Clint, how do you monitor nations to determine if they’re being played or not? How many turns can a nation SS before action is taken? What kinds of actions are taken?
This stems from Game 13 Harad. Turn 5 is due on Monday. Nobody has heard from this nation and the starting icons don’t appear to have moved. Has this nation been sitting for 4 turns doing nothing?
Brad
If a nation misses 2 turns in a row it’s made available for takeover. We then advertise the nation as avilable on frontsheets and offer it to anyone who shows interest in a new nation. If the nation isn’t picked up after a while then we contact players directly who we think might be interested. Of course in a 1 week game more turns will pass than in a 2 week game while this process goes on.
I can’t confirm anything about a nation in a game which is still going on.
Thanks, I think that’s been confirmed though… 
Better question: How do you know the nation hasn’t been played for 2 turns? I’m assuming it’s simply a matter of someone actually noticing vs some kind of automated alert.
I also notice the Front Sheet on the forum hasn’t been updated in weeks and neither has a message been sent out of the mepbmlist yahoogroup either. I see my latest turn report has an updated front sheet (# of nations required to get games going is different…). And in all places I see that there is indeed 1 1650 Neutral in the Early Game available for pick up. Unfortunately, this looks a lot like the Harad in Game 11 that both myself and Mike Johncock passed on. While the information is sent out as per existing policies, well, let’s be honest, we barely scan that email, we snag out for the attachments… Also the OBN is still on it, yes? Too much information = No Information. Might you adjust this to keep it shorter and more relevant?
How long do nations sit on that list before people get to you about them anyway?
I think there’s something to be done here to improve this. If a nation isn’t even played from Turn 0 who do you charge the set up to? Doesn’t make sense to me… How about:
Emergency Stand By List -
First Turn isn’t sent in, automatically the nation is reassigned. Emergency list of willing volunteers is kept to 1) create orders for that nation so it doesn’t SS and 2) have 1st option to take it over at that time. This player will commit to issuing the first 2 turns orders (the free ones…) while the nation goes on the “available” list for pickup. This is 2 turns the nation is being advertised as available - BUT orders are being issued. If after 2 turns the nation is still not taken by either 1) the standby player or 2) anyone else then it can happily SS until natural death (or someone does take the Stand By the next turn, etc…but at least this gives it a chance…).
175, 180, 185 and any Offensive orders are not allowed (210, 230, 498, 525, etc). No communication allowed between the Emerg player and anyone else regarding this game. Of course, the emerg list would sign up knowing this ahead of time, easy enough. You can put me on that list…
In fact, you send the automatic notices to players the day before - you can contact the Emerg players at the same time, yes/no? I’ll take files, create orders and ship them in…and then the real player does so, send me a mail “Thanks for being there, but we don’t need you :p. Have a nice day.” no problem.
Should this apply to Neutrals only or all 25 nations?
We have to notice them missing the turns but we usually do, it’s fairly easy to see.
It’s my fault the lists haven’t been updated here over the last few weeks I’d neglected the things I usually do at the end of the week including that in favour of other tasks. That’s being improved.
We try and keep the relevant information at the top. Not everyone has access to the forum so we do need to get information like OBN out to people but it is a long way down the message now and as more urgent information comes out we move it further down and then delete.
The idea is that you only need to check out the start of the message regularly to get the new information but that there is more information there if you need it.
How long it takes to get interest in the position varies a lot, sometimes it’s within days but some nations can sit there for weeks with no interest, 4th age and GB are the worst for this for different reasons.
The player who signed up for the game is charged, we make sure no one misses turn 0 by writing covering turns for them ourselves, which we make very defensive.
We used to have a list similar to the one you describe but over time the players involved have mostly dropped out. I’d be happy to set up a new one.
We do operate a similar system where we advertise positions that miss early turns before their dropped and get players to write shadow orders which we then don’t use if the original player gets in contact afterwards.
(Rob)