Searching for the right mechanic to make pick up and deliver exciting

Don't know how this will work with boats, but how about a "push your luck" mechanic to get to ports faster? If there is a bonus for being first (or penalties for being later), players would race from port to port.

Push your luck would allow people to balance going fast against the possibility of a "breakdown" that costs valuable time.

And who doesn't like a race? :)

I'm a little confused by the "Each port has a series of deliveries" part... so forgive me if my comment doesn't apply.

But along the above race/push your luck aspect... why not limit the number of boats allowed in one port. Let's say whoever loads the least goods takes off first and may select his destination. No other player may travel to this port because it's full... meaning they'll have to settle for selling their goods at a potentially less valuable port.

By blocking another players action you both add emotions to the mix and a new strategy.

ChowYunBrent,

My recommendation would be to inject some more information into the game right before the unloading stage. This additional information should prompt new decisions on the players' parts and create some fun tension.

Here's an idea:

Each player is randomly dealt a hand of "Delivery Cards" (which he keeps secret) corresponding to the number of deliveries he has to make in the second phase. I.e., five goods to be delivered = five delivery cards in his hand. That player must pair one Delivery Card with one "goods card." The idea is that the Delivery Cards govern (a) the order in which goods are delivered as among the players, (b) the availability of a port to receive a good and/or (c) point bonuses/penalties for delivering the paired goods (e.g., goods spoil in transit, goods are off-spec, a shortage of the goods at the port creates a price/point bonus, etc.).

Choice comes into play because, presumably, players earn more or fewer points from some goods compared to others (let me know if that's not right). So for goods where a player anticipates that he won't get a big payoff, he can pair that good with one of the crappier/penalty cards. But for goods where the payoff is potentially large, players would want to pair their best Delivery Cards with those goods. If you chose to include "delivery numbers" with those cards (first, second, third to deliver, etc.), where players *tied* for their delivery number, they could then spend influence points to resolve the tie.

Good luck. Interested to see how you solve this problem!

Rex G. Baker IV
Montrose Games LLC

There are quite a few similarities here to the game I'm developing. Though I won't go into a lot of detail, one mechanic I'm using to make deliveries more interesting is players deciding ahead of time the sequence (like plotting a route). So the "race" aspect is part guessing game between players.