Players taking over for quitters (esp of long games)

[orebas]

I enjoy both long and short games on BGA. Overall, the community is extremely good natured and positive, especially relative to other gaming experiences on the internet.

However, longer games suffer from a pretty predictable risk, that especially plagues larger player counts: people quitting early. This is worse for quite long games - TI4, gaia project, GWT, etc. It's especially bad for games where it's easy for one player to feel like they are "out of contention" or have little left to do. Some times people just stop responding in a game when they think they have no actions left, but still need to confirm reactions to other players' moves. (This post is motivated by TI4, where I've had multiple games abruptly end after ~1 month or more, when a player loses a crucial planet or battle.)

I am aware that BGA has a "zombie mode" where quitting players are skipped, but in most games this breaks the game entirely, and everyone leaves once they can. The quitter loses some karma and everyone else "wins," but after weeks of buildup and strategizing, nobody actually gets to play out the results. And in some games, you need to see how things play out to understand whether a strategy was strong or weak.

Indeed, in some games it's necessary to see how things to play to decide if a strategy is strong or weak, and explore the game and its strategies.

My suggestion: make a way for people to step in to abandoned games. When someone quits a game, that player vacates the spot and it gets filled by someone from a special pool of volunteers. (I would volunteer for TI4). The game continues as normal. Alternatively, it goes back into the normal player search pool, but players only see it if they pick a special option. And the players in the affected game could invite / chat to get a replacement as well.

Reasonable alternatives:
1) just send gemini flash (or some cheap AI) a JSON dump of game state and the set of legal moves and make it pick one. This approach actually works really well for the digital implementation of *.
2) the players in the game have the option of unanimously nominating a single player (already in the game) to control the quit player's faction.

*Moderator edit: please do not specifically name other online gaming

[Meeplelowda]

I enjoy both long and short games on BGA. Overall, the community is extremely good natured and positive, especially relative to other gaming experiences on the internet.

However, longer games suffer from a pretty predictable risk, that especially plagues larger player counts: people quitting early. This is worse for quite long games - TI4, gaia project, GWT, etc. It's especially bad for games where it's easy for one player to feel like they are "out of contention" or have little left to do. Some times people just stop responding in a game when they think they have no actions left, but still need to confirm reactions to other players' moves. (This post is motivated by TI4, where I've had multiple games abruptly end after ~1 month or more, when a player loses a crucial planet or battle.)

I am aware that BGA has a "zombie mode" where quitting players are skipped, but in most games this breaks the game entirely, and everyone leaves once they can. The quitter loses some karma and everyone else "wins," but after weeks of buildup and strategizing, nobody actually gets to play out the results. And in some games, you need to see how things play out to understand whether a strategy was strong or weak.

Indeed, in some games it's necessary to see how things to play to decide if a strategy is strong or weak, and explore the game and its strategies.

My suggestion: make a way for people to step in to abandoned games. When someone quits a game, that player vacates the spot and it gets filled by someone from a special pool of volunteers. (I would volunteer for TI4). The game continues as normal. Alternatively, it goes back into the normal player search pool, but players only see it if they pick a special option. And the players in the affected game could invite / chat to get a replacement as well.

Reasonable alternatives:
1) just send gemini flash (or some cheap AI) a JSON dump of game state and the set of legal moves and make it pick one. This approach actually works really well for the digital implementation of *.
2) the players in the game have the option of unanimously nominating a single player (already in the game) to control the quit player's faction.

This is an intriguing suggestion. It might be useful for players who want to get a taste of a game without committing to playing from start to finish. Would the substitution player get a karma penalty if they decide to leave? If yes, what's the incentive for someone to intentionally jump into a losing position they'd be stuck in? If no, what's to stop them from joining then leaving after a couple moves, resulting in the same situation as before they joined?

But as always, please read the pinned post at the top of this forum helpfully labeled "read this first" that tells you how to submit requests like this.