'allow only lowest number of cards to be captured' rule

[FelixFelicus7]

Standard Scopa rules always allow ANY combination of cards on the table UNLESS there's a matching value single card. The 'only allow lowest number of cards' option/rule needs tweaking to 'unless there is a matching value card on the table ANY valid combination of cards can be captured' please! There may be some Italian regional variant that only allows a max 2cards to be captured or something, but it is not standard. All published rulebooks & phone apps that I've come across use the 'any' combo if no single matching card exists. Would appreciate if other players support this change.

(As Italian) I support this change!

Many thanks!

[PiratJack]

Hello,


I am the developer of the game that is on BGA. I almost never read through the forums - so if you have suggestions or see bugs, please use the bug system (because then, I get notified): https://boardgamearena.com/bugs?game=1489

This being said, please keep in mind that:
- There are many players of Scopa - 12 070 on BGA alone, since the game was published about a year ago
- Scopa is several centuries old, which means there may be many local variations / rules
- As a developer, I want to make sure that everyone can play what they want

Those are the reasons why I included many variants and options: so that everyone can play they want. I know the default values I picked may be wrong, but I trust regular players on BGA will choose what they want (rather than send me various angered emails, which is not helping to stay motivated - remember, most BGA developers are unpaid volunteers)

Also, I don't have any power on the rules that are applied for the Arena games. Those are decided by the "gurus" of the game.

Hi All,

I completely understand that if say a King matches a King on the board then you must take the King BUT if the board is -
9 1 5 3 2
I cannot find in any 'official' scopa rules it stating that I must take the 9+1 instead of the 5+3+2 especially if the latter includes coins?

Anyone else noticed this? I understand you can choose the 'capture any amount of cards' option but this takes away the core rule of capturing a matching card.

you are right. moreover, if you play activating the option "take any number of cards", another mistake appears: 9 2 7 on the table, you play 9 and you are asked if taking 9 or 7+2.... ridiculous. in Scopa there is no possibility to chose: when a 9 is already on the table and you play 9, you must take 9, no other combination. if we have 7 2 1 6 on the table and you play 9, you can chose to take 6+2+1. THIS IS THE RULE for Scopa. then, you can invent variants, but you BGA cannot change standard Scopa rules, it is a dogma!

Hello,

Could you open a bug report with the table number where this happened?
Here is the direct link: https://boardgamearena.com/bugs?game=1489

Even with the "take any number of cards" variant enabled, this should not happen. It may be possible that there is something else, but I can't determine that without an example.

Thanks,

PiratJack

[FelixFelicus7]

Hello,


I am the developer of the game that is on BGA. I almost never read through the forums - so if you have suggestions or see bugs, please use the bug system (because then, I get notified): https://boardgamearena.com/bugs?game=1489

This being said, please keep in mind that:
- There are many players of Scopa - 12 070 on BGA alone, since the game was published about a year ago
- Scopa is several centuries old, which means there may be many local variations / rules
- As a developer, I want to make sure that everyone can play what they want

Those are the reasons why I included many variants and options: so that everyone can play they want. I know the default values I picked may be wrong, but I trust regular players on BGA will choose what they want (rather than send me various angered emails, which is not helping to stay motivated - remember, most BGA developers are unpaid volunteers)

Also, I don't have any power on the rules that are applied for the Arena games. Those are decided by the "gurus" of the game.

Hi All,

I completely understand that if say a King matches a King on the board then you must take the King BUT if the board is -
9 1 5 3 2
I cannot find in any 'official' scopa rules it stating that I must take the 9+1 instead of the 5+3+2 especially if the latter includes coins?

Anyone else noticed this? I understand you can choose the 'capture any amount of cards' option but this takes away the core rule of capturing a matching card.

you are right. moreover, if you play activating the option "take any number of cards", another mistake appears: 9 2 7 on the table, you play 9 and you are asked if taking 9 or 7+2.... ridiculous. in Scopa there is no possibility to chose: when a 9 is already on the table and you play 9, you must take 9, no other combination. if we have 7 2 1 6 on the table and you play 9, you can chose to take 6+2+1. THIS IS THE RULE for Scopa. then, you can invent variants, but you BGA cannot change standard Scopa rules, it is a dogma!

Hello,

Could you open a bug report with the table number where this happened?
Here is the direct link: https://boardgamearena.com/bugs?game=1489

Even with the "take any number of cards" variant enabled, this should not happen. It may be possible that there is something else, but I can't determine that without an example.

Thanks,

PiratJack

Thanks for posting Jack!

You may have missed the point Vogliovincere was trying to post in the above. He is referring to the fact that in ALL variants of Scopa (certainly all standard widespread variants) there should be NO opportunity to decide between capturing a 9 or a 7+2 when playing a 9. It is one of the CORE rules of Scopa that any card played MUST capture its matching value card if present. His point is that the "allow any combination of cards to be captured" option should be replaced with "Any valid combination of cards can be captured unless there is a matching value card on the table.". This is what I've been requesting as well. It isn't something that is a bug or anything.

This way the existing "Only allow the lowest number of cards be captured" (this is a regional variant apparently) option can co-exist with "Any valid combination of cards can be captured unless there is a matching value card on the table" (standard Scopa from Pagat official rules & how its played by Italians & in households worldwide & on any phone app.

The "Any valid combination of cards can be captured unless there is a matching value card on the table" would be selected 100% of the time by Arena gurus. This way if a 10(King) is played and there is no 10(King) on the table which shows for example 9club, 7coin, 2coin, 1sword, then the player would be able to choose between the 9+1 OR the 7+2+1 which is crucial in Scopa strategy because of gaining 7s and coins.

Hope all that makes sense. The implementation here is absolutely brilliant apart from this required minor rules correction. I'm sure that other very experienced Italian players can agree on this change & I'd appreciate if they'd post here as well!

[PiratJack]

Thanks for posting Jack!

You may have missed the point Vogliovincere was trying to post in the above. He is referring to the fact that in ALL variants of Scopa (certainly all standard widespread variants) there should be NO opportunity to decide between capturing a 9 or a 7+2 when playing a 9. It is one of the CORE rules of Scopa that any card played MUST capture its matching value card if present. His point is that the "allow any combination of cards to be captured" option should be replaced with "Any valid combination of cards can be captured unless there is a matching value card on the table.". This is what I've been requesting as well. It isn't something that is a bug or anything.

Hello,

Agreed on this point, it should not happen.
I'm a bit surprised it happens, because:
- I've tested a bunch of cases when developing the game, and I should have noticed that
- I just looked again, and I see no reason why that bug would happen
- There are more than 60 000 games played on BGA, and I have no bug report on that
This being said, every code has bugs, and that's why I want to investigate. But I can do it only if I have a table / move that has the problem.


Regards,

PiratJack

[FelixFelicus7]

Thanks for posting Jack!

You may have missed the point Vogliovincere was trying to post in the above. He is referring to the fact that in ALL variants of Scopa (certainly all standard widespread variants) there should be NO opportunity to decide between capturing a 9 or a 7+2 when playing a 9. It is one of the CORE rules of Scopa that any card played MUST capture its matching value card if present. His point is that the "allow any combination of cards to be captured" option should be replaced with "Any valid combination of cards can be captured unless there is a matching value card on the table.". This is what I've been requesting as well. It isn't something that is a bug or anything.

Hello,

Agreed on this point, it should not happen.
I'm a bit surprised it happens, because:
- I've tested a bunch of cases when developing the game, and I should have noticed that
- I just looked again, and I see no reason why that bug would happen
- There are more than 60 000 games played on BGA, and I have no bug report on that
This being said, every code has bugs, and that's why I want to investigate. But I can do it only if I have a table / move that has the problem.


Regards,

PiratJack

Like I said Jack, its not a bug that Voglionicere is reporting. He's reporting a fundamental rule implementation 'error' when creating the "allow any combination of cards to be captured' option because it ignores the core non-negotiable Scopa rule of having to capture a single matching card if present. He, like myself, just wants the option changed to "ALLOW ANY COMBINATION OF CARDS TO BE CAPTURED UNLESS A SINGLE MATCHING VALUE CARD CAN BE CAPTURED".

[FelixFelicus7]

PiratJack, if you are referring to where Vogliovincere says,

" if we have 7 2 1 6 on the table and you play 9, you can chose to take 6+2+1"

Hi is not saying the above happened in a BGA game, he is saying this is how the game SHOULD work, but unfortunately doesn't because of the incorrect options available. Does this make sense? There is no bug.

Thanks again for your time.

[PiratJack]

PiratJack, if you are referring to where Vogliovincere says,

" if we have 7 2 1 6 on the table and you play 9, you can chose to take 6+2+1"

Hi is not saying the above happened in a BGA game, he is saying this is how the game SHOULD work, but unfortunately doesn't because of the incorrect options available. Does this make sense? There is no bug.

Thanks again for your time.

Hello,

If it doesn't happen in a game, then everybody should be happy because it's working as it's supposed to, and there is nothing to change.


PiratJack

[FelixFelicus7]

PiratJack, if you are referring to where Vogliovincere says,

" if we have 7 2 1 6 on the table and you play 9, you can chose to take 6+2+1"

Hi is not saying the above happened in a BGA game, he is saying this is how the game SHOULD work, but unfortunately doesn't because of the incorrect options available. Does this make sense? There is no bug.

Thanks again for your time.

Hello,

If it doesn't happen in a game, then everybody should be happy because it's working as it's supposed to, and there is nothing to change.


PiratJack

You're unfortunately missing the point PiratJack. Its working as you've implemented it, but it ISN'T Scopa. Here are the rules from Pagat: "If the played card does not match the value of any single face up card, but is equal to the sum of the values of a set of two or more cards, the player captures that set of cards. If there is more than one such set, the player chooses which set to capture." All the experienced Italian players will confirm this as well ie you should be able to capture a set of 2 OR 3 cards. Do you recall which set of rules you based the implementation on?

[Vogliovincere]

Standard Scopa rules always allow ANY combination of cards on the table UNLESS there's a matching value single card. The 'only allow lowest number of cards' option/rule needs tweaking to 'unless there is a matching value card on the table ANY valid combination of cards can be captured' please! There may be some Italian regional variant that only allows a max 2cards to be captured or something, but it is not standard. All published rulebooks & phone apps that I've come across use the 'any' combo if no single matching card exists. Would appreciate if other players support this change.

(As Italian) I support this change!

I totally agree. the developer can create options and variants, but standard scopa rules must be respected: "allow ANY combination of cards on the table UNLESS there's a matching value single card"

[Vogliovincere]

Thanks for posting Jack!

You may have missed the point Vogliovincere was trying to post in the above. He is referring to the fact that in ALL variants of Scopa (certainly all standard widespread variants) there should be NO opportunity to decide between capturing a 9 or a 7+2 when playing a 9. It is one of the CORE rules of Scopa that any card played MUST capture its matching value card if present. His point is that the "allow any combination of cards to be captured" option should be replaced with "Any valid combination of cards can be captured unless there is a matching value card on the table.". This is what I've been requesting as well. It isn't something that is a bug or anything.

Hello,

Agreed on this point, it should not happen.
I'm a bit surprised it happens, because:
- I've tested a bunch of cases when developing the game, and I should have noticed that
- I just looked again, and I see no reason why that bug would happen
- There are more than 60 000 games played on BGA, and I have no bug report on that
This being said, every code has bugs, and that's why I want to investigate. But I can do it only if I have a table / move that has the problem.


Regards,

PiratJack

Hello PiratJack, let's start fixing a problem: in standard scopa rules I must be able to chose any combination unless the same card I'm playing is already on the table. then we will check if a bug still exists