Average game lasts say 20 turns so that would be around £88.00 for that. BUT I’d expect this game to last a lot longer so I’d at least double that. Problem for us is say you decide you want to just try things out for 500 turns (or whatever, you get the idea) then we’d lose out. Say it lasted 10 turns (someone gets a promotion, wife gives birth, has to stop playing so much - quite possible) then you guys lose out.
Block booking turns (say 10 at a time) might help but I’m not sure. Suffers from the above as well and extra admin work for us (which I’d estimate to be around one days work all told based on much experience of this sort of thing). Pros are that it would probably encourage players to stick it out, if they get knocked out (a nation could “suicide” if they wanted to get out of the “contract” for instance) how do we handle payment? Say a player has to drop forfeiting 9 turns of payment, that player is going to be very unhappy and that’s bad for everyone. (Could possibly transfer a proportion of that payment to another game, but then there’s less incentive to stick to a game which this is intending to encourage in the first place).
Difficult one and I don’t see an easy solution but feel free to give some ideas.
I prefer the cost per turn option as it means that players pay for what they get as they get it at a fair price.
Personal, anecdotal experience on games ending quickly/players dropping.
I’ve only been in one game that ended before GT10. Eothraim bankrupted themselves on a blown market order. The FP decided that it would be better to just start a new game than continue in a no-win situation.
Personally, I’d rather drop and start another game than play in a game that was a done conclusion, win or lose.
Not too long ago I was in a game that by GT10, it was clear who was going to win. Not because one side or another had a player eliminated through silly mistake, but because one side hade simply out-played the other… Again, we were glad the other side dropped and let us restart a game that was a challenge rather than forcing us to spend another 10 turns rolling over them.
I recently wanted out of a game for a wide variety of reasons… The game was decided and it was just a matter of how slowly we wanted to lose. The team was not working well together. I’d put together plans, and they’d be ignored. Not debated or disagreed with, flat out ignored. Why spend the money to get you butts kicked in a group that doesn’t work well together? Why pay the money to slowly mop up the enemy in a no longer challenging game?
All I can figure is that the people that are mad about games ending quickly are the people that finally got that top position they’ve always wanted… Who cares if Khand owns Rhun, SG and NG are in ruins and the DS have troops all over Mirkwood and Lorien… I finally got Noldor, and I think you guys should keep playing because I’m still enjoying playing Elrond.
OR, the people that spent 15 turns building an all powerful nation by avoiding the enemy while the enemy overran their allies. “Hey, I finally got my nation the way I want it and am ready to fight… What you mean you want to drop?”
In short, I don’t think games ending early is a problem. I think it is a solution to the “un-fun” of non-challenging games of teams that don’t work well together.
A problem I have seen is that a lot of players expect to get the “group co-ordination” required in a grudge scenario in a standard 1650 game and get quite irate when players decide they have their own view of where they want their nation to go. You have to remember a person is alowed to run their nation as they see fit, you will have to modify the way you are going to play your nation to take into account the style of play of your allies. You can’t demand that they change to fit what is considered the “best strategy” if they are going off in some other direction. A lot of people throw a tanty and quit because a nation or a couple of nations aren’t playing the way they want them too or the way that best fits their plans. Go with the flow and see what strategies you can come up with to suit. you never know where this different style may lead you.
There would be real backlash against messing with someone’s funds. I know if my funds were held back, I would take whatever legal action was available.
I don’t see a problem with 1650 as those seem to start about once a month as opposed to 2950/FA that take about 3-4 months.
I play 7 nations now and if MEG tries to dictate terms to me regarding what I can or can not do with my nation or my money, I would just do something else. I do not think people will take well to being “strong-armed” into playing.
Drops suck but they are part of landscape just like poor players.
Of course in “independent” games, one can do what one wants to do. It’s one thing to throw a hissy fit in the early game, but there IS the reality that certain styles of play tend to LOSE such a vast majority of times that it’s not always a matter of “personal style of play”. A pedestrian that simply denies the existence of automobiles on the road will get himself killed. In MEPBM, this person who simply doesn’t know what is going on and too often doesn’t want to listen will drag the entire allegiance down with him/them. You see a lot of ridiculous play that only Costs allies money to no avail. It’s a Team Game and if MY game and it’s results are being dictated to me because an “ally” wants to play “his” game irrespective of obvious reality, well, sometimes it’s not just “his money” he’s throwing away…
Mind you, Darrell was talking about a situation deeper into a game where winning simply isn’t possible, barring a plane crash taking out 2/3 the opposition. While some players stubbornly insist on the enemy eliminating their nation out of some odd sense of honour and pride (really, this is a fantasy game about Elves and swords and dragons that costs me hard earned money, let’s remove these silly notions from the discussion), if the situation is simply untenable, dropping is an acceptable option. The only reason the individual drops in this (his) situation is because his foolish wastrel allies can’t even coordinate a concession, talk about any hope of victory…
so, to sum up this thread, there are 2 general types of drops:
a. where an individual drops and this causes difficulty for team mates. This is the type of drop that people don’t like and are complaining about. But as has been stated - what more can be done? none of the brainstorming in this thread has produced a really great idea (i.e. the medicine seems worse than the disease for most of the suggestions)
b. where a side decides they’ve lost and drop en-masse. How can anyone object to this? In any game, there may come a time where it is obvious that a particular side has lost. There is honor in admitting defeat and moving on. There is honor (and victory!) in having been on the victorious side as well. Similarly, if a side believes that they have a fighting chance to win, I see no problem with them attempting to do so. The problem is that sometimes (rarely thank goodness), you find a stuborn individual that knows they can’t win, but who can significantly delay their own nation (or small group of nation’s) defeat by creating new capitals in out-of-the way places. i.e. The famous “bug hunt”. That is reprehensible. That situation should be eliminated by a new type of victory stipulated in the rules (example: 3:1 ratio of surviving nations is victory for the 3x side). Then we’d eliminate bug hunts. I think there is such a rule for FA? We should just adopt it for the other scenarios as well. I personally like being in underdog situations and as we’ve clearly dug ourselves into an underdog situation in game 53, I better like it. But there’s a difference between underdog who has a strategy & plan to win (even with long odds) and a underdog who has no chance to win other than causing the real winning players to quit in frustration due to a bug hunt. blech.
But there’s a difference between underdog who has a strategy & plan to win (even with long odds) and a underdog who has no chance to win other than causing the real winning players to quit in frustration due to a bug hunt. blech.