[Rails-devel] Test report: 1835 in Rails 1.5.1 (Windows XP)

[John D. G. <jd...@di...>]

Observations in playtest game of 1835 on Rails 1.5.1 on 2011-10-10.

1. I appreciate the changing of major company abbrevs to two letters, but
the "Bay" president's share in starting packet seems to have been left out.

2. During a starting packet purchase round, if a player cannot take any
action (has too little money to buy anything currently available) a popup
appears "[name] cannot buy anything" with an OK button.  If two players are
skipped they are combined on one popup.  That's cute, but I'd prefer the
turns be silently skipped.

Oddly enough, the stock round behavior is not the same.  If a player cannot
take any action on his stock turn (he has too little money to buy anything
currently available, and owns nothing that can currently be sold) he still
gets a turn, even though "Pass" and "Autopass" are the only actions
allowed.  Again, I'd prefer the turn be silently skipped.

3. If the start packet does not sell out in first round, the unsold shares
are not accounted for in the "Game Status" window.  They do not appear in
the IPO column, bank pool, or anywhere else.  (I suggest adding a column
for "Reserved" shares -- which would also include the 60% of PR that will
be exchanged for privates and minors.)

4. The bug reported in Game Notes, where the game would hang if the By did
not float in the first round, is no longer fatal, at least for me.

To be exact: As soon as the "Start Round" is passed out, focus moves to the
Game Status window, and its "Pass" and "Autopass" buttons change color as
if they'd been enabled (but that window's name does NOT change to "Stock
Round [n]", and a popup "Error: No action available" appears).

I worked around this by simply doing File -> Save on the menu bar and
saving the game.  (A restore wasn't needed.)  This moved the focus to the
map window and made it an operating round, which of course is how it should
have been.  When the OR finished, "Start Round" reappeared on the screen.

5. Nit: The first operating round is still "0.1".

6. The columns "Current" through "Tokens" on the Game Status window are too
wide, apparently because they've been constrained to match the line showing
the number of trains of each future type.  I would prefer that the list of
future trains be allowed to word-wrap, especially because it already takes
up two lines if any player owns two private companies.

7. I really appreciate your enabling scroll bars on the Game Status window
so that the window no longer frequently and automatically changes size.

I propose a similar change to the Map window, which seems to frequently set
itself to extend way beyond the screen (thus making me manually resize and
move it) several times per game, either because the number of companies has
changed or because a company laid a tile or token that required one of
those columns in the list of companies to resize itself.

(Conversely, the Tokens column does not resize itself when it gets so
narrow I can't see the number of tokens a company has left, and I wish it
did!)

8. Unlike most companies, a PR token does not appear on the Stock Chart
until the M2 is traded in to form the PR.  I propose that the PR token,
appear as soon as any player buys a share of PR, even though the shares
can't be sold until the M2 is traded in.  (Other companies' shares can't be
sold until they have operated, but their tokens appear on the Stock Chart
as soon as someone buys the president's share.)

9. The Pfalzbahnen owner is being offered opportunities to lay a token
using its special power even when impossible (because the company currently
operating has run out of tokens and/or already has one in the Pfalz hex).

10. The Map window now allows a "Special" action to close private companies
voluntarily.  I don't think this is legal in 1835.  (I ran across this while
looking for a command to use Pfalz's power to lay a tile.  I think this
"Special" menu would be a much better place for tile- and token-laying
powers to be, rather than make the user click "No Tile" or "No Token" an
extra time every turn.  But I suppose that's a style issue.)

11. The tile-laying logic is mostly correct but still suggests tile lays
where the new tile is rotated in a way that makes it not connect to any
station of the company.  And there are situations where some tile lays are
allowed but nothing gets suggested.

(This game, the Pfalz owner did not have a major company before Phase 3, so
I was unable to verify whether it still offers the Pfalz tile-lay every
turn during yellow phase, which should never happen.)

12. The token-laying logic similarly still makes mistakes.  It suggests
every turn that BY lay a station marker in the south side of Nurnberg-
Furth, even though it laid one on the north side in OR2 using the NF.

(Oddly enough, in a problem that resembles point 3 in reverse, the five PR
tokens that are supposed to be reserved for exchanging minor company tokens
*do* show up as available to be built.  Next time I'll try to build them in
arbitrary locations and see what happens -- both then and when the minor
companies merge and there aren't any PR tokens for them.)

13. The revenue calculator consistently shows the correct runs for M6 on
the map but calculates their value as 20M too low (40 from green Hamburg
to yellow Kiel, which should be 60).  Mousing over the map reveals the
underlying problem: northwest Kiel is value 20, not 40, in the tile list
(or wherever this information is stored for preprinted cities).

14. The game reaches the point of the attached save file.  When the PR
buys the 5-train, SX has to discard a train (correctly changed from
happening upon purchase of the 4+4).  But then the game hangs while trying
to merge the remaining private and minor companies.  I had to "undo" the
5-train purchase (using the report window) to be able to save the game.

I've included the log as well.