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Rules Questions / Tied Scores with Outpost, Possession
« on: January 29, 2013, 03:12:30 pm »
Here's a question that I recently came up with and figured that opening a tiny can of rules worms might be fun. I searched on this board but didn't find a similar topic.
Take four scenarios. In all, assume Player A is the first player and that the VP scores are equal at the end of the game:
1. A game with Outpost. Player A plays Outpost—gaining an extra turn—at least one more time than Player B. The game ends when Player B piles out. (example game, another)
2. The converse Outpost game. Player B plays Outpost—gaining an extra turn—exactly one more time than Player A. The game ends when Player A piles out.
3. A game with Possession. Player A plays Possession—causing Player B to take an extra turn—exactly one more time than Player B. The game-ending pile out occurs while Player A is possessing Player B.
4. The converse Possession game. Player B plays Possession—causing Player A to take an extra turn—at least one more time than Player A. The game-ending pile out occurs while Player B is possessing Player A. (example game)
The scores are equal, so the tie-breaker is:
Card text for reference:
The tie-breaker hinges on what constitutes a turn. Isotropic takes the opinion that possessed or outpost turns do not count. I think there is a case to be made that a plain text reading of Outpost and Possession indicate that players affected are taking a turn, and thus counts for the purposes of a tie versus a shared victory. The former is more intuitive and only requires remembering the start order, but the latter seems to follow the text although it may require some tracking to get right.
Which is the proper way of adjudicating the tie-breaker here?
In all, this is a very tiny space, having only affected 2 out of the 200 recent Outpost games and 1 out of the 200 recent Possession games on Councilroom, which I've listed above as examples.
Take four scenarios. In all, assume Player A is the first player and that the VP scores are equal at the end of the game:
1. A game with Outpost. Player A plays Outpost—gaining an extra turn—at least one more time than Player B. The game ends when Player B piles out. (example game, another)
2. The converse Outpost game. Player B plays Outpost—gaining an extra turn—exactly one more time than Player A. The game ends when Player A piles out.
3. A game with Possession. Player A plays Possession—causing Player B to take an extra turn—exactly one more time than Player B. The game-ending pile out occurs while Player A is possessing Player B.
4. The converse Possession game. Player B plays Possession—causing Player A to take an extra turn—at least one more time than Player A. The game-ending pile out occurs while Player B is possessing Player A. (example game)
The scores are equal, so the tie-breaker is:
Code: [Select]
If the highest scores are tied at the end of the game, the tied player who has had the fewest turns wins the game. If the tied players have had the same number of turns, they rejoice in their shared victory.
Card text for reference:
Quote from: Outpost
You only draw 3 cards (instead of 5) in this turn's Clean-up phase. Take an extra turn after this one. This can't cause you to take more than two consecutive turns.
Quote from: Possession
The player to your left takes an extra turn after this one, in which you can see all cards he can and make all decisions for him.
Any cards he would gain on that turn, you gain instead; any cards of his that are trashed are set aside and returned to his discard pile at end of turn.
The tie-breaker hinges on what constitutes a turn. Isotropic takes the opinion that possessed or outpost turns do not count. I think there is a case to be made that a plain text reading of Outpost and Possession indicate that players affected are taking a turn, and thus counts for the purposes of a tie versus a shared victory. The former is more intuitive and only requires remembering the start order, but the latter seems to follow the text although it may require some tracking to get right.
Which is the proper way of adjudicating the tie-breaker here?
In all, this is a very tiny space, having only affected 2 out of the 200 recent Outpost games and 1 out of the 200 recent Possession games on Councilroom, which I've listed above as examples.