On Sun, Jun 4, 2023 at 8:29 AM Kerim Aydin via agora-official < agora-offic...@agoranomic.org> wrote:
> The below CFJ is 4037. I assign it to snail. > > status: https://faculty.washington.edu/kerim/nomic/cases/#4037 > > =============================== CFJ 4037 =============================== > > In the context of Commune, at least one tile belongs to some > community. > > ========================================================================== > > Caller: ais523 > > Judge: snail > > ========================================================================== > > History: > > Called by ais523: 28 May 2023 23:25:13 > Assigned to snail: [now] > > ========================================================================== > > [Linked to CFJ 4036] > > Caller's Evidence: > > This week, I placed a tile at G6. It was adjacent to two > communities, Jade (with four tiles) at G7, and Emerald (with fewer than > four tiles) at F6. Emerald was thus merged into Jade. > > The relevant part of the tournament regulations is: > {{{ > If a tile has not been placed on a location on the board, it is > empty. > > Participants CAN place a tile on an empty location by paying one > letter token and one number token that correspond to that > location's coordinates. > > If a tile is placed that is not adjacent to any tiles belonging to > any communities, the player that placed it founds a new community, > e is granted 1 investment for that community, and e becomes its > founder. E CAN and SHOULD name the community after any color that > starts with a different first letter than any existing community > by announcement. If a community has not been named, the Surveyor > CAN and SHALL do so by announcement. > > A player who is the founder of an existing community CANNOT place > a tile that would found a new community. > > If a tile is placed adjacent to one or more tiles belonging to a > single community, that tile belongs to that community. > > If a tile is placed adjacent to two or more tiles belongining to > different communities, a merger happens. > > When a merger happens, if a single community involved in the > merger has more tiles than each other community, that community is > the acquiring community. If there is a tie, the tied community > that gained a tile least recently is the acquiring community. The > other communities are the acquired communities. All tiles > belonging to the acquired communities cease to belong to them and > begin to belong to the acquiring community. Each player gains X > (rounded down) Accolades for each acquired community e had an > investment in, where X is the total tiles that belonged to that > community immediately before the merger divided by the total > number of investments that exist for that community and times the > number of investments for that community that player owns. The > acquired communities and all investments in all acquired > communities are destroyed. > }}} > > > Caller's Arguments: > > The intention behind the tournament regulations is probably that, if a > player places a tile to merge two or more communities into a single > community, the tile that was placed becomes part of the new merged > community. > > However, I can't find anything in the tournament regulations that > states that a tile placed to cause a merger becomes part of any > community. Does this imply that the tile is non-empty, but not part of > the resulting merged community? (This doesn't break much, but causes > scores to be slightly lower.) The first CFJ is TRUE in that case, or > FALSE if G6 is part of Jade. > > I also note that the tournament regulations don't explicitly state that > founding a new community by placing a tile not adjacent to any existing > communities causes the placed tile to become part of the community > founded that way. It seems plausible that such tiles would be part of > no community, although that would completely break the tournament (both > because there would be no way to score and because most of the moves > that have happened so far would be illegal). The second CFJ is checking > for the possibility that this has happened. > > ========================================================================== > Unfortunately, I see nowhere stating in these regulations that a tile begins belonging to a community at any point except when placed next to a tile already in a community. When a player places their first tile, all that happens is they found a new community, get an investment in it, and become its founder. I don't see any text that says otherwise, so sadly, the tournament is broken. I judge CFJ 4037 FALSE, and recommend some sort of proposal to fix the tournament. I also judge CFJ 4036 FALSE, ("In the context of Commune, tile G6 is not empty, but belongs to no community.") as the tile is in fact empty, since ais523 already founded a community, which was not destroyed. I will note for future reference that "If a tile is placed adjacent to one or more tiles belonging to a single community, that tile belongs to that community." can still apply in a merger, which, if CFJ 4037 was true, would mean the tournament works as intended. The tile would belong to each community involved, and then since the acquired communities are destroyed, only belong to the acquiring community. -- snail
