BlogNomic: The Ninth Dynasty of ais523

If a resource-based tiebreak seems unachievable, we could tiebreak it on something like the order of Anointments being gained - either whoever got there first, or last. Random seems frustrating for the loser if it comes down to a coin flip - that it’s not even a both-win mantle pass where they get historical credit for a shared victory, it’s just a straight loss.

(Ironically the game of Penny Press that we’re playing at the moment is the first time that I can ever remember seeing a boardgame invoke a coin flip to break endgame ties.)

A bit clever, but no. This changes the rule text to read:

The single District whose Score is highest on each Plenary Session receives an Anointment; if there is more than one District whose Score is highest for that Plenary Session, then no District receives an Anointment for that Plenary Session.
Any District who has three or more Anointments has achieved Victory; if, under the preceding condition, there is more than one District with the most Anointments, the City must publicly randomly select a District from the Districts with the most Anointments, and the District thus selected achieves victory.

Splitting them out into two sentences makes the Victory clause independent of the Award clause, and moves it to being assessed at all times, rather than only at the time when Annointments are awarded, and allows for Annoitnment ties to be resolved in line.

In other words, at the moment of enactment of this proposal, the dynasty will immediately end in a five-way randomly-resolved tie, as criteria for a tie will immediately come into effect and be forced into a resolution.

Oh no I have massively mangled my reading there. Hang on, here is what the amended text would look like if both this and Abandon All Hope are enacted:

The single District whose Score is highest on each Plenary Session receives an Anointment; if there is more than one District whose Score is highest for that Plenary Session, then no District receives an Anointment for that Plenary Session.

Any District who has three or more Anointments has achieved Victory.

If a Conclave is ongoing and there is no District that can make a non-null response to any of the Agenda Items defined by the ruleset then the single District with the most Anointments has achieved Victory; if, under the preceding condition, there is more than one District with the most Anointments, the City must publicly randomly select a District from the Districts with the most Anointments, and the District thus selected achieves victory.

That does look better. Keeping my against vote on the random resolution matter, however.

I sympathize with the random resolution issue. I wasn’t sure what else would be fair, and as I mentioned I’d really not rather litigate some complex formula for it, as each of us will have a different idea of what that should be based on something that would likely be favourable to with our current resource trends.

Josh, if you have a simple solution for the resolution of ties, that would be helpful. Keep in mind that this is for a very specific scenario: where no one is able to post a non-null response to the Plenary Session, and there is no single District with the highest Anointments.

Kevan’s idea isn’t too bad, I just don’t know either if “first Anointment received” or “last Anointment received” is a sufficient indicator of victory worthiness.

A tiebreak doesn’t necessarily have to be an indicator of worthiness - it will become one. If “first Anointment” is on the books, then everyone will bear that in mind and consider whether to submit a little more to the early Plenary Sessions, in case the dynasty goes to a tie later. If it’s “last Anointment”, players will hold some back.

Probably not a lot of impact either way, but it will make the endgame decisions a bit more meaningful, and a tiebroken winner’s victory more skilful.

I miss the old “Just pass and fix, jeez” Josh. If the rest is fine, it would be nice to follow that guideline and fix just the random selection bit if the rest is agreeable.

I only see the random selection clause as substantive in this proposal.

Excellent, then you would agree that we should do something about that scenario. I eagerly await your ideas.

No need to wait, my proposal went up seven minutes ago

in favour of Convection. i’m not a big fan of the tiebreak being random :0

Withdrawn