Blame Cramchakle (again)

http://www.wargear.net/games/player/8004

net continent "bonus" of -9 (yes, negative nine) and min bonus of 3... yet the game wants to give me 4 armies this turn because I own 14 territories (and it's x/3 territory bonus).

This seems wrong to me.

Bump... please let me know if this is a bug or a feature so I can inform my competitors and continue my turn.

No that's correct - we changed the way the bonus structure so the minimum continent bonus is zero. This means that players always receive at least the minimum territory bonus even if the continent bonus is negative.

See this thread for more: http://www.wargear.net/forum/showthread/321

I still think this is incorrect even though the game player is behaving as is programmed to do.

I think the "problem" that was being discussed in the previous thread was merely one of display rather than what bonus was actually being granted.

There shouldn't be three separate types of bonus: the continent, territory, and minimum. There should be just the bonus, which is comprised of the continent bonuses (negatives) and the territory bonus. If that total is less than the minimum bonus level then the player should get the minimum. Otherwise, the use of a negative bonus is really getting watered-down with the current setup and I believe it breaks Cram's board in question.

On a further note: my comment in the previous thread was meant to imply that I'd like to see a minimum bonus that can either be 0 or "none." Having the minimum bonus set to "none" would essentially eliminate the second step of making a check against the bonus value so that one could receive a "negative bonus" at the beginning of their turn and be forced to remove troops instead of place them.

I did actually deliberately change the code to fix the problem where a negative continent bonus meant players didn't receive the minimum territory bonus - this is now the same as how WF treats bonuses. It was actually specifically with this board that the problem was picked up and Cram asked me to fix it so it's most definitely with his approval!

Ideally there would be a separate minimum territory bonus and minimum continent bonus to give maximum flexibility so if you wanted the negative continent bonus to outweigh the minimum territory bonus you could. I'm not sure about stripping units from players, that would be very bizarre!

tom wrote: I did actually deliberately change the code to fix the problem where a negative continent bonus meant players didn't receive the minimum territory bonus - this is now the same as how WF treats bonuses. It was actually specifically with this board that the problem was picked up and Cram asked me to fix it so it's most definitely with his approval!

I think I am going to side with Toaster on this one, and I don't believe that's how WF does it.  WF will actually take your territory bonus down (all the way to the minimum) if your negative continents bonuses go below your positive continents bonuses.  Players should always receive at least the minimum territory bonus, but negative continent bonuses should be able to take the territory bonus down.

tom wrote:
Ideally there would be a separate minimum territory bonus and minimum continent bonus to give maximum flexibility so if you wanted the negative continent bonus to outweigh the minimum territory bonus you could. I'm not sure about stripping units from players, that would be very bizarre!

And in regards to this I agree with Toaster

There shouldn't be three separate types of bonus: the continent, territory, and minimum. There should be just the bonus, which is comprised of the continent bonuses (negatives) and the territory bonus.

I think of it as Minimum Bonus, not necessarily Minimum Territory or Minimum Continent Bonus.

Although somehow allowing the stripping of units from players could potentially be a very interesting scenario (but don't know if I would like to see it still)

I agree with them both (except that asking for a "remove armies" type bonus is probably too much, as it would require opening a whole different dimension in the code as well as asking players to learn how to do something completely new).

There should be one singular minimum bonus.

That being said, I'm going to play my turn now.

Yertle wrote:

I think I am going to side with Toaster on this one, and I don't believe that's how WF does it.  WF will actually take your territory bonus down (all the way to the minimum) if your negative continents bonuses go below your positive continents bonuses.  Players should always receive at least the minimum territory bonus, but negative continent bonuses should be able to take the territory bonus down.

Are you sure about this? I don't remember having a zero bonus on the WF version of the map despite having a negative continent bonus...

tom wrote:

Yertle wrote:

I think I am going to side with Toaster on this one, and I don't believe that's how WF does it.  WF will actually take your territory bonus down (all the way to the minimum) if your negative continents bonuses go below your positive continents bonuses.  Players should always receive at least the minimum territory bonus, but negative continent bonuses should be able to take the territory bonus down.

Are you sure about this? I don't remember having a zero bonus on the WF version of the map despite having a negative continent bonus...

Not a 0, but going down to the Minimum Bonus even if you should obtain some bonuses due to a high number of owned territories.  In asm's example he is still getting his full territory bonus, when he should be obtaining only the minimum because he has negative continents.

I'll try and find an example.

I think we should be able to specify a Windfall Tax on excessive bonuses.

Here: RiskySkies

Purple should receive +8 for his territory bonus, but only obtains +5 due to the -10 of his continents.

Where as currently here at WG he would receive the +8 according to asm's game.

Hmm true. So how did the WF version of Reich / Crams map work then? Pretty sure I didn't ever end up with 0 units to place...

No. There's a minimum bonus. Say 3. So you would get 3. Right?

In this case, I have minus a million for continents and 4 for territories (14/3 min3). The minimum (3) should be the total minimum (3). So if I have minus a million, which I do, I should get the minimum (3). In this case I am getting 4 because despite my utter ineptitude at stacking up a negative one million continent bonus, I am rewarded with one extra army (4) for my clever stratagem of owning 14 territories.

Ahha. I see what you mean. So the negative continent bonus has the effect of decreasing the territory bonus but only down to the minimum territory bonus.

Correct?

tom wrote: Hmm true. So how did the WF version of Reich / Crams map work then? Pretty sure I didn't ever end up with 0 units to place...

Fallout didn't have a per territory bonus, it was a simple +4 unless you had a continent.  Besides you would still never end up with 0, you would always get at least the minimum.

tom wrote: Ahha. I see what you mean. So the negative continent bonus has the effect of decreasing the territory bonus but only down to the minimum territory bonus.

Correct?

100% correct.  It's a minimum bonus, not necessarily minimum territory bonus, at least that's the way I think.

Ok thanks guys, that's been fixed in the engine and in the game view page. It's not been fixed in the Player yet, I'm still working on that, unfortunately it's taking a lot longer than I thought to get out of the door.

Yepper. I think this way is much more intuitive in the end.

I'm still a fan of my removing troops idea.

Anyone ever play a game of Diplomacy? The idea of the board game diplomacy is that you may only have as many troops as you have supply depots to maintain the troops. If someone takes your supply depot from you, you now do not have the proper equipment/food/money to support all the forces you have on the board and so must remove some.

There are a ton of really cool and unique board ideas that can use this principle.


I also really like the possibility of card scales having negative numbers. The game could have for some very interesting moves if a forced turning in of cards resulted in you losing your bonus or having to remove several of your troops from the board.