From: gfink@bonzai.eecs.ucdavis.edu (George Fink)
Newsgroups: rec.games.board,rec.games.pbm
Subject: Update on 1830 by email
Date: 8 Apr 92 02:32:53 GMT
Followup-To: rec.games.board
Organization: University of California at Davis



Thanks for the reponse, we now have at least 12 people interested in 1830
by email, including myself, enough for at least 2 games.

Right now, we are considering starting two separate games of 1830.
This posting has 2 purposes; the recruitment of more 1830 players, and
the further discussion of 1830 simultaneous bidding/play rules.

1.  If you are interested in a game, please mail me at
gfink@cs.ucdavis.edu if you haven't already.  Also, please give an
indication of your availability for a 'quick' game with fast
turn-around times.

2.  Here is a summary of the current discussion ongoing on
parallelizing 1830 rounds;

The basic tradeoff is speed versus adherance to the face-to-face rules.
Based on my experiences with pbem Titan, if there is a group of players with
excellent access to email, and guaranteed response within a 1/2 day, it is
feasible to get a lot of turns completed in a small amount of time.  One
advantage of this system is that, in 1830, a non-playing moderator is not
needed, as there are no die rolls.  But, at least 6 players with this sort of
turnaround time is imperative.  Out of the 12 of us, I think there should be
at least 6 who can guarantee this, so I think at least one game should be of
this variety.

For players who cannot guarantee this time frame, or who would like to
experiment with parallel rules, there are a couple of ways we can do things.

There are rumors of an extant pbm (possible postal?) system for 1830, I
would be interested in seeing that, if any of you have access to any, please
send it along.

In an effort to come up with a set of pbm rules of our own, Bill Larson came
up with a start for a workable bidding scheme for the stock round.  Operating
rounds could possibly be run in sequence, there aren't as many potential
actions there.

Basically, the scheme is, everyone submits one turn of the stock round in
parallel.  Conflicting actions are resolved by either allowing rebids on
succeeding rounds, or giving the stock to the highest bidder in the current
round.  Here is Bill's example:

Example

Player 1 bid $20 for "20 dollar road"
Player 2 bid $70 for D and H
Player 3 bid $40 for C and St L
Player 4 bid $45 for C and St L
Player 5 bid $200 for C and A
Player 6 bid $210 for C and A

Player 1,2,4 get railroads. 3 is out of luck. C and A still up for grabs.
Tie private companies would remain up for grabs.

An option would be for 5 and 6 to be allowed to increase their bid on the C and
A as well as submit another bid on another line.
----

Actually, for the sale of private companies, I think that bidding could go
in sequence, as in the game rules, because attention spans will tend to be
higher in the beginning of the game.  For buying and selling corporation
stock, his system could be used:  All players submit simultaneous orders for
one turn, and all orders are resolved at the current stock price.  If there is
a conflict (multiple bids for the same president's share, limited stock
availability, or 5 shares already in the bank pool), then the conflicting
orders will not be executed, and the stock price will temporarily be shifted
one notch in the market for the purposes of that type of transaction (up for
buying, down for selling), and then players are allowed to rebid on the
next turn.  Alternatively, no change in the stock market price is made, but
people can "overbid" or "underbid" on stocks (buying and selling
respectively), and, for instance, the highest bid gets the stock, with a
closed-bid auction between bidding players in the case of a tie.

--George
--
George Fink			|  gfink@cs.ucdavis.edu
Department of Computer Science  |  University of California-Davis