Mahjong PC game

[ALIS123]

I recently started playing reach mahjong and \'ve been trying to find a pc game but i\'ve had no luck, are there any decent mahjong pc games? The online(flash and such) games are nice but i\'d like a game with difficulty options and pause so i don\'t have to play 2 hours straight if i want to finish a game.

I found a couple of japanese games but they are kinda hard to play since i don\'t understand much japanese...

[Shirluban]

In English you have Four Winds and Shanghai Second Dynasty.
There is also some Hong Kong games (with HK rules only).

I don\'t remember if Shanghai allows to save a game, anyway, AFAIK, it is out of stock.

Other off-line solutions are consoles and arcade machines games ... in japanese.
Many use 2-players rules, but some are 4-players (1 human, 3 AI).
You can run them on a PC with an emulator (it\'s legal, as long you have the original game in your living room :silly: ).
Thanks the emulator, you will be able to save the game anytime.

Of course, original PC Japaneses games are the best ... if you don\'t worry learning Japanese :lol:

[ALIS123]

Just tried Four Winds and i think id rather play online. Didn\'t buy it so dont have most of the options or the latest version but still, didn\'t like it. Shanghai second dynasty seems to be kinda hard to come by so not even gonna look for that anymore. Any other english pc versions of the game?

Been playing http://www.ludobox.com/Japanese-Mahjong ... -1765.html pretty simple and tells you where you and opponents get points when winning. But thats kinda hard, opponents seem to get any tile they want just when they want it and they declare reach every 2 minutes and win after 3min... Most of the time i dont even have time to start building a decent hand when one of the opponents wins and thats not fun.

If there are better online games i might want to try them too. If anyone has any suggestions feel free to reply.

[Tom Sloper]

In English you have Four Winds and Shanghai Second Dynasty.

Shanghai Second Dynasty is practically impossible to find. BTW, Shanghai {first} Dynasty also includes riichi/dora mahjong (assuming that\'s what the OP is looking for). Not that Shanghai Dynasty is any easier to get hold of (both are over ten years old now).

I have a list of mahjong programs on my site at http://www.sloperama.com/mjfaq/mjfaq05.htm - if anyone has more to add, I\'d welcome hearing about them.
Dewa,
Tom

[HotelFSR]

ALIS123:

That flash game you mentioned is good practice.

It does NOT cheat, and is actually easier than playing against above average human players.

It simply has better AI than the usually terrible ones you find. Once you can beat it easily it\'s time to go online looking for strong players.

[ALIS123]

I think i just need some more practice, most of the time my game ends because the hand i collected isn\'t worth anything :D Dont really understand why every time because i usually get dora and triplet of some wind tile but i\'ve only been playing for few days.

I did buy Four Winds and it\'s a bit better with all the options but it seems even harder to win(even with beginner opponents) than the flash game, most games end in draw because i simply can\'t get a hand worth anything.

Need to read more about winning hands and rules, been too lazy for that so i\'ve mostly learned through playing...

[Barticle]

When you play you should keep in mind that it´s a four-player game so - if you all have the same luck and skill - you can only expect to win one in four hands on average.

If another player reaches then usually you should start playing defensively. The simplest defence involves discarding tiles which the riichi player has already dropped or tiles which have been discarded recently by others.

If you don´t do this then you might find yourself discarding the winning tile - you get \"ronned\" and have to pay all the points for that hand. :S If you can hold out in defence then another player might get ronned first, or it might be a tsumo win where you only pay a share or it might end in a draw in which case you pay a share of the 3000 pts (no-ten bappu). These are usually preferable options to getting ronned.

For me the hardest lesson with MJ was definitely learning how and when to play defensively, and learning to enjoy the challenge and danger of avoiding a ron. It´s sooo tempting to go all-out on attack in every hand but you´ll just end up losing points and, regardless of won hands, probably losing the game overall.

Sometimes you have to surrender in one or two battles in order to win the war. :silly:

Reading up on the yaku (scoring elements) is essential. Once you become familiar with these it will help you get a winning hand and also to add extra yaku to make it worth more points (each fan will double your score for the hand).

One very important thing to remember is that Japanese mahjong is played with a one-fan minimum so you need at least one yaku in your hand to claim a win. Also fan from dora don´t count toward this - you can´t go out with dora and no yaku - and a triplet of wind must be either the round wind or your current seat wind to count as yaku.

PS As long as there´s no time-limit in the game you can effectively pause it by simply not taking your turn! :laugh:

[ALIS123]

Thanks for the tips Babticle.

\"and a triplet of wind must be either the round wind or your current seat wind to count as yaku.\"

I read that somewhere but didn\'t really understand it and i still don\'t. round wind?? current seat wind??

Wasn\'t really thinking, if the round is south then south works and if i\'m in south seat then south works again, right?

And one more thing i havent really figured out yet, if i get pair sequence with chii is it worth anything? Seen the comp win many times with that but i haven\'t been able to get any points with it...

[Tom Sloper]

1. "and a triplet of wind must be either the round wind or your current seat wind to count as yaku."

I read that somewhere but didn\'t really understand it and i still don\'t. round wind?? current seat wind??

Wasn\'t really thinking, if the round is south then south works and if i\'m in south seat then south works again, right?

2. And one more thing i havent really figured out yet, if i get pair sequence with chii is it worth anything? Seen the comp win many times with that but i haven\'t been able to get any points with it...

1. Yes, round wind is yaku. If south round, south pung is yaku, and E/W/N are not. If your seat is also south, you\'re "double south" and S is worth 2 fan, not just 1. In such a case, E/W/N pungs are worthless to you except as hand fillers. Have you seen http://www.sloperama.com/mjfaq/yaku/yaku.htm?
2. I don\'t understand the question.

[ALIS123]

Forget the second question, already found an answer to that. Thanks for the help.

[kamieniarz]

as to Four Winds, you should actually find out soon enough that cpu players are really easy to beat and after initial \'yay! i won again!\' there is only boredom left.

[nikolis]

You can also try http://www.emahjong.net and
http://www.mahjongexpress.com

Practically they use the same software and i think they have the best graphics for a free 3D online mahjong game.
You can choose to play with either the chinese classical, chinese oficial or the EMA riichi rules.
The only from problem that will unsatisfy you i think is that it doesn\'t have a pause button.

[Mcgreag]

There is also the fact for the above that for single player vs bots the bots have unusually bad AI.