rails-devel

Re: [Rails-devel] M&H

[Brett L. <wak...@ea...>]

I've used it a few different times to fill roughly the same function as the Camden & Amboy. In 1830, being able to float a company and only needing to buy 5 shares can be important, especially in a 5 or 6 player game where starting capital is a bit slim.

---Brett.

-----Original Message-----
>From: "John A. Tamplin" <ja...@ja...>
>Sent: Jan 22, 2006 3:57 PM
>To: rai...@li...
>Subject: Re: [Rails-devel] M&H
>
>On Sun, 22 Jan 2006, Erik Vos wrote:
>
>> (BTW I wonder how often this property is used in real life.
>> In fact, I can't remember ever having seen it used.)
>
>The only time I have seen it used that way is to steal the NYC from 
>someone else (ie you have 30%, the president has 40% and you go before 
>them in the stock round).  Otherwise, you get better value by buying it 
>into a company you own, although I suppose there might be a case where you 
>have no company and it is about to go away or if your company can't afford 
>to pay as much for it as a share of NYC is worth.
>
>-- 
>John A. Tamplin					ja...@ja...
>770/436-5387 HOME				4116 Manson Ave
>                 		 		Smyrna, GA  30082-3723
>
>
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Re: [Rails-devel] M&H

[Brett L. <wak...@ea...>]

Also note: If the swap is done before the president's share is bought, this swap sets the par value for the NYC.

I finally got a chance to check out your updates. I think the extra button in the status window is perfect. It's not intrusive, but it let's the player owning the M&H know that his ability is available.

I think we should do this same sort of thing for the other special abilities, especially the C&StL.  Right now, after a company purchases the C&StL, the UI inexplicably maintains the "Lay Tile" buttons after the lays it's normal tile, and doesn't give any sort of notification that we're allowing for the C&StL tile lay before moving on to laying tokens.


---Brett.

-----Original Message-----
>From: Erik Vos <eri...@hc...>
>Sent: Jan 22, 2006 4:52 PM
>To: rai...@li...
>Subject: [Rails-devel] M&H
>
>I have partially implemented the M&H special property.
>
>When starting this job, I was under the impression, that
>it could only be exercised in the owner's SR turn,
>but after checking the rules I found that the swap can
>in fact be done almost always. 
>
>To fix this, the special property needs to be set up in 
>a different way than I had in mind, and for now I will
>leave it as it is: an extra button in the Status Window
>that is visible in the owner's turn.
>
>(BTW I wonder how often this property is used in real life.
>In fact, I can't remember ever having seen it used.)
>
>Erik.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>-------------------------------------------------------
>This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. Do you grep through log files
>for problems?  Stop!  Download the new AJAX search engine that makes
>searching your log files as easy as surfing the  web.  DOWNLOAD SPLUNK!
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RE: [Rails-devel] M&H

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

> Also note: If the swap is done before the president's share 
> is bought, this swap sets the par value for the NYC.

I don't think so. The free PRR share that comes with the C&A
does not have a price either, until the PRR is opened by
buying the presidency. AFAIK the same holds for the NYC.
 
> I finally got a chance to check out your updates. I think the 
> extra button in the status window is perfect. It's not 
> intrusive, but it let's the player owning the M&H know that 
> his ability is available.
> 
> I think we should do this same sort of thing for the other 
> special abilities, especially the C&StL.  Right now, after a 
> company purchases the C&StL, the UI inexplicably maintains 
> the "Lay Tile" buttons after the lays it's normal tile, and 
> doesn't give any sort of notification that we're allowing for 
> the C&StL tile lay before moving on to laying tokens.

Yes, I agree, but I have not yet found a good way to do that.

Perhaps we should add a message line over the full width of the
SR and OR windows in which we can show a one-line message about 
what the player having the turn is supposed to do. Here we could 
also add a reminder about special properties that can be exercised.

Erik.

RE: [Rails-devel] M&H

[Brett L. <wak...@ea...>]

>> Also note: If the swap is done before the president's share 
>> is bought, this swap sets the par value for the NYC.
>
>I don't think so. The free PRR share that comes with the C&A
>does not have a price either, until the PRR is opened by
>buying the presidency. AFAIK the same holds for the NYC.
> 


Hmm... I'll doublecheck the rule book.  I'd swear I remember encountering this with 1830 pc game, and seeing that it forces you to set the par value if it's unset.


>> I finally got a chance to check out your updates. I think the 
>> extra button in the status window is perfect. It's not 
>> intrusive, but it let's the player owning the M&H know that 
>> his ability is available.
>> 
>> I think we should do this same sort of thing for the other 
>> special abilities, especially the C&StL.  Right now, after a 
>> company purchases the C&StL, the UI inexplicably maintains 
>> the "Lay Tile" buttons after the lays it's normal tile, and 
>> doesn't give any sort of notification that we're allowing for 
>> the C&StL tile lay before moving on to laying tokens.
>
>Yes, I agree, but I have not yet found a good way to do that.
>
>Perhaps we should add a message line over the full width of the
>SR and OR windows in which we can show a one-line message about 
>what the player having the turn is supposed to do. Here we could 
>also add a reminder about special properties that can be exercised.
>

That would be helpful. 

Currently, I think we do just fine with the turn order flow. There's some minor UI cleanups I want to do, but overall I think we're doing well enough.  The only exception being that when we deviate, we need to tell the user why we're altering the normal turn order.  So, maybe a good thing to add is changing the text over the UpgradesPanel to indicate we're allowing for the C&Stl Optional Tile Lay. 

I think that, ideally, we should just provide a button for jumping outside the normal turn order, to activate the special ability, and then return back to the normal turn order at the same point we left.

Perhaps rather than a new message line, we should just set the Title on the JFrame to indicate the current stage of the turn.  That would be a bit less intrusive.  What do you think?


---Brett.

RE: [Rails-devel] M&H

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

> >> I think we should do this same sort of thing for the other 
> >> special abilities, especially the C&StL.  Right now, after a 
> >> company purchases the C&StL, the UI inexplicably maintains 
> >> the "Lay Tile" buttons after the lays it's normal tile, and 
> >> doesn't give any sort of notification that we're allowing for 
> >> the C&StL tile lay before moving on to laying tokens.
> >
> >Yes, I agree, but I have not yet found a good way to do that.
> >
> >Perhaps we should add a message line over the full width of the
> >SR and OR windows in which we can show a one-line message about 
> >what the player having the turn is supposed to do. Here we could 
> >also add a reminder about special properties that can be exercised.
> >
> 
> That would be helpful. 
> 
> Currently, I think we do just fine with the turn order flow. 
> There's some minor UI cleanups I want to do, but overall I 
> think we're doing well enough.  The only exception being that 
> when we deviate, we need to tell the user why we're altering 
> the normal turn order.  So, maybe a good thing to add is 
> changing the text over the UpgradesPanel to indicate we're 
> allowing for the C&Stl Optional Tile Lay. 

That's also an option.
In fact, I do not much like the visual appearance of the text 
and buttons currently in the upgrades panel. I have thought of
moving (or perhaps duplicating) these buttons to the OR buttons panel.
It's a bit unfriendly that, if you don't want to lay a tile or
a token, you have to click in a place far away from the other buttons.

> I think that, ideally, we should just provide a button for 
> jumping outside the normal turn order, to activate the 
> special ability, and then return back to the normal turn 
> order at the same point we left.

Yes, that would perhaps also have been easier to implement.

> Perhaps rather than a new message line, we should just set 
> the Title on the JFrame to indicate the current stage of the 
> turn.  That would be a bit less intrusive.  What do you think?

Yes. And any special messages in the status bar?

Erik.

[Rails-devel] Allowed user actions (was: M&H)

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

It's a very old message that I'm replying here to.
I have looked it up because it was about the last time that
we discussed the subject of special properties.

I'm revisiting this subject, partly because I've encountered it
in a different context in 1835, and partly because I just discovered
that the existing extra tile laying code for 1830 is broken.

There are two aspects to be considered (applied to tile laying):

1. The game mechanics should be aware of extra tiles to be laid,
and, if necessary, extend a player's turn to allow for it.
This worked 7 months ago for 1830.

2. Make the user clearly aware of this special situation.
The only clue so far was that the current player highlight did not move
after laying the first tile. To do something about this, 
I have just added an extra prompt message (in red) to the
existing prompts above the map about the option to lay an extra 
tile or token.

However, my main concern is that the current way in which the UI 
and the game engine communicate, pretty complex as it already is,
will not easily accommodate different special property types and 
their application rules. I'm always keeping in mind that one day
we want to turn this into a client/server application.

For a solution I would propose the following approaches.

1. The game mechanics: 

I think the best approach is to generalise a mechanism that already
exists in some contexts, i.e. train buying and share buying and selling,
and that I have found very fruitful so far.

The generic mechanism would be, that after each user action the UI would 
get a fresh and complete list of all allowed actions at that point, 
including state information about who's turn it is etc.,
by one or two calls to the Model. 
This will reduce (or hopefully completely eliminate) the current need 
for the UI to have it's own (partial) state memory.

For this end we will need a new "allowed actions" class hierarchy, 
derived from some abstract base class. The result of the above-mentioned
"what can I do" call would then be a List of objects which are
instances of subclasses of that base class. The existing class
BuyableTrain would become such a subclass.

An example of such an object would be "Lay a tile on hex XY". 
This would already work for the special extra tile lays.
We can't yet restrict normal tile lays, so we would
have a blanket "lay a tile anywhere" object instead.
Once we have route awareness, this would be replaced 
by a series of objects, one for each hex where a tile can be laid.

(I think this approach would also make the future client/server
separation easier: a main component of the client-to-server information
stream could exist of a serialized version of this List).

I'm looking for a good and shortish name for the base class.
We have already consumed Action, Move and Option.
AllowedAction might do, or UserOption, but I would prefer a short 
one-word name that can easily be incorporated in its subclass names.
What about Play?

2. The UI:

A corollary of the above approach would be, that the player turn will
never be over if the allowed-actions List is not yet empty.
So we will need an always-available Done button 
(in fact the current No Tile and No Token buttons have that role, 
but for clarity I would prefer to get rid of those).

We could still accommodate an automatic end of a player turn if the
allowed-actions list is empty, but we should then tell the user about that.

What about a popup saying something like "End of turn for A, it's now B's
turn"
that would appear *each* time when a new player (or President) gets the
turn, regardless whether the turn change was automatic or triggered
by pressing the Done button?

To exercise special actions that fall outside the normal sequence of
events in a round, we could add a menu bar, with options that would 
only show up (or be active) when such an action can be exercised.
In 1830, this would apply to buying Privates and the M&H/NYC swap.

The above is mainly of interest for the OR.
I'm not sure if we should extend this to the SR, where we already have
the situation that Done/Pass must always be pressed to end a player turn. 
However, here also we could implement an automatic turn end (with warning)
if there is nothing a player could do (i.e. the allowed-actions list is
empty).


This was a long story, I hope it is clear enough.
Any comments?

Erik.






> -----Original Message-----
> From: rai...@li... 
> [mailto:rai...@li...] On Behalf Of 
> Brett Lentz
> Sent: 26 January 2006 21:51
> To: rai...@li...
> Subject: RE: [Rails-devel] M&H
> 
> 
> >> Also note: If the swap is done before the president's share 
> >> is bought, this swap sets the par value for the NYC.
> >
> >I don't think so. The free PRR share that comes with the C&A
> >does not have a price either, until the PRR is opened by
> >buying the presidency. AFAIK the same holds for the NYC.
> > 
> 
> 
> Hmm... I'll doublecheck the rule book.  I'd swear I remember 
> encountering this with 1830 pc game, and seeing that it 
> forces you to set the par value if it's unset.
> 
> 
> >> I finally got a chance to check out your updates. I think the 
> >> extra button in the status window is perfect. It's not 
> >> intrusive, but it let's the player owning the M&H know that 
> >> his ability is available.
> >> 
> >> I think we should do this same sort of thing for the other 
> >> special abilities, especially the C&StL.  Right now, after a 
> >> company purchases the C&StL, the UI inexplicably maintains 
> >> the "Lay Tile" buttons after the lays it's normal tile, and 
> >> doesn't give any sort of notification that we're allowing for 
> >> the C&StL tile lay before moving on to laying tokens.
> >
> >Yes, I agree, but I have not yet found a good way to do that.
> >
> >Perhaps we should add a message line over the full width of the
> >SR and OR windows in which we can show a one-line message about 
> >what the player having the turn is supposed to do. Here we could 
> >also add a reminder about special properties that can be exercised.
> >
> 
> That would be helpful. 
> 
> Currently, I think we do just fine with the turn order flow. 
> There's some minor UI cleanups I want to do, but overall I 
> think we're doing well enough.  The only exception being that 
> when we deviate, we need to tell the user why we're altering 
> the normal turn order.  So, maybe a good thing to add is 
> changing the text over the UpgradesPanel to indicate we're 
> allowing for the C&Stl Optional Tile Lay. 
> 
> I think that, ideally, we should just provide a button for 
> jumping outside the normal turn order, to activate the 
> special ability, and then return back to the normal turn 
> order at the same point we left.
> 
> Perhaps rather than a new message line, we should just set 
> the Title on the JFrame to indicate the current stage of the 
> turn.  That would be a bit less intrusive.  What do you think?
> 
> 
> ---Brett.
> 
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------

Re: [Rails-devel] Allowed user actions (was: M&H)

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

Comments inline...


On 8/13/06, Erik Vos <eri...@hc...> wrote:
> It's a very old message that I'm replying here to.
> I have looked it up because it was about the last time that
> we discussed the subject of special properties.
>
> I'm revisiting this subject, partly because I've encountered it
> in a different context in 1835, and partly because I just discovered
> that the existing extra tile laying code for 1830 is broken.
>
> There are two aspects to be considered (applied to tile laying):
>
> 1. The game mechanics should be aware of extra tiles to be laid,
> and, if necessary, extend a player's turn to allow for it.
> This worked 7 months ago for 1830.
>
> 2. Make the user clearly aware of this special situation.
> The only clue so far was that the current player highlight did not move
> after laying the first tile. To do something about this,
> I have just added an extra prompt message (in red) to the
> existing prompts above the map about the option to lay an extra
> tile or token.
>

Agreed.  I prefer using the prompt messages instead of messagebox popups.


> However, my main concern is that the current way in which the UI
> and the game engine communicate, pretty complex as it already is,
> will not easily accommodate different special property types and
> their application rules. I'm always keeping in mind that one day
> we want to turn this into a client/server application.
>

Generic 18xx is a complex endeavor.  I don't think we have any choice
but to gradually increase the complexity of the main subsystems.

> For a solution I would propose the following approaches.
>
> 1. The game mechanics:
>
> I think the best approach is to generalise a mechanism that already
> exists in some contexts, i.e. train buying and share buying and selling,
> and that I have found very fruitful so far.
>
> The generic mechanism would be, that after each user action the UI would
> get a fresh and complete list of all allowed actions at that point,
> including state information about who's turn it is etc.,
> by one or two calls to the Model.
> This will reduce (or hopefully completely eliminate) the current need
> for the UI to have it's own (partial) state memory.
>
> For this end we will need a new "allowed actions" class hierarchy,
> derived from some abstract base class. The result of the above-mentioned
> "what can I do" call would then be a List of objects which are
> instances of subclasses of that base class. The existing class
> BuyableTrain would become such a subclass.
>
> An example of such an object would be "Lay a tile on hex XY".
> This would already work for the special extra tile lays.
> We can't yet restrict normal tile lays, so we would
> have a blanket "lay a tile anywhere" object instead.
> Once we have route awareness, this would be replaced
> by a series of objects, one for each hex where a tile can be laid.
>
> (I think this approach would also make the future client/server
> separation easier: a main component of the client-to-server information
> stream could exist of a serialized version of this List).
>
> I'm looking for a good and shortish name for the base class.
> We have already consumed Action, Move and Option.
> AllowedAction might do, or UserOption, but I would prefer a short
> one-word name that can easily be incorporated in its subclass names.
> What about Play?


Overall, I like this idea.

I think AllowedAction or UserAction are good.  The problem with
single-words is that they're very ambiguous.

I'd like to keep the API reasonably descriptive. Hopefully it will
make the learning curve for any new developers slightly less steep.


>
> 2. The UI:
>
> A corollary of the above approach would be, that the player turn will
> never be over if the allowed-actions List is not yet empty.
> So we will need an always-available Done button
> (in fact the current No Tile and No Token buttons have that role,
> but for clarity I would prefer to get rid of those).
>

I'd really like to see the No Tile/No Token button merged with the
Done button, and just continue to change the text of the button to
represent it's current action.

However, I don't really like forcing the user to step through each
phase. I'd really like the UI to do something along the lines of
SimTex's 1830 game, where you can skip unneeded phases by choosing the
option you want to do.

I'm not certain we could do this without reworking our phase handling
a bit, though.

> We could still accommodate an automatic end of a player turn if the
> allowed-actions list is empty, but we should then tell the user about that.
>
> What about a popup saying something like "End of turn for A, it's now B's
> turn"
> that would appear *each* time when a new player (or President) gets the
> turn, regardless whether the turn change was automatic or triggered
> by pressing the Done button?
>


As mentioned above, I prefer using prompts rather than pop-ups.

I personally get annoyed by applications that overuse modal pop-ups.

However, a popup may be something that is necessary when we implement
hidden money values, so that we hide all values, pop-up the player
change, then redraw only the current player's wallet.


> To exercise special actions that fall outside the normal sequence of
> events in a round, we could add a menu bar, with options that would
> only show up (or be active) when such an action can be exercised.
> In 1830, this would apply to buying Privates and the M&H/NYC swap.
>
> The above is mainly of interest for the OR.
> I'm not sure if we should extend this to the SR, where we already have
> the situation that Done/Pass must always be pressed to end a player turn.
> However, here also we could implement an automatic turn end (with warning)
> if there is nothing a player could do (i.e. the allowed-actions list is
> empty).
>
>

Agreed. I think most SRs don't really add as much complexity as the ORs.


----Brett.

Re: [Rails-devel] Allowed user actions (was: M&H)

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

Thanks for your comments.
Just one additional remark for now:

> > A corollary of the above approach would be, that the player 
> turn will
> > never be over if the allowed-actions List is not yet empty.
> > So we will need an always-available Done button
> > (in fact the current No Tile and No Token buttons have that role,
> > but for clarity I would prefer to get rid of those).
> >
> 
> I'd really like to see the No Tile/No Token button merged with the
> Done button, and just continue to change the text of the button to
> represent it's current action.
> 
> However, I don't really like forcing the user to step through each
> phase. I'd really like the UI to do something along the lines of
> SimTex's 1830 game, where you can skip unneeded phases by choosing the
> option you want to do.
> 
> I'm not certain we could do this without reworking our phase handling
> a bit, though.

Hmm, that's a different approach, and one worth thinking about.

Not sure how to accomplish this, perhaps a menu bar with options, 
that grey out as they have been used or skipped.

It does not save many user actions. Currently, users have to click
a button if they want to get *out of* a turn step, whereas in this way
they have to select an option to get *into* a step.

The allowed-action selection, needed to build the menu, will be more
complex, 
because we do not only have to worry about what actions are currently
possible, 
but also about what later turn steps a player might legitimately jump to.
But that does not look to be insurmountable.

Handling the jumps should not be a big deal, as the game engine already has
turn step awareness.

Nice ideas to think about if my coming vacation (the next two weeks)
would turn out to be rainy - it's in mid-Germany, could well be so... :-( 

Erik.

Re: [Rails-devel] Allowed user actions (was: M&H)

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

On 8/14/06, Erik Vos <eri...@hc...> wrote:
> Thanks for your comments.
> Just one additional remark for now:
>
> > > A corollary of the above approach would be, that the player
> > turn will
> > > never be over if the allowed-actions List is not yet empty.
> > > So we will need an always-available Done button
> > > (in fact the current No Tile and No Token buttons have that role,
> > > but for clarity I would prefer to get rid of those).
> > >
> >
> > I'd really like to see the No Tile/No Token button merged with the
> > Done button, and just continue to change the text of the button to
> > represent it's current action.
> >
> > However, I don't really like forcing the user to step through each
> > phase. I'd really like the UI to do something along the lines of
> > SimTex's 1830 game, where you can skip unneeded phases by choosing the
> > option you want to do.
> >
> > I'm not certain we could do this without reworking our phase handling
> > a bit, though.
>
> Hmm, that's a different approach, and one worth thinking about.
>
> Not sure how to accomplish this, perhaps a menu bar with options,
> that grey out as they have been used or skipped.

Right, this is basically what the 1830 pc game had.

If you skipped past something, you usually couldn't go back to it.

>
> It does not save many user actions. Currently, users have to click
> a button if they want to get *out of* a turn step, whereas in this way
> they have to select an option to get *into* a step.
>

I agree, it's not a huge savings.  The one added benefit is simply
being able to see all phases of the OR in a neat list, so that you get
a reminder of what's coming up.

I wouldn't really consider a change like this a very high priority, if
we decide to do it at all.


> The allowed-action selection, needed to build the menu, will be more
> complex,
> because we do not only have to worry about what actions are currently
> possible,
> but also about what later turn steps a player might legitimately jump to.
> But that does not look to be insurmountable.
>
> Handling the jumps should not be a big deal, as the game engine already has
> turn step awareness.
>
> Nice ideas to think about if my coming vacation (the next two weeks)
> would turn out to be rainy - it's in mid-Germany, could well be so... :-(
>

Have a good vacation.

One of these days, I'd really like to get to Essen.

---Brett.

Re: [Rails-devel] Allowed user actions (was: M&H)

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

> One of these days, I'd really like to get to Essen.

Better postpone that to the end of October, 
when the 18xx-ers and other gamers can be seen in the wild there.

I'll probably be there Saturday 21th, 
also to pick up some games from John.

Erik.

Re: [Rails-devel] Allowed user actions (was: M&H)

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

On 8/14/06, Erik Vos <eri...@hc...> wrote:
> > One of these days, I'd really like to get to Essen.
>
> Better postpone that to the end of October,
> when the 18xx-ers and other gamers can be seen in the wild there.
>

Yeah, that's what I was meaning. ;-)


---Brett.

Re: [Rails-devel] Allowed user actions (was: M&H)

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

> > For this end we will need a new "allowed actions" class hierarchy,
> > derived from some abstract base class. The result of the 
> above-mentioned
> > "what can I do" call would then be a List of objects which are
> > instances of subclasses of that base class. The existing class
> > BuyableTrain would become such a subclass.
> >
> > An example of such an object would be "Lay a tile on hex XY".
> > This would already work for the special extra tile lays.
> > We can't yet restrict normal tile lays, so we would
> > have a blanket "lay a tile anywhere" object instead.
> > Once we have route awareness, this would be replaced
> > by a series of objects, one for each hex where a tile can be laid.
> >
> > (I think this approach would also make the future client/server
> > separation easier: a main component of the client-to-server 
> information
> > stream could exist of a serialized version of this List).
> >
> > I'm looking for a good and shortish name for the base class.
> > We have already consumed Action, Move and Option.
> > AllowedAction might do, or UserOption, but I would prefer a short
> > one-word name that can easily be incorporated in its subclass names.
> > What about Play?
> 
> 
> Overall, I like this idea.
> 
> I think AllowedAction or UserAction are good.  The problem with
> single-words is that they're very ambiguous.
> 
> I'd like to keep the API reasonably descriptive. Hopefully it will
> make the learning curve for any new developers slightly less steep.

For clarity (and to open up name space), I have renamed the package 
game.action to game.move and the old class (game.action.)Action to 
(game.move.)MoveSet.

A new package game.action will hold the allowed action classes.
The base class is PossibleAction and I have started with LayTile.

I hope these changes does not create too much confusion....

Erik.

RE: [Rails-devel] M&H

[Brett L. <wak...@ea...>]

-----Original Message-----
>From: Erik Vos <eri...@hc...>
>Sent: Jan 26, 2006 1:01 PM
>To: rai...@li...
>Subject: RE: [Rails-devel] M&H
>
>> >> I think we should do this same sort of thing for the other 
>> >> special abilities, especially the C&StL.  Right now, after a 
>> >> company purchases the C&StL, the UI inexplicably maintains 
>> >> the "Lay Tile" buttons after the lays it's normal tile, and 
>> >> doesn't give any sort of notification that we're allowing for 
>> >> the C&StL tile lay before moving on to laying tokens.
>> >
>> >Yes, I agree, but I have not yet found a good way to do that.
>> >
>> >Perhaps we should add a message line over the full width of the
>> >SR and OR windows in which we can show a one-line message about 
>> >what the player having the turn is supposed to do. Here we could 
>> >also add a reminder about special properties that can be exercised.
>> >
>> 
>> That would be helpful. 
>> 
>> Currently, I think we do just fine with the turn order flow. 
>> There's some minor UI cleanups I want to do, but overall I 
>> think we're doing well enough.  The only exception being that 
>> when we deviate, we need to tell the user why we're altering 
>> the normal turn order.  So, maybe a good thing to add is 
>> changing the text over the UpgradesPanel to indicate we're 
>> allowing for the C&Stl Optional Tile Lay. 
>
>That's also an option.
>In fact, I do not much like the visual appearance of the text 
>and buttons currently in the upgrades panel. I have thought of
>moving (or perhaps duplicating) these buttons to the OR buttons panel.
>It's a bit unfriendly that, if you don't want to lay a tile or
>a token, you have to click in a place far away from the other buttons.


I think the upgradesPanel is a necessary evil for tile upgrades, but not necessary for much else.   I prefer the panel over the 1830pc mechanic of clicking through the options.

We can definitely move the Token placement buttons to the OR Button Panel.

Once we do that, anytime we're not in the "lay tile" phase, we can set the upgradesPanel visibility to false, and just keep it out of the way.

>> I think that, ideally, we should just provide a button for 
>> jumping outside the normal turn order, to activate the 
>> special ability, and then return back to the normal turn 
>> order at the same point we left.
>
>Yes, that would perhaps also have been easier to implement.
>
>> Perhaps rather than a new message line, we should just set 
>> the Title on the JFrame to indicate the current stage of the 
>> turn.  That would be a bit less intrusive.  What do you think?
>
>Yes. And any special messages in the status bar?
>


Sure, or we can use the LogWindow for it.


----Brett