From: fred_s@earwax.pei.com (Fred Scott)
Newsgroups: rec.games.board
Subject: Re: EIA: Re: Supply limits
Date: 6 Nov 92 05:17:04 GMT
Organization: Protocol Engines Incorporated

In article <10932@uqcspe.cs.uq.oz.au> brendan@cs.uq.oz.au writes:
>In <1992Nov3.223119.10083@pei.com> fred_s@earwax.pei.com (Fred Scott) writes:
>
>>...and getting the country you *want* (and are willing to pay extra VPs for)
                                         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>is whole point of the affair, is it not?  That was the beauty of the old
>>system.  What, in god's name, is the *possible* attraction of the new one?
>
>No the point of the affair is to further even up the victory chances of
>the various powers according people's perceptions of the advantages of
>being France, Britain, Russia, Austria,....

As I pointed out in text you quoted, the original rules do do that, unless
someone overbids a country just to play that country.  But this allowed in
either system.

>This system does its very best to make France go for the highest bid, Britain
>next, etc.

It does nothing of the sort.  It simply specifies the order in which country
ownership is resolved.  You may still make higher bids for the later countries
if you please, and I can't see anything in the system to discourage that.

>Imagine the situation of seven mad Turks in the original rules.

Aaarrrg!  I wish *someone* (AN-N-N-Y-ONE) arguing in favor of the second
edition bidding rules would start being precise about their arguments and
quit making obscure references.  (Or at least follow-up and respond to my
questions...)  What do you mean "seven mad Turks" and how does this phenomenon
occur in the original bidding rules?

>In these rules the strategy should be to bid what you think the advantages of
>each country are over being Turkey. Thus no matter who gets which power you
>should be reasonably happy that everyone has pretty even chances of
>winning.

And why do the original bidding rules not do this, as well?

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.)

From the arguments I'm getting about first edition vs. second edition bidding
rules, I'm beginning to wonder if some of you really understand the difference.
At least, some of the arguments I keep hearing strike me as bizarre and
cyrptic in the extreme.  People are trying to claim all sorts of strange
benefits that follow from making the order of country ownership resolution
arbitrary rather than highest-to-lowest of the high outstanding bids.  The
only effect that I can see the arbitrary order having is to cause the results
to tend to become more random and less predicable.  This, in turn, will make it
more difficult for players to make an intelligent bid.  And it's not an
incredibly strong effect, either - it's just that I don't see any constructive
reason for it at all.

That's the rub.  I don't mind hearing that something is more to your taste
than something else, if that's what it comes down to.  But could some of
the defenders of second edition bidding (arbitrary order bidding) please be
more specific about naming the concrete (read, *NOT* abstractly termed)
benefits of this method?  I'm struggling to understand your points of view
(really, I am) but the explanations I've heard so far make no sense to me.

Fred
Newsgroups: rec.games.board