Rules issues with the TripleA engine
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Was that the reason why you just created "Display Overbuy Rule to Game Players" , @LaFayette ?
Some maps enforce it, others refund, some carry over the units, others you lose the units. Knowing which is useful so you don't wrongly rely on the game engine to warn you about purchasing too many units to then lose or not place them.
In my experience, an overbuy is a game losing move. Losing units to not being able to place is essentially giving the opponent one or two SBR without the benefit of even an AA chance. The tactical disadvantage, usually counting on those units to be there, then to find out post-non-combat can easily mean you'll have fewer units than planned and a key position/battle would then fold as you'll be short.
Long answer, less long, users should be able to tell how the game will function without 'just knowing'. It's a UX design principle that you should be able to look at something and figure out how it'll work. Having some sort of indicator to tell you, whether text or otherwise (something), what will tell you would help jive with that. I've also had the rude surprise on maps to realize it did not warn/prevent overbuy and then overbought units. It's a particular problem say on WaW when there are many factories that are spread out. It's actually a bit time consuming there to every turn count up factory capacity, just so you can be sure to buy max, but not too much.
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@Panther said in TripleA engine - Known rules-related bugs/issues:
@Cernel said in TripleA engine - Known rules-related bugs/issues:
I understand that @Panther believes that if you skip a warning telling you that you are overbuying that doesn't mean that you are intentionally overbuying. I think the opposite, as long as the warning is always correct.
I don't know how you come to say that, as I never said so.
I have always argued in the respective Github issues that an overbuy warning is pointless if not submitted to the opponents at the time it is committed. If the committing player ignores this warning on purpose he is abusing the rules, definitely.
But when it comes to discuss that after the turn the committing player can always find excuses for that behaviour arguing he did not do it on purpose (maybe because of an incorrect understanding of a rule).https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/issues/3506#issuecomment-405458293
and
https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/issues/3506#issuecomment-410941697
and
https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/issues/3506#issuecomment-410958133
and
https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/issues/3506#issuecomment-410966284Possible scenario:
During purchase units phase the player intentionally buys 2 units more than can be placed.
The engine issues an overbuy warning, that is ignored.
After the turn the opponents notice the refund for 2 units.
After laying out the rules to him the overbuying player argues: "I intended to capture a factory where I could have placed those units but that plan failed. I ignored the warning because during Purchase Unit Phase the engine cannot know about my plan. Sorry, I did not know about the rule that I could not use that factory during the turn it was captured! Man, that was an unintended overpurchase!"Happy arguing now - after the turn is over. This might not or at least should not happen with experienced players, I agree. But this rule issue still occurs ...
That exactly what I meant. In my opinion, that player should lose the game for intentionally overbuying, as he skipped a warning telling that he was overbuying. If you believe that something in the programs is working wrong, you should stop your game and sort the matter out, possibly filing a bug report, then skip the warning if it gets sorted out that the program is bugged. That to me equals someone that edits something without asking permission or even telling anything, because he misunderstood a rule that the engine was implementing correctly. That is an incorrect behaviour, otherwise everyone would be free to make edits without telling all the time. Or it equals at someone going on playing while the opponent is yelling at him that his purchase was illegal, without bothering discussing the matter (as per what krieghund said, this would be pretty much the only case in which you can be sure the overbuy is intentional).
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@Cernel As I said: "as long as the warning is always correct". That means that if all players have agreed beforehand that they realize in a game the TripleA warning is not always correct (like in Napoleonic Empires), then everyone is free to skip the warning, but they need to say something like "hey, this game gives wrong warning, let's just ignore them", and everyone agrees. This is also the reason why I personally think that the warning should be disabled in all games in which it is known it doesn't always work. For example, I made veqryn disable it in 270BC, and I would have surely done the same for Napoleonic Empires too, or an official mention in notes in which it says that in this game you are free to ignore the overbuy warning (and maybe just saying that you are free to intentionally overbuying, to make sure there can be no issues; it is a custom game after all, so whatever).
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@Cernel To be clear, in general, I believe that every time you skip a warning (also for aircrafts crashing) or edit you take upon yourself the full responsibility of that action that, if proved wrong, implies that you have intentionally made an illegal move (otherwise nothing at all is illegal, as everyone could always say he didn't intend to). If you are not sure, you should stop and discuss the matter (with a judge, if you are in a tournament or such), before skipping or editing on your own.
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@Cernel
I see what you mean and I think we don't have a big dissent here at least regarding the consequences. I am not very happy with that FAQ-aspect that introduced the rule "You may only purchase as many units as you will have the ability to mobilize after making repairs to any damaged industrial complexes. The rules for returning excess units are intended only for inadvertent over-purchasing."
While the first sentence is a clear "law" the second sentence opens room for discussing the "human factor". Representing the latter in the TripleA engine appears to be pointless, IMHO. -
The list has been updated to include the NCM-movement regression (issue 7350).
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@Panther the list is the same as what is returned by this link? https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/labels/Impact%3A Bad Game Rules
Just want to be sure that we have everything properly labelled.
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@LaFayette
Not in every case. I have compared the lists and identified the following differences:-
The above list contains issus # 1645, 1867 and 5195. Those issues have been closed on Github despite they have not been resolved.
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Above issue # 6256 is not labelled as "Impact: Bad Game Rules" on Github.
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Above issues # 3846 and # 4480 have been partly resolved and thus closed on Github, but there are tasks remaining.
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Issue # 4107 on Github is not part of the above list, as it is not affecting core vx-rules.
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Issue # 4649 on Github is not part of the above list, because the mentioned error has occurred here and there in the past independently from any ruleset.
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Issue # 6032 on Github is not part of the above list as it is not an issue of rules gameplay but of a consequence of special editing, incorrectly handled by the engine.
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@Panther If this
https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/issues/5195
was actually closed under my suggestion of it being a duplicate of
https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/issues/5194
I suppose you can obliterate it. -
@Cernel Agreed, thanks.
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Thank you for going through those. I took a look and seems we just need more detailed specs to close everything out. Divide and conquer.
With that said, #1645, #1867 and #5195 need new issues created with a more detailed specification of what to do, notably:
- description of what the game does today with a call out on what is wrong
- description of how to create the problem
- save game attached at the location of the problem (nice-to-have)
- description of the actual correct game behavior
- listing of which rule sets the change should apply to (if no save game then a list of some sample maps)
- yes/no on whether the rule set should be optional or always enforced.
#3856 and #4480 probably should closed and any remaining work needed created as new issues with the same details above. (FWIW, I acknowledge it is a lot of detail. To get working code, you need a code specification. To create a code specification, you need a functional specification (ie: the what to do). The above is still not quite a functional specification, but it is quite close; hence we'll need all of that information, as developers we'll interact with the code for all of those details at an even greater level and will be creating games to exercise the changes before and after repeatedly).
Each new issue created, ideally it's as atomic & independent as possible. It's much easier to resolve 5 small issues than it is 1 large issue.
Above issue # 6256 is not labelled as "Impact: Bad Game Rules" on Github.
I'm curious if choosing casualties of lowest movement is a rule, or just the better choice? Would giving players the option of choosing a higher movement plane for casualty actually then be a rule violation?
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@LaFayette said in Rules issues with the TripleA engine:
Above issue # 6256 is not labelled as "Impact: Bad Game Rules" on Github.
I'm curious if choosing casualties of lowest movement is a rule, or just the better choice? Would giving players the option of choosing a higher movement plane for casualty actually then be a rule violation?
As I said above:
On A&A .org this topic was intended primarily for PBF users stumbling over issues during their games. That it could serve as "summarizing tasklist" for developers and contributors, too, has been a nice side effect. ...
So you are somehow correct. While this (#6256) is a question of "better choice" indeed, players often stumble over this issue, when the engine somehow arbitrarily takes out a unit, thus preventing the player from continuing his move as intended. So this is why this issue is part of my list: to acknowledge the fact. On the other hand one could easily conclude that the fact that the engine chooses "any" unit instead of leaving the choice to the player is a violation of the rules.
Technically the player should be free to take out whatever eligible unit with whatever movement left. It is just for simplification purposes that taking out the unit with the least remaining movement points has been discussed.
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@Panther could you confirm that the OP is up to date? Better yet, could you confirm that all linked issues are tagged appropriately in bug tracking: https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/labels/Impact%3A Bad Game Rules?
Are there any closed that actually require more work? https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/issues?q=label%3A"Impact%3A+Bad+Game+Rules"+is%3Aclosed
I am unpinning this topic, I want to better focus this category for player-help.
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@LaFayette said in Rules issues with the TripleA engine:
@Panther could you confirm that the OP is up to date?
I have no hint that it is not up to date. I cannot remember a single Pull Request that directly addressed any of these issues. I am aware that @Trevan has dealt with some mechanics here and there that might have partly influenced an issue.
I will put your GitHub-related questions on my todo-list.
I am unpinning this topic, I want to better focus this category for player-help.
I wonder how this topic is not a huge help to players experiencing those issues and constantly stumbling over them. Aknowledging the fact that an issue is caused within the engine is "gaming support" - exactly what this category is about.
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@Panther said in Rules issues with the TripleA engine:
I wonder how this topic is not a huge help to players experiencing those issues and constantly stumbling over them.
I'm somewhat familiar with these issues and it still would take me a really large amount of time to go through them to find relevant information and whether they are current and what exactly they are. This is simply too 'raw' and too much information to be generally useful to the general player.
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@LaFayette said in Rules issues with the TripleA engine:
I'm somewhat familiar with these issues and it still would take me a really large amount of time to go through them to find relevant information and whether they are current and what exactly they are. This is simply too 'raw' and too much information to be generally useful to the general player.
I disagree with both of your statements, FWIW. But I am not going to repeat a discussion about dealing with rules related issues we already had some time ago.
Do what you want.
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