Subject: Re: MN: help!

From: "Dunx (Duncan Ellis)" <DELLIS@U...>
Date: 07 Oct 98 15:45:33 +0100

Interesting, I appear to only be getting half the conversation at the 
moment - I have a long list message from dave waiting for me at home, 
but I haven't had it here yet. Don't know why... 

Anyway. 

>>>But, er, if you can't play the Action until you get there, and you need
to 
>>>play the Action to be *able* to get there, er, it all gets a bit Zen. 
>> 
>>Er... yes, I suppose so. I seem to recall trying to avoid conditional
terms 
>>like 'would' in the wording but, as you point out, the current form
(IYPTP) 
>>is more confusing if anything. 

>I think that "A Player may play the Action [Opening MC] for free if eir 
>Charge matches MC's Current." would probably be sufficient; you'd play it 
>before your Move if you were going for a standard win, or after if you 
>were Straddling. It changes the criteria (you'd no longer need to ride 
>into MC with the correct charge, on a standard move), but doesn't really 
>affect strategy too much - you'd just have to try and get a Charge of +18 
>before your Move rather than a Charge that would become +18 after a Move 
>to MC. 

Possibly, possibly... it would make the behaviour a bit inconsistent, 
though the benefits of easier wording might outweigh that. 

I'll have a think about it and put forward a modified version. I don't 
think there's sufficient urgency for an EP. 

>>>Am I completely missing the point, by the way, or [...] 
>> 
>>Not at all, not at all - the intention is that only normal Moves modify 
>>Charge, whereas Straddles, Wilds, and other types of movement don't. 

>Ah. Good point. (Wilds still would, but I see your point.) 

Yes, Wilds would wouldn't they? Bugger - that wasn't what I meant at all! 

>>>As someone who's submitted a Turn involving Charge, though, I'm beginning 
>>to 
>>>have my doubts about it. Having another document to refer to when I make
my 
>>>move is slightly irksome. I float once more my "Venbacker numbers
extracted 
>>>from the Station name" musing, but not very enthusiastically. 
>> 
>>Hmm. I don't really know what to say - granted that it is undoubtedly 
>>another document to look at, but it's quite a simple one. 

>[nods] I'm not sure if it'd be worth slipping into the Ruleset or not, 
>really, or attempting to simplify so that we *could* just put it in as 
>a Rule. Either way, I'll add it to the Mornomic Web page when I update 
>the thing tonight. 

Well, the formatting of the existing document is very loose - only one 
Station per line, no station abbreviations used, that sort of thing. 
There is certainly scope for more aggressive tabulation, although 
whatever we did I think it might be a bit big to shove into the ruleset 
(295 stations, best we could get would be three per line, which still 
makes for a 100 line section somewhere which is about the same length as 
all the Action tables combined). 

Still - as dave points out in his message (the recent one that I *have* 
seen), keeping a printout handy is a workable solution too. 

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