Subject: MN: Re: Proposal musings

From: "Jonathan Ellis" <jonathan@f...>
Date: Wed, 12 May 1999 22:35:55 +0100

>As I thought I'd said somewhere, a three-Golds-to-enter Crescent has
>quite a huge strategic significance, even if you don't Win for Moving
>there; because the Game is geared to prevent Players from getting to
>the Crescent, it's a very safe place to hide. I'd strongly consider
>bothering to move, with Flag, to MC in a Flag game, on the basis that
>anyone after it would have to go to just as much bother.

Yes, but of course you can't just drop the Flag on MC and leave it
there, as it can be picked up mid-move... I did, a while ago, submit an
amendment that Flags should only be able to be picked up and dropped if
the Player was actually situated at that station at the time, but it
failed.

>Likewise the
>Ostrich would do well to hide there, since its pursuers will have
>trouble getting in.

>It's also arguably necessary for the Ostrich variant; it'll be very
>easy to Pounce the Ostrich if e starts the game at a bog-standard
>Mornington Crescent and anyone can just wander in...

A good point.

>>Proposal 725 - Just Passing Through...
>Hmm. Interesting idea, and I suppose it's a more intuitive use of the
>word "Toll". I'm not sure how often it'll be used (have we *ever* had a
>Toll paid?), but it's probably good to have around.

I remember Game 5. If I'd thought of it at the time (rather than one
move too late), paying a toll would actually have been useful - in the
days when the Token Running action to gain a Gold existed, as I could
(with LV of 10) have passed through your home of Bethnal Green (paying
the Toll), shunted you to Epping and nicked one of your Golds - and Run
a Gold from Stratford (where you were) next turn. But the best ideas
don't always come at the best times... If this Proposal passes,

>>Proposal 726 - *PECK!* (Spot the Ostrich Ruleset)
>
>Not bad, although what happens if there isn't a Wild Station in another
>Quadrant? (And maybe we should provide some Kneepads...)

Ah. A problem with the Wilds. Probably best to change it to "a Terminus
Station of the Ostrich Stick holder's choice"... Of course, it's a very
powerful action for very little cost (the Ostrich being able to,
basically, simultaneously Spang and Shunt with one action, considering
the effects) but of course the Ostrich has to be fairly close to a
player to be able to manage it, and if it's too close it gets caught.
And you only have to catch the Ostrich once...

>>Proposal 727 - Token claiming and dropping...
>>
>>{Comments: (1) - this would otherwise allow players to collect two
>>tokens from a Stack in one visit, one upon arrival and the other upon
>>leaving.
>Hmm. Is that really such an awful thing?

It's always rather bothered me. Just a personal thing.

>>(2) the current implementation is broken: what happens if the
>>player is in Quadrant 0 where all other Quadrants are adjacent?
>Then the spent Token gets destroyed, or at least that's how we've
>been playing it. Reading the rules, it doesn't actually specify
>where a Token goes if you can't place it...

But this results in too many Tokens being lost from the game IMHO. Maybe
a requirement that the Token should be in a different Zone as well as
Quadrant (maybe more than one Zone Boundary away?) would be more
satisfactory, but I don't believe that performing the same Action should
result in a Token being destroyed or not destroyed depending on where
the Player is. Besides, carefully placing the Tokens was part of the
game and encouraged Players to play a bit more close to the centre
anyway - with that extra degree of interaction between players.

> Proposal 736 - Stack 'em High, Watch 'em Rot
I do not like this proposal at all. Personally, I believe that
watching how the Token Stacks build up and trying to complete one ought
to be a very important strategic part of the game. Certainly it worked
for me in Game 7 - I was in urgent need of Blue Tokens at the time for
my Drone strategy, and could not afford to Pass (and get two at the
expense of losing my entire LV), so I hit upon the idea of completing a
Stack. The presence of a lone Black Token in a far quadrant allowed me
to Mind the Gap (1 silver) and play another black-token action (1 black)
to complete the Stack and get the reward. I am frankly surprised that
there is not more attempt at strategy of this kind in the games. (And
yes, minding the Gap was definitely an annoyance to me at the time, but
one I was prepared to put up with for the sake of the five blue tokens.
You win some, you lose some: your choice.)
Personally I view this as a more satisfactory way of gaining
valuable tokens than performing Manoeuvres or locating Gold Rushes
(suddenly unearthing a random gold lode in London, for heaven's
sake?!?) - I shall be voting against this proposal. However, I think
that there should be, if anything, more ways of getting a fair number of
Plastic Tokens (such as the 3 red plus 5 blue of the Black-Silver-Black
stack) , and only a few ways of getting Gold and Silver Tokens (as there
are now.) Similarly with Manoeuvres and Gambits, which (like Token
Stacking) seem to me to be truer to the spirit of MC than Gold Rushes
and Pigeons.

>Proposal 738
A bit of weirdness, but I can't really see the point. At the moment, the
only way of creating Green Tokens seems to be Recycling (apart from the
occasional Busk, not if Proposal 737 passes, or certain Manoeuvres which
are hardly ever played) - i.e. turning one non-Green token into a Green.
This one simply reverses the procedure, and I ask: if this is needed,
why recycle in the first place? I can't really see any cases where any
Player would want to turn a Green Token into a non-Green, apart from a
Gold Token (and I really don't like that possibility - I agree with
PaulWay that some things are getting a bit too far from the spirit of
real MC.)

Jonathan.

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From: kevan@d...
Date: Fri, 14 May 1999 11:58:25 -0000

> >quite a huge strategic significance, [...]
> 
> there, as it can be picked up mid-move...

Indeed not, but if you just sit at MC rather than dropping the Flag there,
your opponents are going to have rather a hard time getting at you.

> [Quadrant Zero]
> But this results in too many Tokens being lost from the game IMHO.

Is this a problem? I suspect that the game wouldn't be particularly
impacted if *all* Tokens were lost when spent...

> Maybe
> satisfactory, [...]

There's the danger that it'll get too fiddly to check, though - it's quite
nice at the moment that you can quite easily glance at the Map and find a
Station in the necessary Quadrant, or skim over the existing Stacks and
find one that's valid for Token dropping.

> Besides, carefully placing the Tokens was part of the

Mmm, there was that, I suppose, but interaction combined with an easy way
to get back spent Tokens is likely to get overly messy, and there's
probably a little too much space for exploitation on a Player's way to the
Crescent (casually Spooning people and picking up the Gold straight away).
My memory's a bit hazy on how things used to be in this area, really.

> to be a very important strategic part of the game.

Maybe so, but the current implementation of it seems too slapdash; I'm
slightly uncomfortable with the idea of performing unnecessary Actions
just to get some Tokens across the Map to complete a Stack - although
cunning (well, unless you've got loads of Tokens, in which case it's
quite easy), it makes the GSD rather ugly. 

I think my main problem with Stack patterns, though, is the fact that
they're quite difficult to remember, and players are unlikely to think
"Oh, look, I can finish a Stack" or "Oh, mercy, Paul's about to finish
one" (particularly when it's possible to spew out dozens, even
theoretical hundreds of Tokens per turn).

> valuable tokens than performing Manoeuvres or locating Gold Rushes

Manoeuvres are just as unsatisfactory, I think, in that there's no easy
way to keep an eye on such things, particularly with the Station-attribute
ones, although it is always quite impressive when someone manages to pull
a Manoeuvre off.

I'm not quite sure what you've got against Gold Rushes, though...

> sake?!?)

Er, as opposed to throwing plastic from one side of the city to the
other and having it create precious metals in your pocket? Gold Rushes
are just as abstract as any other aspect of the game - the term just
seemed an appropriate one for the random generation of a Gold Token
Stack.

> are hardly ever played)

Such was the point of Green Tokens, I thought, that you only got them by
Recycling. I found it a bit odd when they started cropping up elsewhere,
to be honest.

> - i.e. turning one non-Green token into a Green.
> why recycle in the first place?

Players would obviously be happy to Recycle a Black into a Green, and
then generate a Silver. Green Tokens just seemed a fitting source of raw
material, was all.

> I can't really see any cases where any
> Gold Token

Such is, of course, the real point of having a Generator, and that's why
they're so cumbersome and fiddly to use. All kudos, I think, to anyone
who manages to get one up and running, and holds onto it for long enough
to dispense three Golds.

> (and I really don't like that possibility - I agree with

I thought this was particularly close to "Real Crescent", myself - the
announcement that a Player is "using the Token Generator to turn a Green
into a Silver, Straddling to Neasden and Minding the Gap" doesn't strike
these ears as anything other than proper Crescent. Tish.

Kevan

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