acka-research Digest Saturday, February 13 1999 Volume: 04 Issue: 034 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: K 2 Subject: Re: Acka: Proposal 4071 Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 02:49:49 -0500 (EST) JT wrote: > >The rules don't explicitly allow players to 'perform an action' which gives em > >-ve points. It only permits em to own -ve points. > > Except for the fact that the rest of the phrasing in P 4066 refers to > trades and thus takes precedence over that earlier bit. I don't think > 4066 acts the way you believe it does. Precedence only comes into play for a conflict. ie: This section prevents all actions which would result in debt. > A Trading Entity may not accept or offer a trade or perform a game action which would cause the quantity of an entity it owns to be below zero, This section makes an explicit exception for a particular type of trade: > unless it would result in em owning more of that entity after the trade than before, This section allows other rules to permitt debt.... > except where the rules explicitly make an exception for that type of entity. K 2 ------------------------------ From: Duncan Richer Subject: Re: Acka: Proposal 4071 Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 04:34:23 -0500 (EST) On Fri, 12 Feb 1999, JT wrote: > On Fri, 12 Feb 1999, Duncan Richer wrote: > >> However, I think rule 8-4 might actually allow what else...if (and > >> yourself) did. > >> > >> It says "when it is specified that a Player's score is changed, the > >> appropriate number of points are created or destroyed in order to > >> accomplish the specified change." > > > >This can be read sufficiently tightly to still prevent the changes. > >It says points may be created or destroyed. > > > >The conversion must create the 5000 points out of nowhere, AND then > >destroy them. It does not say that the points may be created and > >destroyed for the one score change. > > The problem is that I don't think your interpretation work, or at least I > think that it possible conflicts with how the game has to work in order to > be playable (which isn't insurmountable, we can just rely on pragmatism). > > Say player A has 1 point and the rules direct that he loses 10 points. > How does this allow player A to wind up with -9 points. > Simple, it does this by causing the player 10 points to be destroyed. Where are these ten points that can be destroyed? I wonder whether the rules as they stand actually enable a player to go from positive to negative score. After all, as it says that score reductions are accomplished by destroying points, how can you go from 0 to -1? The player on 0 has no points, and hence no points to be destroyed. I think it is a reasonable base-level interpretation to say that points must exist in order to be destroyed. After all, just because one rule says that a particular situation is allowable, does not mean that the other rules need to be interpreted so as to enable the allowable situation to happen. > > Say player A has 1 point and converts 5000 to something else. Yes, the rules say you can have a negative score. But where are these 5000 points being converted? There are not 5000 points that can be destroyed, as this player only has 1 point. > Given the > english meaning of conversion (which it taking something and removing that > yielding something else), I see that as only being the destruction of 5000 > points. Yes, but the 5000 points don't exist unless you have a score of at least 5000. The ability to have a negative score notwithstanding (because the rule which tries to enable scores to flip from +ve to -ve is, IMHO, badly enough worded that it fails to do this). > Rule 8-4-2 makes explicit that that is what conversion means in > that rule. The question in my mind is if that definition is sufficient > to extend to rule 8-4-3 (in which case things worked). If that > definitions isn't sufficient to extend to rule 8-4-3, then is conversion's > english meaning sufficient to imply that it only works on a quantity which > you already own? > > The other option (which would solve a lot of these problems) is to make > points Operable entities and define the Operation of Conversion on them. > (Mannna would need to be operable as well, and A$ already are). This > would have the effect of allowing Operations only on entities you own as > well as only on amounts that you own. > > I will propose this later since I think it's a good thing regardless of > this current discussion. > > >Technical and nitpicky, but if it saves us a CRD I think it is an entirely > >reasonable interpretation. > > I agree that it is technical and nitpicky. I don't see (as I pointed out > above) how it could work however, especially not and have the normal means > of aquiring negative points still happen. > > --JT > > -- > [-------------------------------------------------------------------------] > [ Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty. ] > [ It's hard to seize the day when you must first grapple with the morning ] > [-------------------------------------------------------------------------] > > > > -- Duncan C. Richer aka Slakko the Lost Warner Brother | Queens' College http://www.dpmms.cam.ac.uk/~dcr24/ Ackanomic | U. of Cambridge Web-Harfer, Clerk of the Court, Map-Harfer, Justice | 2nd Year PhD(PMa) ------------------------------ From: K 2 Subject: Re: Acka: How to win by points in 1 1/2 easy lessons... Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 13:31:23 -0500 (EST) Jonathan David Amery wrote: > On Sat, 13 Feb 1999, K 2 wrote: > > > Which simplifies to: > > All players have had eir points converted to Mannna. > > K 2 has lost 1800 Mannna and A$440. > > I convert 1000000 of each players Mannna into 4000 A$. No player owns that much Mannna, so this action fails..... K 2 ------------------------------ End of acka-research Digest V4 #34 **********************************