Saturday, January 14, 2023

Proposal: Protection Money

Reached quorum 8 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 16 Jan 2023 14:26:52 UTC

In the rule “The Gift of the Isle”, replace this text:

If a Settler has not done so since the most recent Production of Resources, they may perform the following atomic action, known as Harvesting the Crop:

with the following text:

There are two publicly tracked variables named “Injured” and “Victims”, each of which is a list containing 0 or more names of Settlers, defaulting to empty.

If a Settler has not done so since the most recent Production of Resources, they may perform the following atomic action, known as Harvesting the Crop, unless their name is in the Injured list:

In the rule “The Dice Deck”, add the following bullet points to the end of the bullet list:

* Set the Injured list to contain the same values as the Victims list
* Set the Victims list to empty

In the rule “Visitors”, add the following rows to the Visitors table:

| 4 || Thug

| 10 || Thug

Add a subrule titled “Thug” to the rule “Visitors” and give it the following text:

Bribe is a variable privately tracked by the Onlooker per Settler containing a list of items, with valid values being the same as the values defined for Stockpile, defaulting to an empty list. If the Visitor value is set to “Thug”, any Settler may privately send a message to the Onlooker describing the Bribe that they want to pay to the Thug. The Onlooker must set the Bribe for that Settler to the value requested if it is a legal value, or inform the Settler if the value is not legal and why it is not legal.

Bribe Value is a number privately tracked by the Onlooker per Settler that is calculated using the amounts of each item in that Settler’s Bribe as follows, defaulting to 0. When calculating the Bribe Value, the Onlooker must use the following steps:
* Start with a Bribe Value of 0
* Add 1 to the Bribe Value for each type of item in the Settler’s Bribe that has an amount of at least 1
* Add 2 to the Bribe Value for each type of item in the Settler’s Bribe that has an amount of at least 3

If the Visitor value is set to “Thug” when the Onlooker begins the next Visitor Arrival, before the Onlooker proceeds with the steps for Visitor Arrival, the Onlooker executes the following steps as an atomic action:
* Calculate the Bribe Value of each Settler
* For each Settler, pay the amount of each item listed in that Settler’s Bribe from that Settler’s Stockpile. If there not enough of an item in that Settler’s Stockpile to pay the Bribe, pay the maximum amount of that item as possible without setting the Stockpile to invalid values and set their Bribe Value to 0
* Privately create a new variable named Targets that contains a list of the names of the Settlers with the lowest Bribe Value among all Settlers that do not have an empty Stockpile
* Chose a random Settler from the names in the Targets list using a private dice roll, add their name to the publicly-tracked Victims list, then remove the Targets variable
* Set each Settler’s Bribe to empty and each Settler’s Bribe Value to 0

Rather than having a Robber outright steal from Settlers, the Thug introduces a game of hidden bets to avoid a Settler being unable to harvest their crop for a turn.

Apologies to TDS for all of the extra steps. If that becomes a sticking point, let’s try to work out a simplification of the steps rather than kill the idea outright.

Comments

Kevan: he/him

14-01-2023 19:45:33 UTC

An “injury” blocking all harvest and building activation for a player implies that we are lone individuals single-handedly harvesting various fields, constructing buildings, toiling at quarries, etc. I was assuming that each player represented a small group of settlers.

JonathanDark: he/him

14-01-2023 19:54:45 UTC

If it fits better, think of “Injured” as the main workers in the group of settlers all get knee-capped. If you buy in that a Settler represents a group of settlers (lower-case), then an injured Settler is injured groups of settlers.

JonathanDark: he/him

14-01-2023 19:55:48 UTC

Now that Production of Resources is an atomic action, I tweaked my Proposal to make it easier for the Onlooker to deal with the Injured list. It also makes it line up better with the Production of Resources.

Chiiika: she/her

15-01-2023 00:36:06 UTC

imperial

Trapdoorspyder: he/him

15-01-2023 04:29:49 UTC

for

SingularByte: he/him

15-01-2023 07:13:21 UTC

for

Kevan: he/him

15-01-2023 09:13:33 UTC

for

Kevan: he/him

15-01-2023 09:18:33 UTC

As a Robber replacement, though, this feels like a little backwards for allowing the richer players to more easily avoid the punishment of not getting to Harvest.

quirck: he/him

15-01-2023 11:36:37 UTC

imperial

JonathanDark: he/him

15-01-2023 16:31:01 UTC

@Kevan: I’d be willing to see this adjusted in a later Proposal to allow the Bribe Value to be a ratio between the Bribe and the Settler’s total Stockpile.

JonathanDark: he/him

15-01-2023 16:31:30 UTC

replace “allow” with “make”. I don’t know why I said “allow”.

Habanero:

15-01-2023 19:37:55 UTC

for

Raven1207: he/they

16-01-2023 13:27:35 UTC

for

Lulu: she/her

16-01-2023 14:25:11 UTC

for