Tile Counting Apps/ Programs

[danisthirty]

If you ever play Carcassonne online either through BGA, JCloisterZone, other websites or any of the phone/ tablet apps I'm keen to hear your thoughts and opinions about the use of tile counting apps. Does their existence spoil the competitiveness within Carcassonne, or do they simply serve to level the playing field between players who can count the tiles in their head and those who struggle to do the same?

Speaking as something of a purist, I like to play competitive Carcassonne online in the same way as I would if I were playing against someone in person, so I stay away from anything that separates Carcassonne when played in person from Carcassonne played via a computer. Naturally this means that I'm not in favour of any kind of artificial assistance, and will avoid them even if they're built in to the app that I'm using to play them on (like on "Quick Games" via the old iOS app that I still play and love). I have plenty of reasons for this, but I've shared the main ones below:

1) Some day I'd love to win the UK Carcassonne Championship, or perhaps even the World Carcassonne Championships so I don't want to get used to anything during practice games that I'll come to rely on and then won't be able to use during championship matches.

2) Tile counting is a mental skill that is part of the game. For me, my knowledge of the tiles, and which are left, is as much a part of the game as deciding where to place whichever tile I've drawn. Having something automatically telling me which tiles are left is akin to someone else telling me where to put the tiles!

3) This only really applies in certain situations where some people might use a third-party or external tile counting app that isn't provided as part of the platform that is being used to host the game, but it would feel very dishonest under those circumstances to be going above and beyond what's provided by the platform to improve my chances of beating my opponent. For me, a win is meaningless unless both players are playing under the same conditions.

I'd love to hear from you if agree, disagree or have anything to add to the discussion as I know that mine isn't the only opinion. And also, let's be clear, this isn't the place to judge anyone for what they would/ wouldn't do to get their next win. We're all friends here, so let's just have an open and honest discussion about where you think the boundaries of acceptable/ unacceptable online play are.

Linkback: https://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=5679.0

[Scott]

I see it in the same vein as counting cards at a casino. You’re not supposed to do it.


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[Meepledrone]

One thing is playing for fun and another playing with a championshiop mindset. There is much controversy about them since you are not playing in the same conditions as in person.

I think these aids may be used by some wanting to get classified for a championship no matter what, but then their level in the face-to-face games tends to worsen dramatically. So, I don't see the point in cheating the system when you will show you are not such a good player after all.

I play Carcassonne for fun, so I may be missing the thrill of getting classified by any means possible just because one can.

[DIN0]

Tile counting is an important skill necessary for competitive play. I wouldn't use tile counting apps/aids during actual competitive matches, but I see heir value during training for such an event. That said when it comes to the real deal all I can say is get good 

Funnily enough, I just posted a game analysis using my game notation, where knowledge of the tiles played a significant role in the outcome of the game.

[carlium]

I think that strategy and memorization are two different things, and you can have a very good strategy knowing all possible elements in the game (chess, to mention an example). In other words, memorization is not required to have a good strategic and competitive game. However, if only one player uses a helper (software, paper and pencil, or finger-counting) the competition will be unbalanced to some extent.

[Decar]

I don't think their use should be encouraged.  But I can see that their existence may help people learn the tile distribution or be able to play the game more fairly.

Some players will have an almost magic ability to track tiles and photographically recall information, you can't ask them to NOT tile count. None of the information is hidden, the state of the draw deck (or bag) is always known, and can always be calculated.

When I first started to tile count, I would start keeping tabs on the RRRR and CCCC tiles.  Then I started to do checks on the city tabs of each type. And then look and count the 8 and 9 road tiles.  The expectation isn't to learn and memorize ALL of the tiles in one go, nor track them during the game.  I'd start simply, or sometimes just get a feel if there were 2 or 3 of a certain tile remaining.  Knowing what's in the deck isn't quite the same skill and tracking the remaining tiles of certain types either.

Having said that, for some people memorizing and finding the played tiles is extremely difficult; and I'm not entirely convinced that it's fair that one person with good mental recall should be advantaged over a player with another.  But if you're incredibly good at visualizing all of the possible permutations and shape of the board, you'll probably play better than someone who can't.  As Dan said in his first post, there's a mental discipline being developed through the play of Carcassonne.

I think having a machine automagically tell you everything you need to know, doesn't develop player's ability to map out areas and shapes with the remaining tiles, which I think does develop with tile counting.

I do think if you're playing with more than one expansion that remembering all the nuance of tile distributions is pretty hard. I dread to think how Mega Carcassonne players cope.