Puerto Rico : keeping good order after captain phase

[Sark]

I really like the implementation of Puerto Rico game on BGA, for me it's perfect. However, there's a situation where a problem can occur. It is during the captain phase, after the goods are shipped when the players needs to choose a good to keep.

The problem is when the 2 players have the possibility to keep same goods. For example, the 2 players have coffee and tobacco and both goods can still be sold. So if they select the same good, the player who did not choose captain will sell it and the other will sell nothing. And often, he will also sell the other good during next selling phase and take a huge advantage.

So it's important for each player to see what his opponent has choosen. But what happens if none of the players want to choose first ? What can we do in such case ? Usually, in most of games I played, the player who can sell after picks the good first but if he doesn't want, the situation can be blocked...

I don't know what's the rule in the real board game but I think it would be useful to find a solution to avoid this situation which can generate conflicts between players.

[DrKarotte]

This is not clear in the original rulebook, but there are some hints "between the lines".

a) There is a similar situation when placing the colonists. The rulebook says (translation of me): "Basically it is possible that the players place their colonists at the same time. But in fact it may be important that you can see what another player did. So this action is done one after another (starting with the one who chose the role card) like the others."

What do we learn?
1) The BGA implementation is wrong here.
2) Probably the storing of goods is to be done step by step by the same reason.


b) In the rulebook there you can read this sentence: "When no one can ship any more goods the storing facilities of every player are checked". This sounds very much as when this shouldn't be done simultaneous.

[Een]

Heya,

I really like the implementation of Puerto Rico game on BGA

Thanks! Glad you enjoy the game

1) The BGA implementation is wrong here.

About colonists placement, BGA implementation used the English rulebook as a reference, which says: "Usually, all players place/move their colonists at the same time. If, however, the players feel that their placement decisions may depend on other’s placements, the players should place their colonists is the following order: first, the mayor and, then, the others in clockwise order from the mayor."

I don't know if that translation is accurate, but the fact is that most often order of play is indifferent, so it would be a useless drag on the game not to allow simultaneous placement. And when this is not the case, players can (and probably should) refer to the rules and autoregulate themselves. If they don't, well then I suppose we can say that the player implementation is wrong

2) Probably the storing of goods is to be done step by step by the same reason.

About the "keeping goods" situation, this is not covered by the rulebook, but I also feel that the same sort of rule as for colonists placement should be used by the players as a tiebreaker when that situation arises: "first the captain, then clockwise order".

Cheers,
Een

[dcac1]

If you wish to maintain a fair simultaneous play for the game Puerto Rico, follow these rule:

You can implement a system where the player cannot see the other player colonists position during the mayor phase until the player had finish placing their colonists.

You can also implement a system where the player cannot see the other player stored good during the end of the captain phase until the player had finish storing their goods.

[ThierryC]

I support the idea of dcac1.
It seems a smart move to take advantage of the possibilities of a web-platform to meet the rules, whereas not uselessly lengthening the duration of the game.

[Een]

That would actually make it impossible to play the game the way the designer intended.

The current implementation allows to respect the turn order (with visible colonists, potentially impacting the decision from the next player, like in real life) through player self regulation: not every situation can/should be resolved through software constraint. If someone is not fair-play enough to respect the turn order when asked in the (rare) cases where it's important, maybe you should consider giving him/her a red thumb.

[ThierryC]

That would actually make it impossible to play the game the way the designer intended.

Oh, you are right. I don't know why I thought it was equivalent.

[Rajam]

Invisible placement shouldn't be an option. It doesn't work like that in the real game, and actually, the rules clearly state that the player picking the Mayor places colonists first, and then the next player and so on, which means that the last player HAS an advantage (the advantage of information) in this regard. In situational occasions, I myself sometimes skip the opportunity to pick the mayor role because I want the next player to pick it in order to place my colonists as the last player, working with valuable info.

It happened to me a couple of times that a player wasn't aware of this rule and the worst part came when I tell them it's in the booklet and they thoght I was lying and/or simply didn't follow this official rule. Of course I red-thumbed those guys to death, but the problem is that it can still mess with the outcome of the game. You still lose, and you lose because someone else cheated.

I'm aware this doesn't happen often. Less than often; it's actually super situational. But it still happens, and several players don't know the rule. You lose time and focus explaining it's an official rule, and in the worst cases some players don't play by it. I know it can be messy to implement such a situational rule, but is there really nothing that can be done? Like a "invoke Mayor/Captain special rule" button? At the very least, leave a reminder of this special rule somewhere visible in the game table?

Also a general question: It happened to me once, and hopefully never again, but is there a way to cancel/void the results if a player "cheats" regarding this rule (aka not following it)? I care more about not losing the game (and Elo points) and not giving them the victory than red-thumbing the cheater

[lap63]

In BGA version you can only be the fastest player so you have more time to make decision than others, if they wait until you play you can expel them

[veme]

when this is not the case, players can (and probably should) refer to the rules and autoregulate themselves. If they don't, well then I suppose we can say that the player implementation is wrong

A big selling point of having an online implementation should be that we don't have to do things like paw through a rulebook, as the interface should enforce the rules. Also, what does ELO even measure if the game does not prevent people from cheating?

It is easy to say that red thumbing people is a solution, but I should not be forced to have to play games against each individual member of the site to find out if they are a cheater. And even if they did cheat in this scenario, they may be totally unaware of the rule, so is it even fair to give them a red thumb? And, of course, none of this helps during a tournament.

Stop trying to pass the buck and claim that it is the responsibility of the users to memorize or refer to the manual. There is no such thing as a 'player implementation' being wrong - a player may be a cheater or ignorant of all the rules, but either way the interface should not allow cheating. It is your site's responsibility to faithfully implement the rules, so we can play games by them and earn ELO and tournament wins that are meaningful. Users should not have to be rules police on here, we should be able to trust that the interface enforces them so we can focus on playing.