Subject: MN: Emergency Proposal 027

From: Kevan Davis <kdavis@i...>
Date: Sat, 19 Sep 1998 17:30:31 +0100 (BST)

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Emergency Proposal 027 - Swings and Roundabouts [Multiple]

{Comment:

Firstly, I shall own up and state my interest in raising this EP. The
situation pertains directly to Kevan's hemming me (miKi) in on the EL by
blocking Wapping repeatedly in Game 9. Unfortunately, there are more
parties involved than just Kevan and myself, as it is a team game. I
therefore call on one and all to abandon all personal prejudices and be
completely objective in voting on this EP. For my part, if this EP fails,
I shall accept with good grace and never speak to you rotten swines
ever again...

I shall now state the current logical interpretation of the rules and
demonstrate how I believe this interpretation conflicts with an
interpretation as expressed by myself and two others in the last week.

As it stands, there are move validity modifiers which can overcome
insignificant LV to reach a destination. For example, if one is at Morden
(NT), it is impossible in the rules to have a LV great enough to move
directly to Edgeware (NT). However, if Edgeware were declared Wild, then
the [Wild] action would allow Edgeware as a valid move. However, Rule
1.5.8 states that the move must still be thought of as passing through the
intervening stations. As a consequence, a block at Belsize Park would
prohibit the move to Edgeware.

This implication that [Wild] and other similar moves such as [Home] should
pass through the LU system conflicts with my interpretation. Blocks are a
way of impeding normal progress, and Wilds are a way of circumventing
Blocks through some inconvenience to the player being impeded. Ther is a
balance between the inconvenience to a Player being blocked, which can be
quite large if the block is well-timed and the absolute power of the
block.

The imbalance caused by the rules as it stands results in 10 or so
instances where one player can sit and block another in perpituity. In
the case of game 9, the imbalance in numbers would be insurmountable if
two players of a team of three could continually hemm in both players on a
two-person team. }

1. In rule 1.5.8 replace:

"A Piece's Move is its normal motion along LU lines, excluding all
Action-related changes to position."
with:
"A Piece's Move is its normal motion along LU lines, excluding all
Action-related changes to position and Action-related validity
modifiers."

2. In rule 1.5.0 renumber exiating item 3 "Special moves" as new item 1,
and renumber existing item 1 as new 2 and existing 2 as new 3. Add the
following sentence to new item 1. 

"The special move validity modifiers take precedence over all
validity modifiers, save the following exceptions:

o those listed in section 5 below
o when the special move destination itself is Blocked"

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Raised by miKi, 19/09/98
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Voting closes: Tuesday morning at 12:00am (weekends being ignored by Eprops)
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From: "Dunx (Duncan Ellis)" <DELLIS@U...>
Date: 21 Sep 98 09:59:41 +0100

I vote FOR, not particularly because I feel the game is unbalanced as it 
is, but because I think the LU traversal interpretation seems counter- 
intuitive. 

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