Updates on Cartographers

[Jimmy V.]

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.

[Jimmy V.]

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.

[Carl]

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.

[Jimmy V.]

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.

[Jimmy V.]

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.

[Thanthamthomap]

Wait, so should we use monsters to surround all the edge of the opponent mountains?

I always think that if I use my monster to surround the mountain in my opponent's map, he will gain that coin for free, so I always try to avoid it (except when I want to block him from Stoneside Forest edict)

I am confused now.

[Carl]

You are right, opponent will get the coin if you surround their mountain. So don't do that (unless you are forced to or if you want to block them).

[Jimmy V.]

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

[Jimmy V.]

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.

[Jimmy V.]

One more update.

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

[Jimmy V.]

One more update:

- on our rules page, you will know find the complete list of cards: explore cards and edicts

[Jimmy V.]

The tutorial has been updated so that rotating and flipping are explained on a separate screen.

So far, they were taught as the same moment players were requested to rotate a shape to place it. The result was that many players missed that flipping was possible.