Subject: MN: Re: the Token Running issue.

From: "Wayper, Paul" <WayperP@p...>
Date: Tue, 16 Mar 1999 09:46:02 +1000

On Monday, March 15, 1999 7:58 PM, Kevan Davis
[SMTP:kevan@z...] wrote:
> Just that you can't Token Run in addition to moving to Kings Cross - the
two
> are mutually exclusive, and as such Token Running isn't horrendously
powerful.

Hmmm. Do you mean the new or the old Token Run? And what was in the old
one preventing moving to KXSP.

(As an aside, does anyone actually mind me using Venbacker Notation for my
station abbreviations?)

> Oh, I do, I do. I merely question the profusion of clauses to the thing;
why
> should it be so awkward to pluck Silvers from the outer reaches, when
it's
> so easy to gather them in Zone 1?

You have me there; but I can only say that I think that this therefore
means we should loosen the restriction on Token Running (or whatever I
called it now), rather than discarding it altogether.

> I do? I merely say that Bulkheading has slight merit in its dramatic
effect
> (although such is usually more "Er, sorry, I Bulkheaded that ages ago,
for
> some obsolete reason; you'll have to replay" than "Ahaha, Mr Bond!"), but
> becomes rather tiresome when (as in the Long Game) it just falls to
whether
> anyone remembers the Bulkhead and buzzes you. It's the sort of thing that
> would work well if we were sat around a proper board, but doesn't
translate
> well to email, when you should be able to take in the state of the game
from
> a quick glance through the Token Table and the last few Plays.

I understand your point, and I agree that the lack of suitable notation in
the GSD (although I don't want a GSD whose header takes up three pages...)
makes these things difficult. However, I thought that the reverse
situation, that people be allowed to play token runs on the same terminus
more than once in a game was a Bad Thing.

> Not at all; with potentially-Closed Stations and Lines marked on the Map,
> it's easy to see if your Move involves any, and the Crescent and Holy
> Stations are exceptions which are easy enough to remember. I'd have a
> problem were there an Action which Closed a Station for the rest of the
Game
> and expected Players to remember this, though.

In some ways that's as much a problem for the other players as the player
who tries to play through a closed interchange. The game can't rely
totally on the player's honesty in their Turn (although it does have to
rely heavily on this). I'm not saying people are cheats, I'm saying that
sometimes we can't remember all the technicalities. I'm sure there have
been instances where people have played turns that they know have been
illegal but have not wanted to change their plans unless spotted. Naughty,
but...

(And we all know Ruttsborough was famous for token stealing; making illegal
token claims and seeing if the other player raised it with the referees. 
The pressure on that other player, to question a dangerous man like
Ruttsborough continuously through the game was high, and too many new
players simply assumed that he must have _some_ justification. Of course,
this was in the day when an illegal token claim would merely result in the
loss of the token and a two-minute penalty. The naive IMCS had never
really had to deal with anything like Ruttsborough...)

Ultimately, as the process of me submitting interesting but unpopular
proposals is reminding me, it's a Nomic as much as anything and player
interaction is all.

> It's beginning to trouble me a bit, as well; the Game does seem to be
> tightening in around Zone 1 a lot - maybe it's time to reintroduce a way
to
> get actual Golds from the outer reaches?

It's hard to see a way around that. Zone 1's heavy crosslinking is
important; not only to MN but to IMCS and ISIHAC as well. I don't want
control of Z1 to become crucial, and there are still Gambits and other
methods of getting golds out in the boonies. (Look at Dunx's favourite
opening). I think a few more Gambits combined with Token Running and maybe
a way of collecting tokens for moving through large numbers of
non-interchange stations (thus using the Bonanza action) will ensure things
are evenly balanced.

Again, the Nomic aspect comes in - if you think Zone 1 is too strong, do
something to promote Outer Zones. If everyone agrees with your POV, things
change. Sitting around and nuking other people's proposals with no comment
doesn't further the ends of that particular game.

> I'm just naturally averse to Rules which have too many words or clauses
in,
> really. The stopping of "various trickeries" such as Wilding seemed
rather
> superfluous - since these days it takes two Plastics to make a Green to
> declare the Wild, and a Black to Move to it, I think anyone who bothers
to
> Wild for a Token Run deserves their prize. And the "once per Terminus",
as I
> say, bothers me as being something to remember - I don't want to have to
> (particularly in the Long Game) read back through all previous Turns to
> check a Play's legality. A simple "Token Running may only be performed if
> the Player Moved to a Terminus during eir Movement Phase" clause would
> probably slow things down just enough.

You have me there. I suffer from the affliction of being supererogatory
sometimes. People need to keep reminding me of this (and yes, the previous
sentence was typed with a smile :-). But, IMHO, this is why amendments
were included as proposal types.

> I would, of course, dearly love to. I imagine it's a Charge trick? I've
> never quite had the enthusiasm to sit down and do the maths for those,
but
> I'm sure there are some very simple few-move paths from a Home to the
> Crescent. Although two Moves surprises me.

They involve using the zero-cost Charge=18 trick to open MC, yes. This is
what you get when you have a database with every station's Radius (so I
can't claim that I thought of the stations, but I did think of how to find
them). There are also methods of moving such that you can Wild across the
map and then drop into MC, thus foiling potential blocks. Interestingly
enough these methods seem to be intertwined with the fact that your home
must be six stations from MC but wilds can close to three stations from
MC... But enough speculation.

> Not without seeing it, of course. If a powerful strategy can be beaten
with
> an equally powerful counter-strategy, then it's precisely the sort of
thing
> we're aiming for. But if the only way to overcome it is to be extremely
> lucky, or specifically play to beat that strategy, then yes, I'd probably
> like to see it banned. (I've been particularly impressed at Wizards of
the
> Coast for banning rather a lot of the over-powerful Magic: The Gathering
> cards from recent expansions, a move which has crippled a lot of the
boring
> two-turn-win decks and made tournament play less tiresome.)

The one way I can see to block both of these is to be lucky (you have to
play before the player trying to two-move-win) and move immediately to
block MC. Even then, if you lower your guard on MC for one moment the
person's latent charge can get them in. They just need to circle close
enough...

Anyway, have a good one, whatever strength you like,

Paul Wayper -- DPI ITS Computer Systems Officer
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