SpielByWeb

[The Thumb]

Strictly speaking this follows rules I guess, but in reality the Auction House and Castle are independent areas and face to face we'll often parallel them to speed things up. This is even more potent here as I'm in the Castle now, alone and I seemingly have to wait for someone in the Acuction house to play a card before I'm alowed to exhibit. I'd rather just exhibit and when they are done get on with the next turn.

True some people may conceivable (barely) want to se the outcome of teh Auction house before deciding what to play in the Castle, but if these really need catering for that's easy too by making parallelism optional. In short, I could now play by exhibit OR wait for the Auction House to complete then play it. To avoid a recursive wait the outcome of my Exhibit (or any otehr card) is NOT displayed on the pages viewed by people in the Auction house (i.e. from their perspective has not happened yet) until they have chosen their cards.

Easy enough to implement really and streamlines the game some.

Cheers,

Bernd.
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Bernd Wechner

[mrbass]

There are tons of reasons NOT to cicurmvent the rules. Too busy to list them all but the way it is now is correct.

[The Thumb]

[mrbass]

If a player shows their exhibit say A,B,C,C and another exhibits A,A,B,C and then it's the persons turn who won the auction has a choice between E or B which one do you think he would take if he already had B,C,D,E in his hand? Obviously E unless it's a 1600 card or something. Without prior knowledge though the winner of the auction can't screw the people who exhibit. Must I go on?

[Sparrowhawk]

I don't see a problem with it.

If I am exhibiting and I don't care what the auction winner picks then it saves everyone time if I can choose my exhibition before the auction is concluded.

The game doesnt have to immediately show my choice. It can show it in the proper order, so the person in the auction has no advantage.

[Kanga]

I would be in favour of the changes above; this game drags on way too long for the lightweight game that it is. Anything to speed it up would make it much more playable. I dont see any significant disadvantages of submitting moves at the same time.

[The Thumb]

Other seem to have grasped the point mr bass? Allowing me to optionally to make my move now because I don't care about what the people in the other house do is empowering as I may be about to head out the door to web silence for 8 or 16 hours. Making me wait, forces everyone else wait till I get back.

Now the site does not have to show the result of my choice, nor that I have even made a choice to any other player at all until the proper turn sequence has arrived. basically I am queuing a move in advance knowing I don't care about what the others are doing.

This is so usual as to be mundane to my mind. It's like voting by proxy at an auction. You queu up your instructions and let them do the work. This is the point of a good e-game system to my mind to help make things flow.

A powerful engine would even allow me to select conditional moves. I do X if A eventuates or Y if B eventuates, and then this happens on my bhalf as instructed while I'm asleep in bed and my co-p;layers are up wanting me to move so they can respond. But I wasn't even asking for that kind of power really, that's a second step again. The first step is to allow the queueing of an unconditional move if I know what I'll do regardless.

In response to your example then two points:

1) The exhibitions of A,B,C,C and A,A,B,C are not made visible to the person in the auction house. Instead, when they make their move and it is resloved, suddenly the exhibits happen even though the first two players are at home in bed. Now the player in the auction house can immediately choose a new location again and go to bed. Hence players synchonicity is wildly enhanced.

2) I don't even understand why you'd choose E. I can't see any reason to choose B or E at all that is overweighing - and I've playe dthis game for years now and loved it. If I choose E then it's not available to those two exhibitionists should they go to the auction house next turn, so what? If I choose B the same is true? either wa I have no idea what I'm uncovering when I choose B or E and if I were either of the two exhibitionists I'd be glad that the B was still in auction house as that's what I'd want to complement the hand of A,B,C,C or A,A,B,C. But in the Auction house I have no idea what other cards the exhibitionists have in their hands (bar the count, but even that isn't really known when we play face to face!) . Either B or E would do me fine thanks, and if you can see a good reason why E is an apparently obvious choice, I'm all ears again ...
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Bernd Wechner

[mrbass]

[The Thumb]

Have to confess I still have no idea why you'd choose E in that scenario let alone why that choice would be obvious ... fill me in, I'm curious to know what I'm missing.
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Bernd Wechner

[mrbass]

Why let the other two get E when neither has it. Also break chains when possible. I've seen players have 9 or 10 cards and have one crucial link missing like A,A,B,C,C,C,D,D,F

Well you say doesn't matter...but it does as when A,F are at the auction house usually fewer go to the auction house as those two are the LEAST valuable cards usually. Also how do we know if they don't have a couple of F cards in their hand.

Not sure..I've only learned this game like 3 or 4 months ago so it's just my way of playing. Perhaps I'm totally off who knows.

[The Thumb]

Well, I'd take B if I were either of the exhibitioners because the best set of cards is all one letter. The mroe duplicates youh ave theb etter and the more robust you are against theievery. I'd much sooner exhibit A,A,A,B,B,B than A,B,C,D,E,F. And so as exhibitionist I'd want B not E because both already had B's and (possibly) not Es.

As auction House guy then if I wanted to bug them I'd pick the B, but I would never do that because the chance that either of them will visit the Auction house next round to pick up the B, when they didn't this round is low. Clearly they are not so desperate for a B or E to be in the auction house now, they are in the castle instead. So next turn the same is likely to be true.

Beyond that the variables explode beyond any ned to pursue them, but ther eis nothing obvious about it. They could have a B stolen for example (if there was also a thief in the castle that turn - and if there was they would almost certainly take both B's to break the exhibitors runs) then they might indeed aim for the auction house next turn to get the B!

BUT even this misses the whole point. This is nothing more than fance paper, sciscors, rock. A barrel of fnu with great thematics but sitll just guessig and second guessing. No matter how obviously either of them might want a B, and hence be at the Auction house, equally obviously they may not do that because it's predictable. In short, I win this game often by being wholly unpredictable. The more you can find yourself alone in either the castle or the auction house the better off you'll be and the more you find yoruself alone playing a thief the better off you'll be. And the only way to be alone is ensure the otehrs can't predict what you'll do.

Hence reason is out the door, as it is in paper, scissors, rock, and you just do the unpredictable.

I remember winning one game by a mile simply by playing the castle from the first turn on, non stop, castle, castle, castle, castle, castle, castle and then out of the blue, auction house just once, near the end game . Between thieving in the castle and exhibiting there and catching theives I ran ahead of the crowd somehow.

But it's not about winning oddly enough because it's ulitmately a game of enormous chance (as are bluff games) and teasing. It's a game of thatrics in a sense which is lost on-line anyhow and I accepted an invite to play with reservations. The joy of this game for us has always ben laughing outrageously at peoples attempts to second guess an doutguess one another and failing or scoring ...
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Bernd Wechner

[mrbass]

[The Thumb]

[The Thumb]

For the record, it looks like this was implemented. I just bought an item in the Auction house and voila immediately the people in the Castle showed up with the cards they'd seelcted and the exhibitioners are now up to select their exhibitions.

This could also optionally be permitted as a queued move of course, but it's unlikely anyone would ever choose to make one in advace as the size and makeup of you exhibition is a storng function of whether there are any thieves about ot not!
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Bernd Wechner

[ThomasMeeks]

afs The Link is not allowed until you have made 10 posts.