Friday, May 24, 2019

Proposal: Making Requests

unpopular 1-4 with 1 def failed by card

Adminned at 25 May 2019 06:17:17 UTC

replace the paragraph in “Drops” starting with “If no Drop post exists” with the following:

A block description is an unambiguous description of the shape and Module arrangement of a single Block, listing the Modules in the order of the numbers on the shape’s depiction. (eg. “An T-Block of Dock, Corridor, Power, Dock.”) The default block description is an O-block with all corridors.

Each architect has a request, which is a block description tracked on the [[Moon Sites]] Page under their Site. An architect may change their block description at any time.

If no drop post exists, any Architect may make a blog post listing the request of the architect first in the bidding queue and moving the architect first the queue’s name to the end of the bidding queue. Such a blog post is known as a Drop post. If Axemabaro’s request is the default and he has not made a drop post, only he may make a drop post. If the preceding sentence has no effect, any admin may remove it from the rule set.

Change:

is more than 36 hours old

to

is more than 47 hours old

I thought this system could use a touch more automation. Now we can start reacting to a new drop post as soon as the old one is closed.

I put a clause in so that Axemabaro could keep his turn.

As the drop system is now faster, I slowed down its replacement so that everyone has the full two days to react. I used 47 instead of 48 to prevent the time from steadily drifting later.

posted by derrick at 24 May 2019 12:15:00 UTC Comments (7)

Comments

Kevan: he/him

24-05-2019 13:38:26 UTC

against Not sure I like the last-minute strategy this creates - there’s an incentive to conceal your Request until the previous Drop is almost over, so that opponents can’t plan around it (or can even be misled into preparing for a fake Request that you change at the last minute). That’s a tactic available to players who can check in frequently and be awake at the right time, and not available to those who can’t.

(Also, working out what an empty Request would default to here is an interesting challenge - what is the “alphabetically earliest legal text string” describing a Block?)

derrick: he/him

24-05-2019 14:46:59 UTC

Yeah, the last minute shenanigans tactic is something I thought about, but I didn’t think it would be as big of a deal. I wonder if adding something like “The architect at the start of the bidding queue may not change their request” would fix it.

If you break a block description into its component parts then it becomes A J-block of Corridors. Most phrases will default to I-blocks and corridors, because you can replace the components in the description. Note that: “An I-block” comes after “A J-Block”, and sticking an “a” in front of a letter will come before any other options. the position of the ‘+’ symbol would matter if corridor wasn’t winning anyways.

This theory isn’t perfect, but I think its pretty robust.

Kevan: he/him

24-05-2019 14:57:31 UTC

Even without changing it, there’s still the advantage of setting your Request five minutes before the end of the previous Drop.

Farsight:

24-05-2019 15:09:20 UTC

imperial

naught:

24-05-2019 16:59:49 UTC

against  Per Kevan’s comment.

We tend to want information on what other players are doing before performing our own actions. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it tends to slow the game somewhat. I feel this is the main reason the last Dynasty suffered.
(It does beg the question, though, of how a Dynasty where everyone does their actions “at the same time” would work out; something like Diplomacy. It would be difficult to make that work, as “at the same time” is somewhat of an impossibility without physically being in the same space.)

Kevan: he/him

24-05-2019 17:14:08 UTC

[naught] It’s actually quite easy given the setup we have here - player can submit their actions privately to the Emperor, who then processes them at the same time. It worked particularly well in the Assassin dynasty (with some tweaks for how to handle players who fail to submit orders). Would be good to try a proper Diplomacy dynasty some time.

card:

25-05-2019 06:06:11 UTC

I do like that this would speed the production of blocks up, but I think a slightly different way could make it better. So against to move the queue along.

I think that since we’ve been using descriptions of blocks that “An L-Block of Corridor, Corridor, Corridor, Corridor.” is the auto-default block.