I'm planning to use blind auctions in one of my designs to auction off a limited number of resources. (The higher you bid, the earlier you may purchase resources; if you bid too low, there might not be any left by the time your turn comes around. The value you bid is the amount you will pay for a resource.)
In blind auctions, there's the issue of tied bids, and I'm looking for an easy way to resolve them. I prefer not to use a random element such as having tied players roll a die since this auction will be the only non-perfect-information element in the game. There's the flagpole in O Zoo le Mio, which seems like the easiest option. I could also have a separate scoring track to which players may optionally contribute victory points/money; whoever's further along this track wins ties.
Can you think of any other ways to break ties in blind auctions?
I considered normal auctions, but because the value of what you bid is the value you will pay, I foresee bids (in particular, in auctions that only involve two players) that are always separated by $1.
