Nuclear Zone only placed on oceans

[xspuipuke]

It doesn't. Plantation has only one effect: placing a greenery tile. So you place the tile and, as normal, by placing the tile you trigger the dependent events of raising oxygen, which in turn increases your TR, and placement bonuses if any.

[FrankJones]

It doesn't. Plantation has only one effect: placing a greenery tile. So you place the tile and, as normal, by placing the tile you trigger the dependent events of raising oxygen, which in turn increases your TR, and placement bonuses if any.

Two things happen when plantation is played.
1) A Greenery tile is placed, and
2) Oxygen increases.

Somehow you are drawing a distinction here between this card (for which the exact wording literally says, "place a greenery tile and raise the oxygen") and nuclear zone, for which the card says, "place this tile and raise the temperature two steps."

There is literally zero difference in the wording on the actual physical cards (I got out my physical game and examined the cards), and in both cases it is obvious that one thing is causing a second thing and therefore should logically be done in that sequence, and yet you are arguing that different rules apply to these two cards.

[xspuipuke]

I‘m afraid, what you say is not correct.

Plantation has a single effect: Placing a greenery.
Nuke Zone has two effects: Placing the Nuke Zone special tile and raising temperature two steps.

Placing a greenery, regardless of how you do it, be it by paying 8 plants or 23 MC or by playing any card like Plantation, Protected Valley, Mangrove, Experimental Forest etc., has a follow-up effect of raising oxygen 1 step.

I think your confusion comes from the fact that all cards, unnecessarily, always stress out this follow-up effect in their card text. This alone has led to many a rules question in BGG if oxygen is raised twice when playing e.g. Plantation, because placing a greenery has this intrinsic effect and then the card states to do it (again)—which of course is not the case. The designer himself has already stated that it were better they never added that clarification to the cards, as it is just confusing.

Therefore, Nuke Zone and Plantation are not comparable. Where Plantation merely reminds you of a core rule (raising oxygen after placing the greenery), Nuke Zone states two individual effects, because the special tiles do NOT have any intrinsic rules to them—it‘s the cards that tell you what needs to be done.

[FrankJones]

I‘m afraid, what you say is not correct.

Plantation has a single effect: Placing a greenery.
Nuke Zone has two effects: Placing the Nuke Zone special tile and raising temperature two steps.

Placing a greenery, regardless of how you do it, be it by paying 8 plants or 23 MC or by playing any card like Plantation, Protected Valley, Mangrove, Experimental Forest etc., has a follow-up effect of raising oxygen 1 step.

I think your confusion comes from the fact that all cards, unnecessarily, always stress out this follow-up effect in their card text. This alone has led to many a rules question in BGG if oxygen is raised twice when playing e.g. Plantation, because placing a greenery has this intrinsic effect and then the card states to do it (again)—which of course is not the case. The designer himself has already stated that it were better they never added that clarification to the cards, as it is just confusing.

Therefore, Nuke Zone and Plantation are not comparable. Where Plantation merely reminds you of a core rule (raising oxygen after placing the greenery), Nuke Zone states two individual effects, because the special tiles do NOT have any intrinsic rules to them—it‘s the cards that tell you what needs to be done.

I have no confusion. I just disagree with you (respectfully; I appreciate your polite and cordial tone even though we are debating extensively).

To me, raising the temperature is very obviously and unequivocally a follow-up effect of raising the temperature. How is that even a debatable point? Without the volcanic eruption or the nuclear detonation, no temperature raise has occurred. Without the temperature raise, the bonus ocean cannot be placed. Ergo, the temperature must be raised before the bonus ocean can be placed. Btu if the temperature raise has occurred, it means a volcanic eruption or a nuclear detonation has taken place. IN A SPECIFIC PLACE, marked by the tile. I honestly do not understand how the rules OR basic logic would say that you can place this tile AFTER gaining the ocean that does not exist until the event (and therefore the tile) has taken place.

If you disagree, fine. Let's agree to disagree. But please do not say I am confused. I probably know the game and the cards and the rules just as well as you do, if not better. It's mildly condescending to say that someone is confused just because that person has a different opinion than you. (I'm not saying condescension was your intent. I believe you are posting in good faith. That said, a statement with no ill-intent can still be perceived as condescending.)

Nevertheless, I still appreciate your willingness to engage me in discussion in multiple threads.

I mean, are you really saying that the effect of lava flows and nuclear zone are "independent"? The temperature increases are UNRELATED to the volcanic eruption or the nuclear detonation? Come on dude. You cannot honestly believe that?

Plantation: Placing a Greenery CAUSES an oxygen increase, in that order.
Nuclear Zone: Nuclear explosions CAUSE heat, IN THAT ORDER.
Lava flows: Likewise.

If the designers (by the way, the designers have shown themselves to be rather stubborn and opinionated when it comes to these matters, rarely admitting fault or acknowledging poorly written Rules) have stated that plantation and similar cards were poorly written, it's a pity they didn't realize that they also omitted a crucial word "then" from some cards:

Place the nuclear zone tile and THEN increase temperature two steps.
Place the volcano special tile and THEN raise temperature 2 steps.

But then they would need to admit to multiple mistakes, and they do not like to do that.

[Dikvarkentje]

How you see it is irrelevant. Official rulebook states order of effects is per players own choice. The only exceptions to this are marked on cards with a *.

What I meant (obviously) by "that's not how I see it" is, "That's not how I interpret the official rulebook as it pertains to this card".

Is there a link to an official ruling that supports interpreting Nuclear zone this way but not a card such as Plantation?

There is no further official ruling necessary, page 9 of the original rulebook clearly states:

"These effects (and other effects triggered by the card you just played) are performed in any order you choose."

The "and increase the oxygen" is a reminder text, see here post by Jacob Fryxelius here:

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/178907 ... xygen-by-2

[xspuipuke]

To me, raising the temperature is very obviously and unequivocally a follow-up effect of raising the temperature. How is that even a debatable point? Without the volcanic eruption or the nuclear detonation, no temperature raise has occurred. Without the temperature raise, the bonus ocean cannot be placed. Ergo, the temperature must be raised before the bonus ocean can be placed. Btu if the temperature raise has occurred, it means a volcanic eruption or a nuclear detonation has taken place. IN A SPECIFIC PLACE, marked by the tile. I honestly do not understand how the rules OR basic logic would say that you can place this tile AFTER gaining the ocean that does not exist until the event (and therefore the tile) has taken place.

No question about it—I think I said it even before that, thematically, you're 100% correct. It's just not what the rules say. And, honestly, I'm even sure the designers would have wanted it to be different but with the rules they provided, that's how it is: two separate effects.

If you disagree, fine. Let's agree to disagree. But please do not say I am confused. I probably know the game and the cards and the rules just as well as you do, if not better. It's mildly condescending to say that someone is confused just because that person has a different opinion than you. (I'm not saying condescension was your intent. I believe you are posting in good faith. That said, a statement with no ill-intent can still be perceived as condescending.)

Sorry, didn't want that. I shouldn't have written "your confusion" but rather something along the lines of "a potential confusion". English is not my first language and even though I think I'm pretty good at it, I may still occasionally say something not the way I intended it.

[FrankJones]

Sorry, didn't want that. I shouldn't have written "your confusion" but rather something along the lines of "a potential confusion". English is not my first language and even though I think I'm pretty good at it, I may still occasionally say something not the way I intended it.

It's all good - my apologies if I came across as combative. Your English is excellent - and, I can only speak one language, so I would be the last to criticize anyone's English. It's a hasslesome language with all sorts of silly rules and exceptions. And people whose only language is English cannot even speak it correctly much of the time! Including professional writers. (That is a sentence fragment! Whoops! )

Anyway, I concede the point that the rules as written, strictly interpreted, apparently do allow for temperature to be raised before the tile is placed. I think this is nonsense thematically, logically, and with regard to physics, but, if that is the rule, I will concede the point.

I DOUBT that Jacob and his siblings intended for it to work this ay - I am sure, given their apparent understanding of physics, they probably intended for the card to essentially be, "do this thing (Lava Flows, Nuclear zone) that raises temperature, which involves marking the spot with a tile", meaning, Tile -> temperature increase, in that order, and not vice versa. (Similar to how the plantation card means, "tile -> oxygen increases", in that order. It's really the same basic concept, and I suspect they just did not want to clutter the cards.)
They have said they did not wish to clutter the cards with text.

They have also expressed strong opposition to writing errata or rules modifications. Fine. It's their game. So, I grudgingly accept that this is all within the RAW, even though it is thematic and logical nonsense. Keep in mind, that on steam and on BGG and possibly here, there have been literally thousands of posts related to rules confusion because of how poorly the rulebook is written. But that's a topic for another day.

But I'll die on the other hill I stand on, which is that if we are going to be rules lawyers, then we should always allow card draw in situations in which it cannot possibly cause a problem. I'll volunteer to write the code myself. Is this game written in Javascript? Probably. If not, Python? Java? I can write code in all three. And as another person noted in this thread, it is NOT actually difficult or cumbersome to do this. It's actually trivially easy. In my 4th day of programming boot camp we had far more difficult assignments.

Again, I appreciate the polite discussion. In many forums, angry insults and name-calling ensues long before the discussion reaches this point. I am glad to see that is not the case here.

[xspuipuke]

I fell you, honestly. IIRC, I even offered my help to the devs with that stuff but I don't think they want it. I've just come to accept it.

Being a game developer myself, I can tell you that it's not that easy for us to just change something after a game has been published, even if the change would make the game better or if we wanted to, so I don't blame Jacob or his brothers to be hesitant about errating the shit out of their game. The most important reason not to do it is people will be angry either way: When you change it, you will be flooded with requests for "correct" replacement parts and that's something you just can't do financially.

[FrankJones]

There is no further official ruling necessary, page 9 of the original rulebook clearly states:

"These effects (and other effects triggered by the card you just played) are performed in any order you choose."

The "and increase the oxygen" is a reminder text, see here post by Jacob Fryxelius here:

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/178907 ... xygen-by-2

That response was merely clarifying that the card does not raise the oxygen twice, which many people mistakenly thought it did.
I still fail to see the logical or thematic difference between "Plantation" and "Nuclear zone" or "Lava flows".

Each card does something that in turn, triggers something else. It makes no logical or thematic sense that for one card (plantation), the effects must be done in a strict order, while in other situations, even though the causation obviously requires one thing to happen first (Nuclear zone and lava flows obviously cannot raise the temperature until ... the lava flows or the nuclear zone happens), we can nevertheless invert the order in a way that is thematic and logical nonsense.

That being said, if that is the official rule, oh well. So be it. Many games have incredibly stupid official rules that likely persist because game designers are an arrogant bunch who cannot be bothered to write errata acknowledging that they screwed up.

Anyone who cares about logic and physics would have written the cards as follows:

"Cause a volcanic eruption (or nuclear explosion) and mark the spot with the special tile. This action then triggers two temperature increases."

Imagine if the game had written the cards that way in the first place, and then someone suggested changing it to what is apparently the official rule currently in existence. The response would be, "What? Are you crazy? Obviously, the event has to occur before the temperature increases, since the event is what CAUSES the temperature increase."

Oh well. It's still a great game.