I think the "gamemaster" idea is good. However, it may not reduce the drop off rates.
A player with too many CDs should not be allowed to play in high roller games or likewise.

I like really like those ideas. Something has to be done about it.

There are two angles of attack with regards to improving the situation with regards to Civil Disorder- Reducing the incidence rate and reducing the impact.

With regards to the latter are two simple steps which I believe would be very effective, both based on improving the possibilities for another player who may wish to take over a nation. The first is to reduce significantly the cost involved in doing this, to make the loss in points fall to relatively insignificant would allow a player greater opportunity, as a play is likely to be disadvantaged by greater than just the unit count by civil disorder. I think we would all agree that this is only good, fair and proper.
The second idea is more complex, so I shall care to articulate it in the clearest possible terms. First is to make it so that, in any circumstance it is necessary to click a finalise button, even in the case that there is no order to finalise. Then we have failure to do thus place you into CD, which can be left once more by submitting moves in the usual way. This would mean that after a maximum of one missed session a player who has left will be eligible for taking over. This in turn means that the nations will not be as destitute as at current where most are in the jaws of defeat. Thus we can encourage more taking over of nations in civil disorder.

With regards to the reducing policy we can consider the renowned 'stick and carrot' philosophy. The stick can come in the form of a game master system that has been suggested, but also the player can be stripped of points to the value of double the original pot, and if they fall into civil disorder for multiple occasions a stricter penalty can be enforced, for example a ban. The carrot can be a prize to all players of half their bet for finalising moves on all occasions, which is reduced to a third for one missed finalisation, a quarter for two and so on and so fourth.

There is one, final way of reducing Civil Disorder, and this is with reference to when somebodies life will inhibit them from continuing a game. This idea is that they can then place themselves up to be taken over in advance of them leaving. Thus he could make a seamless change of hands, and there would never be an interruption to the game play.

So my suggestions are three-fold: Reducing the fee of taking over nations in CD and getting nations into CD earlier; Providing effective stick and carrot against those who wish to continue with phpDiplomacy but would otherwise 'give up' in a game which they are at risk of loosing; and providing a system by which holiday makers could transfer their game without interrupting the play.

Thank you.

There is a stick method currently: if you risk more points and enter bigger value games you'll find players don't go CD as much. If you go in games with people all under 100 its more likely players will CD, as they can just get their points back if they loose. Once you're over 100 points, you won't get your points back, and so staying in your games is more important.

The problem remains for the majority of the members of this site who are at around that level, who must be considered.

It is true, and I know it is asking a lot for people to risk the amounts of points required to get out of that zone. Although it would take more work the gamemaster system sounds good to me as well. My view has been for some time that a passworded game should be passworded for 24hrs, then loose it's password at that point and be open for all applications. This would not be hard to do at all, and would allow anyone to take over a CD position. Moreover, players could start their game like this, and fill the positions by sending out the password. Then, if there were not enough players, it would spend up to another day allowing the spaces to fill.
Just to add, the formula for taking over CD must change i agree...

Some interesting points

figlesquidge got it right that the points system is how civil disorders are currently dealt with. If you go into civil disorder often you won't get beyond your starting 100 points. So as you play with people who have gone further and further beyond their starting 100 points it becomes less and less likely that you'll come across civil disorder players.

This does create a problem for people who are just starting out though.

One suggested solution is the ability to kick players from a game during the pre-game phase, but this would:
- Need more buttons in the UI
- Have to extend the pre-game period in-case civil disorder players fill the game up but aren't kicked until late in the starting 24 hours
- Require people who create games to look through the profiles of the users who join
- There would have to be something to prevent pranksters from creating games where they just kick out everyone who joins
- It creates a steeper learning curve
- I don't like having one user in a game who has more powers than the other users, it gives people an incentive to create their own games and a disincentive to join others' games

I think a better idea would be to decrease the baseline number of points a user has every time they go into civil disorder, and increase the baseline number of points every time a player stays in a game, by 10 points or so. (Up to a limit, like 20 points at the lowest and 200 at the highest)

Also I think if someone leaves a game with less than 2 units there's probably nothing too wrong with that. Most of the civil disorders I can see at the moment are people with 1 unit, and there's not much fun in holding on for a couple of turns waiting for defeat. I think these situations should be called "resigned" or "defeated" rather than "civil disorder", because there's clearly a difference between stopping play when there's nothing left for you in a game and stopping play when you have a chance of winning.
No-one wants to take over these certain-defeat civil disorders, so it would be better if they didn't clutter up the joinable games list. I think these civil disorders which aren't really a problem make it look more widespread than it actually is.

About reducing the bet needed to take over civil disorder players: I don't think it would help to reduce the required bet. If a civil disorder has no chance of winning there's not much point in taking it over. If a civil disorder does have a chance of winning, or improving their number of units, why should the person taking over have to pay less than the units are worth? That would penalize people who play from the start.
I think it's better to make the bet always equal to the value of the units being taken. Sometimes a player can have several units but still no chance (e.g. if their home supply centers are taken), and so the value of the units would be less than the calculated amount. But in a scenario like that the player is probably facing defeat anyway and so wouldn't be worth taking over.

Bottom line: It's important to distinguish between players on the brink of defeat going into civil disorder, and players with a decent chance going into civil disorder.
I'm not worried about the first type, it's only the second type that needs to be dealt with, and I think the points system works quite well to preventing the second type (but it could be improved for users who are just starting out)

TheGhostmaker, your suggestions are well intentioned and logical, but you fail to take into account the small demographic of players here who habitually do not finalize. I personally believe that 24 hours is too short a time, and I let it go for the full 24 hours on principle and for practical purposes. There are times when if I finalized immediately after I had decided on some orders, I would miss the following phase, which would disrupt the game far more in the end. As well, I feel people finalize too hastily, when there is plenty of time to still negotiate and acquire information and alliances.

I love the points system at the moment, despite that I've been very stagnant in growth. It just puts the principles of economics to work here. There is always a stick and carrot as long as people want points, since you will always lose points for going into CD, and you should generally gain points if you do not.

I agree with Kestas, except there always seems to be something strangely wrong about players who CD when in a desperate position. I have always tried to play it out to the end, although that may irritate some players, but I feel I do injustice to leave my forces there. At the very least, I try to stir up some ruckus with supports against the traitors. =)

I like the penalty system.

Rewards are an interesting variant.

The problem is that neither would stop the multi-accounters... It is only when you have one and only one account to play with that you are under real pressure to behave.

it would be nice if countries with just one unit were able to quit a game with a click . then other players wouldn't need to wait for them. ideally you should stay but if a player has only one unit then i don't see the harm in letting them quit. their unit can just go straight to CD and not waste the other players time.

Chrispminis, in order to play the game satisfactorily, you must log on once every 24 hours. Hence my choice of this value. When I say 24 hours, I really mean on missing a turn, failing to finalise. This is just harassing to the game in any case.

I must voice a criticism of the points system- you get as many points playing a Diplomat or a puppet. But this is not really relevant to this.

TheGhostmaker, I understand that, I log on every day, usually more. But while I log on every day, there is sometimes a more than 24 hour difference between the log ons, especially if I sleep in or go out, etc. If I finalize my orders now and the turn processes in half an hour, and I don't get on again until tomorrow but two hours later in the day, for whatever reason, I'll have missed a phase.

I'm not sure I quite understand, but from what I'm getting, you mean to make finalization compulsory, including on phases when they're are no orders to be input. I'm just pointing out that this effects players who do not finalize as a habit, do you have an idea that resolves this as well?

Oh, and the idea with the points system is that as you grow in rank, to really grow in terms of points you need to play higher stake games, naturally with players with more points and a higher caliber of play. Of course you'll always get the same amount of points playing a Diplomat or a puppet if you consistently join low stakes games where puppets are present. But those that are succeeding in higher stakes with more Diplomats, will get more points, and grow faster.