Horseless Carriage

• Quick start
• Main board
• Setup
• Factories
• Player Hands
• Credits

Quick start

1. Click the Setup toolbar button to open the setup window.
2. Click on checkboxes to add players to the game. Rename if desired.
3. Click the 'set up' button, which becomes available after at least 3 player boxes are checked.
4. Players should click on their brand icon on the toolbar to view their factories.
5. Players should drag their initial planning and research departments from the loading bay to the factory floor.
6. Click the 'place buyers' button.

Alternatively, steps 4 and 5 can be left until after placing initial buyers. It makes little difference.

Toolbar and Main board

           Undo your previous action.

           Step through log files used in asynchronous games.

           Open a server control window for online games.

           Open this help text.

           Change sides or leave the game to free up your seat for another player.

           Open the setup window.

               Open factory windows.

               Open player hand windows.

           Open a window that allows for note taking.

1 Toolbar

           Create an image of the entire board at the current zoom setting.

           Zoom in on the board.

           Select zoom (default is 21%, mouseover zoom is 100%).

           Zoom out from the board.

Advance the phase indicator. Use of this button is entirely optional and not required for any automation.

Automate the admin phase, based on the market stretch values set by players on their factory dealerships. Increases amounts of Gantt charts and places appropriate market windows on the board for all players. Also moves the timecard marker if appropriate, and moves brand pieces to their Historical Focus positions.

Automate the entire admin phase. Removes the old research track, increases the minimum specs, moves the obsolescense marker, determines and places the new research track, updates the min spec axis. Also deletes buyers moved off the market next to main board dealerships, and clears market windows from the market.

Only works when player cards equal to the number of players have been placed on the market board. Automate the remainder of the phase. Moves player cards to discard piles, places sparks, advances the timecard marker, places buyers, collects neutral cards, deals neutral cards, places neutral buyers, and sets prices. Also increments the Year count.

2 Dealership information

This is where duplicates of dealerships placed on factory floors will appear.

This is an example of a dealership that it adjacent to one marketing department so it has a Medium (M) market stretch, and one car mainline with assembly capacity 4 and specs of speed 1, design 2, reliability 3, safety 0, range 2.

These numbers are NOT updated automatically. To keep other players informed, and to generate the correct size of sales window, a player must update the dealership on their factory floor, as shown below.

3 Market windows and factory information

This is where market windows generated by 'Print sales brochures' will appear, and where buyers sold from the market will be moved. The Planning, Research, and Total Assembly Capacity numbers are updated automatically based on factory floor layouts and current assembly capacity.

If a player forgets to update their market stretch, sales windows can be exchanged by right-clicking them.

4 Market

All spark and buyer placement is automated, as is the sale price indicator.

Right-clicking a buyer or stack of buyers shows a menu of possible sales from the dealerships placed in your factory. Selecting a dealership will send the buyer(s) over to your market window area (3), next to the selected dealership (2), and increase your wealth accumulation score by the appropriate amount.

If a mistakes is made, buyers and sparks can be adjusted by holding down SHIFT to select a market niche, then right-clicking.

5 Phase indicator

The current year and phase are indicated here. Clicking the toolbar buttons will change this, but the phase indicator is merely a reference for players and has no effect on automation.

6 Discards

Cards are discarded here for review, according to the quadrants they were played in. Clicking 'Grow demand' always return the neutral cards to the deck before shuffling and drawing more.

7 Pieces

Brand pieces moved on research tracks or the assembly capacity track will affect the timecard marker and assembly capacity indicators.
There are two of each brand piece on the wealth accumulation track. If players choose to drag and drop these pieces to track wealth instead of right-clicking buyers, the brand piece that started on top is the one that should be used for the 0-50 numbers, and the lower brand piece for the +50 to +150 boxes.

Grow demand, print sales brochures, and research all move the timecard marker when required, and the marker will flip instead of moving to zero. There should be no need to ever manually drag this piece, but it can be moved and flipped if required.

There should be no need to ever select the research tracks or minimum spec pieces, but holding SHIFT while clicking makes it possible to do so.

Setup window

Clicking a box will add or remove that player colour from the game.

Clicking a name will prompt you to input a replacement name

The set up button only becomes available when the player count is 3-5. After the first click, it changes to 'place buyers', and after the second click it becomes inactive.

Set up randomises the research boards and initial player focus and corresponding Gantt charts, and deletes all unused components (brand pieces, extra tiles, factory floor pieces).

The game must be set up using this window, otherwise the module will not function.

Factories

All tiles can be moved by dragging, and some can be rotated and flipped by right-clicking.

Departments, mainlines, and technology stations can be taken from the main board by right-clicking your factory floor.

Spec indicators can be placed by right-clicking technology stations.

Sales departments start in a stack. Vassal stacks can be expanded by double-clicking in order to select single pieces.

Dealerships have buttons on them to track market stretch and the number and specs of attached mainlines. Adjacency is NOT automatically detected, these buttons must be used to keep dealership information up to date.

Player hands

Cards in hand all occupy the same coordinates, as a horizontally splayed stack that can be rearranged.

Credits

Module made and art assets used with permission from Splotter.




Please contact Benkyo on boardgamegeek.com or vassalengine.org with any questions about the module or suggestions for improvement.