When you say hard scoring do you mean remembering all the possible special hands? Quite like the proper game but takes a while if there's only one manual. Programming the AI would be interesting.
Special Hands only score 500,1000,1500, or 2000 and half that when Fishing.
Depending on what rules you are using (British, American, Chinese, Japanese, Cantonese) the special hands are different.
Scoring special hands is easy, because they only have one way of appearing which gives you a Map of possible tile combinations. e.g
Nothing Connects has a set arrangement of tiles as does Great Jade Hand.
These hands get scored to the 'limit' (usually 1000) or half limit (500). When you are playing for money, it is usually no limit. If you are playing for lollies, then it is DEFINITELY no limit! Usually: 1 lolly = 10 points so a limit hand means most other players will probably have to pay you 100 lollies. YAY DIABETES!
The scoring is just for a 'normal' hand, which is annoying to do. Oh! Since we have Pyromanik here who does know how to play, I might as well post up the rules
Mah Jong: Easy to playIf you've played Gin Rummy, Rummy, Five Hundred, or Bridge then you most certainly know how to play Mah Jong, because it is the game the Card Games originated from.
Mah Jong is pretty easy to learn how to play. A Mah Jong set consists of 136 tiles, but most sets have 144 tiles (4 seasons, 4 flowers). In Mah Jong there are three 'suits' of tiles
Bamboo
Characters
Circles (Actually 'Coins' in Cantonese/Chinese)
Each of these tiles are numbered 1 to 9. There are four of every tile.
There are also two 'honour' type tiles:
Winds: East, West, North, South
Dragons: Red, Green, White (usually a blank tile)
There are four of each of these tiles too.
Mah Jong: Players HandsIn Mah Jong you need four players for a proper game.
Each Player has a hand of thirteen (13) tiles. To win you have to declare Woo/Mah Jong by drawing a winning tile or picking up another players discarded tile.
The simplest way to go Mah Jong is as follows:
four sets of three tiles (either 3 of a kind OR a run (1,2,3/2,3,4/5,6,7 etc)) (twelve (12) tiles in total)
A pair (making fourteen (14) tiles)
There are 'special' hands which I will ignore for now.
Mah Jong: How rounds workAt the start of the game each player is assigned a Wind (North, South, East, West) which follows naturally from the Never Eat Sour Watermelons order.
Depending on what rules you are playing, there is also a 'Prevailing Wind' which I will explain later.
East Wind is always the Dealer (Also Prevailing Wind at the beginning of a game). East Wind draws first. East Wind always gets PAID DOUBLE, but also LOSES DOUBLE if they dont go Mah Jong.
Play goes in Order (East, South. West, North). Each player draws a tile to make a hand of 14 tiles, but then must discard a tile.
All discarded tiles go in the center of the table.
ANY PLAYER may declare "PUNG!"(3 of a kind), "KONG!"(four of a kind),"CHOW!"(a run), or Mah Jong and pick up the discarded tile.
Then THAT PLAYER must reveal their set/run and discard a tile (unless they went Mah Jong)
When sets/runs are Revealed, they are placed FACE UP in front of the player to show the other players what that player has.
If a player picks up a discarded tile, then play continues from that player. In intense Mah Jong games, players can miss several goes and not even get the opportunity to go Mah Jong.
The order of precedence for tiles works as follows (highest priority to lowest): Mah Jong, Kong, Pung, Chow. IF there is a tie (two people go Mah Jong) then the player who is next in line of turn gets precedence (Chinese Rules)
SPECIAL - If a player has a Four of a kind then they must draw an extra tile from the "Dead Wall", but if not playing with a Dead Wall (simplified rules) then simply take a tile from the END OF THE WALL, not from the normal draw end.
Mah Jong: ScoringThis is where my little program comes in. Scoring is very easy, but can be time consuming when a big hand is played.
These are the 'simplified' rules for scoring, proper Cantonese/Gambling rules can be quite complex because once money is involved, all morality goes out the window.
Pung (3 of a kind): 2 points
Kong (4 of a kind): 4 points
Chow (run): 0 points
Revealed: normal
Concealed: points*2 (Concealed is when you make a set without having picked up a discarded tile/forced to reveal)
Honours Tiles (Dragons or Winds): points*2 (+1 double)
Going Mah Jong +20
(Simplified rules do not use the special points for 1/9 of suits which are worth double)
For example: A pung of two (2) of bamboo would net you 2 points if revealed, 4 points if concealed, but a pung of Green Dragons would get you 4 points revealed and 8 points of concealed (plus a double which I will explain later)
Mah Jong: Scoring DoublesThis is where the fun begins. In special cases, your score can be doubled. As I mentioned before, for each pung/kong of honour tiles you get to double your total overall score.
Other ways are:
Pung/Kong of own Wind: +1 double
Pung/Kong of prevailing Wind: +1 double
Purity (One suit only + Dragons/Winds): +1 double
Purity (One suit, no winds, no dragons): +2 doubles (or +3 doubles, I forget)
Dont forget that EAST WIN PAYS DOUBLE/WINS DOUBLE
Mah Jong: Scoring What is so hard about that?Well: When you go Mah Jong, everyone pays the 'winner'/Mah Jonger (who may not actually be the 'winner' at all)
Each player scores their hand and they
PAY THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THEIR HAND AND THE WINNERS HANDThis means a person can have a better hand than the person who won, which depending on the rules means that:
a) The Mah Jong player pays that person the difference in their scores (in a serious game)
b) The player does not have to pay the Mah Jong player anything (usual rule)
This also means that a person who has nothing in their hand at the end pays the most.
This also means that being EAST WIND (the Dealer) can be a blessing or a curse (much like "Clubs Compulsary" in Euchre).
Mah Jong: ConclusionI've found that people who hate card games LOVE Mah Jong because the Tiles are more tactile and its alot more interactive ('stealing' peoples turns or even better: The tiles they need) plus, if you play with Cantonese people, the smack talk never stops.
(spoiler contains picture of Java Game thing I am making)