How does Gaia project´s auction works?

[Kayvon]

That was considered and rejected because it's entirely incompatible with turn-based games.

You might appreciate reading the oiiginal discussion surrounding the auction feature. It's a bit late to change it, but the discussion provides context for the myriad of opinions involved. Here it is:
https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=52587

This part is particularly important:

Months of planning and volunteer hours have gone into making these a top-notch experience. Having said that, we also recognize that no single solution will please everyone. Fortunately, these optional experiences don't replace the core game experience. If you discover this particular implementation isn't for you, we would invite you to continue to enjoy the existing experience supported by the official ruleset.

[zbirone]

Thank you for your answer. I appreciate the huge amount of work that goes into developing games on BGA, which is why I pay a subscription (even though I don't play much). So to finish my statement, pity, you don't give any alternatives except:

controversial auction system* / no auction**

* and I call it "controversial" because I can choose the weakest faction and force another player to unknowingly choose it (it's enough that this player doesn't understand how this auction system works, and most don't understand it)

** giving up on auctions is not a better solution, because the factions are very unbalanced (which is what the 'The lost fleet' fixes).

I hope that one day you will change your mind and give players an alternative. Best regards and thanks for your work

[Kayvon]

which is why I pay a subscription (even though I don't play much).

What a coincidence! I'm a subscriber, too! You may find this PSA helpful:
https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=40816
tl;dr: We're volunteers, not BGA employees.

Complaints like yours are precisely the sort of reason I was hesitant to volunteers months ot do this to begin with.

1) The feature will take many hours to complete
2) The feature is entirely volunteer work and we have families and competing responsibilities (see #1)
3) Following discussions on BGA and other sites regarding this, it's clear that no matter which approach we take to a draft a very vocal subset of players will be unhappy. (For a mild example of this, just scroll up to my previous post right here.)

This is something I'm still working on in my free time, but I make no promises as to whether it will ever be deployed. The vocal negative reactions towards optional work I've done previously (random maps, anyone?) makes me reluctant to volunteer myself for further abuse (see #3), so this isn't a high priority.

I hope one day you will change your mind about ridiculing systems that were discussed at length *years* ago, then implemented for free by volunteers. The time to chime in was back then. Further complaints just reinforce that I should stop spending time on this.

[MasN]

Perhaps people are confused about the bidding system because they do not know what to bid.

First, look at the options, and decide what you think is the WORST option, that is the faction you should bid 0 on.

For all other factions, your bid should be how much you would rather have it, compared to the WORST faction.

[Vahan Daven]

I have read this whole thread three times and the documentation on the how to play and I still don't really get it. So factions are assigned based on the highest number difference between each faction? So if I bid 25 on Ivits and someone else bids 15, but I bid 12 on Terrans and no one else bids on Terrans, then I get Terrans?

[LazyFerret]

I have read and understood how the auctions works according to you.
However, I don't agree of how it's working, please have a look at what I propose.

My solution is in my opinion very straight forward, I give you an example by using the same bids you used in yours.

These are the bids that every player chooses to do. Turn order is of course Player A, Player B and then Player C.

PLAYER_A IVITS 27, AMBAS 0, TERRANS 0.
PLAYER_B IVITS 10, AMBAS 6, TERRANS 0.
PLAYER_C IVITS 16, AMBAS 12, TERRANS 6.

According to your rules, the outcome is:
PLAYER_A: IVITS for 11pts
PLAYER_B: AMBAS for 6pts
PLAYER_C: TERRANS for 0pts

According to my rules:
PLAYER_A: IVITS for 16pts
PLAYER_B: TERRANS for 0pts
PLAYER_C: AMBAS for 6pts

As you can see, the outcome is different but reflects what players actually want.
This system works in this way: there are 3 auctions, 1 for each faction.

Player A decides to start the auction for his favourite faction, IVITS (the one where he bid more points).
Player A bids 1pt,
Player B bids 2pts,
Player C bids 3pts,
Player A bids 4pts,
Player B bids 5pts,
Player C bids 6pts,
Player A bids 7pts,
Player B bids 8pts,
Player C bids 9pts,
Player A bids 10pts,
Player B stops bidding as his max bid has already been reached (10pts),
Player C bids 11pts,
Player A bids 12pts,
Player C bids 13pts,
Player A bids 14pts,
Player C bids 15pts,
Player A bids 16pts,
Player C stops bidding as his max bid has already been reached (16pts),
Player A wins the bid for IVITS by spending 16pts.

Now it's Player's B turn to start an auction and considering that he didn't win the first one started by Player A, he goes on and bids for AMBAS as it's the highest faction he bid for:
Player B bids 1pt,
Player C bids 2pts,
Player B bids 3pts,
Player C bids 4pts,
Player B bids 5pts,
Player C bids 6pts,
Player B stops bidding as his max bid has already been reached (6pts)
Player C wins the bid for AMBAS by spending 6pts.

Now it's Player's C turn to start an auction and considering that he already won an auction, he passes the turn to player A, which passes too as he won the first bid. It's turn of Player B now, he chooses to bid on the last available faction: TERRANS which he picks for 0pts.

I hope everyhting is clear, as anyone can guess, English is not my first language.

[Kayvon]

The difference occurs because you've created your own rules. You seem to have defined the player's choice as, "The play automatically bids on the faction with his highest max bid where he hasn't yet been outbid."

However, this thread has repeatedly stated: "Each player automatically bids on the faction with the greatest difference between the faction's current bid and that player's maximum possible bid."

Player A decides to start the auction for his favourite faction, IVITS (the one where he bid more points).
Player A bids 1pt, [A's max bid (27) minus current bid (0) is 27, which is higher than his other differences (0,0)]
Player B bids 2pts, [B's max bid (10) minus current bid (1) is 9, which is higher than his other differences (6,0)]
Player C bids 3pts, [B's max bid (16) minus current bid (2) is 14, which is higher than his other differences (12,6)]
Player A bids 4pts, [A's max bid (27) minus current bid (3) is 24, which is higher than his other differences (0,0)]
Player B bids 5pts, [B's max bid (10) minus current bid (4) is 6, which is tied with his other differences (6,0)]
Player C bids 6pts, [<-- WRONG!!]

At this point, Player C's max bid for IVITS is still 16, but the current bid for IVITS is 5. 16-5 = 11. That's less than the difference between his max bid on Ambas (12) and the current bid (0). 12-0 = 12. So Player C actually bids 1 point on Ambas.

We get different results because you've chosen a different bidding system than what's used. Look at the example in the How To Play section and notice that it doesn't follow your system at all.

This entire thread keeps coming back to this one concrete rule: "Each player automatically bids on the faction with the greatest difference between the faction's current bid and that player's maximum possible bid."

[LazyFerret]

Thank you for your fast reply. I know that my way is different than yours, there is no mistake in that.
I am arguing about the fact that what I propose in in my opinion the best way to make the auction.
These are in any case no official rules, neither by my or your side, am I correct?

[Kayvon]

In the official rules, there is no auction whatsoever. For people who prefer the formal rules or who don't like the implemented system, the auction and bans and whatnot should be disabled entirely.

BGA's implementation for the auction is based on the Steam or app version (I can't remember which -- maybe both?). So it's only "official" insofar as it's what the publisher approved for those.

EDIT: You did say that you were making a proposal and I completely missed that. My fault. The developers are not accepting new proposals to completely overhault the system. If you like to play that way at home, that's great, but it's a completely optional module that isn't going to be completely rewritten at this point.

[LazyFerret]

In the official rules, there is no auction whatsoever. For people who prefer the formal rules or who don't like the implemented system, the auction and bans and whatnot should be disabled entirely.

BGA's implementation for the auction is based on the Steam or app version (I can't remember which -- maybe both?). So it's only "official" insofar as it's what the publisher approved for those.

EDIT: You did say that you were making a proposal and I completely missed that. My fault. The developers are not accepting new proposals to completely overhault the system. If you like to play that way at home, that's great, but it's a completely optional module that isn't going to be completely rewritten at this point.

Got it! Thank you anyway