be avoided by turning 90-degrees and exiting the tile on the same side of the river, if players have to feed their families on a turn during which they reach Willamette Valley, and more. There was also some conflicting rules between the boards and the rulebook, such as the player board showing "movement along roads" as "free," (ie not requiring a spent action) while the rulebook explains that multiple tiles connected by roads could be traveled "at the expense of one action."
These difficulties were easily overcome at the table (as my nieces are fairly reasonable) and we enjoyed ourselves immensely. A “house rule” we decided on was that each town or fort only had enough stock for one player to purchase during each turn. Meaning that if I got to the town first, I could buy the winter clothing and move on, while the next player would have to wait until next turn when it was replenished, or do without.
I must admit that I was continually distracted by ideas and inspirations for how some of these mechanics could be utilized and interpreted for #Hextrail.
River Tiles impede movement, you can cross safely by giving up Actions during your turn, or you can try to cross for “free” by rolling over the difficulty number. Open tiles allow for hunting for food, rather than buying it in the forts. Winter tiles cause damage to your family members if you don’t have Winter Clothing. Various supplies are available at forts and towns, and while every fort has the same supplies, each town has a different set of products available.
Tiles for Terrain: Each turn you draw one or more tiles, until you have up to one more than your number of oxen pulling your wagons (generally 2). These tiles are played at the beginning of your turn and may be strategically placed to enhance your own movement or impede your opponents’.
Movement for Hextrail has not been nailed down. I am interested in this tile system, and how something like it could be implemented in a straight-line game. Draw N number of tiles and place N-1?
Roll a d6 or d8 for N?
Use a Scout unit to draw X number of extra tiles to choose from?
Perhaps the tiles could be tied to the up/down “snakes and ladders” functions of the event cards?
Towns and Castles: the terrain tiles could be a better way to place the towns and castles, rather than rolling for their locations. In addition, the town/castle tiles could have roads indicated on them, which could provide alternate routes across them, or up/down to other rows.
Player Dashboards: I hadn’t given much thought to the idea of dashboards for each player, but after seeing how supplies were tracked in OT, I believe it would be more useful to use a dashboard than the main play area. This would free up space on the main board for the Caravans and Courier Mission trackers. The FantasyGrid game WIP has a dashboard for Magic Points and Spells, this could be a parallel development.
Overview
This is a good game. It has weaknesses, but experienced game-players should have no trouble resolving them, even coming up with new ideas for making the game different (i.e. more challenging/fun!).
If you have played this game, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the Comments.