[Rails-devel] 1830 D&H token lay (was: 1835 Pfalzbahn token lay (was Re: Minor bug, 1835, 1.7.6))

[Stefan F. <ste...@we...>]

>
>> In Steve Thomas rules clarification it also addresses that this creates
>> the ambiguity what happens if the tile has been laid already, but does
>> not present a preferred answer (due to the building costs it is unlikely
>> to happen anyway). The further suggestion is that the
>> token laying right is lost if it is not executed immediately after the
>> tile laying property.
>
> This seems to me a silly argument because no one would want to lay the token
> without the tile if the private confers both abilities.  But I would rule
> that they are separable powers just to avoid the silliness of that "further
> suggestion," so if someone else has laid the tile you can still place the
> token (and the private closes when it has been used to lay the token and the
> tile has been laid by anybody).
>

I could still imagine several reasons for playing the token without 
laying the tile first, some of them might be less silly than assumed.

A) The tile lay still costs 120 due to the mountain in the hex which 
might not be the D&H owners treasury. Maybe another company will help 
out later, which is able to build D&H hex because of location.
B) A yellow city tile is not available at that time, but the 5 train is 
on the horizon and the company wants to have the token there.
C) The owner of the company that owns the D&H wants to create maximum 
mess to that company.

However how I read the rules is that the tile lay is required anyway as 
a condition for the token lay.

I cannot judge the degree of silliness that lead to Steve Thomas 
clarifications: However I would suggest that Rails should try to follow 
them over other possible interpretations.
But the discussion supports that it is better to prefer an 
implementation that allows different rule interpretations, but make 
players aware about this.

The D&H never closes after the use of either or both of the special 
properties, so luckily that is not an issue for 1830.