bid explanation - Resolved -

Mahks

I am unclear on bids.

Does anyone have a good description of how they work?

I'm not looking for how they are setup in the XML.
How would you explain them to a player about to play their 1st game?

General_Zod

The bids basically allow players to add units to any of their owned territories, before the game actually begins. They get a settable amount of PUs, then buy and then place units. Production limits are ignored by the game engine for most part during this phase. Except game engine allows naval units only be placed where there is at least one naval unit already or the sea zones need ownership designated.

The typical user enforced rules that go with a bids in a ww2 scenario are 1 unit per owned territory, and cannot place naval units in empty sea zones.

A FFA will use bids to place all starting armies.

After the bid phase the game begins as normal.

Mahks

So there is no "bidding" on what empire a player gets?

General_Zod

@mahks

Oh missed a detail. Players generally decide before the game if a bid is required. A game like ww2 revised or ww2 v3 generally use bids. The usual accepted bids are dependent on dice or LL game. Since LL allows micromanaging of battles, thus allowing calculated exploits, LL games generally bid higher.

So anyways the process of bidding usually will look like following.

Initial bidding player starts with high bid for the weaker alliance (sometimes per weaker nations) and each player will alternately go lower until the other decides they won't bid lower. Once a player says "yours" , bid is over and winner gets the number they bid. That is entered into the game setup options.

ww2 v3 LL
allies 15
allies 14
allies 13
yours

or

ww2 revised LL
g8
g7
g6
g5
yours

Captain Crunch

@general_zod sup general_zod that new Krypton show rocks

General_Zod

@captain-crunch Haha, yeah it's cool show.

Mahks

That bidding process is done in the chat? or is it done within the engine somehow?

Is there a FAQ on bidding somewhere?

Hepps

@mahks Correct. Players discuss the bids... then enter the agreed amounts into the game.

Cernel

@mahks There is nothing in the program supporting bidding; meaning nothing for defining its amount. So, yes, the players need to do that communicating (chat).
I don't know how players decide who starts bidding. In friendly games, I guess most don't care.

Mahks

OK I think I got it now, the sequence step "bid" term was confusing me.

The "bid" step is actually when the player buys the (bid) units,
then placeBid is placing them.

Cernel

@mahks I think you should look at it purely from an engine perspective, as you don't necessarily have to use both together (you can associate either with the regular purchase/placement phases (not sure if this is a good practice)) and you can use those phases on multiple rounds or, anyways, not necessarily on round 1.

Bid is a special purchase phase where you use the bid property income, instead of any other resources, and it also turns such income into regular PUs, for the part you don't spend (this doesn't usually happen).

placeBid is a special placement phase where you are subjected to a series of placement limitations different from the regular phase of the same kind, namely:

You can place infinite per territory or sea zone
You can place in any territory you own (no factory or anything required)
You can place in any friendly sea zone with ship of the same owner already in it

On top of that, players may or may not decide to apply other restrictions, the most common being limiting 1 placement per territory or sea zone (but it can be whatever agreed or specified anywhere; for example, if you play WWIIv3 1941 ladder, at least in the old ladder, you are forbidden to buy bombers with bid (not engine enforced)).

The bid phases are also used, in a few games, as special purchase / placement delegates, not just for rebalancing (not sure if this is a good practice).

Mahks

POS2 says:
"For any "Purchase" delegate (such as PurchaseDelegate or NoPUPurchaseDelegate or etc):
bid= true/false (default to true if step ends with Bid)"

Please clarify what "step ends with Bid" means.

General_Zod

@mahks

That refers to the 2 bid delegates below. Although they seem to have it reversed, not sure which is the typo. (I suppose the typo is functional though, if it is in code too) I'm gonna guess that placeBid is the typo.

Thinking about further, the typo in the name is irrelevant because the correct delegate is being called anyways. So disregard typo stuff completely.

A developer should check this in the code.

One can change the name of the delegate (place and purchase) and as long as it ends in Bid or BidPlace, it will function with all true bid qualities, by default.

example

Cernel

@mahks It means that the "name" of the delegate ends with "Bid".
The best way to define if the purchase is a bid or not is by using the step. Looking at how the name ends is the old way to define it, still supported (tho now it is totally redundant, as you can define it with the step).
In past, there was not the step, and the way to define was with the name ending only.
If this old way is now to be considered deprecated or not, we need @redrum or veqryn to say that, I guess (I don't actually believe there is a full list of everything deprecated anywhere public).

Mahks

Ahh, I think it means it defines the step as a bid purchase as opposed to a normal purchase.

I assume it would only be needed if you wanted the bid purchase to act like a regular purchase (bid=false)
or
you wanted a normal purchase to act like a bid purchase (bid=true)

Cernel

@mahks Correct. Either that way or by having or not having the name ending as "Bid". If there is the step defined, the name ending doesn't matter.

Cernel

@mahks The bid purchase is an alternative kind of purchase just like combat move and non combat move are alternative kind of movement phases.

General_Zod

@mahks

Your getting the crash course here. You will have years of xml experience crammed into weeks.

btw, finals tomorrow.