Heya guys,

In my groups most epic and nail biting play of Runewars to date, we had a bit of a squabble over the season card "power of the pious".

The text of the card (paraphrasing" basically allows the lowest bidder to place 1 dragon rune in every opponents area (controlled). In our game, we had mutliple players with 4 runes. It was a heated card when it was drawn.

In the bid phase everyone bid zero influence. As a tie breaker the uthuk (me of course!) has 2 influence while all other players had zero influence. My thought is that in the case of a tie in an influence bid the Uthuk would win, since, they had 2 influence. However another player argued that since the card favors the lowest bidder, that a player who would win a tie is not the lowest bidder, it would who ever was dead last in an influence bid. Anyway we squabbled a bit, and then I called in "home realm rules rights" aka my house, my game, my beer - ruled on the tie breaker rules and we carried on and had a wonderful game. TTFN.

IF I am not being clear on my question, let me know. I will pull the season card and then try to re-phrase my question.

I gotta admit, I agree with your friends - the Uthuk should NOT have been considered the "highest bidder". The way I interpret things, the "highest bidder" is still broken by ties - and if you have more influence left, you are the highest bidder, even if the actual bids were tied.

IE, the "lowest" bidder, to me, would be the player who bids the lowest amount, and if that is a tie, has the least influence remaining (or least starting influence, if that's tied also). IE, this isn't about "winning" a bid; I think tiebreakers also determine who is considered the highest and lowest bidders.

The Uthuk were not the "highest bidder" though. All nations bid zero. So we followed tie breaker rules. I kind of agree with both sides of the argument. At the time, I sort of forced the decision just to keep the game going. It was a weird situation.

Say the Uthul had bid one influence in my example, then you would have had 3 nations "tied" for lowest bid. How do tie breaker rules work when you are tied for lowest bid. I guess you would be a winner if you won the tie, so, lowest bid would execute to the next stage.

Really a little issue, but it was a big chicken before the egg discussion at my house. (Beers help in these kinds of cases, or maybe not.)

I'm inclined to agree with Sigma (ie: the "lowest bidder" should be the person who *loses* the tie-breaker in a case like this) although I can certainly see an argument for your position as well.

If this questions is/has been submitted to Corey, I'd be interested to hear the answer.

simpatikool said:

I think if multiple people bid the same amount, the "highest bidder" is just determined by tiebreakers. IE, whoever the tiebreaker favors is the de facto "highest bidder".

simpatikool said:

If multiple players place the same "lowest bid", then you just resolve tiebreakers normally - and whoever "loses" the tiebreaker is the de facto "lowest bidder".

I think intuitively, the low bidder is essentially equivalent to the "loser" of the bid. If there's a tie, the tiebreakers determine who is the "high bidder" and "low bidder". The winner of a tiebreaker should never, in my opinion, be considered the low bidder.

However, I'll be posting a batch of questions to corey soon, I'll include this one.

*wonder* I don't think that card favors the lowest bidder? You say it "allows" the lowest bidder to place runes in his opponents' lands. I'd rather say it "forces" him to do that. Granted, you could put them in a place where you were about to pounce with your main force anyway, but especially in a 4player game, there's always a large chance at least one player who will be able to consolidate his forces in time to defend his new rune.

Basically, the card says: Hey loser, everyone but you receives a rune. And as a consolidation prize, you get to say where they have to put it.

Zabulus said:

In most cases, smart players will simply use a fortify-order to move that new rune token to a place where it is easier to be defended. So if the loser of the bid wants to take advantage of this season card, he has to be very, very fast in conquering that special area.

However, I have seen a player winning with this tactic: At the time of the bid, he had no area left where the rune could have been placed, so he even used his Primarch-title card to decide that he LOSES the bid in order to place the rune token in an area he wanted to attack in the same season anyway.

Its actually good to bid on the card and be a winner, ensuring some looser places the Runes in your territory.

In the game I was playing, it was a nail biter. Everyone was interested in receiving the Rune. It just was one of those cards that had a serious effect on our game when it came into play. There were 3 players with 4 runes and one with 3. All the players with 4 Runes wanted to not "win" the bid.

Its one of the things that is great about Rune Wars season cards.You might be able to plan for cards that have yet to resolve, but sometimes they have a much more profound effect on the game, just do to circumstances.

simpatikool said:

But... isn't this contradictory? If they won the bid, they would receive a rune, right? I could see people wanting to win with as little bid as possible, but why would they NOT want to win?

Zabulus said:

I think the "win" in quotes is the misleading part. The lowest bidder isn't "winning" the bid, though there are times you might want to be the lowest bidder for it.

Ties on Influence Bids
If multiple players bid the same amount on an influence
bid, the player with the “Primarch of the Wizards’
Council” Title card chooses which of the tied players
wins or lose the bid. If no player has this Title card, then
the tied player with the most unspent influence chooses
amongst the tied players. If still tied, the tied player with
the highest starting influence chooses amongst the tied
players.

This is pretty clear text from the rules ... does it need any other explanation ? This means sice all players were tied, he as a tied player with most unspent influence chooses a player who lose this influence bid (among those who are tied and since all players are tied, he can even choose himself).

Edit: asuming nobody has the“Primarch of the Wizards Council” Title card.

Rasiel said:

Good catch. The rules say the person who wins the tie chooses a winner OR loser. And it's a choice - the win isn't automatically awarded to whoever comes out on top. I guess the OP played it right after all. Good to know.

Interesting, that is definitely good to know. I don't know how I missed that