Support some house rules

[eevee]

Just ones that would be easy to layer on top without changing the game fundamentally. I keep finding myself saying "wow it would be cool if we could":

• Pay a point to mulligan any number of cards anytime
• Vote instead of having a czar
• Rank top 3 instead of best
• Do an initial (or occasional) round where everyone gets a blank card; regardless of who wins, all of them get shuffled into the deck

[uecasm]

I have something implemented that's kinda like that last one. I'll probably get around to isolating it and sending in a pull request one of these days. :)

One problem with voting is that it introduces the possibility of ties (which could get complicated), especially in small games or with selfish players.

I'm curious how "top 3" ranking would work. Is this related to voting, or are you suggesting awarding 6 points per round, split 3/2/1 by the Czar's choices?

[eevee]

Ties could be handled easily enough by giving every winner a point.

I was thinking 3/2/1 granted by the Czar; it's often hard to vote for only one card when so many are fantastic :)

[uecasm]

The game would get unbalanced if some rounds are worth two (or twelve) points due to ties, while others are worth only one.

[eevee]

Would it? A round where everyone wins a point doesn't actually put anyone ahead of anyone else, and that shouldn't happen too often.

The alternative is to give 1/n points in the case of an n-way tie, but that's a bit more significant a change.

[uecasm]

We're not talking about everyone winning a point, we're talking about some subset of players winning a point. And potentially some players colluding to generate ties, since they'll be able to increase their score faster if they can arrange to get ties on multiple rounds, vs. scoring individually on those rounds. (eg. in a six-player game, one player has played really well and is at 5 points, while the others are at 1 each. It could be possible for two or even all five of the other players to catch up in only four rounds if ties are worth full points, instead of the eight rounds it would take two or twenty rounds it would take five players normally.)

The fairest alternative I can think of (other than fractional points) is to have tied rounds worth no points. But that could drag games out where there are an even number of selfish players.

[GUIpsp]

Well, to be honest, if people are dicks as czar, they can do something similar too.

[uecasm]

I've been playtesting a bit with granting no points on a tie. It's not working very well. I think it might be better to try letting a random tied player win the point, but I haven't tried testing that yet.

[gwemmie]

Can we please have an option to just always have a blank card in everyone's deck? It makes for a much more fun game.