Twilight Imperium

[arya-banana]

Is there a group for TI4 alpha testers?

Some alphas have groups. Some do not. I don't know why that is.

For TI4 especially a group would be useful since the games are so long and there also seems to be much to be discussed for the upcoming beta release.

[Leruni]

We created one here: https://boardgamearena.com/group?id=19528967

The idea is that since game is so long, it’s really no fun when people quit so groups only for people who will finish game and can be used to advertise new games with specifications which may suit you. We’d kick players reported to leave/stop playing in the middle of the game as far as reasonable.

[GTSchemer]

Some small updates have been deployed for the X-1 etc. TRADE system:

* Updated title and button for secondary players to emphasize that they have an X-1 etc. offer available.

* Fixed X-1 etc. resolution to never send trade goods from the secondary player, since this might benefit the primary player too much. This means if the secondary player has a 2-commodity faction, they will only ever exchange 2 for 1 with X-1, even if the primary player still has extra commodities.

* Fixed X-2 so it can never be offered to 2-commodity factions.

* Fixed bug that incorrectly warned about PILLAGE even if the primary player had PROMISE OF PROTECTION in play.

[astalatasta]

https://www.tirules.com/R_deals

Game reference explicitally says that trade card and the refresh decision of the trade owner and the One that Will be refilled act in different time and only deals which act simultaneously and can resolved immediatly are binding. This feature to force people Who received the refill to accept a deal Is a mistake and Is against the rulebook. It should be removed ASAP, instead should be added specifico Windows to accept transactions before and/or After the refill which are missing.

In future i will refer this "feature" as bug.

The following are further examples of non–binding deals:
...
Making a deal to trade commodities in exchange for the active player to replenish another player’s commodities during the resolution of the primary ability of the Trade strategic action.

[Dr J]

I'm confused as to how to turn x-1 on? I don't see it in the settings

[GTSchemer]

This feature to force people Who received the refill to accept a deal Is a mistake and Is against the rulebook.

I will give a further in-depth response to this at a later time, but for now I need to emphasize:

There may be some misunderstanding. Secondary players are never forced to accept any deal. As before, secondary players can ignore X-1 offers or even use a strategy token to manually replenish.

The only effect is, the binding deal prevents a player from saying "I accept your X-1 offer" and then immediately breaking their word, refusing to exchange commodities. In alpha test games, anyone immediately breaking their word over a trivial commodity exchange offer is likely to just annoy other players, who may then refuse to trade with them anymore. This would not benefit anyone in the community except the player who briefly got to break their word and hold extra commodities once per game.

If for some reason players still want the chance to break their word, they can discuss in chat or use the verbal agreement system to promise an exchange, then break their word that way.

I'm confused as to how to turn x-1 on? I don't see it in the settings

It is enabled by default for current alpha tables, for testing. It will show up when someone uses the TRADE card primary.

For newly created tables you can enable it in setup options.

[astalatasta]

This feature to force people Who received the refill to accept a deal Is a mistake and Is against the rulebook.

I will give a further in-depth response to this at a later time, but for now I need to emphasize:

There may be some misunderstanding. Secondary players are never forced to accept any deal. As before, secondary players can ignore X-1 offers or even use a strategy token to manually replenish.

The only effect is, the binding deal prevents a player from saying "I accept your X-1 offer" and then immediately breaking their word, refusing to exchange commodities. In alpha test games, anyone immediately breaking their word over a trivial commodity exchange offer is likely to just annoy other players, who may then refuse to trade with them anymore. This would not benefit anyone in the community except the player who briefly got to break their word and hold extra commodities once per game.

If for some reason players still want the chance to break their word, they can discuss in chat or use the verbal agreement system to promise an exchange, then break their word that way.

I'm confused as to how to turn x-1 on? I don't see it in the settings

It is enabled by default for current alpha tables, for testing. It will show up when someone uses the TRADE card primary.

For newly created tables you can enable it in setup options.

So you basically and willing put a bug inside which i will report you. In ti4 you can Say "yes i pay your x-1" and than refuse to pay like rule i linked says. The selection of Who can do secondary for free and refill are in two different Windows so the deal must be non binding following the rules of the game. Force hem to be binding Is a bug

[GTSchemer]

So you basically and willing put a bug inside which i will report you. In ti4 you can Say "yes i pay your x-1" and than refuse to pay like rule i linked says. The selection of Who can do secondary for free and refill are in two different Windows so the deal must be non binding following the rules of the game. Force hem to be binding Is a bug

As I mentioned, I will talk about rules in detail later.

What I have done is added X-1 in its current form in direct coordination with FFG, including the game designer (Dane Beltrami).

I kind of understand the passion, since I have spent the last couple years obsessively studying the rules and double/triple checking things with FFG, e.g. tirules notes. It's important to remember that tirules is an unofficial website, and items in notes are usually correct, but not guaranteed to be.

[SilentNSly]

So you basically and willing put a bug inside which i will report you. In ti4 you can Say "yes i pay your x-1" and than refuse to pay like rule i linked says. The selection of Who can do secondary for free and refill are in two different Windows so the deal must be non binding following the rules of the game. Force hem to be binding Is a bug

This feature of X-1 for trade is to help the majority, 99.9% of players who follow this practice (even though it is non-binding). This has become a common practice, especially in online games. I, for one, really want this quality-of-life feature.

If you want to follow the rules exactly, you can still discuss with the player and make the same deal, but with more steps, then break your deal. It will definitely be more suspicious as to why you are taking the extra steps, but the benefit is that it will make the game easier to play for 99.9% of players.

So this is not a bug. It is just a convenience feature for players who want to make a non-binding deal and carry it out. You can still use the existing functionality to make a non-binding deal and break it.

[brh2113]

Agree with the above. In my async games, resolving the Trade strategy card and follow-up transactions often takes almost a full week, and nobody makes an agreement and immediately breaks it moments later to earn +1 commodity. Some helpers to speed this up are greatly welcome.

That said, it looks like GTSchemer has implemented it as a table option, so you can host tables where this Trade assist feature is completely disabled.