drops and unfairness

[Frost Lord]

That is a good point.

I have declined invites to start a new game because I was at the max for my subscription and refused to drop any of my current games (even if my game was going poorly).

I guess I could have dropped and started a new game....but that is not the way I roll.... :-)

[Ry Vor]

Good discussion. 

I don't have stats on drops, but my overall impression is that an early drop (before turn 12) is uncommon.  We have a small, tight community and I think they generally respect each other.  I have been pleased that players that do drop often notify support, and sometimes even facilitate a standby by emailing past turns, etc.  Maybe with what Mike has with our new interface where you can view all turns on the order entry website, a standby would have access to all those - not sure about that.

Pardon me in my dotage, but I am under the impression that when a position is dropped, that kingdom's PC's become Human controlled.  So that is intended to somewhat mitigate the effect of someone swarming in like a shark to blood. 

When I insert a standby, I am making no adjustments to the position.  I believe I did that way back at the beginning of the Resurgence, but now the utility Mike built for me, I just replace the player.  Period.  But I don't have to insert standbys very often: like maybe one a month.

A drop after T12 is likely due to the position being beaten down by enemies.  So those aggressors should be able to claim their just desserts.

We did originally have the Honor concept here, and we did in Fall of Rome, with even Citizenship titles like "Outcast" for an early drop, but that seemed a bit harsh and might drive players away.

I hear Mike that if he wins, he will not place the gold on the top shelf due to the drop, but unless the early drop with no standby inserted is a bigger problem than I think, I'm not seeing this as a major issue.

As players come in to our world at various times, I would for now just reiterate that courtesy is to not drop a position before turn 12, and if you do drop, notify support so a standby can be inserted before three turns of inactivity.

[unclemike]

Destroying pc's is not a problem for Alamaze and is no different than a kingdom pillaging the area or wizards casting meteor storm.

I've actually done both as the Giant (game 147) pillaging entire regions to nothing and as the Gnome's wizards (game 507) destroying over 40 pc's in several regions. So there are already games that have plenty of destroyed pc's, even entire regions at a time, which actually is a lot of fun to do btw. People didn't complain and end up quitting because there's no pc's left in Runnimede or elsewhere though a beginner player did send a message to support saying his divine came up empty which must be a bug (and made me laugh ).

And true to my prediction, one of my games ran today where my kingdom gained control of its 3rd region practically for free and now I'm working on my 4th region which is unfair to the others.

So adding a standby player to pick up the dropped DE position on turn 18 did nothing from my perspective because he/she is searching for artifacts or something else. Instead if dropped kingdoms had their pc's destroyed as I suggested then my kingdom would have control of only a single region which is on par with the other kingdoms in the game.

This is true whether we're talking about the drop on the turn 6 by the WA or turn 18 by the DE. At both times, if dropped pc's were destroyed it would have been better than what had occurred in this game.

So it's pretty clear that adding a standby player isn't the overall solution to the drop problem. Maybe the case can be made for team games (warlord/magic) where a standby player would be better but for single games, if pc's were destroyed then that ensures that the game remains balanced and fair for all those remaining. And in this particular case, every kingdom would have control of a single region which is on par with each other for more exciting and balanced competition than someone like me grabbing a third region practically for free.

To Lord Diamond, about the reason for the drop, they'll have to chime in but the DE who dropped on turn 18 had control of 3 regions and issued a victory declaration. Which failed for some reason then it seemed the very next turn, dropped out. So I thought that was a bit strange but everyone has their reasons for dropping. My point is that if a drop occurs in a steel game, the best manner of handling the situation is to destroy the pc's and ensure that the remaining kingdoms are on par with each other.

[unclemike]

Ry Vor replied at the same time that I did so I didn't see his comment when I was writing mine. I agree that Outcast would be bad reputation-wise and would discourage people from playing further which is bad for business. As for not knowing the statistics on drops, the new server system will allow us to track that stat better then perhaps see if something else should be done to address the issue (like destroy pc's mulhahaha).

[Atuan]

The DE has 5 kingdoms attacking, sorry if they arn't in the best position to defend against that.

[unclemike]

The DE has 5 kingdoms attacking, sorry if they arn't in the best position to defend against that.

I understand and figure something must be going on in the south to keep you busy. My point is that having a standby player fill in is not always the best solution and in this particular case, definitely wasn't compared to the destroy pc alternative which would have ensured that the remaining kingdoms would have been on par with each other by controlling a single region each (or about).

[Jumpingfist]

Game 524 is only at turn 8
I believe UM has been using g520 as his poster child of badness. I was playing the DE in that game. I took the WA town in R2 on T2 got my region turn 3 divined WA PCs in R3 T6 invaded T7 and had control of R3 T8. WA kingdom was officially dropped on T9. Not sure if I figured out he dropped T7 or 8 but really did not matter as far as extra PCs or gold. My invasion was already launched.
Deleting all his PCs as you say in T6 where he issued orders would seem rather odd. Even if you did would it then be fair to me having used my resources and be in position to launch a full attack just to have my entire turn report there is no PC at that location. It would cause me to not only effectively miss a turn but even spend all my gold during winter moving to empty squares. To me that would be something most players would then quit over and perhaps after taking to support leave Alamaze altogether.
If all PCs were destroyed on turn 7 I would loose my entire political corps as they were in those PCs trying to gain control. Again now effectively making me miss a couple turns.
Or would it be turn 8 when I took control so he had less than 50% of the region no real effect other than maybe my groups at other PC having wasted a move.
Or turn 9 when he officially missed three turns. I believe at this point he had only his capital left with one of my groups sitting on it

I see no case where destroying all PCs would have been the right call. The only clear advantage I got was a very good player did not fight back but even if he did it would not have delayed me much he was already way behind loosing his region on T8

Atuan took the game over and I would guess he is doing more than hunting artifacts. Perhaps he is not attacking you for the same reason I gave up the position which I am restricted from posting in This forum

[unclemike]

JF, you took control of a region without any resistance and was uncontested during such action. Invading an empty region like that would not be challenging for anyone but allowing such open/free regions in the game does unbalance things for everyone especially when it occurs early on (turn 6 was WA's last orders so there was no opposition at all during your conquest).

The act of spending gold/orders doesn't justify the acquisition of having open/free regions in the game. I waste gold/orders all the time , it doesn't mean that I deserve to have free pc's without a player being around to oppose me because that ruins the game for everyone else. It's fairly common for a player to plan on invading a region, spend the necessary gold/orders to prepare, then suddenly get invaded by others causing one to go on the defensive changing things for them.

That's not wasted gold/orders, just a normal risk in the game. Such expense for planning an invasion that didn't prove fruitful is just one of the risks in the game. That condition is always present but such expenditure of gold/orders does not justify allowing open/free regions in the game which ends up ruining things for the other players. This is why destroying pc's for dropped positions is necessary to prevent such a vacuum in the game.

You've mentioned that you or others would quit if pc's were removed after gold/orders were spent trying to acquire the region but many of us have been in games where our initial plans of conquest was interrupted by others and didn't quit because of it. Players adjust and move on rather than drop out if they had spent gold/orders that didn't prove fruitful towards their original plans.

So quitting under such circumstances may be your opinion (which is fine) but I haven't seen that occurring in games so far. As an example, in games where pillage/meteor storms were rampant, pc's disappeared like crazy and caused wasted gold/orders for many of us when moving emissaries/groups/agents around the map but that didn't cause players to drop out. Instead, players continued on and such games ended up having an interesting twist that were more exciting and challenging than otherwise.

Handling dropped positions by removing pc's from the game is important to eliminate the unbalancing effect of having open/free regions in the game. If it helps, just consider starting a new game where a neighbor has an open and uncontested region next to them that others are too busy or in battle to contest. Would that really be fair to everyone in the game? Certainly not, so that is why the game needs to have a mechanic in place to remove pc's for dropped positions and remove such open/free regions in the game.

Though I am a bit curious as to why you dropped out on turn 20. You had the commanding lead in status points, control of 3 regions, tried to declare victory, then just dropped out. If you can't state the reason on the forum, please send your thoughts to support because I really thought you would win that game.

[admin]

I don't have a dog in this fight, but a thought that crossed my mind was that you might want to consider allowing a percentage chance that pop centers belong to dropped players could become overrun with monsters of some type.

[Ry Vor]

I don't have a dog in this fight, but a thought that crossed my mind was that you might want to consider allowing a percentage chance that pop centers belong to dropped players could become overrun with monsters of some type.

They become Human controlled, which is essentially the same thing without trying to create a Zombie apocalypse. 

I think we have worn this one out for the time being.