I was thinking about this and a list of things that could be done to speed up and improve the game. This was my number one item though. As it just happened in a game I was in a few days ago... no other retreats were needed from any other players or any other from this player so the game was "delayed" for about 12 hours. Also, seems to happen a lot near the end of a game when a (sore) losing player purposely is delaying the game.

Keeping as is has advantages. Gives an opportunity for further negotiation - eg to use leverage to influence which army to disband after seeing where they have retreated to

He's talking about situations where there is no such choice for anyone..

It is understandable for a player who is on the back foot to want to maximize every minute of negotiation time available to him, even if it won't have any impact on the retreat phase itself. Also, I would be loathe to take away entirely the punishment by delay option. If too players, for example, have decided to two way a game in which I am the third player, they can bloody well wait for it :p

Two*

Keep in mind that the official rules say there's no negotiation at all during the retreats phase. Not to say I don't mind this change in webDip, though.

I have a feeling that if we made forced disbands etc automatic, there would be an increase in the number of emails that we get saying "why didn't I get a retreat here!?!", so the change might be more trouble than it's worth.

I think it's a fairly low priority change, but we are open source. You're welcome to make the change and make a pull request. Note that this change would require a lot of testing.

I'll be writing up an updated version of the developer instructions soon.

And, yes, a "tournament mode" or similar with no press during the builds or retreats is on the todo list :)

~webDip development team

Interesting, thanks for the replies.

Though I've never consciently punished someone by not readying my disband order in such cases, I find it very important that they are not adjudicated automatically. When I play games with, say, 48 hours phases, I expect to have 2 full days to check what has happened. It would be terrible to find out I have x hours of Diplomacy, instead of x hours for retreats(disbands).

^ I too like to let the game phase run in full. I almost never ready- though I might if I'm the only retreat and its a forced disband.

Just my opinion by I disagree with taking the full x amount for retreats and builds. These are suppose to happen immediately without discussion. Also the retreat phase is optional. And actually never happens in turn 1. If you were to play this FTF would the game master ask you if you wanted to disband your unit? No they would look at you and tell you that your unit has been disbanded. Also, if you are playing 48 hour move phases do you really only check the game every other day? If so it's sort of hard to have any type of back and forth discussions.

Just to point out the obvious, the parallel with FTF is good, but limited. Online, there is no such thing as 'immediate orders without discussion', since I'm online at different times from you. You may have seen the pending order five times before I check in once.

Effectively, this means that a request for 'quick build/retreat phase without discussion' is actually two requests:
1) shorter build/retreat phase than regular phases
2) turn off press for some phases.

Nr 1 is prone to NMRs (variable phase length kills predictability) and Nr 2 simply incentivises discussion in the previous phase. You see this in FTF too, more experienced players also discuss possible retreats and builds.

In principle, I am very much in favour of a 'puritan' mode of play. In practice, I doubt it's that much different. You have to wait for your fellow players anyway. Might as well get some press in while you're online anyway.

I understand why players want full and equal phases for retreats and all phases.

However, if there is no retreat, that phase is skipped entirely, and players have the 'full' phase for the next round of diplomacy. If the only retreat is no option but a disband, then it could automatically and instantly happen and go straight to the next full round of diplomacy, just as if there were no retreats that round.

I think those arguing for a full phase when a forced disband is the only option (and there are no legitimate retreat options) are really getting TWO full phases of time, when they signed up for a single phase length that they are comfortable with.

The phase length of each turn is agreed upon by all players when the join the game. Your right to have that entire phase length to negotiate is not a reward.

In fact, suggesting that the end of the turn should be determined ONLY by those who were forced to retreat (and not disband) is actually rewarding failure....just a little bit less of a failure than forced disband...but failure none the less.

Absurd...

regarding the "official rules" and "no negotiating during retreat"....this is not the official game - it is an adaptation for the internet, which therefore requires certain changes from the face-to-face rules.

The alternative - to make the game more like the "original rules" - would be to disable chat during retreat phases. AND....even if you did that....you still should not force the end of phase, because people have lives, they choose game phases based upon their known availability, etc...and thus forcing a shortened phase very probably, in cases, would have an adverse impact on players expecting a full phase length game to be played.

I agree with you, Krellin. The phase is agreed upon by all players at the start of the game. No one has the right to expect a faster game. And, it's certainly true that web-based diplomacy is different to the FTF version.

However, a good counter argument to "I plan expecting that the whole retreat phase will happen" is that sometimes there aren't any retreats. I expect to have to check the game at least half a phase length after each deadline (that I know about), and that's worked pretty well for me.

I'm surprised there's been little discussion of email notifications :)

I agree with Krellin as well, and this is why I'm an advocate for having different phase lengths, for retreats and builds. That would be established pregame

I don't like different length phases, for exactly the reasons TMOW outlined above.

That said, it might make more sense as an option once we have "puritan" mode or whatever we call it. But I still think we might see more NMRs.

I think options are options. If some don't like the idea of different times for retreats and builds they can choose not to play in the game. Why limit the options?

As someone mentioned when we were discussing alternate scoring systems (in addition to WTA and PPSC), it's possible that too many options would fragment the community. We already have players who won't play over (or under) certain phase lengths - why fragment that more?

On the other hand, we have a pretty healthy user base. So more options could be fine.

One solution is to play the Pacifist variant. No disbands or retreats needed.

Well, at least now that Draugnar's gone.

open a poll, im casting my vote for auto-enter

ATC, forget email notifications. I want an API integrated with IFTTT, when's that coming?

Wtf is that MoW

Tuesday.

Explain please

@ssorenn: It's a service that lets you join things together for notifications, etc https://ifttt.com/

Like push notifications?