I already have 3 wildcards in one game:

Does the site allow you to get 4 wildcards or is that hard-coded against happening?

That actually depends on the board. For example if you go to: https://www.wargear.net/boards/view/WarGear+Warfare

and scroll down to where it says "Card deck", you'll see "A:18 B:18 C:18 W:2". The W:2 part means for the WarGear Warfare board there are only 2 wilds. So you couldn't even get to 3 on that one. Some boards have more wilds than that.

Which board are you playing on?

Right, the default is 18/18/18/2, but some boards allow for a different breakdown. I know a couple of my old maps used to allow for 4 Wildcards. Still would be very unlikely for a player to then get all 4 WCs, but it was possible.

Korrun wrote:That actually depends on the board. For example if you go to: https://www.wargear.net/boards/view/WarGear+Warfare" target="_blank"> https://www.wargear.net/boards/view/WarGear+Warfare

and scroll down to where it says "Card deck", you'll see "A:18 B:18 C:18 W:2". The W:2 part means for the WarGear Warfare board there are only 2 wilds. So you couldn't even get to 3 on that one. Some boards have more wilds than that.

Which board are you playing on?

Random Mazes, which allows you to have up to 7 cards before forcing you to trade in.

lx260 wrote:Korrun wrote:That actually depends on the board. For example if you go to: https://www.wargear.net/boards/view/WarGear+Warfare" target="_blank"> https://www.wargear.net/boards/view/WarGear+Warfare" target="_blank"> https://www.wargear.net/boards/view/WarGear+Warfare

and scroll down to where it says "Card deck", you'll see "A:18 B:18 C:18 W:2". The W:2 part means for the WarGear Warfare board there are only 2 wilds. So you couldn't even get to 3 on that one. Some boards have more wilds than that.

Which board are you playing on?

Random Mazes, which allows you to have up to 7 cards before forcing you to trade in.

So there's your answer.. You can hold up to 7 wild cards. There should be no reason to have coding that prevents it; it certainly isn't an option for designers.

M - I think I might disagree with you slightly, and there's some questions that might be good for Tom to answer:

For instance, in the Random Mazes, 20x36 boards, you can have 16 players, and each can hold up to 9 cards. That's a potential total of 144 cards dealt.

Using the card deck above, that's a total of 63 cards. Which means that programmatically Tom had to handle how to handle dealing out 144 cards from a 63 card deck.

Option 1 - is to ignore the actual deck, and just use the above defined "deck" of cards as a likelihood of getting any individual card on any individual card draw. In this case, 18,18,18,9 is really the same as 2,2,2,1 for the deck, because a 63 card deck size was arbitrarily chosen. Since these are now just ratio/likelihoods of drawing a card, then it would be possible 10 or more straight wilds could be drawn in a row (because each new draw is essentially drawing off a new deck).

Option 2 - Tom does really track the first 63 cards being dealt from the pile, and therefore in those first 63 cards there would have a limit of only 9 wild cards out of the first 63. However, after those 63 cards, Tom would have to respond how he handles when more cards than 63 were needed to be drawn. Examples:

Option 2A - Tom tracks the first 63 cards, and then for the 64th card, just "reshuffles" a second deck of 63 new cards (which look exactly like the first 63 card deck) and then cards are drawn off of that deck, which then means that "technically" there would mean that we could end up with more than 9 wilds in any game, it just means that you have to wait for card draw #64 for it to appear.

Option 2B - Tom goes one step further and uses cards that are traded in back in the draw pile. Maybe he tracks the first 63 cards (what has been dealt and what not), and then when cards are turned back in, they are immediately shuffled back into the draw pile until the draw pile goes down to 0 cards, and then 63 new cards are added to it.

Again - Tom has to answer, but the options 2, 2A, 2B are more like the real risk game, but it has the downside that if someone took the time, they could game the system by looking at the quantity of cards dealt out and turned back in (which are visible in the history) to determine much more accurately what the distribution of the draw pile actually is. Similar to counting cards in single deck blackjack.

I thought he did something along the line of 2A; but it's been so long...

Earlier I had 6 but traded them in before I thought to take a screenshot.

btw - the reason I did that on the maze game was to help reduce the randomness of cards a bit. I didn't do the math, but I'm assuming with more wild cards since there is a better chance that 3 (or 4) cards will give you a set, then the std. deviation of the average # of cards needed for a set would be lower.

BorisTheFrugal wrote:M -

Option 2A - Tom tracks the first 63 cards, and then for the 64th card, just "reshuffles" a second deck of 63 new cards (which look exactly like the first 63 card deck) and then cards are drawn off of that deck, which then means that "technically" there would mean that we could end up with more than 9 wilds in any game, it just means that you have to wait for card draw #64 for it to appear.

Great summary Boris!

This option is exactly how it works.

Thanks Tom!

In this case, depending on the number of players and whether they are turning in or holding, it's actually progressively more difficult to get the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th wild (because you're removing those wilds from the original deck of 63), but once the 64th card is dealt, the likelihood of getting the 5th (or whatever number would put you over the 64 cards dealt threshold) it suddenly becomes more likely.

But after all that thinking, I need to go take a nap before my "own major intestine, in a desperate attempt to save humanity, [leaps] straight up through [my] neck and throttles [my] brain."