Board Game Arena

in a recent thread, it was discussed how players are not, in general, given the ability to perform actions as the game enters different phases or as they receive goods, in order to keep the game flowing. The specific example was a player not being able to use stone received from Hewer to renovate with Stone House Reconstruction in the returning home phase of a round: https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewto ... 46&t=39153. I certainly agree that in general this trade-off is correct.

A possibly bad idea: what if the game gave the player a button along the lines of "game, please ask me if I want to do something in the next phase/next time I receive goods"? So if the player can see a situation like this coming, they can force the game to give them the chance to do something.

In my head this would be a one-off button which has to be clicked every time the player wants the game stopped, to keep the game flowing in general. But in occasional situations having this ability could be very important.

Something along the lines of "require confirmation after I receive resources outside of my turn" could, perhaps, be reintroduced as a player setting, although I'm not yet convinced it's worth it.

Anything phase-based does not seem realistic to me, however. Let me give you some of the timings that exist in the Agricola code:

BeforeStartOfTurn
AfterRevealAction
Preparation
EndWorkPhase
AfterWorkPhase
StartReturnHome
ReturnHome
BeforeHarvest
StartHarvest
StartHarvestFieldPhase
EndHarvestFieldPhase
StartHarvestFeedingPhase
EndHarvestFeedingPhase
EndHarvest
AfterHarvest
EndOfRound
AfterEndOfRound
BeforeEndOfGame

So if someone requires a pause at "StartHarvestFieldPhase", your proposed button - if I'm understanding correctly - would have to be pressed 7 times after placing the last farmer in order to make sure the desired phase is not missed.

Point taken, the phase-based approach wouldn't work.

In all honesty I too am not convinced the ""require confirmation after I receive resources outside of my turn" button is worth it. Even in the case referenced in the other thread, the player correctly foresaw they would be restricted and took a move to avoid the problem.

As a setting for advanced players it's a nice to have but not more than that.