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

[nik592]

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.

Yes, I get that a draft is a single action that then moves on, whereas trades can be reinitiated. But it is still correct that when a trade has been opened, the clock should run for the players who are answering that proposal. That it can be abused isn't in question - but people have mentioned some kind of auto-responding to trades that should stop that. Not being a player of CATAN on here, I can't explain specifics, but many other posters have said it's possible to circumvent the abuse if that's what your opponent is doing (and then red thumb them going forward, although that won't save you in tournaments).

I'm a bit confused. You're explaining to me how they can abuse the system, yet you aren't sure if there's a way to auto-reject trades? Do you play CATAN on BGA? I don't know details, am just going off comments by other posters, but I'm confused why you're explaining things to me on one hand as though I don't understand (I was pointing out that in both the case of a draft or a trade, every player needs to respond and their clock ticks independently until they do), but also asking questions?

And you're explaining that a player can waste time by proposing nonsense trades, and suggesting the solution to that should be that the trader is forced to take the time hit for how long another player takes to respond? Doesn't that just open the abuse up the other way? As far as I'm aware, the way it currently is, the responding player does have options.

[tbhp]

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.

That sounds like an inherent issue with the game or the implementation of it. If a player is losing but the game makes it possible for them to delay their loss forever, what else are they supposed to do? They aren't going to make a move that they know will lead to their loss, that would be self sabotage and you could even argue would be poor sportsmanship, because players are supposed to make moves that benefit them. That seems like a glaring design flaw.

[tbhp]

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.

How does it work when playing the game in real life? What is the mechanism that ensures a player can't stall the game forever? Mimicking that in the implementation seems like it would be the way to go.

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?

No, because then the players evaluating trades can make the active player unfairly lose time.

[mrdoctor]

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.

How does it work when playing the game in real life? What is the mechanism that ensures a player can't stall the game forever? Mimicking that in the implementation seems like it would be the way to go.

In real-life people just say "I'm not trading at all this round".

On BGA, there is already a setting to auto--reject trades - and you can amend it each turn or for the whole game. All OP has to do is toggle that switch, and encourage other players to toggle it too, and the issue completely vanishes.

[tbhp]

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.

How does it work when playing the game in real life? What is the mechanism that ensures a player can't stall the game forever? Mimicking that in the implementation seems like it would be the way to go.

In real-life people just say "I'm not trading at all this round".

On BGA, there is already a setting to auto--reject trades - and you can amend it each turn or for the whole game. All OP has to do is toggle that switch, and encourage other players to toggle it too, and the issue completely vanishes.

Then there's no issue, people just don't know how things work in the implementation.

Although supposedly you would want to keep the trades open by default, so you would have to manually change that every time someone appears to be trying to exploit the system like that. This could cause some time delays, which is an issue but not as serious as what OP made it seem to be.