Cheap Move

[zeugaaw]

In a 3 player game that was coming to an end with maybe 2 generations left to play, I was in second place and my clock went into negative on my turn. The player in third kicked me from the game and then quit themself, hurting my rep, costing me second place points, and saving him from losing points.

Anyone know how I can report this? This specific instance is not an option in "report a player."

[Sonid]

Sorry, that's just BGA If you run out of time on your clock either of the other players can vote to remove you from the game. If they vote to remove you, you have 20 seconds to make a move or they can click the button again to drop you out of the game. If you want to be able to play without a time crunch, choose Turn based play instead of Real time when searching for a game.

[Suoivax]

In a 3 player game that was coming to an end with maybe 2 generations left to play, I was in second place and my clock went into negative on my turn. The player in third kicked me from the game and then quit themself, hurting my rep, costing me second place points, and saving him from losing points.

Anyone know how I can report this? This specific instance is not an option in "report a player."

You agreed to certain time parameters when you play. You lose if you fail to uphold that agreement.

[charliec247]

Not a cheap move. As others have said, you have a responsibility to play in a timely manner in a timed game and this rule is enforced in order to maintain smooth game flow for everyone and avoid stalling. When you were booted, the score is final in that everyone else wins 1-1-0 and there was nothing left for them to play for, so no need to stay and waste time.

[schulni]

I've had that happen to me, and it's certainly frustrating. Unfortunately I don't see a great solution for BGA. There are enough people on the site that some people are going to behave like this, and it's too subjective to really have a great system to police. Your best bet is probably to just not play with that player again, and maybe do more turn-based games.

[Jellby]

I was in second place and my clock went into negative on my turn [...] costing me second place points

What exactly do you want to report? You made a wrong "move" and you lost.

If you're in a car race and your car breaks down in the last lap when you're running second, do you report those who overtake you and claim "your" points?

[schulni]

I'm surprised people aren't being more sympathetic to OP. Sure, technically it's within the rules of the site, but gleefully pouncing on someone's clock expiration to secure a cheap "win" is hardly behavior I think anyone, including BGA, should encourage. Now I also don't think there's a way for BGA to prevent this behavior because the time clock needs to exist to limit actual bad behavior. Letting your clock expire for a tiny bit is hardly poor sportsmanship or bad behavior, and no one's time is so valuable that they can't wait a minute for someone to take their turn once.

(note: I am not condoning people repeatedly exceeding their clock time or leaving for ten minutes or anything like that)

[Jellby]

Unfairly using more time than you are allowed to secure a win is not very nice behaviour either.

[schulni]

I mean, I guess, but OP is talking about having his clock go into the negative once. You rightly get a karma ding for that but it's hardly manipulating the game unfairly. Taking a little extra time once has close to zero bearing on winning or losing. There are any number of reasons that could happen, many unrelated to actually thinking about the game (someone knocks at your door, you get a phone call, your game freezes, your internet crashes etc.). Acting like running over your clock once is cheating is too dramatic.

[Jellby]

I mean, I guess, but OP is talking about having his clock go into the negative once. You rightly get a karma ding for that but it's hardly manipulating the game unfairly. Taking a little extra time once has close to zero bearing on winning or losing.

You don't get a karma penalty for going overtime. You get it if you are expelled, but not otherwise.

At which point is the "a little extra time" too much? Is 30 seconds too much and you're allowed to expel? Is 1 minute too much? Is 5 minutes too much? The obvious answer is that running your time down to 0 is fine, and one second more is too much. That's the only hard line available and the only one we can use.

There are any number of reasons that could happen, many unrelated to actually thinking about the game (someone knocks at your door, you get a phone call, your game freezes, your internet crashes etc.).

There are any number of reasons to expel someone with negative time that do not mean you're trying to get a "cheap win". You joined a game expecting it to last some amount of time as advertised, but your opponent is playing too slow, and you have to leave. You tried hard not to run out of time, sometimes choosing suboptimal moves, your opponent took advantage of them and then ran out of time. Don't attribute malicious reasons to someone running out of time, or to someone expelling someone out of time, it's just part of the game.