From: fred_s@earwax.pei.com (Fred Scott)
Subject: Re: EIA: Re: Supply limits
Organization: Protocol Engines Incorporated
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 23:56:55 GMT

In article <10964@uqcspe.cs.uq.oz.au> brendan@cs.uq.oz.au writes:
>In <1992Nov6.051704.12110@pei.com> fred_s@earwax.pei.com (Fred Scott) writes:
>
>>And what has Turkey, specifically got to do with anything?  Just because it's
>>last in resolution order doesn't mean you have to bid one point for it.  (In
>>fact, I usually wouldn't - I'd might bid one for Spain or Prussia and perhaps
>>as many as three for Turkey.)
>
>Would be as happy to only bid three for Turkey if it were not resolved last?
>You would have to bid more if you were really keen to have it.

Correct.  And that's *good*, no?  If not, why not?

>Undoubtedly the new rules are aimed at discouraging people from entering
>bidding wars over the power they want and rather at encouraging people
>to make the sort of bids necessary for game balance.

How so?  How can you possibly say what sort of bids are necessary for game
balance or that the one system encourages it but the other doesn't.  Frankly,
I don't agree with the statement that: "the new rules discourage people
from entering bidding wars over the power they want" - they don't, they just
make it trickier it carry out, causing weirder results.  Nor does the statement
that "under the new system people will make the the sort of bids necessary
for game balance" make any sense - there's simply no evidence of that.

>I think we can all agree that for game balance the largest bids (which
>should be made by the best players) really should be for France,
>then Britain, then Russia, etc.

In fact, I (and I think a lot of others) disagree with that statement.  Many
of us think England should actually merit a higher bid than France.  And
which of the three or four less important countries merit the lowest bid
is even less clear.  I would bid negative points for Spain if I could - can't
say that for Turkey.

>The new rules encourage this as follows.  Everyone has a live
>bid for France, so the winning French bid suffers more competition and
>should be correspondingly larger since "lower limit" bids from players
>not particularly interested in or capable of playing France are in effect.
>With the old rules these "lower limit" bids are ignored when the player already
>has some other power.  With the new rules you get to push up the market
>on France and Britain as well as chase you favourite power.  If you get
>France or Britain with a nominal bid, then you should be laughing all
>the way to the VP bank.

This is totally bogus.  If a player doesn't want to play Britain or France
that much, he's not going to bid many points for it under either system.
It doesn't matter how many folks bid 10 for France, that's NOT going to push
up the winning bid for France unless everyone does.  And if noone's willing
to bid more than 10 for France, someone's going to get a great deal under
either system.  (But you later admitted that...)  And, of course, given that
France is one of the countries you normally bid a high number for, you really
have to assume a seven player competition for it when you make out your bids
under the old system, anyway - even if, in fact, it goes second or third in
the bidding.

I think we're converging on the viewpoint that the real difference is much
more likely to be in the smaller countries, although I also think it may also
affect players who bid high for both France and England.  We just disagree
in that I think some competition for countries like Turkey is good, even if
it only occurs because players are afraid that others may want the same
country. (In the undefined order they can't have the confidence of knowing
that they're not bidding against any (or many) people.)  We also disagree about
the relative size of the British vs. French (and I might even add, the Russian)
bids.  If it were all that clear which should be the larger, then the second
edition modifications would at least be somewhat more harmless, if still being
completely unnecessary.

>Perhaps the real advantage is that the enforced ordering focuses the minds of
>the players on what their real objectives should be in the bidding process.

Essentially, you're saying that the AH rule gods are trying to suggest to the
players what they should bid higher for, although they can still bid whatever
they want.  They're doing so with an irrelavant rules change which tends to
randomize the results of the bidding, give players countries they don't want
to play while stifling competion (more or less at random) for other, more
popular, countries.  And, on top of everything else, they're even *wrong* about
the order - at least, in my humble opinion.

Fred
Newsgroups: rec.games.board