Suggestion - auto decline trade offer

[DeringeR]

add option - auto decline offer when you not have resources for trade

[Stroom]

If someone just spams a trade for each resource type, he will get a pretty good idea of what cards you have. So not a very good idea.

[Mathew5000]

add option - auto decline offer when you not have resources for trade

You may wish to peruse and vote for some or all of these suggestions:

https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=63323

https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=66203

https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=60906

https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=62039

https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=65653

My own preference would be a per-game option for the interface to display the number of each resource that are out. This is information that each player could tabulate from the game log so what's the harm in that information being provided? What I'm contemplating is, you would see the difference between the number of sheep that have been dispensed by the bank, and the number of sheep returned to the bank (when players buy dev cars or settlements). You might know that there are 7 sheep out, and if you're holding 2 of them, then your opponents collectively have 5. But it would not tell you which opponents have any. (And the same for each of the resource types.) This would at least stop players from proposing trades seeking resources that none of their opponents hold, which is a common occurrence and a big delay in turn-based games.

But I doubt that BGA will agree to implement this, because it provides information that players don't have in the physical game (unless they keep track of it carefully).

Also, there's no indication that the devs of Catan on BGA are actively working on improvements. There are a number of great suggestions that have had no response from the devs: https://boardgamearena.com/bugs?game=1539

[SilkySapper]

My own preference would be a per-game option for the interface to display the number of each resource that are out. This is information that each player could tabulate from the game log so what's the harm in that information being provided? What I'm contemplating is, you would see the difference between the number of sheep that have been dispensed by the bank, and the number of sheep returned to the bank (when players buy dev cars or settlements). You might know that there are 7 sheep out, and if you're holding 2 of them, then your opponents collectively have 5. But it would not tell you which opponents have any. (And the same for each of the resource types.) This would at least stop players from proposing trades seeking resources that none of their opponents hold, which is a common occurrence and a big delay in turn-based games.

That is an absolutely terrible idea. Often, one or two players will effectively control one or two resources in a game. If it's displayed how many of each resource is out, anyone with half a brain could easily surmise what each player's hand looks like based on where the settlements are and one or two recent rolls. If it shows how many of any resource is out, and you already know how many cards each player has and the recent rolls, you can use the knight/robber almost to pick exactly which resource you're going to steal.

It would also make playing the monopoly card overpowered as you would already know which resource to pick. For example, if you need two sheep but now you know there's only one out there, but there's enough of another resource that you can trade in for those sheep, then it makes it so you don't have to pay attention to any rolls or moves at all.

This is a relatively simple game to learn and play, it doesn't need dumbed down or to hold your hand for you.

Also, it won't speed up the gameplay because you already see players routinely spamming trades for resources that anyone with half a brain would know no one has. I had a game today where for the first five rounds a player spammed trades for brick when no bricks had been rolled at all, and they were one of only two players on a brick, and the other player was on the same brick tile. The three other players all told him in the chat three turns in a row that brick had not rolled, but each turn they tried every other resource possible 1:1 trade

[Stroom]

My own preference would be a per-game option for the interface to display the number of each resource that are out. This is information that each player could tabulate from the game log so what's the harm in that information being provided? What I'm contemplating is, you would see the difference between the number of sheep that have been dispensed by the bank, and the number of sheep returned to the bank (when players buy dev cars or settlements). You might know that there are 7 sheep out, and if you're holding 2 of them, then your opponents collectively have 5. But it would not tell you which opponents have any. (And the same for each of the resource types.) This would at least stop players from proposing trades seeking resources that none of their opponents hold, which is a common occurrence and a big delay in turn-based games.

That is an absolutely terrible idea. Often, one or two players will effectively control one or two resources in a game. If it's displayed how many of each resource is out, anyone with half a brain could easily surmise what each player's hand looks like based on where the settlements are and one or two recent rolls. If it shows how many of any resource is out, and you already know how many cards each player has and the recent rolls, you can use the knight/robber almost to pick exactly which resource you're going to steal.

It would also make playing the monopoly card overpowered as you would already know which resource to pick. For example, if you need two sheep but now you know there's only one out there, but there's enough of another resource that you can trade in for those sheep, then it makes it so you don't have to pay attention to any rolls or moves at all.

This is a relatively simple game to learn and play, it doesn't need dumbed down or to hold your hand for you.

Also, it won't speed up the gameplay because you already see players routinely spamming trades for resources that anyone with half a brain would know no one has. I had a game today where for the first five rounds a player spammed trades for brick when no bricks had been rolled at all, and they were one of only two players on a brick, and the other player was on the same brick tile. The three other players all told him in the chat three turns in a row that brick had not rolled, but each turn they tried every other resource possible 1:1 trade

Wrong. On so many levels.

First, you can already theoretically reverse engineer how many cards have been drawn from the bank and put back. Look at the replay or parse the logs. Just takes a lot of time at the moment but could be automated with some code. If this kind of plugin would be created, anyone could have it.

Estimating what anyone has based on their settlement locations is also flawed. Someone might have used knights to rob ores from other players while having no ore locations himself. As it takes a lot of time to collect for a city this way, he might be holding for a long time.

Playing monopoly is already OP. And any decent player is already roughly following how many cards players have collected vs put back in the bank ( at least for the last 2-3 rounds). Generally you go for more than 2 cards with a monopoly. Your examples are weird.

Online games are different from real life games. Why not make it easier for everyone and display the bank card numbers? Otherwise someone will just create a script that does it only for himself not for everyone.

It sure does speed up gameplay - based on your monopoly example, you would faster know whether it is worth it to use the card or not. And you know when not to spam trades when you can see that the bank has all the cards. At least it is something that can be learned.

[SilkySapper]

Wrong. On so many levels.

First, you can already theoretically reverse engineer how many cards have been drawn from the bank and put back. Look at the replay or parse the logs. Just takes a lot of time at the moment but could be automated with some code. If this kind of plugin would be created, anyone could have it.

I never said it couldn't be done, only that it takes too much effort to be worthwhile in a game. I added the bold because you just stated my point, but did it in a nonsensical manner that made it a negation. Who is going to go through the game log to analyze every roll and trade when they are on a three or four minute timer? If you're going to get into the weeds like that, create your own tracker to run alongside the game. You could do it fairly simply in Excel or a similar program.

Estimating what anyone has based on their settlement locations is also flawed. Someone might have used knights to rob ores from other players while having no ore locations himself. As it takes a lot of time to collect for a city this way, he might be holding for a long time.

Where did I say it was a 100% solution? It is a quick reference to tell a player what a person likely has in their hand. If you're looking for a resource and not a specific card like in your hypothetical scenario it is more than sufficient for the purpose. Also, if your game relies on getting one card you're playing a seriously flawed method. You should always have multiple plans and go with what matches the cards you get, not have one idea and hope for the right numbers to roll. Steal, then trade-in another, more common resource for that one resource you needed, do another build somewhere else, etc.

Playing monopoly is already OP. And any decent player is already roughly following how many cards players have collected vs put back in the bank ( at least for the last 2-3 rounds). Generally you go for more than 2 cards with a monopoly. Your examples are weird.

Lmao, after all that and my examples are weird? So wait, it's "flawed" to estimate what cards people have (your previous paragraph) but "any decent player" is already doing it?

Your response to someone saying that playing monopoly would be more OP is that it's already OP?
True, in most circumstances you go for more than 2 cards with monopoly, but you say this right after saying that you're playing a knight to get one specific card out of a handful of 5-8 on average. You're guaranteed cards with monopoly (unless you're dumb), but you have at best a 12-50% chance of getting that same card you want by playing a knight.

Online games are different from real life games. Why not make it easier for everyone and display the bank card numbers? Otherwise someone will just create a script that does it only for himself not for everyone.

So make the script and share it (or don't) on this forum. It's not that different from chess players writing down the moves as they're played, but that's not mandatory. If someone wants to put in a ridiculous amount of effort over a game on the internet just so that it takes all of the guessing out of a game based on chance, go for it. But don't ask that a for profit company to pay someone to write code that will hold your hand and tell you how to play a game when they offer the entire game for free. They don't even make tutorials on the games, they rely on players to do it for them.

[Stroom]

Blah blah

Where did I say it was a 100% solution? It is a quick reference to tell a player what a person likely has in their hand. If you're looking for a resource and not a specific card like in your hypothetical scenario it is more than sufficient for the purpose. Also, if your game relies on getting one card you're playing a seriously flawed method. You should always have multiple plans and go with what matches the cards you get, not have one idea and hope for the right numbers to roll. Steal, then trade-in another, more common resource for that one resource you needed, do another build somewhere else, etc.

Blah blah

Your response to someone saying that playing monopoly would be more OP is that it's already OP?
True, in most circumstances you go for more than 2 cards with monopoly, but you say this right after saying that you're playing a knight to get one specific card out of a handful of 5-8 on average. You're guaranteed cards with monopoly (unless you're dumb), but you have at best a 12-50% chance of getting that same card you want by playing a knight.

Blah blah

Your takes are generally horrible. Also saw you on another topic. The way you think is very simplistic. Sure, I can agree that you need multiple outs. But you can leverage stealing much better if you track cards. The way you think that settlement on resource = that resource in hand is just plain wrong.

Monopoly doesn't get that much better, compared to how OP it already is, when bank cards are displayed. Especially when you are tracking cards already. It just makes the game faster to play. I am promoting making online games remove all the nuisances of physical board games. And if it can be done with a script, it would make sense to add it into the game as well. It is fairly simple to do without the reverse engineering of the script.

[SilkySapper]

Your takes are generally horrible. Also saw you on another topic. The way you think is very simplistic. Sure, I can agree that you need multiple outs. But you can leverage stealing much better if you track cards. The way you think that settlement on resource = that resource in hand is just plain wrong.

Monopoly doesn't get that much better, compared to how OP it already is, when bank cards are displayed. Especially when you are tracking cards already. It just makes the game faster to play. I am promoting making online games remove all the nuisances of physical board games. And if it can be done with a script, it would make sense to add it into the game as well. It is fairly simple to do without the reverse engineering of the script.

When did I say not to track cards? Everything I've said in this thread has been that you should track cards. You're saying that the computer should track cards for you, taking the thinking part out of the game.

The way you think that settlement on resource = that resource in hand is just plain wrong.

Where did I say that? please, quote it. I stated that you can surmise what a person has in their hand based on two things: recent rolls and what numbers they're on. Do you know what surmise means?

I find it odd that we both initially stood on the same side of the discussion then for some reason you decided to denigrate and twist what I wrote into something that it's not and are now arguing the opposite of what you originally claimed in this thread.

[Stroom]

Your takes are generally horrible. Also saw you on another topic. The way you think is very simplistic. Sure, I can agree that you need multiple outs. But you can leverage stealing much better if you track cards. The way you think that settlement on resource = that resource in hand is just plain wrong.

Monopoly doesn't get that much better, compared to how OP it already is, when bank cards are displayed. Especially when you are tracking cards already. It just makes the game faster to play. I am promoting making online games remove all the nuisances of physical board games. And if it can be done with a script, it would make sense to add it into the game as well. It is fairly simple to do without the reverse engineering of the script.

When did I say not to track cards? Everything I've said in this thread has been that you should track cards. You're saying that the computer should track cards for you, taking the thinking part out of the game.

The way you think that settlement on resource = that resource in hand is just plain wrong.

Where did I say that? please, quote it. I stated that you can surmise what a person has in their hand based on two things: recent rolls and what numbers they're on. Do you know what surmise means?

I find it odd that we both initially stood on the same side of the discussion then for some reason you decided to denigrate and twist what I wrote into something that it's not and are now arguing the opposite of what you originally claimed in this thread.

The bank card count is pretty much public information. There is no need to artificially hide it from the players. The code knows the value directly. So just display it. Otherwise players would have to create reverse engineering trackers to do it for them. And it's easy to do that... from there it would be easy to make it track player hands... which is where I draw the line.

Online games are different. The player interaction is different so some aspects you can't implement. Trading in real life is much more fluid for instance. You want the games to be faster. So you can make the game a bit different in other aspects then. Make some information more accessible. It doesn't really change the game that much, just helps you out in making the actual gameplay decisions that matter. Memory is a secondary aspect.

Your "surmise" is flawed and bad advice. You'd also need to know how the player has spent his resources and how many times they have robber or been robbed. Too simplistic rules are hindering you.

[SilkySapper]

The bank card count is pretty much public information. There is no need to artificially hide it from the players.

When did I ever say to hide anything from players? And "pretty much public information" still isn't actually public information. If you were in a game IRL and you stopped someone's turn so you could count the cards of each resource still in the bank, you would be told to leave.

The code knows the value directly. So just display it. Otherwise players would have to create reverse engineering trackers to do it for them. And it's easy to do that... from there it would be easy to make it track player hands... which is where I draw the line.

Online games are different. The player interaction is different so some aspects you can't implement. Trading in real life is much more fluid for instance. You want the games to be faster. So you can make the game a bit different in other aspects then. Make some information more accessible. It doesn't really change the game that much, just helps you out in making the actual gameplay decisions that matter. Memory is a secondary aspect.

You're right, some aspects of the offline game aren't implemented. For example, one that isn't implemented, and wouldn't make sense to implement in the online game is a limited number of resource cards. It would make no sense to do so, and ergo it makes no sense to display how many of that resource is in/out of the bank since the bank is unlimited.

Your "surmise" is flawed and bad advice. You'd also need to know how the player has spent his resources and how many times they have robber or been robbed. Too simplistic rules are hindering you.

By your improper use of the word surmise, I have deduced that you indeed don't know what the word means, I will endeavour to use more simple words for the sake of comprehension.

If you look on the right hand side of your screen when you're playing, you'll see a list that displays all players trades, rolls, purchases, and resources gathered, as well as who has stolen from whom. As I said, use those to inform the decisions that you make, you don't need to have the program to tell you how to play.

And please, don't go telling people their play style is simplistic when you've only played the game once and won because someone dropped out early.