In realtime games this isn't a big deal, but it adds nontrivial delays to asynchronous games. There are other games on BGA where moves are made automatically when players have no choice. In addition to the For Sale example I mentioned earlier, 6 nimmt also comes to mind -- when players have only a single card left in their hands, it is automatically played without waiting for everyone to choose their sole remaining card.

There isn't a worry about players not knowing what happened, since all of the information would be in the game log. There could even be a special message added like "Card automatically placed in only available space" or "Card automatically discarded because there is no valid place to play it", to make it fully clear what took place.

This is OK as an idea but just be careful that there really is absolutely NO legal play - not just no empty space it can be played in but no clover to replace either.

In practice it is very rare that there is NO legal play and usually only when 1,2,19,20 is drawn and it’s already on a fairly full board.

I agree that there is rarely no legal play when the clover MUST be discarded. Often there are no *reasonable* legal plays, but in this case the AI should not make the player's move for them.

I run into the situation usually once a game where the only two legal plays for me would be to replace an identical number or to discard to the table. But thinking about it now, at least half of the time that happens it is when I've chosen to draw a tile rather than having one automatically drawn for me (because the table is empty). In the case that I chose to draw, then of course it's not a big deal to then choose to discard, since it's still my turn. The automatic discard only saves time in turn-based games when the tile was also automatically drawn. I agree that is less frequent, but I wouldn't say it hardly ever happens.

Still, I'll be happy to just have the 4th clover automatically placed in Michael's setup, since that happens every round.

By the way, if a player quits the game, the computer should continually place tiles on the table instead of doing nothing, as if the player was still there

I have a question regarding this issue as well.

On my last game, and several others, if a player is losing then sometimes they concede. Here's my question:

If a player concedes during a game rather than play through, how does the player's conceding effect my elite points? Are they reduced?

If so, can the player concede to the artificial intelligence robot and/or game program so that I can finish the game and maximize my points to improve my standing in arena competitive play?

That's more than one question. To make a point, it is rather anti-climatic to apply strategics to a game just to have the other player give up when I have a good run. I feel robbed when they quit.

I think option 1) is easy to implement.

I am not sure about #2, It can be maybe useful for number 1 and 20 which have only one position to place. If it is already occupied by 1 or 20 then there is no other option.

With bruno's variant, it is sometimes helpful to replace the same number on your board, and I've seen very good plays that look terrible out of context, so I think option 2 is likely to have problems if it isn't incredibly conservative

I would like to vote up suggestion #1 :-)
I have a hard time keeping up with the europeans in tournament play as it is ;-)
Suggestion 2 - not so much
I love this game!