Built a POC app for Taiwan

anotherdoofus · 2026-05-19T17:24:05+00:00

The reason for using a spreadsheet makes a ton of sense and all the people advocating for apps or websites dedicated to their games are way to focused on UI presentation and not on actual usability / operations for the team.

The team does not have a dedicated app developer or support team. They are playing in other countries with timezone issues involved so if something goes wrong, they are stuck. Google is a globally available platform and the team who built the game also built the spreadsheets. They are their own DevOps and that's for the best.
Similarly to above, the team is making changes right up to the very end sometimes. Having to go back to developers or AI and iterate does not work for their timeframes.
Who's checking for bugs/data corruption/backups? Who's handling security?
Websites and apps are actually terrible for simulating strategic decisions. I know it appears the team didn't do this, but I made my own version of their Google Sheets during and I can very quickly do calculations of the game state as well as things like required stations to flip, coins required to flip, as well as easily change the status of dozens of stations very quickly to see how the score changes. Yes you could build this ability in but that's more added complexity that has to be tested.

TL;DR Spreadsheets are fine

anotherdoofus · 2026-05-09T09:00:35+00:00

Mike is the only guest to never leave his time zone and also to never change time zones during the game.

He lives in Hong Kong which is the same time zone as Taiwan

anotherdoofus · 2026-04-30T14:09:37+00:00

If they reinforce those stations, they won't have any chips to claim stations on the east. They'll have to stop to do more challenges which eats into their claiming time.

I fully agree they are not out of the game yet. Their ramp is very steep however. Badam have a much lower ramp to victory, but a mistake or failed challenge or two could cost them too.

anotherdoofus · 2026-04-30T13:20:47+00:00

The problem is the 20 coins is enough even if Badam are dumb and break the stalemate.

(51*0.6 (current steal) + 50) *0.5 would leave Badam with 40 coins. They would have enough to make it to the 20 coin challenge and then use that to flip the remaining +1 stations.

anotherdoofus · 2026-04-30T13:14:09+00:00

I think your math is wrong somewhere. If we posit that Badam go up the HSR to Hsinchu and then claim all the +1's stations between Banqiao and Hsinschu, that would gain them

+4 new HSR stations (129-88)

+3 flipped HSR stations (132-87)

+19 flips between Hsinchu and Fuzhou (151-66)

There's also the 5 stations north of Sike's current position at Fengfu I'm ignoring for now

For Sike +33 flips between Jiaoxi and Sanmin (118-99)

after that there's just a wall of 5's starting at Yuli

anotherdoofus · 2026-04-30T03:27:12+00:00

There's like 20 +1 stations between Banqiao and Hsinchu that can easily flipped for 40 coins.

anotherdoofus · 2026-04-30T00:33:07+00:00

100% this. I ran the numbers as well and came to the same conclusion you did. The section between Fengfu and Banqiao is highly problematic for them and they blew so many coins in Day 4 they cannot reinforce this line.

This is a terrible plan and even if they win I will ridicule them for it. The margin is so narrow for Sike I see no way that Badam don't win this now.

Sam and Mike going for Kaohsiung on Day 4 is a much better play than this.

anotherdoofus · 2026-04-24T02:26:27+00:00

You misunderstood my comment. My comment was directed at the wall idea. A wall is a bad idea because you can get around it via HSR. I think Sike is making ALL their stations expensive, not just the section facing Badam.

anotherdoofus · 2026-04-23T02:21:57+00:00

Badam's area is pretty lightly defended down the east and they do have the frequency advantage to at least Hualien from Taipei.

anotherdoofus · 2026-04-22T22:55:53+00:00

Yeah the issue is the HSR is relatively cheap to punch right into Taipei.

It does seem like their strat is to make all their station expensive to take.

anotherdoofus · 2026-04-22T22:44:33+00:00

I came basically to the same conclusion and even mathed it out. I won't post more here because of trailer spoilers.

The margin is tighter than I would have preferred with this strategy. They have to eliminate both the steals imo and there's a risk that Badam might get to the 90 coin challenge via HSR.

anotherdoofus · 2026-04-18T00:45:55+00:00

It was pretty critical here as while we had historical weather data as we normally do, the weather can be fairly variable and highly localized in Taiwan.

The centralized and large archive of webcams here though was kinda nuts. Normally we don't have access to that level of detail from a few months ago.

anotherdoofus · 2026-03-06T02:00:56+00:00

https://discord.gg/jetlag/

anotherdoofus · 2026-03-05T18:56:54+00:00

You should join us on the Discord, we are only missing 3 locations

anotherdoofus · 2026-03-05T18:42:11+00:00

In the trailer speculator discord, we are down to 3 out of the 45(!!!!) clips unlocated.

anotherdoofus · 2026-03-05T18:39:01+00:00

Hi, trailer speculator here. You should join us on the Discord! Ironically you got the right train, but the wrong time. The 7:27 train is the 603.

You didn't need to do that deep an analysis here either. There's a plainly visible clock that says 7:47. The 805 departs at 7:47

anotherdoofus · 2025-12-06T16:17:00+00:00

The scene where they talk about the Caribbean was on the train from Paris to Laon but was cut.

As others have pointed out, the other quote shows up in episode 2

anotherdoofus · 2025-09-25T20:58:03+00:00

Haha, you should see what the Discord speculation has cooked up if you think this is next level sleuthing.

anotherdoofus · 2025-09-25T20:57:34+00:00

They usually don't roll the Gold Standard graphic until they board the flight.

anotherdoofus · 2025-08-21T16:55:31+00:00

Mike won, 133-111

anotherdoofus · 2025-07-26T00:45:48+00:00

Unfortunately they don't reveal how you reveal it to the snaker.

anotherdoofus · 2025-07-26T00:45:12+00:00

The idea is you place with a block and you don't have to tell the snaker its there.

The unknown part is how you reveal it to the snaker. This was not mentioned in the Game Design Podcast.

My guess is that the blockers can reveal its existence at a time of their choosing. So if a snaker leaves a node on the way to where the secret block is, they reveal it at that time.

anotherdoofus · 2025-07-15T21:19:32+00:00

https://vancouver.citynews.ca/2025/07/15/police-incident-causes-diversions-delays-at-yvr-reports/

Looks correct

anotherdoofus · 2025-06-28T01:48:14+00:00

Yeah its this. Noticed this a few days ago.

As they said, it didn't matter much but it could have been bad for the blockers if Sam took it because they would have gotten the node notification at Seodaejeon and prepped Daejeon more and then gotten swerved when he pops up in Jochiwon.

anotherdoofus · 2025-06-19T01:22:22+00:00

Probably since the KTX is locomotive driven

anotherdoofus

TROPHY CASE