This Website is devoted to questions, comments, and player notes relating to Avalanche Press' card game "AIRLINES."
Does this mean that an EXTRA scoring takes place? Does it mean that the rest of the players (who have not yet played this month) do not get an opportunity to play? Also, you have to explain what happens to a player that is unable to maintain all of his/her gates/hubs/planes when forced to do so.
ANSWER
The special symbols are explained in the symbol portion of the rules. They are broken down into category by card type. An example would be, if a WEATHER card appears in the EAST, and you have EWR in play with AIRCRAFT at it, you have to total all your AIRCRAFT Seats into a single total and halve the amount taken. If, however, the Aircraft have the Artificial Horizon indicator on them (the same one that is on the Weather Card) that AIRCRAFT's Seats are NOT added into the total. I try to move my planes around to position such aircraft at those kind of airports.
Score Immediately means AT THE MOMENT THE CARD IS PLAYED, TAKING INTO ACCOUNT ANY RESPONSE CARDS, adjust seats. There will be the usual scoring of seats at rounds end.
Do you add/subtract before or after you multiply? For example, if I am being affected by a Fare War and bad weather strikes, do I subtract one before I divide by 2 or after?
Weather effects are levied first because that is done by airport totals specifically. Fare Wars are adjust "en mass" based on the airports you are at with a Fare Warring Airline. The two are not related. Immaterial to the weather result, if you are present with an Airline in Fare War at an airport, you lose a seat.
In reality, MORE people fly during a Fare War, not less?
What is reflected here is that, even though you are "flying more seats" you are not truely collecting the same value for those seats (null inventory is the actual term- the concept is equivilant to a "Loss Leader" item in a food store). Upon In effect you are taking paid inventory from the other guys but because your price is so low, your not really gaining the seat. It is truely and offensive move against other lines.
The rules state that they can only be moved to other gates at the same airport, but there is no reason that an airplane's main base could not be moved to another location.
Aircraft can be moved during the movement portion of a player's turn. There are two distinct parts of this move.
1. Players can always rearrange aircraft at an airport (hubs or gates) freely. This was called "a move" in the rules but more properly should be called a rearrangement.
2. Players may move a number of their aircraft between different airports equal to the number of hubs in play. The move must conform to the following. Plane(s) may move from...
Or as put in the rules, a move must always involve movement to or from a HUB. Humorous note here; we noticed the non wargamers always get this one- the wargames always over read it. None-the-less clairification is needed and that will be attended to.
We experimented with a number of ways to play this. We feel that the one in the rules is the best way to play. We found that to many play cards at once can have a negative effect. (We tried, 2- 3- full replenishment of hand) etc. However, that being said, you can play by drawing two cards a turn or one of two variants below:
The "hub" variant which allows you to draw one card per HUB in play. This tends to make the big guy even bigger but we have seen it go different ways.
The "Players Draw" variant. Each player draws a number of cards equal to the number of players in the game. If 2, each draw 2; if 3, each draw 3, if four, each draw four.
Some rules to remember when accelerating Airlines:
We suggest as an alternative that when playing with the REAL LIFE VARIANT (quarterly maintenace scoring) omit one (1) of the two FUEL PRICE INCREASE CARDs.
Welcome to the rule we PURPOSELY left out! Aircraft Bidding. Its not quite a real world process, but the effects are VERY real world. It was just too much to put in anything but a AIRLINES addict rule book. Here it is...
Whenever a Aircraft is drawn from the deck, the player drawing it announces an AIRCRAFT BIDDING round. Bids are in Seats. No limit. Negative scores are possible (consider yourself debt spending- the big guys did in the mid 80's.) Auction bid- with the drawing player being both bidder and auctioneer (be fair now!). Highest bid wins.
At first it might seem simplistic but this approach is diabolical and makes people really think out cost-to-profit ratios on each aircraft much the same way the Airlines actually do. Some folks will even buy an aircraft to keep it out of the hands of others discarding it later in the year (you can discard right from the table any aircraft. Just remember, discard always ends a turn.
Yes, there is a Tournament format for AIRLINES. A Tournament requires 12 to 16 players.
Tourament games should be played four or three player, elimination sequence (like the NCAA basketball tournaments). Three year, real life varient should be played.
Thus, if 12 players are in a tournament. (works the same if there are 12, 13, 14, 15, or 16 players. Simply load some tables with three and some with four.)
Each Semi Final takes the number 1 and number two player from two tables and creates two four player games. The final takes the two top players from each semi final table and creates one last 3 year, four player, game.
Always start a hand with 2 gates, and 4 Aircraft with 8 seat / 4 maintenance split as follows
This is a completely ballanced start.
Tournaments may (and should) use Aircraft Bidding. If used, use for all rounds (First, Semi Final, and Final.)
In the second and third year, the player who scored the most seats in the previous year (year 1 for year 2, year 2 for year 3) plays first.
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