MArcomage

Free multiplayer on-line fantasy card game

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garbageonly on 05:21, 6. Aug, 2008
Work Overtime 10bricks, wall+38, quarry-1

I played this card when my Quarry = 1, bricks = 10
I receive no brick production after the card is played, shouldn't I receive 1 brick since my Quarry can not go below 1?
It happened twice in the same game

Other card such as Forced Labor might be affected as well?
Progressor on 16:29, 6. Aug, 2008
I suppose it's caused by the similar reason that for example you play vampire at atime you can pay it precisely you still end up with zero gems if magic is 7 or lower. I once had a quetion about this after playing Mercenary's or Giant Bear and the answer was that the game limits are applies AFTER the production. Else this type of card have an optimum, and Mojko aparantly doesn't like it.
amaster on 18:14, 6. Aug, 2008
I can confirm that. The game designer said that the resource penalty is *after* the production. Someone asked for a change. He said those cards are usually powerful and you can still partly bypass the penalty.

I'm unsure if "quarry -1" works in the same way as resource penalty but it seems so.
garbageonly on 18:55, 6. Aug, 2008
From what I see
Vampire is different, it's gems-7
Like Difficult Times, both player stock -8, if you have no resources when you play the card, you will have your production - 8 stock after you play this card, so unless your facilities all > 8, you will have 0 for all three resources type. This applies for cards like Werewolf or any cards that change your stock.

Work overtime is -1 quarry, and quarry provides the brick produced. Since facilities can not be < 1, I should still get 1 brick for my production, damage in facility shouldn't be the same as reduction in stock

Maybe the code is something like this:
I play Work overtime with only 1 Quarry 10 bricks
Quarry - 1 (quarry now = 0), wall+38, production (0 bricks),
if quarry < 1, quarry + 1, so now quarry = 1, but I lost my chance to get my 1 brick!
Progressor on 19:45, 6. Aug, 2008
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Work overtime is -1 quarry, and quarry provides the brick produced. Since facilities can not be < 1, I should still get 1 brick for my production, damage in facility shouldn't be the same as reduction in stock
---------------------

I was talking about game limits in general. This is in fact very similar since just as facilitys, rescources also can't be lower then a certain nr, but the game only realizes that AFTER production.
So, for a short time, your quarry was 0, and for the minus resources you'd have a negative amount of the resource.

BTW Im not saying I agree with this, Im saying that this is the way it is.
amaster on 23:31, 6. Aug, 2008
AFAIK, it's how it works.

(1)
Gems: 24
Vampire costs 17 gems but with -7 gems penalty.

Calculation:
24-17+3=10
10-7=3

(2)
Bricks: 10
Overtime costs 10 bricks. Quarry -1

Calculation:
10-10=0
0+(1-1)=0
Until then it will restore back to 1 since it can't be lower than 1.

The designer doesn't want us to easily bypass the whole penalty. I think it's good or some cards will be more powerful (I will be easier to win). I'm fine with this arrangement as long as I know how it operates.
DPsycho on 01:26, 7. Aug, 2008
That cannot be right (the 10-10+(1-1) part). If that were the case, you would be able to play cards without enough stock just so long as they /would/ have enough stock following the same turn's production.

You could argue that this is prevented by the absence of the Play button below the card, but with proper coding, you could spoof the game server to attempt to play it anyway. Might be worth trying, I suppose, but I don't particularly feel like attempting to cheat. ;)

In any case, it seems clear to me that you should be receiving that one brick, and whatever bit of coding is preventing that should be addressed. If it is subtracting the facility and then adding it back, that readdition simply needs to add one of the proper resource at the same moment. It will always only ever be one.
Sylonus on 12:25, 7. Aug, 2008
It has to do with your facilities being unable to STAY below 1, they are reduced to 1, then production occurs, then they're raised back to 1 (the minimum for end of turn) I'm not sure if that was intended, but I don't find it a huge balance issue, either way.
amaster on 12:31, 7. Aug, 2008
> That cannot be right (the 10-10+(1-1) part).
OK. Corrected. Removed the ambiguity.

BTW I'm fine with the current settings. These cards are usually more powerful (that's why the penalty). We actually bypass the whole quarry -1 penalty since quarry can't be lower than 1. 1 brick cost is very reasonable.
DPsycho on 22:52, 7. Aug, 2008
If we're correctly guessing that the facility is restored to 1 after production, then all that needs to be changed to fix this is to add the one resource in at the same moment that the correction is made.

if (facility) < 1
(facility) = 1

becomes instead:

if (facility) < 1
(facility) = 1, (resource) = (resource) + 1

There are a few caveats, of course. This assumes that the check immediately follows production. If this occurred due to a play of Vampire, for example, the added gem should still be subject to the gems -7 effect that presently occurs after all else. Also, this should only occur if the check is being made following that player's production round. If the facility reduction was caused by the opponent's turn, there should be no added resource as there was no affected production.
Mojko on 22:02, 14. Aug, 2008
Time to solve the riddle :D
This behaviour is indeed caused by the game limits as Progressor said:

"I was talking about game limits in general. This is in fact very similar since just as facilitys, rescources also can't be lower then a certain nr, but the game only realizes that AFTER production.
So, for a short time, your quarry was 0, and for the minus resources you'd have a negative amount of the resource."

However Quarry, Magic and Dungeon must not be zero, thus they must not produce zero resources. The game limit model will be preserved, only this bug will be fixed. That means you always get at least 1 of each resource (if you didn't play a stock minus card).
Progressor on 14:25, 25. Aug, 2008
Why shouldn't the game limits work the same for facility's and stock the same?
Mojko on 18:07, 30. Aug, 2008
The game limits aren't so simple as you may think... This bug was fixed in r248 (https://netvor.sk/trac/arcomage/changeset/248).