Board Game Arena

GTSchemer wrote: ↑12 October 2025, 15:24

Karapotta wrote: ↑12 October 2025, 12:38 Hi! I'm really looking forward to this. I could play it in alpha, but as a beginner I might rather wait for the beta when all the factions are in etc, for the more complete experience.
How close are we to hitting that 100% on the progress bar for it to get out of alpha?

Probably a long time, unfortunately. I was informed by BGA that they require zombie mode to handle passing or acting in all possible situations, rather than merely eliminating a player who gets angry and quits, even though the publisher felt elimination could work in such a situation.

Full zombie support involves reviewing, designing, and testing upwards of 100 different logic points for automatic play, so I fear the time involved will be immense.

In the meantime I am working on the remaining factions.

Oh man, that's an eternity of nitpicking code + its hard to get every little point.
Isn't the Zombie mode and elimination almost the same? I understand removing all players components ruins the game also make a lot of space empty but I'm surprised that the publisher was positive for going with the elimination way instead of pure zombie skip like all the BGA games has, to save the coding effort. Some games do remove some stuff, but they go zombie sort of.

Maybe trigger some kind of elimination condition\effect but let their stuff and ships remain. No wakeups. Then they are zombie right? Then they are zombie doing no turns..

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But when you have a game where someone leaves is really really annoying, even happens in alpha. But having dummy zombie ships left should also make it interesting because you really don't wanna leave when you invested so much into a game like TI4. But there's so many actions and I understand it will take a while. All alerts off and abilties. If you fight those zombie ships they roll automatic in every fashion and never retreats and all the other stuff I cannot think about it all. Unplayed strategy cards, active prom notes, active laws and list goes on....
....and I was hoping this was going beta in a month or so.

The problem is that there is no simple "just skip" for a zombie player, since there are so many different types of decisions. The game is ruined either way, but even if the goal is to skip as much as possible, every single potential decision point and logic path must be handled, reconstructed, and tested. Otherwise the game could become even more broken, and validation checks could start failing if the game state became inconsistent.

It would be a nightmare of insistency, so it's basically either eliminate the player, or (since that isn't allowed) review and handle all possible paths in one fashion or another.

But I understand the project won't be discontinued. You've already put a lot of work into it, and it would be a shame to give up now, especially since I'm not testing the alpha version and am waiting for the beta.

I have received a couple bug reports about an old version of the rules. It is linked from the game page and I unfortunately cannot remove it.

*edit* Thanks everyone, the incorrect link has been removed.

GTSchemer wrote: ↑14 October 2025, 10:19 The problem is that there is no simple "just skip" for a zombie player, since there are so many different types of decisions. The game is ruined either way, but even if the goal is to skip as much as possible, every single potential decision point and logic path must be handled, reconstructed, and tested. Otherwise the game could become even more broken, and validation checks could start failing if the game state became inconsistent.

It would be a nightmare of insistency, so it's basically either eliminate the player, or (since that isn't allowed) review and handle all possible paths in one fashion or another.

Would it be possible to replace the player's ships and troops with "dummys" and then eliminate the player? (making assumptions about why zombie mode in the first place)

I cannot remember if there is any meaningful logic in the game that this solution does not address. If there is there might still be a way to handle those in similar fashion.

idontcare1 wrote: ↑15 October 2025, 00:04 Would it be possible to replace the player's ships and troops with "dummys" and then eliminate the player? (making assumptions about why zombie mode in the first place)

I cannot remember if there is any meaningful logic in the game that this solution does not address. If there is there might still be a way to handle those in similar fashion.

It still runs into the issue of special logic being created to handle cases like "what happens if someone was in the middle of combat and then ragequit the game". Even if the publisher agreed to some altered logic, I would then need to program and test that altered logic, so I might as well just make the player do the minimum to roll dice and assign hits (which is its own can of worms) etc.

This game is communication heavy. Negotiations are such a big part. I havent seen this preference feature in BGA (please someone tell me if I missed it) but if I could limit myself to English speaking opponents maybe that would create more chat and response?

illfixthislater wrote: ↑15 October 2025, 14:34 This game is communication heavy. Negotiations are such a big part. I havent seen this preference feature in BGA (please someone tell me if I missed it) but if I could limit myself to English speaking opponents maybe that would create more chat and response?

If you click the little green door in the upper right when creating a game you can check a box that filters by English or other languages (Plus some other settings).

illfixthislater wrote: ↑15 October 2025, 14:34 This game is communication heavy. Negotiations are such a big part. I havent seen this preference feature in BGA (please someone tell me if I missed it) but if I could limit myself to English speaking opponents maybe that would create more chat and response?

The game already requires players to share at least one common language, I believe. If you only have French on your profile, you should only see lobbies from players who also speak French.

Short update: I am working on the final effect for the Creuss faction. This is the flagship, which is complex, but I hope to have Creuss live by Monday.

Once Creuss goes live for testing, I will start reviewing bug reports again. Thanks for your patience.