Recently I got a copy of
Detroit-Cleveland Grand Prix in the
NZ Only Math Trade. Published by Mayfair Games in 1996 it is the newest in a family of very similar car racing games by
Wolfgang Kramer, which started with
Niki Lauda's Formel 1 from 1980. The design seems to have changed very little over the 16 years.
Detroit-Cleveland Grand Prix comes with a double sided board (unsupprisingly Detroit race track is on one side and Cleveland on the other). Six car race regardless of the number of players. Players are dealt a hand of cards which have movement numbers for one or more of the cars. When a card is played, the cars are advanced the number of spaces indicated in order from top to bottom. However, if the track is blocked, then that movement is lost. After the deal the cars are auctioned off to the players and there is prize money for each race ($200,000 for 1st place down to $10,000 for 6th place but nothing for cars that don't finish). Each race is one lap. The winner of the game is the richest player after 3 races.
The deck is 49 cards. 39 of the cards move 1 to 6 cars, 1 to 6 spaces. The other 10 cards include a 10 movement card for each car that is auctioned off with the car, 10 movement wild card which is not part of the standard deck (and seems overly powerful) and 3 switch cards (that seem very weak). According to the rules all the cards apart from the 10 point cards are dealt out and it doesn't matter if some players get more cards than others. That felt wrong to me and I suspect it would feel wrong to many of the people I play with. So I unilaterally decided to deal out as evenly as possible and then give any remaining cards face down to the owners of the cars at the back of the starting grid. (I also decided to leave out the weak sounding switch cards and overpowered wild 10).
The first game I played was a 2 player game with Anne. We played the Detroit race track. This meant we were playing 3 cars each. We ended each race with at least 6 cards in hand (no risk of any cars not finishing). There was one odd card with 2 players. This game took a very long time to play, in particular Anne took a long time to play each card. Possibly having 3 cars each and 22 or 23 cards each made it too complex for what it is.
A few days later we introduced Jarratt and Peter to the Cleveland circuit. There were 3 odd card and in each race half the players had 2 cars while the other half had one. This meant that hand sizes varied between 10 and potentially 13 cards. Sometimes people didn't have enough cards to finish, which made the game more interesting.
The following week we switched back to the Detroit track and this time had 5 players (Andrew and Lance being the newbies). Only one person got a second car each race and there were 4 odd cards so hand sizes varied between 8 and 11 cards. Anne won first race, I won the second race, possibly Peter won the last race. Everyone agreed that we should swap seats after the auction so that players sit in the order of their cars on the starting grid (which is suggested as a tornament variant in the rule book).
The next game was a 6 player game on the Detroit track again. Following our discussion on Wednesday we did swap seats after the auction. But the auction wasn't really that interesting - a couple of cars were fought over but otherwise people only paid $10,000. Surprisingly the cars all finished. There were 3 extra cards and with one car each so each player had 7 or 8 cards. It seemed that the cars at the back of the grid had a better chance of winning (possibly due to the extra card). The races were won by Nigel, Andrew P and Anna. Anne came last in every race.
Our latest game was with 3 players. The 39 cards deal out nicely. Andrew paid lots for his cars in the first race but came in 1st. In the second race he came in 1st and 2nd and had a substantial lead in cash.
Having
played 5 games in about 3 weeks with 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 players I am left with the strong impression that this is a game for 3 or 4 players. With 2 players it seems that there are too many cards, giving too many choices (potentially causing analysis paralysis) and hence that it is too easy to get all 6 cars home. With 3 players there are 2 cars each (2 cars give more opportunities for clever play than 1 car) and the 39 “basic” cards deal out evenly – things are nicely balanced. With 4 players half will get 2 cars and half will not and the 3 odd cards seem to benefit the players with cars at the back of the grid, on the positive side the game is competitive, it is a pity that there aren’t 40 basic cards. With 5 players most players will get only 1 car (which is a little boring) and the 4 odd cards counts against the players at the front of the grid. With 6 players the auction becomes a lot less relevant with most people getting a car for the minimum $10,000. With only 1 car and less interesting auctions the game is not as interesting for 5 or 6 players as it is for 3 or 4.
It does seem odd that even though this game has gone through 5 incarnations over 16 years the basic rules seem to be the same and even the basic card deck hasn't changed much including the over powered 10 point wild card, the wierd switch cards and the lack of a satisfactory way of dealing out cards with variable numbers of players. The changes seem mostly to be in the different race tracks and extra rules (slipstreaming and banked curves in Daytona 500, betting and pitstops in Top Race etc).
There are a number of variants discussed on BGG and
other websites -- many of them to do with
alternative uses for the switch cards. Though I didn't see any to do with uneven deal. So perhaps I am making too much out of this perceived problem.
I had thought that the extra cards could be auctioned off either before or after the cars were auctioned. But would anyone pay $10,000 for a card if they had paid $10,000 for a car? My idea of adding the cards to the cars at the back of the grid is not perfect (it seems to advantage those cars too much), so I’d be keen on trying a different solution, perhaps even the original uneven deal idea.
I am also keen on trying my hand at designing my own track, and the basic structure of the game seems sound enough to allow us to bolt on extra rules like the slipstreaming rule for
Daytona 500 or Andrew’s suggestion that instead of auctioning the total ownership of the cars, that share are sold instead (a bit like
Manila or
Cable Car).
Ultimately this game has more than justified the trade I made for it.
