Iron Dragon rules/variants
Following up on something mistergrumpy asked over Zephyr a while ago...I can't seem to find any useful online errata for Iron Dragon but I've seen/heard/tried mention of a couple of rules variants, and there's one or two things we almost always play differently.
Rainbow Bridge: This is the one thing the rules are unclear on. Does it last until the end of the drawing player's next turn, making it almost certainly useless? Or until the end of the game (or conceivably the Wizard's Strike), removing a lot of the motivation to build in the Olde World? narya suggests that it lasts until the end of the turn it is first used and doesn't count for victory, which feels like a nice compromise.
Boats: Standard rules say you spend entire turns either on or off boats. dcltdw's variant is that the transition costs one movement point and you move at the slower of your train or boat speed for that turn. Boats are insanely useful for magic-to-J-land (e.g., wands to Janoshal) contracts.
Foreman swaps: We typically limit "draw the top foreman off the deck" to once per turn, but other swaps are unlimited.
Underground: The printed rules specify that you pay 1 gold to move in the underground, plus 1 gold to build there. We don't do this consistently, and if you both move and build in the underground don't consistently count the 1 combined gold against the build limit.
Track-erasing disasters: The printed rules specify that the floods and the Sand Storm destroy track, and it cannot be rebuilt until after the end of the drawing player's next turn. (I believe Empire Builder specified this too.) We've generally interpreted the "track is destroyed but may be rebuilt" text on the card as meaning it can be rebuilt immediately.
Fractional moves: The printed rules appear to specify that, if you're anywhere within a half-rate disaster area, your total move is cut in half. We count moves within the affected area as two points each, so you regain some speed if you exit the hurricane area.
Loans: Are available from the bank at 100% interest payable at first opportunity. (This way a poorly timed flood doesn't make you lose the game.)
And some variants:
Treaty line: Movement in the far southwest is cheaper; after every second movement dot in the treaty region move an additional dot. nuclearpolymer's option is the southwesternmost panel of the physical board; my first games were played with a treaty zone covering all of Caicenden, Dul-Ul-Dur, Eusarch, Iron Holm, and the Orc Wastes west of the River of Death. Makes building to Eaglehawk more appealing, but IMHO unnecessary for experienced players; also tends to make shipping arms and armor too cheap. A better refinement might be to have fast movement from jungle mileposts.
Public contracts: After every player has taken one turn in the initial build round, flip up a contract as public; repeat such that there are three public contracts. Anybody can run these contracts in addition to their initial contracts, they are removed and replenished as usual.
Alternate Rainbow Bridge: dcltdw suggests a (persistent) rainbow bridge between Eaglehawk and Kola.
Communal rail to ports: fideidefensor says that some quarters play with communal rail between Piggnytz and its port, making it believable to run routine contracts there. In principle you could extend this to all ports with adjacent cities. Haven't tried it.
Double trains: narya and I play this as a 2-player game. Play as usual, but each player has six contracts and two trains. The trains are maintained independently, and may take movement actions in any order ("train A moves to its destination, then train B moves to its destination and cashes its contracts, then train A cashes its contracts so as to not screw train B"). If trains wind up on the same milepost at any point during their turn they may freely swap loads. This tends to run faster once you bootstrap; the 20-gold-per-turn build limit is the limiting factor. A useful early strategy is to throw one train on a boat while you build the track for the other.
Extra contract: narya also likes having one additional contract (4 in the base game, 7 with double trains). This makes it less likely to need to flush contracts.
Different trains: Mention of a PC crayon-rail implementation mentioned larger, smaller, faster, and slower trains as an option. A size-1, speed-8 train would kind of suck, but getting more (indefinite?) speed could be interesting.
Different boats: Same idea; once you have a speed-16 train, boats topping out at speed-13 and averaging speed-10 are just too slow.
Rainbow Bridge: This is the one thing the rules are unclear on. Does it last until the end of the drawing player's next turn, making it almost certainly useless? Or until the end of the game (or conceivably the Wizard's Strike), removing a lot of the motivation to build in the Olde World? narya suggests that it lasts until the end of the turn it is first used and doesn't count for victory, which feels like a nice compromise.
Boats: Standard rules say you spend entire turns either on or off boats. dcltdw's variant is that the transition costs one movement point and you move at the slower of your train or boat speed for that turn. Boats are insanely useful for magic-to-J-land (e.g., wands to Janoshal) contracts.
Foreman swaps: We typically limit "draw the top foreman off the deck" to once per turn, but other swaps are unlimited.
Underground: The printed rules specify that you pay 1 gold to move in the underground, plus 1 gold to build there. We don't do this consistently, and if you both move and build in the underground don't consistently count the 1 combined gold against the build limit.
Track-erasing disasters: The printed rules specify that the floods and the Sand Storm destroy track, and it cannot be rebuilt until after the end of the drawing player's next turn. (I believe Empire Builder specified this too.) We've generally interpreted the "track is destroyed but may be rebuilt" text on the card as meaning it can be rebuilt immediately.
Fractional moves: The printed rules appear to specify that, if you're anywhere within a half-rate disaster area, your total move is cut in half. We count moves within the affected area as two points each, so you regain some speed if you exit the hurricane area.
Loans: Are available from the bank at 100% interest payable at first opportunity. (This way a poorly timed flood doesn't make you lose the game.)
And some variants:
Treaty line: Movement in the far southwest is cheaper; after every second movement dot in the treaty region move an additional dot. nuclearpolymer's option is the southwesternmost panel of the physical board; my first games were played with a treaty zone covering all of Caicenden, Dul-Ul-Dur, Eusarch, Iron Holm, and the Orc Wastes west of the River of Death. Makes building to Eaglehawk more appealing, but IMHO unnecessary for experienced players; also tends to make shipping arms and armor too cheap. A better refinement might be to have fast movement from jungle mileposts.
Public contracts: After every player has taken one turn in the initial build round, flip up a contract as public; repeat such that there are three public contracts. Anybody can run these contracts in addition to their initial contracts, they are removed and replenished as usual.
Alternate Rainbow Bridge: dcltdw suggests a (persistent) rainbow bridge between Eaglehawk and Kola.
Communal rail to ports: fideidefensor says that some quarters play with communal rail between Piggnytz and its port, making it believable to run routine contracts there. In principle you could extend this to all ports with adjacent cities. Haven't tried it.
Double trains: narya and I play this as a 2-player game. Play as usual, but each player has six contracts and two trains. The trains are maintained independently, and may take movement actions in any order ("train A moves to its destination, then train B moves to its destination and cashes its contracts, then train A cashes its contracts so as to not screw train B"). If trains wind up on the same milepost at any point during their turn they may freely swap loads. This tends to run faster once you bootstrap; the 20-gold-per-turn build limit is the limiting factor. A useful early strategy is to throw one train on a boat while you build the track for the other.
Extra contract: narya also likes having one additional contract (4 in the base game, 7 with double trains). This makes it less likely to need to flush contracts.
Different trains: Mention of a PC crayon-rail implementation mentioned larger, smaller, faster, and slower trains as an option. A size-1, speed-8 train would kind of suck, but getting more (indefinite?) speed could be interesting.
Different boats: Same idea; once you have a speed-16 train, boats topping out at speed-13 and averaging speed-10 are just too slow.