Chapter 2. Playing Pioneers

Table of Contents

Joining a Pioneers game
The connect dialog
Join public game
The Create a public game dialog
Join private game
Pioneers setup phase
Pioneers turn sequence
Dice roll / resource collection
Discarding resources
Moving the robber
Trade
Trading with the bank
Trading with other players
Submitting trade quotes
Development cards
The monopoly development card
The year of plenty development card
Largest army award
Building
Longest road
Game objective
The game over dialog

Joining a Pioneers game

The Pioneers client program is "pioneers". When you run this program, you will be presented with the connect dialog.

The connect dialog

Using the connect dialog, you identify the game which you wish to join. This dialog is automatically invoked when you start Pioneers. If the initial connection fails, you can invoke the dialog from the Game/New game menu, or by using the Ctrl-N keyboard shortcut.

Figure 2.1. The connect dialog

The connect dialog

Enter your name, and join an existing game or create a new game.

Only if pioneers-server-gtk is installed, you can create new games.

Join public game

The dialog displays a list of Pioneers games that are currently running on the Internet. The default meta server is pioneers.debian.net

Figure 2.2. The Join a public game dialog

The Join a public game dialog

You join a game by selecting it and pressing the OK button in the connect dialog. To obtain an updated list, push the Refresh button.

Some meta servers also allow you to start new games on their host. If this is possible, the New remote game button will be active and will bring you to the Create a public game dialog.

The Create a public game dialog

In this dialog, you can select various parameters for the new game: board name (available types will be retrieved from the meta-server), default or random terrain, the number of players, victory points to reach, which sevens rule to apply and how many computer players should join the game.

Figure 2.3. The Create a public game dialog

The Create a public game dialog

Once you're satisfied with your choices, press the OK button. The game will be started once enough players have entered the game. The new game will of course be registered to the meta server it was started from. Other players can see it in the list if they press the Join public game button, or refresh the list of public games.

The server started remotely will terminate itself automatically when the game is finished, or if sits around for more than 20 minutes without any connected players. Please also note that adding computer players will silently fail if the pioneersai program is not installed on the meta server.

Join private game

You can manually specify the game that you wish to join by entering the server host and port in the Server Host and Server Port fields. The hostname/port combinations you used recently are remembered. You can recall them quickly with the Recent Games button at the bottom.

Figure 2.4. The Join a private game dialog

The Join a private game dialog