I too was in that game, and France refused to draw after multiple CDs (after everyone alive had been calling for it for near 10 years), and after the line was formed for years, he still refused to draw. Poor sportsmanship Partysane, very poor.

It was a very frustrating game, to say the least. Multiple CD's, near unanimous call for a draw, and then mind numbingly boring series of moves in which France claims to have been, "looking for a way to break through..." That's horse shit, he was ragging the clock, so to speak, in an effort to get someone to quit or mess up.

If I remember correctly there was a thread about this kind of tactic a few weeks back. I remember many established players complaining about a relatively new play who employed this very tactic. Pretty much everyone concurred that it was not in the spirit of the game to just keep repeating a stalemated position.

I'm pretty sure that there is a site rule that the game is draw after three years being held up at a stalemate line.

^ Can anyone (aka mods) confirm or deny that?

I dont know it is a rule. But i do know the mods use it as one the moment they get complains about this behaviour. Only the game has already ended and although they will force a draw in such a situation, i don't think they will end the result of a game already ended

sorry, i mean, change the result

@emfries: There is no "three-year" rule. We don't have some arbitrary threshold since each game has different circumstances and sometimes, it does legitimately take longer than 3 years to shift around units to break an imperfect stalemate line. In other circumstances, we may be compelled to force draw even earlier.

However, in solid stalemated situations where the party holding out on the draw seems to be only waiting for a CD/NMR to break through, we will force draw the game. In such cases, we do try our best to do our due diligence and contact the parties involved first before acting immediately, since reversing a force draw is often not feasible. For live games, any mods online will try to address the issue as quickly as possible.

The proper channel to have such an issue address is to email the moderators. The contact info can be found on the rules page:
http://www.webdiplomacy.net/rules.php

In ANY circumstance: do NOT post on the forum about an *ongoing* game. (just a reminder, not that this happened here).

How much money was riding on the game?

Well, when there is a thread about people complaining about me i guess i should answer to it.

@Emac: It was a Bet 50, no nothing to rage about really.

The stalemate line they are talking about was reached in Autumn 1912. I did recognize that, of course, but wanted to try to break it and started moving armies up north to switch out the fleets there for ground units. I finished that by Autumn 1915 which is within the here mentioned "3 year rule", a thing i hear about for the first time.

Austria missordered in Spring 1916! Which is just half a year after i had reached the positions i was moving for.

Sadly i messed up myself and lost Munich the same year so the game went on until spring 1918 when i had moved armies up/ convoyed into position to take munich back. And end the game.

So in my view there was a final stalemate line for half a year and had they held it i would have drawn for sure. But sure as hell am i not responsible for someone messing up his move. So basically all i can tell London and Michigan is: Suck it up!

Oh and i forgot, the "multiple cds" mentioned were england and turkey, both playing from the start and only dropping when they were effectivly dead and in no position to influence the outcome in any way.

So, you agreed that there was a stalemate line reached, you recognized it, but decided to play on three years anyway so that you could attack a stalemate line in a different way that was still a stalemate line. This is ethical how, exactly?

It was a stalemate line fleets couldn't break yet maybe he shuffled units around to break it?

No, it was dead drawn.

Maybe going up north with the units was futile, but istill felt like trying. Thats is, at least as far as i think, well within my rights to do.
So complaining about me doing nothing but holding the line is just wrong since i did something even if it does not appeal to you as useful. It was in no way supposed to bore anyone out of the game. And i would have drawn had they held just a little bit longer. But as explained, and can be seen in the game, they messed it up as soon as i got where i wanted to go.
That again is in no way my fault and i don't think anyone can complain about me using that.

Also, even disregarding the moves and their usefulness, i held the line for 3 years. That would even be within the nonexistant 3 year rule. So whats the fuss about?

No, it's not well within your rights to play on in a game where you have no reasonable chance to progress. That's the point. If you were unaware you had no chance to progress, that's one thing, but to be aware of it and refuse to draw is completely not within your rights.

I actually thought moving the units up there would make a difference. It didn't and in hindsight i accept that it wouldn't have made any. At that point i thought it might and i tried. As soon as i reached the point where i wanted to go and saw it made no difference austria messed up and the rest is history.

The point is, i did not, in evil intention, continued the game hoping for a mistake on their part. That one happened is actually unfortunate because i would have had my learing experience concerning a stalemate line and noone would have felt cheated out of their points. Which was in no way my intention. It is a game and it is for fun, or is supposed to be.

If the mods feel like it they can set the game to draw and distribute the points accordingly or cancel it at all. I really dont care about that and never did.

First of all, as stated before, the game was small (50 pt buy in) and the outcome insignificant, and I have been satisfied by finding a means to avert the same problem in the future (one of my goals with the thread) by emailing the moderators.

I would like to clerify my position. As soon as russia and I (austria) began to work together, my focus was on the stalemate line with france. I kept a very close eye on how he could break it, and made sure that as he pressed further east, I was there first. Although i didnt have the crucial army in sevastopol (completing the tactical stalemate line) until near the end of the game, I was watching when france could exploit this last crack, and made sure to beat him to the edge of the stalemate.

Effectively, I felt that quite a few of the last years I had reached a stalemate, and in the end I had reached a true tactical stalemate. If france truly did not see this, then it is fine for him to physically check (although i would think it would be quicker and easier to consider the outcome instead of wait an hour to live it - my moves were constant, it would be easy to determine if they could be broken)

However, my one hesitation in accepting france's statement of ignorance of the stalemate is why he kept attacking with his units (namely the fleets) where their was no progress for what i guess to be 10 years (i dont remember exactly how long). The fact is that after 5 it should have been extremely clear that we had a stalemate in the south, and while he may want to continue the fight in the north, continuing attacking in the south shows that he was trying to exploit a misorder. Here at least he should have ordered support holds to be in the spirit of the game, as any variation of our moves would clearly be a misorder and should not be taken advantage of.

Party, you're full of it, and you know it. You keep at it waiting for the mess up/CD so you could win. Take the fucking points, I don't care, but don't patronize us by acting like you were doing anything but.

^ tl;dr France couldn't have one without a misorder. Russia misordered after years of stalemate, so France won.

Austria's miso rider is the only reason you won and you know like everyone else on this site that you have no right to use that en route to winning if there was previously a stalemate line. MM said it perfectly.

Miso rider is misorder on an iPad. K...