Subject: Re: MN: Year 2, Week 23: Proposals

From: "Dunx (Duncan Ellis)" <DELLIS@U...>
Date: 05 Oct 98 13:10:04 +0100

>>> Proposal 514 - Charge Card [Multiple] 
>>I'll claim ownership of this one in order to defend it. 

>Sorry if I sounded like I was ranting -- I actually think it's an
interesting 
>idea, but despite your defence making your intended method of calculating a 
lot 
>clearer, I still don't think it's workable. 

I didn't think you were ranting - I thought I'd failed in my efforts at 
explanation, but anyone who comes up with reasonable objections is hardly 
ranting. 

>>I don't think that is any more time consuming 
>>or fiddly than the Token adjustments and LV calculations we do already. 

>It may not be time consuming for you.... and anyway it might just be the
straw 
>that breaks the camel's back -- I mean, however simple and straightforward
it 
>may be in practise, it's yet another thing to think about when making a
move. 
I 
>don't think we can just go on adding to the move considerations, we need to 
>stop somewhere. 

Hmm. I can see that point - but I also don't think that point has been 
reached yet. The large range permitted for Charge is just meant to give a 
bit of room for manoeuvre rather than as an indication of the typical values 
involved - mostly the computation will be with values much less than a 
hundred. 

>You also have to keep everyone else's charge in mind as well as your own -- 
>when someone has three gold tokens and is charging towards MC, it's easy
for 
>everyone else to spot that, but unless I keep a close eye on your charge
and 
>calculate the possible destinations for your next move, I'll have no idea 
>what's going on. I'm unhappy enough with the idea of having to calculate my 
own 
>charge, but having to calculate everyone else's too is just a bit much. 

That would seem to me to be the point. We already need to perform some 
fairly complex 'what if' thinking in order to anticipate other players' 
moves. Anticipating a Strile or imminent Power Failure doesn't seem any 
harder really than keeping an eye on others' charge - it's all down to 
guessing which Stations someone can Move to. 

What I would say is that we should try it and, if it is unworkable, then 
either abandon it or push it into a Complex ruleset (as already suggested). 

-- 
Dunx 
IRL: Duncan Ellis, Senior Software Engineer, Business Modelers, Oracle 
<I work for Oracle, I don't speak for them>

---

From: Jonathan David Amery <jda23@h...>
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1998 16:42:35 +0100 (BST)

I'm back.

Could someone send me the URL of the WWW site so I can read the updated
rules before joining back in....

Jonatahn.

-- 
Jonathan David Amery, Trinity Hall, CAMBRIDGE, CB2 1TJ. #####
http://www.trinhall.cam.ac.uk/~jda23/home.html o__#######
"The last human being on the Earth sat alone in a room. \'#######
There was a knock on the door..." - Shortest SF story...