Subject: MN: Re: Year 3 Week 36 Proposals

From: "Wayper, Paul" <WayperP@p...>
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2000 17:21:44 +1000

On Friday, January 21, 2000 1:19 AM, Kevan Davis
[SMTP:kevan@s...] wrote:
> I've mixed feelings on the Straddle business - although they're quite
> boringly easy to pull off (the old "drop a Token, Straddle from it"
> trick), it's quite a pleasing little technique, and would leave
> something of a gap in the Ruleset were it removed.

I've never had to use one, but then I've never forward planned enough for
it. If I needed to, perhaps. Hmmmmm.

> Because it's not a Move. A simple "You cannot Straddle to a Blocked or
> Closed Station" should be enough to plug the holes, though. (Charge
> Tunneling specifically plugs the "can't Tunnel to MC" one, but -
> curiously - no others, so you can Tunnel to another Player's Home
> Station. And although Compass Tricks naturally preclude trips to the
> Crescent, they permit broken Homes.) Whether Tunnelling and Tricking
> should be permitted as post-Move Piece manipulations, I'm not too
> bothered, but I think a could of exceptions to the rule are - unless
> pointless or awkward - quite healthy.

The way I think is: there may be other conditions that are later invented
that can stop a Action-Translocation (for want of a better word) - e.g. a
station can be Flonged, meaning it can be traversed through normally and
people can stop or start a normal move there, but other Special Moves and so
forth are illegal. Having to rewrite every rule that does a Special Move
would be tedious - this is why we formulated the Special Move name.
Likewise, having a codification for an Action-Translocation gets similar
gains in version control.

Another one of those things that make me think that we need to overhaul the
turn structure.
I, for one, want to be able to perform actions during the middle of my Move.

Paul Wayper -- DPI IS&S ITO Computer Systems Officer
SigClean 1.5a prevents all errors in transcription, transmission, and
reception of eMail, destroys sig and email viruses, and stops flames.
Report all bugs to the author. SigClean is FreeWare. (c) 1998-9 PJW

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From: "Kevan Davis" <kevan@s...>
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2000 01:46:12 -0800

> it. If I needed to, perhaps. Hmmmmm.

Speaking mostly from personal experience, so I'm probably wrong, I
think the "drop a Token, Straddle from it" trick - used when you really
need to move an extra Station (effectively costing you a Black and an
any-colour, which I suspect is fair enough) - probably accounts for
ninety-five per cent of all Straddles. There's not really much forward
planning you can do beyond that, with possible exception (as I think
someone - Dunx? RiffRaff? - once pulled off) of piling some Tokens up
near the Crescent to permit a hefty victory Straddle later in the game.

> would be tedious - this is why we formulated the Special Move name.

Very true. Maybe the neatest solution would be to have "Special Moves"
and "Translocations" ("Straddling counts as a Translocation"), so that
Flonging could simply say "A Flonged Station may not be the target of a
Special Move or Translocation."

I fear we'd fall over ourselves if we tried to speak of Straddles as
"Special Moves" when they're not Moves, or if we spoke of Wilds as
"Translocations" when they were still Moves (and obey many critical
Rules by dint of counting as Moves).

> gains in version control.

I could speak this sentence in a meeting at work and I'm sure everyone
would feign understanding. But yes, I see what you mean.

> I, for one, want to be able to perform actions during the middle of
my Move.

Hmm. Although dramatic (swinging near to a Station to detonate a
Suspect Package mid-Move, then rushing away), it makes the notation a
lot more complicated ("[LV+3] Charing Cross [Blocking Camden Town from
Euston]"?), and may give Players too much power - and thus too much to
think about - through such freedom. Perhaps.

I remember that we originally had some Actions that were playable
mid-Move, but we shifted away from them over the years (beside a few
hangovers such as "[Dropping a Black Token at Wherever]", which are
meek enough to work). The precise reasons and arguments we used elude
me, though.

Kevan

--
kevan@s...
http://www.stormloader.com/kevan