Re: [Rails-devel] Rails 1.4 18EU playtest with commentary

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

All good suggestions, and all of these would make nice entries in the
Feature Request or Bug Report lists. That would have the added benefit that
any discussions can be saved there too.

Some comments from my side; some aspects I will have to leave to Stefan.

Just one general remark: some ideas sound simple, and in theory anything is
possible, but we should keep in mind that there is always a price, however
small. Additional complexity, slower speed, or just larger code. We should
not make Rails so big that the word "bloated" starts coming to mind.

Erik

-----Original Message-----
From: John David Galt [mailto:jd...@di...] 
Sent: Saturday 11 September 2010 04:32
To: rai...@li...
Subject: [Rails-devel] Rails 1.4 18EU playtest with commentary

Comments on Rails 1.4, tested with a four player game of 18EU  2010-09-09

General comments:

*  In the "select game" dialog box, changing to a different game should not
cause all players to be set back to "none" and the names blanked.

[EV] Sure. That's a bug to me.

*  The map should show "Y", where needed, on unbuilt city hexes.  This is a
major annoyance during the start round, because it affects both the city's
revenue and the possible shapes of the yellow tile, so not seeing it makes
it hard to predict the values of minors.  (Yes, I know, I can find this out
by mousing-over each one, but that is annoying.)

[EV] I'm a bit surprised that you consider this an annoyance. For me, the
hard and fast rule is that all minor start cities are either preprinted
yellow or Y cities, and vice versa. But it is easy to create an extra blank
Y city tile, so that's on my list.

*  The map also ought to show the values of red areas.  (I would treat each
one as a "tile" with a negative number that gets upgraded by phase changes.)

[EV] Creating a separate red tile for each possible revenue value sounds
like overkill to me. Another idea could be to overprint red tiles with the
current revenue value. The problem is that such values will look similar to
tile laying cost.
Talking about "the map" - I would love it if we would have map images (as
SVG files). Then we could show any info we would like.

*  Entering a comment before the first action in the game should be allowed.

*  Entering two comments in a row should append, not replace.

[EV] I leave these two for Stefan.

*  It would be nice if the Game Status window had a column showing each
player's total income in the last round.  This would act as a reminder that
the player who is falling furthest behind had better DO SOMETHING! (and
conversely, that the player who is making the most money should probably not
change the status quo, by buying lots of trains or starting new companies).

[EV] Great suggestion. High on my list.

*  It would be nice if the program could remember (or let you save in a
config file) the locations of every window, so you don't have to move them
manual every time you start a game (and often afterward too).  I always use
these settings.
   Stock market: upper left corner of screen
   "Game Status" tabulation/stock round input: lower left corner of screen
   Map/operating round input: upper right corner of screen (and don't allow
       the height to self-adjust so it's taller than the screen height minus
       the Windows menu bar -- it now does so at the start of every OR until
       there are too few companies to cause it (in my case, 10 companies).
       The map also moves so it extends about an inch to the right of the
       screen, every time.)
   History/comment window: lower right corner

[EV] I believe Stefan is already considering this one.

All of the above apply to all games, except that I believe the 1830 and 1835
maps do show you where the lettered tiles go.  Due credit: 18EU does show
the two "B-V" hexes.

Start round:

*  It would be nice to have alternate starts available, such as any
   combination of:
   $400 each to start;
   all starting prices reduced to $50;
   bidding round order 1,2,3,4,4,3,2,1,1,2,3,4,4,3,2.

[EV] "such as" - where do the possibilities end? However, your suggestions
sound like a sensible subset of the infinite universe of possible
alternatives.

*  "Unlimited tiles" should not be an all-or-nothing setting: there should
be a setting to make only #7, #8, and #9 unlimited (this is what the rules
say to do in 18EU, 1826, and 1853v2, and probably many other games).

[EV] I cannot find this in the 18EU rules. However, it's a common extension,
and I agree that it could be a generic option.

*  Bids (above the starting value) look the same as the prices of things
you've already bought.  Please change this: it makes it nonobvious who
already owns more companies than others.

*  There should be some visual indication of which players can still bid on
the current item.

*  A player is correctly skipped when an item someone else selected for
bidding would cost more than he has.  But if it's your turn to select an
item and you have less than $100, "Bid" ought to be grayed out and isn't.

[EV] Three sensible UI improvements for the start rounds.

Operating rounds:

*  The map should show the reserved hexes controlled by certain minors.
(I don't expect them to be enforced yet, just shown.)

[EV] Agree. I think there should be a generic configuration option to add
any text to any tile.

*  Please enforce the rule that minors can't lay green tiles.

[EV] I'm pretty sure that this worked correctly until recently. Stefan, I
think to have been working on the tile laying rules - can you please check?

*  When no tile lay is legally possible, please skip the tile-lay step.
(Which would mean that after the first couple of rounds, most minors' tile-
lay step would be skipped, speeding up the game a lot.)

[EV] This can only be done if the current disconnect between knowing about
legal lays (in the UI only) and the round/step management (in the game
engine) has been fixed. Be aware, though, that any additional action skips
will make all previous saved files unloadable, insofar these contain
pass/done actions that are now skipped. I'm very reluctant to do add or
remove such steps, as that will (again) invalidate many of my saved files
that I use for testing.

*  When placing tile #581 (green upgrade) in Berlin and trying it both ways
it will go, the tokens that are already there (#9 and KPEV, which I formed
from #7) are shown, respectively, along the SE and NW edges, rather than the
NE and SW which are the existing connections they must keep.  They move to
the correct places once I make the tile lay final, but showing them wrong
makes it harder to place the tile correctly.

[EV] Will look at that. Don't hold your breath - token repositioning on
upgrades is one of the most complex processes we now have.

*  It would be nice if I were allowed to have the program compute runs
before I decide what tile to lay.  Sometimes a company is so spread out it
isn't obvious where its trains are going.  (Of course I can always work
around this by skipping the tile lay step, then "undo".)

[EV] That's again for Stefan, I think.

*  When deciding whether to pay, split, or withhold, it would be nice if
the screen showed how much money the company will have after each choice.
This isn't always easy to work out in your head, especially if there are
some shares paying dividends into the treasury.  This goes for all games.

[EV] Where should the screen show that? Below each of these buttons? 

*  Please get rid of the pop-up "<company> owns no trains, so revenue is
$0."  Instead, just silently skip the revenue-setting step.

[EV] Agree. 

*  The column that now reports "Pay out", "Withhold", or "Split" for the
last turn of each company ought to say "$0 income" (or maybe "No run" or
"No train") when that is true, so it doesn't look like the owner chose to
withhold.

[EV] A sensible refinement.

*  A company's train-buying step is correctly skipped if it has no room for
another train, but it should also be skipped (that is, "Buy Train" should
be grayed out) if the company has $0 and at least one train.  Similarly, if
a company spends its last dollar on a train (including forced purchases),
its train-buying step should immediately end.
(I believe this goes for all games -- or does anyone on this list really
think that any game exists in which a train "purchase" from another company
for $0 is allowed?  But even if you do, it's explicitly banned in 18EU.)

[EV] Right, but see my above remark on skipping existing actions.

*  When it's impossible for the company to buy or sell any treasury shares,
the TRADING TREASURY SHARES step should be skipped.  (I'm mostly thinking
of the situation when all shares of the company are owned by players, but
it also applies if the company has no shares in treasury and has too little
cash to buy one from the bank pool, or there are 5 shares in the bank pool
and the company has too little cash to buy one.)  Because of the change of
focus, this is a major waste of time, especially in the late game when the
only shares not owned by players are those of companies that were never
started.

[EV] Yes, that makes sense, but see above.

*  Buying and selling treasury stock works correctly, except one minor
detail: when I mouse-over the "treasury shares" column, the tooltip says
"click to select for buying" (even though it would be selling).

[EV] OK.

Stock rounds:

*  When floating a new company, if I buy until I have 60% and then merge in
another minor company (to get more than 60% until the next stock round,
which is specifically allowed in the rules) the exchange occurs but the
"Done" button stays grayed out, making it impossible to continue the game
without Undoing the exchange.

[EV] Will look at that bug (if Stefan doesn't beat me)

*  If I start a company (purchase the president's share) and then Undo the
act of forming it, the status window continues to show the company with the
share price I set.

[EV] Guess we're missing a state variable here.

*  When I buy shares from a company's treasury, the amount of money in that
treasury is usually not updated right away.

[EV] OK

Ending:

*  Please get rid of BOTH pop-ups saying the bank has broken.  Instead,
just change the space on the Game Status window where the amount of money
in the bank is normally shown to say "BROKEN", maybe in bright colors.

[EV] The former is simple, the latter a bit less so, but I agree.

*  The repeated pop-ups that "count down" to the winning player are even
more annoying.

[EV] Fully agree. Luckily I can plead innocence here...

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