Board Game Arena

detlefchef11 wrote: ↑02 August 2023, 14:39 I honestly think this is fine, especially given the fact that what I asked about is apparently fine. I was in a game where one player, who had just rolled 7, told the other player that he'd rob from me if he would trade him something he needed. So, that's what you're talking about with a little something extra.

Obviously this would not be cool if the trade offer was sent via pm.

The player in the lead HAS to assume the others will gang up on them, after all.

Shinobu-shi wrote: ↑02 August 2023, 14:26 So the situation is BLUE has excellent city building and is one road away from getting the road bonus. It's ORANGE's turn and I chat them saying I can trade them 2 wood for 2 wheat (just so they don't maritime trade their wheat away). This way ORANGE can take the road bonus instead of BLUE.

Further context:
ORANGE and I are at 4 points. BLUE is at 6 points so BLUE would be at 8 if they get the road bonus.

I notice that ORANGE can take the road building bonus by building 2 roads. I know they have 2 bricks and they can maritime trade for 1 wood but then they won't have enough for 2 roads. I was also alerting them to the possibility of the trade because if BLUE gets 8 points with their city building speed, we would be too far behind to catch up.

They didn't actually accept my trade because they maritime traded 4 wheat for 1 wood to make a road. But as I thought, they were going for it anyway and I wanted to chat to suggest a trade because I also needed wheat.

But BLUE suggested that trade chats are not allowed and that this is team playing. I was trying to look for the rule on this but the only thing I found is something saying it's technically okay for anyone to talk to anyone at any time and therefore suggest future trades. At the time, it was mainly a suggestion to avert disaster for that turn. There was zero intent to manufacture unfair trades or king-make. Doing so wouldn't really guarantee that either of us would be "king" but it was to stop someone else from winning too easily.

Also, this seems like something that has got to be common IRL over the board gameplay but is hard to communicate online.

Just asking for future reference if this is something I can do or if I should avoid suggesting trades through chat entirely.

Cos- wrote: ↑02 August 2023, 16:33 The way I think about it is, it's like if you were playing the board game in person. When you play Catan in person, there isn't such a constrained user interface for offering trades, people just say what they want and then others may agree or suggest changes to the offer. Chat is a good way to get around the bad user interface for trades on BGA, and say what you are interested in. It's unfortunate that chat on BGA doesn't work very well - people often don't see that there's a new message - but when it works, it can be a useful to way to arrange trades.