JCloisterZone 3.0.1 - Tower/Abbot Bug Report

[rfielder]

Ran into a bug in JCZ3.0.1 yesterday, when I placed a tower piece and the game hung.

The only follower within range of the tower was an abbot - the sideways meeple on a German monastery.  JCZ does not allow a tower to capture an abbot.

I have started a separate discussion in the Official Rules section, to determine if a tower can capture an abbot.  That is not the point of this message.  My point here, and a warning to all, is the game hung.  Had to close the game.

It would seem that JCZ was insisting that I remove something, but the only follower was the abbot, so there was nothing I could do.

Two issues, far as I can see.

First, placing a tower piece does NOT require that you remove a follower.  You may be building the tower so that it reaches further.

Second, is that the game hung.

And, of course, there is the issue of the rules.

I did the bug report to Farin.  This message is to warn anyone who is playing with the tower expansion that this can happen.

Linkback: https://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=1114.0

[danisthirty]

Thanks for the update Robert 

[danisthirty]

I knew I’d read this somewhere before, but had forgotten where. Thanks again for the warning rfielder, sorry we didn’t heed it... 

Despite this warning, the weekly game last night included The Tower and The German Monasteries and we ran into the same problem. JCZ 3.0.1 doesn’t let you capture an Abbot from a Tower. Other than this the game worked fairly smoothly I think. I did notice a couple of things though:

1 - If another player has more than one type of meeple belonging to you (in this case B1nder had a standard meeple of mine and my phantom) and you capture one of their meeples, an exchange will automatically take place. However, I was of the opinion that I should have been able to have chosen which meeple I got back but I wasn’t given the chance. If large followers and/ or mayors/ wagons etc had been involved then this could have been even more significant.

2 - Bridges, Castles & Bazaars worked surprisingly well considering how much these complicated the user interface. The only small bug (I assume) I noticed with this was that there was one occasion (the only occasion in fact) where I completed a small (4-point) city purely so that I could make it into a castle. But I wasn’t given the option to, and I was just awarded 4 points and the game moved on. Both tiles were cfrf tiles although the second tile (the one I used to claim the city with the hope of turning it into a castle) included a tower foundation as it was from The Tower. Another thing about this tile in particular was that the middle of the road touched the city and separated the farms on either side. I don’t think this should have affected whether it could be used to make a castle though...

Videos of these are available upon request!

[MrNumbers]

I was of the opinion that I should have been able to have chosen which meeple I got back but I wasn’t given the chance. If large followers and/ or mayors/ wagons etc had been involved then this could have been even more significant.

You are absolutely right. Quote from CAR, p.67:

If one of the players has several prisoners belonging to the other player, the owner may decide which prisoner should be returned.

[danisthirty]

You are absolutely right. Quote from CAR, p.67:

If one of the players has several prisoners belonging to the other player, the owner may decide which prisoner should be returned.

Thanks for the clarification! 

It's good to know I'm not just making these things up in my head...

[rfielder]

You are absolutely right. Quote from CAR, p.67:

If one of the players has several prisoners belonging to the other player, the owner may decide which prisoner should be returned.

OK, now - how do we convince Farin to update JCZ? 

To be honest, this one sounds tricky.....

[farin]

I expect a fix it with game server updated, which slipped. I was quite busy but now I am going to make some work on JCZ.

This bug is major, so I think i can release 3.0.2 with fix.

[farin]

ok here is it
http://jcloisterzone.com/builds/JCloisterZone-3.0.2.zip
contains capture update

danisthirty: choosing from captured meeples, was added to issues https://github.com/farin/JCloisterZone/issues/59
it is not trivial change and I want to break it in minor update.

i checked bazaar and castle and not see any problem with castles during bazaar auction. Needs save if you observe it again.

[danisthirty]

danisthirty: choosing from captured meeples, was added to issues https://github.com/farin/JCloisterZone/issues/59
it is not trivial change and I want to break it in minor update.

I'm sure it isn't. There's no hurry as far as I'm concerned, I only mentioned it so that you'd have a record of it for completeness! 

i checked bazaar and castle and not see any problem with castles during bazaar auction. Needs save if you observe it again.

I'll review the video and will arrange a few test games to see if it happens again.

Thanks again for all your efforts!

[farin]

if you can share video, i will watch it. Maybe I can see something or try to simlate similar situation.

[rfielder]

if you can share video, i will watch it. Maybe I can see something or try to simlate similar situation.

Farin - do you have the ability to create a scenario in JCZ?

I have never worked in Java, so I don't know how difficult this would be.  I kind of see this as an editor that creates a config.yaml file, setting up the board for the situations you wish to test.

That way, you could create the scenarios to test specific situations.

[farin]

I can force draw order. I can edit save games (eg. is quite easy shift saved game one turn back - so save immediately after something suspicious happen is worth).
I can create save game from scratch according to some situation (but it is not perfect, because eventual wrong state can be catched here)