Re: [Rails-devel] [Rails-users] Bugs and wishlist for 1856 on rails 1.9.0 - new tests on 2.0RC1

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

Eric:
thanks for the save files and your detailed reports.

See my comments below, prefixed with "SFY".
I will add them to the roadmap/bug-list on github later.

Stefan

 > anomaly 1 : the +20 bonus from the port disapears when the first T5 
train,
while it should only disapear when T6 is bought
John : I believe you're correct, this is a bug which has always been there.

=> Still present in 2.0.RC1.   Exemple available in SR5.1 when CA plays. 
  If
this can be fixed that would be nice.  Workaround available through manual
revenue adjustment.

SFY: There was a fix by Erik Vos on 3/9/10 that changed the phase from 6 
to 5.
The commit comment is: "Fixed port token removal phase (5, was 6)". For 
some
reason Erik assumed that the correct phase is 5. It can be changed via a
parameter in xml, thus it is easy to fix.

Some more details, how this happened:
The rules state: "This port token may be placed during any operating round
in phase two or three and is removed at the beginning of phase five."

The issue now is that 1856 calls the phases by "train-number
minus one". Thus on purchase of the 6-train phase 5 starts.

To add to the confusion the 1856 configuration file contains two phase 
name definitions.
One is called "name", the other "realName". For phase 5 in 1856 they are 
set as name="6", realName="5".

Why this is/was required, has to be checked. Most likely due to legacy 
reasons, as
some time ago the phase changes were hard-coded against the phase names.
However this changed and now phase changes can be setup manually.


 > anomaly 2 : situation : company A must buy a train and decides to it 
from
company B. (lets say a T4 for example). Assume company A has only $100 
in cash.
Rails displays a text like : "you may add up to $250" (i.e. difference 
between
T4 nominal value and cash availble in A). But according to the rules, the
president may not add money to buy a train if company A buys from 
company B,
only if it buys from Bank or Open Market

SFY: Forced train buying varies between games. There are some options 
already,
however (as shown here) not everything is covered.
I will look into this issue as soon as I refactor the operating round in 
later
releases (however most likely not before 2.2).

 > anomaly 3 : situation : at CGR formation, GW has 3 loans and posseses 
only
$34 in cash. According to the rules, the president should only be 
offered the
choice of 0 or 3, but not values in between (1 or 2 are not allowed in this
situation).

Confirmed by John to be minor bugs.

=> Still present in 2.0.RC1.   Both not a real issue as you can  still 
play by
the rules by not using the offered possibilities.  So should be fixed in an
ideal world, but no urgency. I prefer that you work on the wishlist at 
the end
of this mail :)

SFY: CGR Formation round is up to refactoring soon, most likely with the 
other
Nationalization Rounds (1835, 1837). Will put that on the list to fix.


 > anomaly 4 : seen in both games on 1.9.0 : company tokens are not 
properly
displayed on the gray toronto tile #124

=> no longer present in 2.0.RC1 where tokens are properly displayed on 
the gray
toronto tile #124.  Anomaly solved.

SFY: Yes this was fixed recently for 2.0.

 > anomaly 5 : seen on 1.9.0 : situation : during the operating round of 
company
A, his president must sell [shares of] company B to raise money 
according to
forced sale rule. As a result, this changes the position of company B on 
the
stock market (drops to lower values), but 1.9.0 doesnt update the company
operating order (behaves has if B was still in it's original position 
before
the sale)

john : I haven't seen this. If it happens it is a bug.

=> I haven't tested yet if this can be replicated on 2.0RC1 yet.  Will 
let you
know.

SFY: Would be interested for a test file for that. Company ordering
might not updated in all cases required. A potential solution is to use 
a trigger.


 > anomaly 6 : seen on 1.9.0 : 1.9.0 doesnt update the certificate limit
according to the new (lower) number of available companies when one 
companie
disapears during OR.

john : Good catch! This is a bug. Steve Thomas's FAQ for the game agrees

=> I haven't tested yet if this can be replicated on 2.0RC1 yet.  Will 
let you
know.

SFY: Again: would be interested for a test file for that. Certificate 
limit checks
might not update in all cases. A potential solution is to set a trigger.

 > anomaly 7 : seen on 1.9.0 : situation : during stock round, before the
purchase of the first T6, player's worth is sometime wrongly displayed 
at the
begining of the stock round. The issue disapears if you save and reload the
game.

=> I could not reproduce the issue on 2.0RC1.   However, I found other 
display
issues, see Anomaly 10 below.


SFY: Players worth calculation is updated for 2.0, thus it should now 
cover all cases.
Otherwise it is a bug. In 1.x it did not update in all cases.

 > anomaly 8 : situation : bankrupcy. during an operating round, forced 
sales,
the president has $63 cash, must raise more cash but cannot sell anything.
rails ends leaving $63 in the president's cash and worth, while 
according to
the rules, the president's cash should be reduced to 0
John : This is a bug, and probably applies to most or all games, not 
just 1856.

=> reproduced in 2.0.RC1.   In fact, the issue in this situation is that 
the
game doesn't really complete bankrupcy as it expects the president to sell
something but nothing is available for sale.   So the game becomes stuck.

SFY: Good catch, if this happens. I have to re-create that situation for 
2.0.
Should be fixed before 2.0 release.

 > anomaly 9 :  my mistake.  I made again the computation when replaying 
the
game and rails if correct, I was wrong in my pbem.  Forget this one :)

SFY: Ok, good to know, that it does not occur.

 > Anomaly 10 : display issue and corrupted save files.

SFY: Will reply to that in a separate, later mail, needs more investigation.


 > [wishlist] 1 :Add a more general moderator option that allows to 
transfer
shares between bank and open market and player, and that allows to 
change the
position of the shares on the open market.
John : I agree. Allow any certificate to be moved between any two hands.

=> Two uses for this : allow to continue the game after a bug or a former
misclick, and allow to accomodate for local rules (i.e. my team plays with
slightly different version of CGR share allocation during CGR formation, 
this
would allow us to adapt the repartition given by the official rules).


SFY: Asset correction is on my to-do-list for a long time.

This is much easier to implement for 2.0, given the new portfolio structure.

However it still has to be written, and there are many other things to do.
In any case it could be a good start for someone who starts working on 
Rails, as
there is no need to change any of the core classes.
My own first code added to Rails were Map and Cash Correction.

 > [wishlist] 2 : During the stock round, in the game status - stock round
window, add a "-" to indicate that a player has already sold from a given
company.

=> I saw that something similar (pink background color) was implemented in
2.0RC1, that's great thanks !

SFY: Yes. ;-)

new wishlist based on 2.0RC1 experience :

[wishlist] 3 : when a company enters the brown area, it's background 
color in
the strock round window becomes brown (good idea) but that brown is much to
dark and prevents reading the share value.  Please use a less dark brown

SFY: Yep, good idea, should be changed soon.
That should be possible, however it should be the same color is in stock 
market.
I assume that we need to adjust the foreground color for fields based on the
background colors (there is an algorithm that switches foreground color 
to white,
as soon as the background gets dark).


[wishlist] 4 : I like to play the OR with the OR map in full screen.  This
works well.

I'd like to do the same thing with the status map during the SR, but it 
keeps
receizing to a smaller size after each action. Very annoying.

SFY: Yep, good idea. Should be changed soon.

[wishlist] 5 : when company A buys a train from company B, user is 
promted for
the amount payed by A.

Allow the user to specify a negative number, like "-x" meaning : all 
cash from
A but $x

Allow the user to specify 0, meaning : all the cash from A

SFY: Yep, good idea: Should be changed soon.

[wishlist] 6 : during OR, once you have selected a tile to be placed, 
you must
click on LayTile (and then very often on Skip as you dont lay a new token).

Nearly all buttons have a keyboard shortcut but LayTile and Skip don't. 
  Please
add a keyboard shortcut to each.

SFY: Yep, good idea: Should be changed soon.


[wishlist] 7 : please add an option so that the game automatically 
generates a
save file at the end of each company turn during Operating Rounds, and 
at the
end of each Player6 action during Stock Rounds.  I dont mind filling my 
disk (i
can clean it after with a few clicks) but I would like to be sure i can 
revert
to a recent save if my computer crashes for any reason.


SFY: There is an option to autosave (saves after each action).

As each save file contains the complete game history, it would be easier 
(and
more powerful) to provide a selection for the user to jump to the start 
of each
stock/operating round and then to each player activity.

Again mostly a matter of implementation resources, and potentially good 
task for someone
who wants to start coding on Rails.