Being from California, the drought is a big deal these days, and I thought I'd make a game to capture the fundamental issues behind it. Here's a first draft of the rules. The numbers are not yet balanced yet, but how do the general mechanics and gameplay look? The goal is a 60-minute game.
===Welcome to the California Water Crisis===
California: For 150 years, farms and cities sprawled defiantly over the desert. Little did folks know that the state's spectacular growth took place during an unusually wet (for California standards) century. As the dry normal returns, there's not enough water to go around. Will cities, farmers, and the environment find a balance, or will there be more water wars?
===The Players===
California Water Crisis is designed for 3 players or teams:
Southern California – Home to 22 million people, this still-growing megalopolis is nearly entirely dependent on water imports. Can you keep the taps flowing?
Central Valley – This agricultural region faces collapse unless it can leverage its water rights to fund a transition to a more diversified economy.
Northern California – Although in a less precarious situation than SoCal, NorCal's major cities also rely on faraway aqueducts. Furthermore, NorCal's political class has a soft spot for the environment and will run you out of town if any species go extinct on your watch.
===Goals===
Have the most victory points when all of them have been purchased. Or, be the last player whose region has not turned into a bankrupt wasteland.
===Setup===
Set Groundwater Table at 100 feet below surface.
Shuffle the Water Rights tokens and randomly deal them out.
Place cities, reservoirs, water tokens (place up to 3 in each reservoir), and farms on the board and give players Cash.
SoCal: 3 cities, 2 reservoirs, 5 water tokens, 3 water rights, 10 cash
Central Valley: 2 reservoirs, 3 water tokens, 7 water rights, 7 farms, 2 cash
NorCal: 1 city, 2 reservoirs, 3 water tokens, 2 water rights, 1 farm, 6 cash
NorCal player also starts with 2 victory points.
===Turn Sequence===
**Winter**
Roll the 2 dice to determine how much rain there is this year. Only the most senior water rights get water! Place a water token on each Right that has a number less than or equal to the roll. For example, if 9 is rolled, a player holding Water Rights 1, 9, and 12 gets 2 water tokens. Also place a water token on any Water Infrastructure with a blue dot such as the Desalinization Plant.
**Spring**
Players assign water from their water rights or reservoirs to cities, farms, and ecosystems. Each city or farm needs 1 water token. Players are free to buy or sell water tokens or water rights at whatever price they negotiate. Players may also get additional tokens by paying to pump groundwater - water table drops 10 feet for every token pumped. Extra water may be stored in reservoirs.
**Summer**
Cities or Farms that did not receive water are removed. NorCal player is fined 1 victory point for each ecosystem lacking water. Players collect 3 Cash for any remaining city and 1 Cash for any remaining farm.
**Fall**
Starting with the player with Water Right #1, Cash can be spent as follows:
- Buying new Cities (cost: 8) or Farms (cost: 2)
- Buying water infrastructure such as additional reservoirs or other tokens such as the Water Recycling Plant or Efficiency Upgrade. (cost is printed on tokens).
- Buying Victory Point tokens. (cost is printed on tokens).
- Place purchased tokens on the board in the player's region.
===Ending the Game===
The game ends immediately when the last Victory Point is purchased. Whoever has the most VP's wins.
Great feedback.
I'm thinking the Water Rights won't be random. This also presents the opportunity to give one player a small reliable amount of water, and another a larger but irregular amount. It also allows for a more realistic representation of the actual situation.
Here's how I envision some tradeoffs in the game:
- Victory points are cheaper in the beginning, but wait too long to buy them and there might not be any left. This leads to the tradeoff of when to invest vs. when to cash out (similar to Dominion).
- The tragedy of the commons is a dominant theme - if all players just build farms and cities, everyone ends up losing when the groundwater runs out and there isn't enough money to invest in infrastructure.
- One player (NorCal) has their score heavily tied to overall environmental quality, thus creating an incentive for them to try to negotiate conservation, and possibly even pay for other player's infrastructure and water. At the same time the NorCal player can also win by building more cities and buying VP's, or selling water to SoCal and buying VP's.
- The SoCal player has lots of cash and can choose to either invest in water recycling and conservation, or use the money to buy water from the Central Valley or NorCal.
- The Central Valley player starts with lots of water but low cash. To successfully transition from farms to cities they need to sell water at a relatively high price, and therefore has an incentive to see NorCal or SoCal short on water (either as a consequence of reckless city building or groundwater pumping).