Blitz Play - [EBP Help Contents]

In Blitz Play mode there's no waiting for an opponent: all players keep taking turns until someone wins. It makes for a speedy, exciting challenge for experienced players. Try it by selecting Blitz in the Game Setup window when you are setting up a match. Blitz can be played against the AI and/or remote human opponents via the Web.

ROUND TIME

For Blitz matches with AI players, be sure to set a Round Time in the Game Setup window. Round Time controls how often the AI players take a turn. Without this limit, the human player would not be able to keep up since EBP's AI can finish an entire match in just a few seconds.

EBP divides the Round Time you choose among all AI players in the match. For example, if you set it to 45 in a 4-player match (1 human and 3 AI players), each of the 3 AI players will start a turn 15 seconds after the completion of the previous AI turn. Expert human players can challenge themselves by gradually reducing the Round Time setting. Can you win with a setting of 30 seconds? What about 15? What about 10?

During the first round of a match, no AI player will take a turn until either the Round Time has elapsed, or you complete building some track. If there are no AI players in the match, the Round Time setting is superfluous.

BUILDING CONFLICTS

Two players may simultaneously survey track segments between the same two mileposts, but the player who wins the right to actually build the track is the one who first confirms they have finished building that turn by clicking the OK (done) button.

LOAD CONFLICTS

As you are placing loads aboard your train, note that other players may be doing so simultaneously. EBP actively updates the Loads window to depict the currently available number of loads. Due to latency (the lag time associated with communication over the Internet), it is remotely possible during Web Play that two human players could grab the last available load of a given type at the same time and thus temporarily introduce an extra load of that type into the match. This will correct itself after the excess load is delivered or tossed.

EVENTS

EBP automatically turns off events for a Blitz match because many events cause too much confusing disruption of the rapid-fire blitz play. Note this means the Tax event will not occur, and therefore cash level will be secret for the entire match unless you disable "Keep cash levels secret" in the Game Options.

DISCARDING CONTRACTS

In a Blitz match no player may discard a contract more than once per round. A round is defined as a chance for all players to take a turn. This automatic limitation prevents players from rapid, repeated discards done simply to find a desirable set of contracts.

AUTOMOVE

For matches vs. the AI, EBP gives each AI player a full turn in between the human player's automove steps. For Blitz matches with multiple humans, we strongly recommend disabling Automove by clearing its checkbox found in the Game Options window. Automove operates so quickly that a human vs. human Blitz match can degenerate into a contest of who can engage the feature most often.

SUGGESTIONS

Since speed is very important in Blitz mode, we suggest you turn off EBP's map background animation feature: clear its checkbox in the Display Settings window.

Movement is more important than careful building. Don't spend too much time building the best route, instead build an acceptable route quickly, and use the time savings to move your train.

In the race to the victory cash level, don't forget you also need to connect the minimum number of big cities.

The Open Contracts variant vastly increases the amount of computation the AI must perform, and may result in sluggish user interface response on older, slower devices. If you experience this, we recommend not using Open Contracts during Blitz Play on that device.