How to you handle a player that won't play correctly and tries to disrupt the game

[swartzne]

I was playing CATAN in a tournament and one of the players started proposing ridiculous trades and repeating those trades to try to get the other players to run out of time. I finally had to quit the game because we could not get them to abandon the game and it would take several hours to complete a game. How do we fix this situation?

BGA was no help because they said that the player did not violate any rules! So I had to eat the negative Karma points.

Also is there a way I can refuse to play with this person again? Since it was a tournament I cannot identify them in advance.

[Meeplelowda]

Also is there a way I can refuse to play with this person again? Since it was a tournament I cannot identify them in advance.

Not only can you not ID them in advance, but red thumbs do not work for tournaments.

Unfortunately, every few months there is some person who finds a way to ruin a particular game on BGA. This may be the same person people have been complaining about who was causing Catan games go for 2 hours.

A few years ago there was someone who would join 100s of tournaments, and then not play in them. They had to devise an entirely new procedure for checking karma right before a tournament starts to deal with them.

Then there's the nut who kept accusing a BGA admin of having an alt account that was cheating at Puerto Rico. That person got banned at least a half a dozen times and kept making new accounts. I haven't heard from them in a while, so maybe BGA finally figured out a way to enforce a permaban.

The point is that out of 100s of thousands of people, you are going to have some bad eggs, and there sometimes aren't good tools for dealing with them.

[Shivaware]

I think you've mixed up tournaments with arena games. It doesn't look like you've ever joined any tournaments at BGA. I do see an arena game in your history with a known troublemaker. Red thumbs will prevent you from ever playing arena games with them, but not tournament games as you mentioned.

It looks like you already know how to turn off the trade notifications in Catan. I think if you do that every time it's that player's turn, they will have to play or they will run out of time and you can skip them.

[tbhp]

Joining a real time game doesn’t mean you are signing up for a short game. Given the situation you describe, it looks like it could go on for hours without anyone going out of time. In that case, you have to be prepared for this possibility when you join those types of games.

While you may not like someone’s play style, you don’t really have room to complain if in the end it’s you who decided to pull the trigger and terminate the game. The site is right about that. If you wanted to counter this player, you should have done it in an ethical way instead of becoming the bad guy.

[mrdoctor]

1. This game? https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=870810871 - this is not a tournament game. It's an arena game.
2. You quit 34 minutes into a game, when the scores were 5-4-2. That's not too abnormal a time to reach that point in a game of Catan.
3. It was a turn-based game. 3 moves a day. It wasn't even a real-time game. You had 8 hours per turn to play a move.
4. You can turn off trade notifications if you don't wish to trade. If you think a player is abusing the trade option to run people's time down, then encourage other players in the game chat to also turn off their trade notifications if they know they don't wish to trade. Then it will be the trading player's turn again as soon as they press the trade request button if everyone auto-rejects the trade.

[Shivaware]

1. This game? https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=870810871 - this is not a tournament game. It's an arena game.
2. You quit 34 minutes into a game, when the scores were 5-4-2. That's not too abnormal a time to reach that point in a game of Catan.
3. It was a turn-based game. 3 moves a day. It wasn't even a real-time game. You had 8 hours per turn to play a move.
4. You can turn off trade notifications if you don't wish to trade. If you think a player is abusing the trade option to run people's time down, then encourage other players in the game chat to also turn off their trade notifications if they know they don't wish to trade. Then it will be the trading player's turn again as soon as they press the trade request button if everyone auto-rejects the trade.

From the log:
Move 219 : 9:18:13 PM
This real-time table has been switched to turn-based.

[mrdoctor]

1. This game? https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=870810871 - this is not a tournament game. It's an arena game.
2. You quit 34 minutes into a game, when the scores were 5-4-2. That's not too abnormal a time to reach that point in a game of Catan.
3. It was a turn-based game. 3 moves a day. It wasn't even a real-time game. You had 8 hours per turn to play a move.
4. You can turn off trade notifications if you don't wish to trade. If you think a player is abusing the trade option to run people's time down, then encourage other players in the game chat to also turn off their trade notifications if they know they don't wish to trade. Then it will be the trading player's turn again as soon as they press the trade request button if everyone auto-rejects the trade.

From the log:
Move 219 : 9:18:13 PM
This real-time table has been switched to turn-based.

Fair enough - I didn't go through the game log with a fine toothcomb - I just looked at the game settings and assumed that they hadn't been changed mid-game.

[FSKFSK]

Is there an "embargo" option in Catan? I.e., an option to auto-reject all trades proposed by a player? That would prevent them from wasting time.

It also sounds like there's an issue with the way the clock works in Catan when trades are proposed. Trading thinking time should be deducted from the active player's clock, not the people evaluating the trade?

[nik592]

Is there an "embargo" option in Catan? I.e., an option to auto-reject all trades proposed by a player? That would prevent them from wasting time.

It also sounds like there's an issue with the way the clock works in Catan when trades are proposed. Trading thinking time should be deducted from the active player's clock, not the people evaluating the trade?

I don't really play CATAN on here, so could be wrong, but this is a pretty common complaint. From what others have said in response to those, there does appear to be some kind of setting where you can automatically reject trades - I'm assuming it would have to be on the basis of which player offered or the materials though, so might require some tweaking. But I believe it's possible.

As to who waits, well, when Player A proposes a trade to the other two player's at the table, it's now B and C's turn to decide if they will trade or refuse. Hence thinking time once the trade is proposed moves to the other parties. This is standard in other games that involve offers and acceptance, or even similar to what you see in drafting games, where all player's clocks tick until they have selected for the current draft round. One player might respond almost instantly, another might take hours (in a TB game). It wouldn't be fair to penalise the player making the trade for how long it takes the other player to get back to their turn.

[FSKFSK]

In a drafting game, you have to make a choice and the game moves forward.

In Catan, if you propose a trade and it's rejected, you can propose another new trade. Using BGA's implementation, you can stall the game indefinitely by making new trade proposals. You can also force your opponents to waste time off their clock answering your trade proposal.