Why? Because nothing in the original rules called for it. You od know this is a boardgame from nearly 50 years ago, right?

Because then every time someone doesn't like what country they were given, they'd simpply not enter orders and the game would be canceled.

Your opening post is a bit confusing. Are you saying that the game should be automatically cancelled in the event of a Spring 1901 NMR? If so, I agree, but with a caveat. One potential problem with this would that some players would choose to NMR if they draw a power they don't like (knowing that the game would be cancelled). There would need to be a penalty for the player who NMRs to discourage this.

Right, but as with the board game we/one made sure that there were 7 players to begin or we waited till a seventh was found before starting. Here, players have no knowledge or control of at least a players initial commitment.

@drano019; ah, that is a good point! "smart"

@spyman; A ‘penalty’ (double the loss of your initial points committed) would be and/or could be a good deterrent.

That sort of thing, yes, Carpysmind. Certainly the NMRer should lose his points. It should also count as a resign on his record.

@Draugnar; Yes I know the history of the game. Started playing it at UC Berkeley in the 70’s (possibly before you were born).

No Draug is older than that.

@spyman; well my chances were better than 70% that he was younger than 40 so I gave it a shot and included "possibly" for added protection.

draug is old as boards and games combined

Also, some...unscrupulous people do things like advertise a "live" game that starts in six hours, twelve hours, whatever. A lot of people don't look at the signup window when they sign up. The goal being: everyone NMR's, except them, they get all the points. They'd cease getting points in your system, but they'd still mess people up.

As others have pointed out, it would be too easy for a troll to disrupt games or for a player to back out simply for not liking the power that he selected.

However, in the case of an early game CD, I think the appropriate response is to draw instead of cancel. Canceling erases all record of the game, the abandoning player(s) do not get a resign marked on their record. Basically they get off for free since they also get their points back. Drawing keeps it on the record, takes their points bet distributing a marginal amount to other players.

Note that draws in the first 3 years do not affect GR. Games that end that quickly are simply ignored (since they are either due to cheating or broken games). That means that drawing a game is a GR safe way to deal with early CDers.

+1 yebellz. If only we could do the same for ratio... I have an unfairly high draw ratio due to games like that, and while I might like that, it's not really right ^^ Also, as for the idea of docking double points, the fact that most chronic CD'ers have 100 or less pretty much all the time means this method of punishment just doesn't work.

The trouble with this approach is it devalues the draw. Ideally a draw should be the result of a "good" game. A share in a draw should be "earned".

I see your point, though, about GR.

I completely agree that it's not good to dilute the records with excessive draws. However, given the current situation, I feel that it's important to make sure that CDers are properly marked.

It would also be nice if number of phases NMRed was counted too (along with the ratio with respect to total game phases seen)

Yes. An NMR stat like that along the resigns stat would be a good indicator of a player's reliability.

@Carly - You are older than me, but I do remember man landing on the moon.

@Carpy. I meant. Stupid autocorrect.

I see the main problem for disliking the proposed solution is because people would deliberately NMR to avoid power they don't like playing. But that problem could be solved easy i think. Just also program that this player would get the same power in the next game he/she started. But i don't know if thats easely programmed.

Another problem is that the person who NMRs gets to derail a game and then the cancel wipes that from his record. Also, what if next game he ends up playing with someone else who just also NMRed out of playing the same power?

well then you get fatal error