Let me first say that the proposed change could just as easily add time and not shave it. Suppose you draw a tile and you have the perfect spot and the player before you takes or otherwise spoils that spot. Now you go back in to the tank and have to figure out a new spot.
How does that add time? At the very worst you're in the situation you would have been in had you drawn the tile at the start of your turn (i.e. following the normal rules).
I say this because I made a change to Lords of Waterdeep and now 4 people refuse to play with me because of it. That change? The half crescent is worth 4 and not 5. Nothing in that game costs 5 and everything is in increments of 2! Because I made a completely irrelevant change, I've scared away some people.
Yeah, so don't force changes on people. Suggest the change and explain the reasoning behind it, and if they don't agree, then don't make the change (though if they can't give a good counterargument, then you should probably make a mental note about those people).
Sir Matt, the opportunity cost of having the mere chance of drawing "your" tile cannot be ignored. That also allows for your hated taking of "someone elses" tile. Don't think it's a keystone to my argument *twitches* but it is a real thing that does exist.
The tile that you draw is your tile. Unless you can demonstrate that Carcassonne tile drawing is nonrandom in some systematic way, your point fails.
Forgive the lack of any follow through on this next point because I just rolled out of bed and am still waking up... On a general level, you're breaking information availability. Knowing what tile someone else cannot draw because you have makes your intellectual load easier in a spot where you really shouldn't have that luxury. Saving time, perhaps, but also changing the flow of information from the game to the player.
That might be a valid point if moves in Carcassonne had a time limit, but they do not.
How does that add time? At the very worst you're in the situation you would have been in had you drawn the tile at the start of your turn (i.e. following the normal rules).
Not so. If someone gets so locked in to a single play that they start doing something else on the presumption of that move being available to them and it suddenly vanishes, that just generated additional time. In that same example, you at least keep the player engaged and present for the beginning of their turn and the drawing of the tile.
I didn't say it was a huge factor but it is one, none the less.
Yeah, so don't force changes on people. Suggest the change and explain the reasoning behind it, and if they don't agree, then don't make the change (though if they can't give a good counterargument, then you should probably make a mental note about those people).
This was not a change forced on anyone. I was playing a game when two observers noticed the "odd" distribution of monies. When they asked me what I was doing, I explained. Those two buddies told their other 2 buddies and have since refused to play Waterdeep with me on the ground of "You do that weird thing with the money."
Way to presume I'm a jerk and force things on people. Go, go magical internet powers!
I probably shouldn't be associating with such myopic people in the first place but if it can happen overtly to me, it can happen covertly to anyone.
The tile that you draw is your tile. Unless you can demonstrate that Carcassonne tile drawing is nonrandom in some systematic way, your point fails.
I'm not trying to say it isn't random. I agree with you that it is random. We are in agreement that is it random. Random is the order of which Carcassonne tiles are drawn.
Now that we have that out of the way.
This is extreme and the caffeine is still not fully surging in my blood yet...
Suppose there existed a "I win" tile. The player who draws this tile just wins. Would you not want to go first because, hey, I draw a tile for my first play, play it, and then draw again. I've had two cracks at drawing that tile before anyone else has even taken a turn! Bullets in a gun are still bullets, no matter their potential lethality. I'd much rather have the chance to fire my bullets before you, even if we have the same number.
That might be a valid point if moves in Carcassonne had a time limit, but they do not.
Ah, but it does. Clearly there is external pressure from the social group to incentivize faster play. I could totally be that asshole who invokes the fact that I have no time limit and an take as long as I want. All that is going to do is result in me getting hit or a bunch of pissed off people.
The whole intent of the change as it was brought up in this thread was an attempt to speed up the game play, If time isn't a factor to the players, this whole conversation is moot. Carcasonne isn't a strictly better game by making this change with no thought to time given.
*** EDIT ***
I keep forgetting to mention this because of my foggy mind-state... Why not just deal out all the tiles into face down stacks and assign them to each player, removing the need for the bag entirely? Surely the removal of the bag and its rituals would save even more time.
Suppose there existed a "I win" tile. The player who draws this tile just wins. Would you not want to go first because, hey, I draw a tile for my first play, play it, and then draw again. I've had two cracks at drawing that tile before anyone else has even taken a turn! Bullets in a gun are still bullets, no matter their potential lethality. I'd much rather have the chance to fire my bullets before you, even if we have the same number.
Suppose there existed a "I win" tile. The player who draws this tile just wins. Would you not want to go first because, hey, I draw a tile for my first play, play it, and then draw again. I've had two cracks at drawing that tile before anyone else has even taken a turn! Bullets in a gun are still bullets, no matter their potential lethality. I'd much rather have the chance to fire my bullets before you, even if we have the same number.
I've never played Carcassone, but I'm guessing once you remove tiles from the pile, they don't go back in right away. So by removing two non-"I win" tiles from the pile, you've increased the odds for the person who draws after you.
I've never played Carcassone, but I'm guessing once you remove tiles from the pile, they don't go back in right away. So by removing two non-"I win" tiles from the pile, you've increased the odds for the person who draws after you.
That is correct. My point in that particular paragraph was, "I'd rather pull twice and "just win" before my opponents have a chance to even draw". In a 4 player environment, think about the guy in the 4 spot. He has to survive 6 pulls before he makes one. Assuming he gets there, he has better odds but he may not even get the *chance*.
Actually, you know what, I was wrong. It's because, assuming the drawing order is set and the tiles are shuffled randomly, whether you draw first or last doesn't make any difference.
Drawing at the end of your previous turn could impact the game if it causes you to say something to the other players in an attempt to change the move they make to your advantage. In terms of game theory and randomness and the like, it's identical.
So, actual play report. We did Carcassonne last night with the "play a tile, draw a tile" thing. Everything better, no downside.
Still, that was only one game (we also played some X-Bugs, which ate up most of the time - anyone else played this game? It's like Warhammer with the randomness replaced with Tiddlywinks [edit: well, no painting and collecting either; I mean in that it's like Warhammer in that it's a wargame with a bunch of individually specialized units]), so continue bickering.
Yeah, the only reason I feel weird looking at a tile before my turn comes around is the rule where you're allowed to offer suggestions. Although... in a casual game it shouldn't matter, and if you're playing seriously you probably shouldn't listen to anyone else.
I've never played Carcassone, but I'm guessing once you remove tiles from the pile, they don't go back in right away. So by removing two non-"I win" tiles from the pile, you've increased the odds for the person who draws after you.
That is correct. My point in that particular paragraph was, "I'd rather pull twice and "just win" before my opponents have a chance to even draw". In a 4 player environment, think about the guy in the 4 spot. He has to survive 6 pulls before he makes one. Assuming he gets there, he has better odds but he may not even get the *chance*.
Yes, but those chances balance out, as per what Sail said.
Show me math, Guardian of the Ivory Tower.
In your scenario, if there's X tiles remaining after you play your tile, under normal drawing rules your chance of winning on your first tile as player 4 are ((X-1)/X) * ((X-2)/(X-1)) * ((X-3)/(X-2)) * (1/(X-3)) = 1/X.
Alternatively, let's say each player draws a replacement tile during their own turn. As long as X is greater than 6, your chances of winning on your first tile are ((X-1)/X) * ((X-2)/(X-1))) [p1] * ((X-3)/(X-2)) * ((X-4)/(X-3))) [p2] * ((X-5)/(X-4)) * ((X-6)/(X-5))) [p3] * (1/(X-6)) = 1/X
In the "pull the winning tile game" it is irrelevant what order the tiles are pulled in as long as you get the same number of tile pulls in total.
Not so. If someone gets so locked in to a single play that they start doing something else on the presumption of that move being available to them and it suddenly vanishes, that just generated additional time.
So don't do that. This is obviously something that can happen in a game like this.
This was not a change forced on anyone. I was playing a game when two observers noticed the "odd" distribution of monies. When they asked me what I was doing, I explained. Those two buddies told their other 2 buddies and have since refused to play Waterdeep with me on the ground of "You do that weird thing with the money."
Way to presume I'm a jerk and force things on people. Go, go magical internet powers!
I probably shouldn't be associating with such myopic people in the first place but if it can happen overtly to me, it can happen covertly to anyone.
So they saw you doing it in a game they weren't even in and now they won't play even if you agree to stick to the normal rules? Fail people are fail.
That might be a valid point if moves in Carcassonne had a time limit, but they do not.
Ah, but it does. Clearly there is external pressure from the social group to incentivize faster play. I could totally be that asshole who invokes the fact that I have no time limit and an take as long as I want. All that is going to do is result in me getting hit or a bunch of pissed off people.
The whole intent of the change as it was brought up in this thread was an attempt to speed up the game play, If time isn't a factor to the players, this whole conversation is moot. Carcasonne isn't a strictly better game by making this change with no thought to time given.
In a situation where the flow of the game is significantly changed or the best placement for that tile has just been taken by another player, it's to be expected that a player will take longer to take their turn. They are implicitly under less pressure due to the nature of the situation.
On the other hand, for any turn where the position they decide is best for their tile remains the same, a significant amount of time would be saved.
I keep forgetting to mention this because of my foggy mind-state... Why not just deal out all the tiles into face down stacks and assign them to each player, removing the need for the bag entirely? Surely the removal of the bag and its rituals would save even more time.
Yes, that would be equivalent to the aforementioned change but only if you ensure that players never see more than one of their own tiles at any given time. If they did this, a player would be cheating, and under such a setup it's harder to catch them for it.
Drawing at the end of your previous turn could impact the game if it causes you to say something to the other players in an attempt to change the move they make to your advantage. In terms of game theory and randomness and the like, it's identical.
Not quite, because as long as a game like this has more than two players, interactions between two of those players are not necessarily zero sum relative to those two players.
In an extreme case, two players could decide to collaborate with one another against a third from square one, and both would have a greater chance of winning as a result.
As an example, it might benefit both you and the player before you for you to tell them what tile you have; the other players can't gain anything from that information since they don't get turns before that tile gets played anyway.
Of course, it might benefit you to lie about this, but it's an iterated prisoner's dilemma kind of situation in that over multiple iterations you'll probably benefit more from not lying, since your lie is subsequently revealed and would result in your being ignored.
Yes, but those chances balance out, as per what Sail said.
To elaborate, the increased chance of losing due to someone else having already drawn the "I win" tile is exactly balanced out by the increased chance of winning due to other players having removed more non-"I win" tiles.
You could form all the tiles into a deck for each player at the start of the game and have each turn being take top tile, play top tile. There'd still be no actual alteration to the game parts.
The aspect of potentially being able to tell other players what tile you have before it's your turn does actually change the game, though; that's an area that warrants some discussion.
The aspect of potentially being able to tell other players what tile you have before it's your turn does actually change the game, though; that's an area that warrants some discussion.
Obviously you can not reveal your tile to anyone else, nor can you put your tile back, etc.
It adds a meta-gaming mechanic of psychological "warfare". I like it. It opens up possibilities for hilarity.
For example, once I and two of my friends (one of them David, from the epic trespassing story, because David is featured in 2 out of every 3 of my stories) played a game of Ticket to Ride Europe. I was the only one who had played before. Friend D started the game by building a road from Constantinople to somewhere in the Balkans. Friend O said "that's a good move. Gaining control of Constantinople early game is a key strategy." Friend Me said "Yeah, all of our routes go to Constantinople." Friend D said (read this in your most derp voice possible) "Oh really? Well, that's good to know." The first quarter of the game was spent by David trying to blockade Constantinople, so that we couldn't complete any routes. However, neither of us had any routes that lead to Constantinople. The time he spent trying to control it shot him in the foot, such that he couldn't complete any routes for the rest of the game. The final score was 103, 86, -14.
The aspect of potentially being able to tell other players what tile you have before it's your turn does actually change the game, though; that's an area that warrants some discussion.
Obviously you can not reveal your tile to anyone else, nor can you put your tile back, etc.
Isn't this the same thing that you and/or Rym were complaining about in other games, though?
After all, even if you can't show them your tile or tell them what it is, you might devise a system of communication whereby in giving them "advice" you're telling them your actual tile (or partial information about it).
Just imaging playing Scrabble, but only picking out your letters at the beginning of your turn, not at the end of your previous turn. It would taking fucking forever.
The aspect of potentially being able to tell other players what tile you have before it's your turn does actually change the game, though; that's an area that warrants some discussion.
Obviously you can not reveal your tile to anyone else, nor can you put your tile back, etc.
Isn't this the same thing that you and/or Rym were complaining about in other games, though?
After all, even if you can't show them your tile or tell them what it is, you might devise a system of communication whereby in giving them "advice" you're telling them your actual tile (or partial information about it).
No talking rules do have this problem in general, but games like Bridge have much better rules than games like Shadows Over Camelot.
A secret system of communication may possibly work in Bridge, the rules are quite clear. The only way to share information about cards in your hand is through your bid. End of story. A serious Bridge tournament has few problems enforcing this rule.
Shadows Over Camelot has a much more ambiguous rule. You are allowed to make "declarations of intent" as to what quest you are going to pursue, and you may even lie about your intent.
...However, you must never reveal or discuss the explicit values of cards in your hand, or volunteer any other specific game information not readily available to your fellow players."
Sometimes this rule is easy to adjudicate. If I read off all the cards in my hand, obviously that breaks the rule. But what if I'm lying? What if I say I have 2 grails, but I don't? I'm not discussing explicit values of cards in my hand because that's not in my hand. Does it really qualify as game information if it is a fabrication? It's debatable what "specific game information" really means. How specific do I have to get before it's cheating? What if I'm very vague about the contents of my hand?
The rule in Carcassonne is as easy to adjudicate as bridge. You may not reveal any information at all about the single tile you have drawn. Period. Also, since it is not a cooperative game like Bridge or Shadows, there is very little reason you would want to share. You would only be helping other players by sharing what tile you have, and you do not want to help them. Even if you are temporarily collaborating with someone on a castle, the contents of your tile factor very little into the decision of what they will do with their current tile.
Sharing information rules are only an issue in games with teams. Poker has secret information, but nobody ever shares their cards. You wouldn't want to. You actually desperately want to keep them secret. That's because nobody else is on your side. You don't even need a rule in Poker to say you can't show your cards, because nobody would ever want to.
First of all, let's set aside the psychological aspects as discussed by Greg; those are interesting and all too human, but under game-theoretic assumptions of rational agents they are irrelevant.
Sharing information rules are only an issue in games with teams. Poker has secret information, but nobody ever shares their cards. You wouldn't want to. You actually desperately want to keep them secret. That's because nobody else is on your side. You don't even need a rule in Poker to say you can't show your cards, because nobody would ever want to.
You are, in fact, quite wrong on this point. However, I'd like to thank you for bringing up poker because there are in fact pre-existing concepts and terminology in poker that cover exactly this topic. Moreover, poker is a very good example because imperfect information lies at the very core of that game, and so it's a good bet that if it could be beneficial to show your cards in poker, it could also be beneficial in many other games.
It's important to establish is that for rational agents, information has nonnegative expected utility. That is, in game theory any individual player having additional information cannot be statistically worse off due to having this information. This is one of the basic idea behind Scott's assertion.
Every time you play a hand differently from the way you would have played it if you could see all your opponents' cards, they gain; and every time you play your hand the same way you would have played it if you could see all their cards, they lose. Conversely, every time opponents play their hands differently from the way they would have if they could see all your cards, you gain; and every time they play their hands the same way they would have played if they could see all your cards, you lose.
Moreover, it is clear enough that this is not just about poker, but about zero-sum games of imperfect information. It's clear enough that in two-player zero-sum games, this theorem holds absolutely, and hence sharing information is never beneficial. By contrast, it obviously fails when it comes to non-zero-sum games.
However, there are in fact exceptions to the fundamental theorem in the case of zero-sum games with more than two players. The basic idea I'm proposing is this - although sharing information necessarily benefits at least one of your opponents, it may through indirect means be sufficiently to the detriment of other opponents that it also benefits you.
In the case of poker, there is a closely related idea to what I just brought up that goes by the name of Morton's theorem, which states generally that
In multi-way pots, a player's expectation may be maximized by an opponent making a correct decision.
Indeed, in the specific example given in the linked Wikipedia article, Arnold would actually benefit from showing his cards to during Charles' turn, because Charles could then fold and both Arnold and Charles would benefit from this fold (at Brenda's expense).
While we're on the topic of poker, this kind of thing is actually extremely common in tournament poker; a typical situation where significant distortions relative to normal poker play occur is ones involving steep bumps in the payout structure. In such situations, it becomes significantly more beneficial than usual to merely survive, rather than gain chips - i.e. extremely risk-averse behaviour abounds as a matter of correct play.
You have almost no chips, and the amount is the lowest in the tournament, so you're in dire straits. If you could somehow outlast another player, you would get a significant amount of money just for that.
In this situation, if you were able to show your cards and you were dealt a hand like AK, your best move would actually be to go all in and flip your hand face up. You benefit from this together with any player who folds but would otherwise have called you; this comes at the detriment of other players who would very much have wanted to see you out of the tournament.
Such an action is even more beneficial to you in a large tournament, because you are now also benefiting at the detriment of players at every other table in the tournament, who also wanted to see you get knocked out. For this reason, rules against showing and discussing your cards are actually quite important in poker tournaments, and are enforced quite strictly.
Going back to games in general, such situations are much more common when only one other player's decisions are helped by this additional information, because in such a case only one other player receives the direct benefits. The easiest way to achieve this is if secure communication is available between yourself and that other player (e.g. whispering, smartphone note-passing, or cryptography). However, even when all communication is necessarily seen by all players involved and cryptography is not allowed, situations can arise wherein this is not the case.
In the case of the Carcassonne situation we're considering, this can be the result of a sequential turn order. The simplest example of this is revealing information on the turn of the player directly before yourself, because on your next turn that information was necessarily going to be made available to everyone. Consequently, that opponent is the only one to gain directly from that information, and so if other opponents were hurt sufficiently by this, it could end up benefiting you.
The rule in Carcassonne is as easy to adjudicate as bridge. You may not reveal any information at all about the single tile you have drawn. Period.
The problem is that quite a lot of things could in fact constitute revealing information about the tile you have drawn. Most notably, giving advice for the "best" tile placement during another player's turn can implicitly reveal such information, and yet such advice is explicitly encouraged by the official rules.
Despite having said all this, I'd like to note two important points: 1) This could be solved trivially by essentially forbidding all communication including "advice". 2) Although being able to communicate your next tile before your turn does change the game, the effects of this would likely be trivially minor, and not necessarily detrimental.
In the "pull the winning tile game" it is irrelevant what order the tiles are pulled in as long as you get the same number of tile pulls in total.
We agree. That was never an assertion I was making. Note, I said that I'd much rather have those 2 pulls to get to chances to just win. I have no problem sitting in the 4 spot because I know that if I make it to a pull at all, my odds are equal. It's the fact that the 4 spot may never get a chance to draw the "I win" tile.
This is a road this thread was never meant to go down. Someone (and I'm too tired to look up, having, again, just woken up) misinterpreted something I said and ran with it.
Obviously you can not reveal your tile to anyone else, nor can you put your tile back, etc.
The putting back thing is without issue. However, not being able to reveal it to anyone? That would be arbitrary and silly. I thought you were against rules like that? ;-) (The winkie means I'm gently ribbing you)
Ahhhhh. Having read up on the thread, I see my man lackofcheese has this in hand. Carry on!
*eats popcorn*
Coincidentally, since Poker was brought up, I played in my first poker tournament in over 5 years last Friday. It was a misplay of AK suited that ended in my elimination. I *should* have pushed all in. You cannot reveal cards (most houses do have rules against it) but given to lay out of cards versus the hand that beat me, being able to do so would have greatly benefited me.
Comments
I didn't say it was a huge factor but it is one, none the less. This was not a change forced on anyone. I was playing a game when two observers noticed the "odd" distribution of monies. When they asked me what I was doing, I explained. Those two buddies told their other 2 buddies and have since refused to play Waterdeep with me on the ground of "You do that weird thing with the money."
Way to presume I'm a jerk and force things on people. Go, go magical internet powers!
I probably shouldn't be associating with such myopic people in the first place but if it can happen overtly to me, it can happen covertly to anyone. I'm not trying to say it isn't random. I agree with you that it is random. We are in agreement that is it random. Random is the order of which Carcassonne tiles are drawn.
Now that we have that out of the way.
This is extreme and the caffeine is still not fully surging in my blood yet...
Suppose there existed a "I win" tile. The player who draws this tile just wins. Would you not want to go first because, hey, I draw a tile for my first play, play it, and then draw again. I've had two cracks at drawing that tile before anyone else has even taken a turn! Bullets in a gun are still bullets, no matter their potential lethality. I'd much rather have the chance to fire my bullets before you, even if we have the same number. Ah, but it does. Clearly there is external pressure from the social group to incentivize faster play. I could totally be that asshole who invokes the fact that I have no time limit and an take as long as I want. All that is going to do is result in me getting hit or a bunch of pissed off people.
The whole intent of the change as it was brought up in this thread was an attempt to speed up the game play, If time isn't a factor to the players, this whole conversation is moot. Carcasonne isn't a strictly better game by making this change with no thought to time given.
*** EDIT ***
I keep forgetting to mention this because of my foggy mind-state... Why not just deal out all the tiles into face down stacks and assign them to each player, removing the need for the bag entirely? Surely the removal of the bag and its rituals would save even more time.
Still, that was only one game (we also played some X-Bugs, which ate up most of the time - anyone else played this game? It's like Warhammer with the randomness replaced with Tiddlywinks [edit: well, no painting and collecting either; I mean in that it's like Warhammer in that it's a wargame with a bunch of individually specialized units]), so continue bickering.
((X-1)/X) * ((X-2)/(X-1)) * ((X-3)/(X-2)) * (1/(X-3)) = 1/X.
Alternatively, let's say each player draws a replacement tile during their own turn. As long as X is greater than 6, your chances of winning on your first tile are
((X-1)/X) * ((X-2)/(X-1))) [p1]
* ((X-3)/(X-2)) * ((X-4)/(X-3))) [p2]
* ((X-5)/(X-4)) * ((X-6)/(X-5))) [p3]
* (1/(X-6))
= 1/X
In the "pull the winning tile game" it is irrelevant what order the tiles are pulled in as long as you get the same number of tile pulls in total.
On the other hand, for any turn where the position they decide is best for their tile remains the same, a significant amount of time would be saved. Yes, that would be equivalent to the aforementioned change but only if you ensure that players never see more than one of their own tiles at any given time. If they did this, a player would be cheating, and under such a setup it's harder to catch them for it.
In an extreme case, two players could decide to collaborate with one another against a third from square one, and both would have a greater chance of winning as a result.
As an example, it might benefit both you and the player before you for you to tell them what tile you have; the other players can't gain anything from that information since they don't get turns before that tile gets played anyway.
Of course, it might benefit you to lie about this, but it's an iterated prisoner's dilemma kind of situation in that over multiple iterations you'll probably benefit more from not lying, since your lie is subsequently revealed and would result in your being ignored.
Granted, it was part of a dual degree and most of my study was in Mechatronics and CS, but the point carries.
For example, once I and two of my friends (one of them David, from the epic trespassing story, because David is featured in 2 out of every 3 of my stories) played a game of Ticket to Ride Europe. I was the only one who had played before. Friend D started the game by building a road from Constantinople to somewhere in the Balkans. Friend O said "that's a good move. Gaining control of Constantinople early game is a key strategy." Friend Me said "Yeah, all of our routes go to Constantinople." Friend D said (read this in your most derp voice possible) "Oh really? Well, that's good to know." The first quarter of the game was spent by David trying to blockade Constantinople, so that we couldn't complete any routes. However, neither of us had any routes that lead to Constantinople. The time he spent trying to control it shot him in the foot, such that he couldn't complete any routes for the rest of the game. The final score was 103, 86, -14.
After all, even if you can't show them your tile or tell them what it is, you might devise a system of communication whereby in giving them "advice" you're telling them your actual tile (or partial information about it).
A secret system of communication may possibly work in Bridge, the rules are quite clear. The only way to share information about cards in your hand is through your bid. End of story. A serious Bridge tournament has few problems enforcing this rule.
Shadows Over Camelot has a much more ambiguous rule. You are allowed to make "declarations of intent" as to what quest you are going to pursue, and you may even lie about your intent. Sometimes this rule is easy to adjudicate. If I read off all the cards in my hand, obviously that breaks the rule. But what if I'm lying? What if I say I have 2 grails, but I don't? I'm not discussing explicit values of cards in my hand because that's not in my hand. Does it really qualify as game information if it is a fabrication? It's debatable what "specific game information" really means. How specific do I have to get before it's cheating? What if I'm very vague about the contents of my hand?
The rule in Carcassonne is as easy to adjudicate as bridge. You may not reveal any information at all about the single tile you have drawn. Period. Also, since it is not a cooperative game like Bridge or Shadows, there is very little reason you would want to share. You would only be helping other players by sharing what tile you have, and you do not want to help them. Even if you are temporarily collaborating with someone on a castle, the contents of your tile factor very little into the decision of what they will do with their current tile.
Sharing information rules are only an issue in games with teams. Poker has secret information, but nobody ever shares their cards. You wouldn't want to. You actually desperately want to keep them secret. That's because nobody else is on your side. You don't even need a rule in Poker to say you can't show your cards, because nobody would ever want to.
It's important to establish is that for rational agents, information has nonnegative expected utility. That is, in game theory any individual player having additional information cannot be statistically worse off due to having this information. This is one of the basic idea behind Scott's assertion.
Indeed, Scott's claims about poker are more precisely described by the Fundamental Theorem of Poker:Moreover, it is clear enough that this is not just about poker, but about zero-sum games of imperfect information. It's clear enough that in two-player zero-sum games, this theorem holds absolutely, and hence sharing information is never beneficial. By contrast, it obviously fails when it comes to non-zero-sum games.
However, there are in fact exceptions to the fundamental theorem in the case of zero-sum games with more than two players. The basic idea I'm proposing is this - although sharing information necessarily benefits at least one of your opponents, it may through indirect means be sufficiently to the detriment of other opponents that it also benefits you.
In the case of poker, there is a closely related idea to what I just brought up that goes by the name of Morton's theorem, which states generally that Indeed, in the specific example given in the linked Wikipedia article, Arnold would actually benefit from showing his cards to during Charles' turn, because Charles could then fold and both Arnold and Charles would benefit from this fold (at Brenda's expense).
While we're on the topic of poker, this kind of thing is actually extremely common in tournament poker; a typical situation where significant distortions relative to normal poker play occur is ones involving steep bumps in the payout structure. In such situations, it becomes significantly more beneficial than usual to merely survive, rather than gain chips - i.e. extremely risk-averse behaviour abounds as a matter of correct play.In this situation, if you were able to show your cards and you were dealt a hand like AK, your best move would actually be to go all in and flip your hand face up. You benefit from this together with any player who folds but would otherwise have called you; this comes at the detriment of other players who would very much have wanted to see you out of the tournament.
Such an action is even more beneficial to you in a large tournament, because you are now also benefiting at the detriment of players at every other table in the tournament, who also wanted to see you get knocked out. For this reason, rules against showing and discussing your cards are actually quite important in poker tournaments, and are enforced quite strictly.
Going back to games in general, such situations are much more common when only one other player's decisions are helped by this additional information, because in such a case only one other player receives the direct benefits. The easiest way to achieve this is if secure communication is available between yourself and that other player (e.g. whispering, smartphone note-passing, or cryptography). However, even when all communication is necessarily seen by all players involved and cryptography is not allowed, situations can arise wherein this is not the case.
In the case of the Carcassonne situation we're considering, this can be the result of a sequential turn order. The simplest example of this is revealing information on the turn of the player directly before yourself, because on your next turn that information was necessarily going to be made available to everyone. Consequently, that opponent is the only one to gain directly from that information, and so if other opponents were hurt sufficiently by this, it could end up benefiting you.
Despite having said all this, I'd like to note two important points:
1) This could be solved trivially by essentially forbidding all communication including "advice".
2) Although being able to communicate your next tile before your turn does change the game, the effects of this would likely be trivially minor, and not necessarily detrimental.
This is a road this thread was never meant to go down. Someone (and I'm too tired to look up, having, again, just woken up) misinterpreted something I said and ran with it. The putting back thing is without issue. However, not being able to reveal it to anyone? That would be arbitrary and silly. I thought you were against rules like that? ;-) (The winkie means I'm gently ribbing you)
Ahhhhh. Having read up on the thread, I see my man lackofcheese has this in hand. Carry on!
*eats popcorn*
Coincidentally, since Poker was brought up, I played in my first poker tournament in over 5 years last Friday. It was a misplay of AK suited that ended in my elimination. I *should* have pushed all in. You cannot reveal cards (most houses do have rules against it) but given to lay out of cards versus the hand that beat me, being able to do so would have greatly benefited me.