[Rails-devel] StartRound etc.

[Erik V. <eri...@hc...>]

I have committed a whole bunch of changes, mainly
in connection with the implementation of StartRound_1830,
a class that implements the main part of an 1830-like private
buying-and-bidding round. The single-private auction, where two or more
players are bidding or passing for one private, is not yet
implemented (currently, the highest initial bidder gets the private).
Auctioning may become a separate Round subclass,
but I'm not sure yet.

Also implemented are the Start packets - a separate section
in CompanyManager.xml. For 1830-like games that may look like
overkill, but we will need that for 1835-like games.
(The base prices are now defined twice, only one of these will be retained).
The "free" PRR and B&O shares (for 1830) come with the privates,
and the B&O start price must be set on buying the related private.

The general procedure to be followed by the UI is like;

forever {
   Round currentRound = GameManager.getCurrentRound();
   if (currentRound instanceof StartRound) {
       int step = ((StartRound)currentRound).nextStep();
       if (step == StartRound.BID_OR_BUY) {
           // set up UI for a bid/buy action
       } else if step == StartRound.SET_PRICE) {
           // set up UI for setting a start price (i.e. B&O)
       }
   } else if (currentRound instanceof StockRound) {
       // Set up UI for the next stock round action
   } else if (currentRound instanceof OperatingRound) {
       int step = ((OperatingRound)currentRound).nextStep();
       if (step == OperatingRound.LAY_TRACK) {
           // set up UI for track laying. 
           // Currently only the cash spent can be processed.
       } else .....
   }
   
    // process player action, by calling currentRound methods,
    // depending on the currentRound instance and the value of step.
}

Please note, that processing player actions may change the result
of GameManager.getCurrentRound(), so it is important to call 
getCurrentRound() between a processing player action and setting up
the UI for the next action.
Round switching is done by the various Round classes in cooperation 
with GameManager.

BTW GameManager is currently a curious mix of static and non-static methods.
I'm not yet sure which way it will go. Maybe we will need different 
GameManager classes.

There is still much to clean up and refine, but I think it was time
to get some clarity on how the View/Model (i.e. UI/Round) interfaces
could look like. 

test.GameTestServlet works, and may provide code examples.
I will shortly publish some new HTML output examples.

There is a lot more to tell, but for now this should do (and it's very
late).

Erik.