Automobile vs Lokomotive Werks

There has been a good bit of chatter recently comparing Martin Wallace's latest creation, Automobile to Dieter Danziger's Lokomotive Werks. Following the common trend these days, where any discussion that involves Winsome Games in any way or Martin Wallace, these talks tend to degrade rather quickly into pointless drivel and name calling. So I am going to keep this analysis relegated to this blog and to the few people who actually read it. But I am interested in the comparison so I thought it would be fun to write.

First, the different categories of factories (Luxury, Mid-Range, and Low-Range) mean more in Automobile than in LW. Or at least they affect demand very differently. In LW, lower factories are punished via the removal of dice and thus a reduction in demand. In Auto, all factories face the same demand, though lower tech level factories sell later in turn order than the better factories, but in general, they still only sell 1 car per action. In Automobile, one of the primary reasons to upgrade factories is to manage your accumulation of “loss cubes” which you have to pay cash for at the end of each turn. The lower the factory, the more loss cubes it will give you. This really creates a different feel to the game. Different things to think about and different reasons to upgrade or not to upgrade your factories. Another important fact is that, at the end of the game, you get 100% cash paybacks for any factories you have not closed in Automobile, so you do need to think about closing down a space or leaving it up and running for end of game payback. If you close it earlier, you lose $100 per factory/parts factory that you close (you get paid back Building Cost-100).

Second, demand is established differently and fulfilled differently in Automobile. In LW, of course, you have the random roll of dice, with each die representing 1 customer. In Auto, each player knows only a portion of the total demand for the Auto types. And cars are generally sold 1 car/factory moving down the tech tree. Thus it is often the case that the lower factories will have only 1 less selling opportunity than the highest factories (at least in my first 3p game). And Auto includes a secondary method for selling cards, i.e., the distributors. This gives players the opportunity to sell excess cars if they wish, prior to the selling to the demand spaces. On the other hand, if you use a valuable action to place distributors, then you grant other players the opportunity to sell more cards during that phase, so there is an interesting trade-off.

Third, in LW, you upgrade your factories which then automatically produce that number of items. In Auto, you choose how many cards each factory will produce AND you have to pay for that production. This adds a great deal of tension into the game, especially since adding additional factories to a space forces you to up the minimum number of cards that you will produce in that space.

Fourth, the 4 turn game limit of Auto makes it much quicker. Our first 3p game lasted only about 70 minutes after teaching. I was definitely a fan of that!

I guess, all in all, the two games are somewhat comparable, and it is safe to say that many of the strategies that are evident in one are, to some level, in the other. But it is not fair to say that they are the same game. I think you understand the point. It is not as simple as comparing Small World to Vinci or even Pampas to Wabash. The only real similarity in the two is that you have factories that players build, some are better than others and it sucks to have worse factories when better ones are now built. And demand is unknown. Using that base, and then getting to the end game win condition is achieved in an entirely different way.