Subject: RE: MN: Re: RE: Token Stacks and bonuses

From: "Wayper, Paul" <WayperP@p...>
Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2000 11:29:35 +1000

On Tuesday, July 04, 2000 6:55 PM, Ole Andersen [SMTP:palnatoke@g...]
wrote:
> See, had this been mentioned in MN, we would have created two new terms:
> one for the shortest distance between two stations and another for the
> ratio between shortest distance and travelled distance, and then we would
> assign a penalty for making moves with a high ratio.

To my mind that's an overly complex way of penalising long moves. I don't
see a problem with calculating "([number of stations] * 2 + [number of line
changes] * 5) rounded up to the nearest 5 minutes". I do have a problem
with calculating "shortest distance", especially with the arguments that
could result from determining which route is the shortest. For instance:

If LVST is Maelberged, and I want to move from BNGR to MRGT, I might argue
that my shortest route is MIEN, STGR, WTCH, SHDW, BANK, MRGT. But someone
else might argue that if I'd expended a silver to un-Maelberg LVST then my
shortest route would be two stations rather than six. What if the shortest
route went through someone else's home station and I didn't want to pay the
toll?

Even if you solve all those problems, there's still the question of how you
calculate the thing. To my mind it's a more complex equation, maybe even
involving lookups on a chart (if you're assigning token penalties). And
you've just introduced two new terms, where with timing the moves you don't
introduce any new nomenclature.

> In Copanhagen, we have Knippelsbro, a bridge named after Hans Knip, who
> was 'bromester' (bridge master or somesuch) from 1641. We do pronounce
> the 'k', though, so it may be entirely unrelated...

Well, I've always pronounced Knip with a silent K. But the term is used in
some card games, so it might be interesting to find out where the term comes
from. Hand me my throbbing search engine, Chilvers...

Hmmm. Doesn't seem to be much there according to Google, although Kevan
will be pleased to know that the MC Card Game was the first on the list.

Boingy boingy boingy,

-- Paul Wayper -- DPI IS&S 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: riffraff@n...
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 17:33:57 -0500

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>At 12:11 PM 3/07/2000 +0100, you wrote:
>>On the other hand I do like the current system _because_ it removes
>>time from the equation.
>
>I still don't understand why. Time (e.g. "10:45AM") sums up a lot of
>things - closure-states of stations and lines, how much more time you
>have in this day, peak hours - that can't really be well represented
>by tokens or what-have-you. And it means you don't have to keep
>track of black tokens so ferociously.

I agree. With game time, we can get rid of all the extra Blacks needed,
simply by having Line Changes and so forth cost time instead of Tokens.
Same for extra Actions.

--Riff

"This calls for a subtle blend of psychology and extreme violence."
--Vyvyan, "The Young Ones"

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From: riffraff@n...
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2000 00:27:16 -0500

>Riff said:
>> Point. Well, how about this (I'm going off your ruleset from the
>egroups
>> file here): First we make Bronze tokens a bit more common by making
>a BR
>> Station worth a Br instead of Bu . BR = Br Aha-ha-ha. Then, we can
>charge
>> a Br for picking up a Token. For the other tokens, make
>Interchanges worth
>> _either_ a Blue or a Red, and 3-4-5 Terminuses worth a Blue _and_ a
>Red
>> (Since they're relatively hard to get to). Howzat?
>
>Why not just charge a Green?

That does sound good, and appropriate to the Token color. I was originally
thinking Bronze because it didn't seem worthwile to spend a Token to pick
up a Token of equal or lesser value, but I didn't take into account the
fact that much of the reason for picking it up is to ruin someone else's
Gambit.

>Or keep your system but have
>interchange=red, termini=blue. That way Blues can be used for more
>powerful, game-wide Actions.

I think that might make the Blues _too_ rare, and I expect that we'll
probably end up with a lot of important Blue actions... Blocking, for
example. I think Blue and Red should be roughly the same rarity. Powerful
game-wide actions can simply cost more and have a longer time cost.

The Termini are pretty tough to get to without spending a lot of Tokens on
movement, so they should have a pretty good reward. Heck, we used to have
Token Running, which gave a Gold for getting there, if I'm not mistaken. I
was thinking, instead of giving both a Red and a Blue, we could have a
Purple Token which can be used as either Red or Blue. That would be
slightly less valuable than two tokens, but might be a pain in the neck...

--Riff