Speed Circuit by Mail

I worked up some play-by-mail / e-mail rules for Speed Circuit earlier this year. I play tested them against my-self earlier this month, made a couple tweaks and I've now got a couple test subjects for my first real trial.

My biggest concern with this idea was that I did not want to have to go back to each driver after the plot to see how they wanted to execute the plot. So went into the current rules set I use and started taking out things that allowed for reactions and changes after the fact (like emergency braking). I also ended up taking out dice.

I did it for a similar reason, I didn't want to have people end up in unexpected situations that forced them to roll dice they hadn't planned on, forcing me to make them roll in the middle of moving cars, slowing down the whole process. Also, rolling dice is a suspense thing in games, really. But the suspense gets leached out for me when you're doing play-by-mail. So I took out the dice.

The result, I think, is that this will be a subtlety different game then in-person Speed Circuit.

I'll report back in a couple months when I expect this first race to be completed.

Taking Tiles out of Tikal

I suggested a while ago that a 2-player modification for Tikal might be to take some land tiles out of the stack. My hope was that this would create more competition for scoring resources by making the playing space smaller.

I was a little concerned about upsetting other play balance issues, so I took out 1 blank land tile from each letter group (7 total). I think it helped a little, but was too incremental a change.

It did make the board smaller. However, there were the same number of scoring opportunities so it did not force increased competition. I think it made it easier to poach some scoring chances because everything was closer together, but it did force you to.

On the other hand, it made the game go a lot quicker.

I think next time we try taking a random tile out of each grouping (excepting the volcanoes of course). That way we will be making scoring opportunities rarer and thus increase competition.

2007 Speed Circuit Report from WBC

33 drivers competed for 12 spots in the finals grid over three qualifying heats from Portugal (Estoril) to South Africa (Kylami) to Canada (Montreal).

Two first round heats were won by Seth Kirchner and Jim Fleckenstein. Franklin Haskell would pick up the first of his two third place finishes. All three drivers would qualify for the finals with these finishes.

Finals qualifiers from the second round included first place finishers Doug Schulz, Jeff Cornett (improving on his second place finish from the round before) and Doug Galullo, second place finishers John Welage, Mike Aubuchon, and Robert Kircher.

Qualifying in the third and final round were first place finishers Terry Schulz and Scott Cornett (improving on his second place finish from the first round), and second place finisher Dennis Nicholson.

The finals race at Suzuka in Japan had a full twelve car field of 7 first place finishers, 4 second place finishers, and the best third place finisher.

There was some significant bidding for pole on this track, with Jeff bidding 8 ½ for the pole and Terry bidding 6 ½ to gain the outside of row one. Row two was populated with Jim and Doug G who each bid 4 ½. Seth and Scott populated the third row. Doug S. and Robert qualified on the fourth row. Dennis and Mike qualified for the fifth row. John and Franklin took the last row.

This finals began with fireworks when Jim miss-shifted off the starting grid to lose precious space going into the first corner and Doug S stalled on the grid to fall all the way back to the end of the pack with a damaged engine to boot. On the positive side, Terry took command of the race early by exploiting his 100 start speed to immediately gain two spaces over row-mate Jeff and began his second finals race in a row from the lead.

Doug G and Robert found themselves in position to challenge early in lap one when Robert miss-plotted heading into the sixth corner of the race. The amount of wear and skill chips he expended to stay on the track greatly hurt his future.

Terry plotted an excellent first lap from his lead position and continued to put pressure on the trailing cars. Terry had a 3 space advantage over Doug G after ½ a lap. Doug G., who tangled with Terry last year, blew a top speed test on the front straight, then miss-plotted in the middle of the back straight as Terry gained greater separation.

Terry maintained at least a 4 space lead through the remainder of the race's check points with minimal wear usage. Terry had 5 wear left mid-way through the final lap.

With this year's champion racing off into the sunset, Scott and Seth fought a tight battle for second through the last two laps. Side-by-side coming out of the last corner, Seth achieved greater speed to gain second by a space. Jim and Mike passed Doug G. and then dueled to the end for the final plaque. Mike led Jim most of the race up to the end of the last lap when Jimmy out accelerated Mike for fourth coming out of the last corner.

John managed to escape a raucous back marker fight to claim 6th place and the final laurel for the race. Despite nothing but pride on the line, the final three cars of the field fought tooth and nail for position on the final ½ lap and stayed in a tight knot through multiple spins and stayed on track through multiple naked-chance rolls. Jeff crossed the line just ahead of Doug G and Franklin who had been stymied in his come from behind strategy all race long.

It was a particularly sweet victory for Terry, who had been close several times before and had lead the finals race in the second lap of last year before tangling with Doug G and eventually retiring.