Messages

106

Cartographers / Re: Updates on Cartographers

« on: 16/10/20, 02:52pm »

One more update.

- the rules page now displays the extra information that can be found at the bottom of the game page.

107

Cartographers / Re: Updates on Cartographers

« on: 16/10/20, 10:10am »

Two more updates:

- in the tutorial mode, the "Skip tutorial" buttons are now disabled in some phases when the game state is unstable (and the game can't be carried on normally).
- the shape and mountain coins counters were not quite right yet, we had introduced some new issues when trying to correct these. This is now fixed.

108

Cartographers / Re: Updates on Cartographers

« on: 15/10/20, 09:14am »

2 other updates:

- the mountains icons were not properly updated on the opponent's board. This is now fixed.
- the clock "issue" that some of you reported has now been fixed. See List of updates

109

Tips, polls, updates / Re: List of updates

« on: 15/10/20, 09:12am »

2020/10/15 Clock in simultaneous play

For Finito and Cartographers, where the players play simultaneously, the clock display stopped after you moved, so you could not see the opponent's remaining time.
This is now fixed.
Nothing was broken before. The display was only somewhat misleading (some players thought things were not quite right and felt the need to refresh the page to get the clock going again).
As a result of the fix, we noticed that if you play a move then refresh the page, the timer will not display the correct value (it will display too much, having basically reset at the time you played). This will be fixed as soon as the server is restarted (which be not be soon).

The mountains in Cartographers were not properly updated on the opponent's board. This is now fixed.

Magic Potion is now glowing on players' name on the game page and in the ranking lists.

Bots now speak "101" again. For a while they showed English instead.

110

Cartographers / Re: Thunderworks Games and Cartographers Heroes

« on: 14/10/20, 08:45pm »

The idea crossed my mind of course, but barely. I have not discussed it with Thunderworks anyway.

We plan to develop a solo mode and maybe a multiplayer mode (although this one requires a complete rewriting of the platform which is as you know designed for 2-player games).

We also have another game (or 2) to finish.

And maybe a switch to another server structure (which also would probably require a lot of rewriting).

So for the moment, I'd say: maybe later. Let me savour the moment of this nice release now It's nice to see how players are enjoying it.

111

Tips, polls, updates / Re: Restrict tables by rating

« on: 14/10/20, 05:17pm »

Something I forgot.

Should the range of preferred rating be:
B1) Absolute (1500-1700)
B2) Relative to your rating (-100 / +200)

112

Tips, polls, updates / Restrict tables by rating

« on: 14/10/20, 02:53pm »

Hello,

We'd like to know your opinion.

When opening a new table, we'd like to offer the option to restrict the table to a rating range.
For example, you would restrict the table to players between 1500 and 1800.

There are a few ways to that, for example, for someone with a rating of 1600:
- with limitations:
A1) choose a "symmetrical" range around your rating, for example, between 1500 and 1700, or between 1400 and 1800.
A2) choose a range of your choice around your rating, for example between 1500 And 2000,
A3) choose a min rating only for example, above 1600
A4) choose a max rating only for example, below 1600
- without limitations
A5) you can restrict the table as you wish, for example ask for players below 1100 and 1300 only, or below 1600 or above 1900.

So in essence, can the option give complete freedom or is best to allow only reasonable ranges?

Thanks for your input.



NB: Bear in mind that the feature may have consequences on the Daily Quest.
NB2: The question of playing against specific bots comes into the picture. It is probably not desirable that players always pick the same bot to play online. Probably the feature would not apply to bots.

113

Cartographers / Re: Thunderworks Games and Cartographers Heroes

« on: 13/10/20, 08:57pm »

Very happy to see this second Cartographers game coming.

Our players have really enjoyed Cartographers so far.

Although we haven't had the chance to try the new one out yet, we have little doubt about its quality and can only encourage our English-speaking players to have a look at the Kickstarter project and get a chance to receive the new game before everyone else.

Thanks again for the opportunity you gave us to implement Cartographers. We are certain it will be played a lot here.

Nicolas Guibert.

114

Cartographers / Re: Updates on Cartographers

« on: 12/10/20, 02:27pm »

Great updates so far!

It seems taken coins on the opponent's map are not update correctly. Also, the app has a useful feature where possible placements are highlighted. It could help reduce confusion here as well. The buttons for speeding up animations were a bit tricky to find, but very useful!

I know that some people care about fidelity in implementation, but for an online UI it would also save time if Ruins cards were never actually shown, only that I need to place the next tile on a ruin (for card-counters it could still show whether one or two cards were drawn as an icon).

Also, I found the meta-game super confusing (remember something similar from bsw several years ago)... two games of Cartographers (wins) and I still have to find a way to refill food every time. Honestly I wouldn't mind paying, but with the current system it just adds a lot of clicks that I can't just buy 'reserve food' directly, and get rid of the cap of 20.

You are right that the number of coins is not updated immediately on the opponent's board until the other player has completed his move. Thanks for pointing that out!
In that case, coins don't get animated either. But both the coin counter and the mountain icon get updated as soon as all players have played.

I take note of your remark regarding the meta-game and the complexity of buying real food (or Magic Potion). I think we should open another subject for that. We are thinking that a process allowing to buy Magic Potion (instead of gold coins) might be a step in the right direction. Right now, you need to buy coins and then go to the market to get what you need.

115

Cartographers / Re: Updates on Cartographers

« on: 12/10/20, 02:17pm »

A few more updates today:

- in the online, the 4 edicts were not shuffled (our shuffled routine stopped working for an obscure reason) and therefore were always played in the same order (Forest edicts first, etc.). This is now fixed offering you 24 times more setups.
- near the end of the game, some players don't find a legal move to play and lose on time because of this.
To avoid the situation, a help button will now be displayed when there is less than 30s left on the clock and the season is Fall or Winter.
A click on the button will highlight a valid move (which may be a bad one beware!).
The button will blink for players with a white, yellow, orange, green or blue meeple.

116

Cartographers / Re: Cartographers rankings

« on: 12/10/20, 11:19am »

This is almost perfect. Thanks!

K is 28. That means, if you lose against a player that has the same rating, you lose K/2= 14 points. And if you win, you win 14 points.

K is bigger for your first 25 games, from 28*2.5 down to 28*1. So for the first game, K=70 and it goes down from there.

We have two other modifiers.

1) Slower changes for experienced players
if (nb_of_games>300) then K=K*0.83;
else if (nb_of_games>100) then K=K*0.88;

2) Faster moves for low rated players to give them a chance to come back a bit faster
if (rating<=1200) then K=K*1.6;
else if (rating<=1300) then K=K*1.3;
else if (rating<=1400) then K=K*1.15;

That's all.

117

Cartographers / Re: Updates on Cartographers

« on: 10/10/20, 03:08pm »

Some more improvements:

- the rules say that if you cannot place the regular shape, you need to place a 1x1 square of any terrain anywhere. This means that you don't have to place it on Ruins if Ruins are active. To reflect that, the interface now shows clearly that ruins are not active in that case.
Don't forget that rule! I can make a big difference.
- some players did not realise that it was possible to flip the shapes (meaning turning them upside-down). The rotating and flipping is now added to the extra information zone.

More coming.

118

Cartographers / Updates on Cartographers

« on: 09/10/20, 03:34pm »

We have made a few changes to Cartographers. The most important ones are:

- the scores of all players are now shown at all times in the right column
- below the 4 edicts, you can now tick 2 options for faster animations

A few more improvements are coming.

119

Tips, polls, updates / Re: List of updates

« on: 08/10/20, 03:06pm »

2020/10/06 Release of Cartographers

The award-winning game Cartographers has just been released on the platform.

Special features:
- the game is 2-player only for the moment.
- there is no AI for this game.
- the training mode offers 12 fixed configurations (one for each bot). The bots get special rules (basically extra points) to compensate for their bad play. So in essence, the training mode, while still a 2-player game, is more of a solo game. Its function is to let you familiarise with the 16 edict cards (while having a score to beat). Each edict appears 3 times in the training mode, at different timings (early or late).
- you will need to find a human opponent to play in the online mode. We recommend using the link associated with your table to invite players who are not logged in.
- the first 20 online games are rewarded with 6 rating points each (this is also a consequence of the absence of bots: they are not here to seed the rankings, we need to compensate this to get comparable ratings).
- the game has options to speed up animations (cards or/and scoring).

We are very happy to offer the possibility to play Cartographers online.

Have fun!

120

Cartographers / Re: Cartographers feedback

« on: 07/10/20, 05:50pm »

Frank, thanks for the feedback.

Looks like your browser is playing tricks on you. Maybe close it completely and reopen?

For Lost Barony, you are right. As the extra information says at the bottom of the page, Wastelands are filled spaces. And that's particularly useful for that edict.