Re: [Rails-devel] No sale in first (share) round - exact interpretation?

[brett l. <bre...@gm...>]

There's a third, slightly different option that some rule sets also use:

C) You can't sell a share of a company that has not yet operated, even
after the first Stock Round.

IMO, B is _usually_ the correct behavior for most 1830-style games. In
some, specific games, Rails should operate according to C, which will
necessarily include A and often, but not always, includes B.

So, Rails probably just needs a hasOperated boolean or lastORValue integer
for every Company in order to implement C, and then we can tidy up which
games need which behavior.

---Brett.


---Brett.

On Thu, Mar 12, 2015 at 4:56 PM, Stefan Frey <ste...@we...> wrote:

> There seems to be a rule which is nearly identical for all 18xx:
>
> "There is no sale of company shares during the first round."
> See http://www.fwtwr.com/18xx/rules_difference_list/1_3.htm
>
> However what exactly is the definition of the first (share) round?
>
> In most 18xx the game starts with a kind of special distribution
> (auction) of a packet of certificates.
>
> In Rails terminology this is the StartPacket and those rounds are called
> StartRounds.
>
> There can be several StartRounds, if all player passes, a (short)
> OperatingRound starts. In that round only private companies pay their
> fixed dividend.
>
> After the StartPacket is fully sold, a StockRound immediately follows.
>
> Simple question:
> The rule "no sale of shares during the first (share) round" is valid for
>
> A) Exactly the first round of the game, including that there the
> StartPacket is on offer. If this round ends by all players passing, the
> second (share) round begins, regardless if the StartPacket was sold or
> not. From this point in the game shares can be sold (as soon as the
> StartPacket is fully sold).
>
> B) The first StockRound that starts/continues immediately after the
> StartPacket was sold.
>
> Or the more complex question:
> Or might this be even game dependent?
>
> On a first glance into a few rules my guess is that it might be even the
> latter (not surprisingly in 18xx).
>
> For 1830 and 1835 rules read as A) is correct.
>
> For 1856 and 1870 the rules seem to suggest B) as correct.
>
> The current Rails implementation for all games with that rule is B).
>
> Background:
>
> The cause for this mail is a off-list bug-report by Harald Stieling for
> the 1835 implementation in Rails:
>
> 1835 allows to float a company (BY) even if the StartPacket is not fully
> sold (e.g. the M4 or HB are unsold).
>
> So assume that BY floats in the first StartRound, operates once, then
> Rails returns to selling the StartPacket in a second StartRound,
> followed by the first StockRound. Now Rails assume that this is the
> first share round, that no shares can be sold. This implies that no BY
> shares can be sold, even if BY already operated.
> This case is clearly against the rules of 1835.
>
> However to fix the bug, it would be great, if their is a general
> consensus how to interpret the "no sale of shares in the first (share)
> round" rule. At least for each 18xx implemented in Rails. ;-)
>
> More comments and views?
>
> Stefan
>
>
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