Time settings

[Aeneas23]

Question: if I create a game set at five moves a day, and a player does only one move within 24 hours, why does that player not run out of time very quickly? Not that I want to make anyone lose, but it feels like people sign up to games without paying attention to what the pace is supposed to be, but don’t get penalized for it if I wanted to play one move a day, I would select one move a day. ..

[tarongot]

Because it has time reserve, and timer only runs when game waits for that player move. Also "x moves per day" its not good described. Its not actually a move per day. Its how big time reserve is and how fast it's refill itself.
For example on 4 moves per day max reserve is 24h, and every move made refill it by 6 hours. And depends on game, on how fast other players play that can lead even to actual 1 move per day, or per week in extreme cases.

[Meeplelowda]

Question: if I create a game set at five moves a day, and a player does only one move within 24 hours, why does that player not run out of time very quickly? Not that I want to make anyone lose, but it feels like people sign up to games without paying attention to what the pace is supposed to be, but don’t get penalized for it if I wanted to play one move a day, I would select one move a day. ..

There are no game setting at 5 moves per day. You can choose from 0.5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 12, and 24 moves per day. But that's kinda beside the point. Let's take the 4 moves per day setting. This does not mean that each person in the game must make 4 moves per day. It just means each person has a time bank and that time bank increases by a certain amount every time they make a move up to a maximum.

For 4 moves/day, that increase is 6 hours. It each says under the setting (if you use the manual settings on the Play Now page to start games, and why wouldn't you....) "+6h00 per turn (maximum 24h00)." So right there it says they can have up to 24 hours in their time bank and will never run out of time as long as they make moves at least as fast as once every 6 hours on average. But you can occasionally have a move where you take 24 hours to make it.

Now let's say a person took a full 24 hours and ran their clock almost to 0. They would still get +6h added back. If they continued to take the entire 6h per move and all of their opponents instantaneously made all their moves, guess what? That would be 4 moves per day for that one player. That's the convoluted way BGA arrived at calling it 4 moves per day. But, of course, their opponents aren't all going to instantaneously make their moves, so in reality no one will be forced to make 4 moves in a 24 hour period per even if they run their clock down to zero.

tl;dr: 4 moves/day doesn't mean every player must move 4 times per day and BGA chose a silly way to describe a shorthand for "+6h00 per turn (maximum 24h00)."

[Aeneas23]

Ah, ok, thanks guys.
I’ll try 8 moves a day next time, lol.

[Meeplelowda]

Ah, ok, thanks guys.
I’ll try 8 moves a day next time, lol.

At 8 moves per day you get 1.5h added to your clock and a maximum of only 12 hours. But be aware that at 8 moves per day or faster, you have to set a 12-hour window called playing hours and the clock only runs during those times. This lets you set a window in which you can sleep and not worry about your clock. But you can still make moves outside those hours. You just aren't forced to.

So although it seems like 8 moves per day would have to be twice as fast as 4 moves per day, it won't necessarily be. The moves just tend to be more concentrated in that 12-hour window.

[tarongot]

Ah, ok, thanks guys.
I’ll try 8 moves a day next time, lol.

That's even worse . People don't get it so they are afraid of everything higher then 1 move per day. And 8 moves and more, also adds 12 hours range. So you basicly exclude people from opposite time zone to play on that table.
For me TB is one of worst way to play. And Its terrible that most of games can be played only that way .

[Cos-]

Now let's say a person took a full 24 hours and ran their clock almost to 0. They would still get +6h added back. If they continued to take the entire 6h per move and all of their opponents instantaneously made all their moves, guess what? That would be 4 moves per day for that one player. That's the convoluted way BGA arrived at calling it 4 moves per day. But, of course, their opponents aren't all going to instantaneously make their moves, so in reality no one will be forced to make 4 moves in a 24 hour period per even if they run their clock down to zero.

I think you misinterpreted what "4 moves per day" is meant to convey. If it actually was supposed to mean each player makes 4 moves per day on average, then the very same setting "4 moves per day" would have to be a MUCH faster-paced game with 4 players than with 2 players. That wouldn't make any sense. Instead, it means what makes sense: There need to be about 4 moves per day in this game, on average. If it's a 4 player game, that means about 1 move per player per day is enough to keep people from running out of time, but if it's 2 player at the same pace, it'll work out to about 2 moves per player per day.

This way, each setting has a consistent max time and +time per move, regardless of how many players are in the game, so once you know what a setting is and how it works for you, you can use it and not worry that it'll give you less time if there are more players, so that each player has to get more moves in each day despite having to wait for more other players to move.

What it's telling you is the pace of the game - how quickly the game progresses. The more players there are, the smaller a percentage of that progression rate is up to you.

[Meeplelowda]

I think you misinterpreted what "4 moves per day" is meant to convey. If it actually was supposed to mean each player makes 4 moves per day on average, then the very same setting "4 moves per day" would have to be a MUCH faster-paced game with 4 players than with 2 players.

Read above. I never said I thought it means each player makes 4 moves per day. In fact I said the opposite:

This does not mean that each person in the game must make 4 moves per day.

It's what people who aren't used to it commonly think it means, so I correct that misperception.

[Cos-]

I think you misinterpreted what "4 moves per day" is meant to convey. If it actually was supposed to mean each player makes 4 moves per day on average, then the very same setting "4 moves per day" would have to be a MUCH faster-paced game with 4 players than with 2 players.

Read above. I never said I thought it means each player makes 4 moves per day. In fact I said the opposite:

I did read above. You wrote "They would still get +6h added back. If they continued to take the entire 6h per move and all of their opponents instantaneously made all their moves, guess what? That would be 4 moves per day for that one player. That's the convoluted way BGA arrived at calling it 4 moves per day." - in other words, you wrote that BGA's "4 moves per day" is supposed to mean that one player does 4 moves per day, and since that's not actually what ends up happening, it's convoluted; you implied BGA intended to convey that "moves per day" is for each individual player, but they implemented it wrongly.

If you actually mean to communicate what I did in my comment, I suggest you rethink how you communicate that, because if you do it in the way you wrote above, I doubt anyone will understand.

[Meeplelowda]

I think you misinterpreted what "4 moves per day" is meant to convey. If it actually was supposed to mean each player makes 4 moves per day on average, then the very same setting "4 moves per day" would have to be a MUCH faster-paced game with 4 players than with 2 players.

Read above. I never said I thought it means each player makes 4 moves per day. In fact I said the opposite:

I did read above. You wrote "They would still get +6h added back. If they continued to take the entire 6h per move and all of their opponents instantaneously made all their moves, guess what? That would be 4 moves per day for that one player. That's the convoluted way BGA arrived at calling it 4 moves per day." - in other words, you wrote that BGA's "4 moves per day" is supposed to mean that one player does 4 moves per day, and since that's not actually what ends up happening, it's convoluted; you implied BGA intended to convey that "moves per day" is for each individual player, but they implemented it wrongly.

If you actually mean to communicate what I did in my comment, I suggest you rethink how you communicate that, because if you do it in the way you wrote above, I doubt anyone will understand.

I said it would hypothetically be 4 moves per day if someone's time ran down to zero and they were only using their increment and used it all every time and all their opponents moved immediately every time. But that is a crazy implausible scenario, so I followed up by saying "But, of course, their opponents aren't all going to instantaneously make their moves, so in reality no one will be forced to make 4 moves in a 24 hour period." But in that scenario (not just for 4 moves per day, but all the other settings) if someone is only operating with the time available in their increment time the "X moves per day" designation will EXACTLY match how many moves they have to make to avoid running out of time.