Board Game Arena

RandomUN wrote: ↑28 September 2026, 14:09 It's really quite peaceful.

There is no English word for the peace felt when you're looking through a thread and on a page over half the posts are marked as hidden.

Cile wrote: ↑28 September 2026, 16:07

RandomUN wrote: ↑28 September 2026, 14:09 It's really quite peaceful.

There is no English word for the peace felt when you're looking through a thread and on a page over half the posts are marked as hidden.

I don't understand how people resist the temptation to look them up. I could never do it. I guess I'm just too curious a person (then again, I've never seen the point of blocking anyone in the first place).

tbhp wrote: ↑28 September 2026, 12:04 It seems more like to me they wanted to see if they could win the game, then upon realizing they had lost, they decided to grab the win. It seems absurd to assume someone who expels on the last turn had their opponent's interests in mind.

tbhp wrote: ↑28 September 2026, 12:04 Well, yeah, because if it had happened in the middle of the game, while the outcome was still uncertain, the above motivation wouldn't have been as clear cut. It would have been a Schrodinger's Cat situation where maybe they got fed up, maybe they decided to grab a win.

When it happens on the last turn however, it's either they wanted to grab the win, or it's a big coincidence that they got fed up exactly at that point, so the former explanation becomes the much more likely one.

tbhp wrote: ↑28 September 2026, 12:04 Given the way in which things happened, what makes you think the opponent would have agreed to finish the game?

Because the opponent allowed the OP to come back into the black after being heavily in the red the first time. If they just wanted to win/not lose, they could have done it there. Instead, they allowed them to come back. Why? It could be because they wanted to finish the game by completing all the turns and give the OP a mulligan. Or they could have been maliciously waiting in wait to hopefully get them on the final turn, like they did when the OP went way over time the second time.

Mr. tbhp, I'd like to ask you: how long is a reasonable amount of time to allow some to finish their turn? 2 hours? 4? 24? Indefinitely? Because I think it unreasonable to expect a player to sit there and wait until their opponent finally gets off their butt God-knows-when to finish their turn. Since you don't believe those who concede don't have a good excuse when they mention time restraints, I believe you wouldn't allow that same argument in this situation, would you? I mean, what could be happening in life for someone to go almost 2 and a half days over time to not do their turn, not once, but twice.

Ascribing ill intent because of what turn it happened is unreasonable in this situation. We don't have their message logs, so we don't know if they communicated between each other. Regardless, it would have behooved the OP to have communicated some kind of major thing going on to go over time so long.

tbhp wrote: ↑28 September 2026, 12:04 When it happens on the last turn however, it's either they wanted to grab the win, or it's a big coincidence that they got fed up exactly at that point, so the former explanation becomes the much more likely one.

You have not demonstrated how this is more likely whatsoever. Your hypothesis has just as much validity as the others here have by saying the opponent was done with the over time.

Archisian wrote: ↑29 September 2026, 01:24 You have not demonstrated how this is more likely whatsoever. Your hypothesis has just as much validity as the others here have by saying the opponent was done with the over time.

That's not how probabilities work.

Archisian wrote: ↑29 September 2026, 00:52 Ascribing ill intent because of what turn it happened is unreasonable in this situation.

Oh, then I wonder at what point does it start sounding reasonable to you. If someone plays 100 moves against an opponent who is out of time, then at the very last move, which also happens to correspond to the move where it becomes guaranteed they won't win, they decide to kick out, is the probability now enough for you? Or do you need to be literally 100% sure before you start suspecting that the expulsion may have had something to do with the fact they were losing?

Closing our eyes to the obvious is not gonna help make things better on this site. Not that it really matters since many people here seem to think expelling is okay even when it's to avoid a loss. But I find it funny that some people won't even acknowledge that this is what the motivation is a lot of the time.

tbhp wrote: ↑29 September 2026, 01:34 That's not how probabilities work.

The definite conclusion you drew based on a probability is the problem. It's fallacious. Choosing one because of... reasons... is not a sound argument to be convincing to anyone. We have the same evidence, but are drawing different conclusions. If we want to apply Occam's Razor, which is what you say you are doing, then the malicious intent conclusion would have to be the more unreasonable one based on this standard with the evidence provided. Why is that? Because we would then have to apply malicious intent into every single similar scenario where something like this occurs. Are people just that bad? Maybe. But if we operate in life that applying that sort of framework, it just makes interacting with people worse.

tbhp wrote: ↑29 September 2026, 01:34 Oh, then I wonder at what point does it start sounding reasonable to you. If someone plays 100 moves against an opponent who is out of time, then at the very last move, which also happens to correspond to the move where it becomes guaranteed they won't win, they decide to kick out, is the probability now enough for you? Or do you need to be literally 100% sure before you start suspecting that the expulsion may have had something to do with the fact they were losing?

Closing our eyes to the obvious is not gonna help make things better on this website. Not that it really matters though since many here seem to think expelling is okay even when it's to avoid a win. But I find it funny that some people won't even acknowledge that this is what the motivation is a lot of the time.

No, the probability does not increase based on which turn it is when one of the players is significantly over time. It could be Turn 1 or Turn 200. The turn number does not then mean the likelihood of a malicious action increases. This is something that needs evidence to be demonstrated, which I'd be happy to read if you provide it. But if all you got is vibes, sorry, but that's not good enough.

Archisian wrote: ↑29 September 2026, 01:59 Because we would then have to apply malicious intent into every single similar scenario where something like this occurs. Are people just that bad? Maybe. But if we operate in life that applying that sort of framework, it just makes interacting with people worse.

My reasoning has nothing to do with assuming malicious intent, just looking logically at what is most likely.

Archisian wrote: ↑29 September 2026, 01:59 No, the probability does not increase based on which turn it is when one of the players is significantly over time. It could be Turn 1 or Turn 200. The turn number does not then mean the likelihood of a malicious action increases. This is something that needs evidence to be demonstrated, which I'd be happy to read if you provide it. But if all you got is vibes, sorry, but that's not good enough.

It is pretty simple math. If you think of the probabilities tree that leads to the outcomes we can have, the side that starts with "player got fed up" has many ramifications that account for each of the turns they may decide to give up, with only one branch corresponding to the last turn. On the other side, "player decided to grab a win", the ramifications are not so numerous against the last turn, because a player is more likely to make this decision at a turn where they realized they lost, or at the turn where it's their very last chance to expel the player, so as a result the probabilities on this side of the tree are not uniformly distributed across all turns.

So, if the expulsion happened in the last turn, there are more chances that the path that led us there started with the player deciding to grab a win, versus them being fed up.

tbhp wrote: ↑29 September 2026, 02:43 My reasoning has nothing to do with assuming malicious intent, just looking logically at what is most likely.

You have not shown how this is "logically" most likely. This is the structure of your argument.

1. Two players are playing a game. One player went over the time allowed.
2. The opponent expelled them on the last turn.
3. Therefore, the opponent expelled them because they wanted to prevent a loss since they were in a losing position.

This argument is flawed because you are appealing to probability. You believe that is more probable that it is the case, and thus draw a certain conclusion. However, not only have you not demonstrated that it is more probable, but you also cannot prove that this is indeed what happened. It is just your opinion. Fair enough. But your reasoning isn't sound and you don't have any evidence that could be convincing in your case.

tbhp wrote: ↑29 September 2026, 02:43 It is pretty simple math. If you think of the probabilities tree that leads to the outcomes we can have, the side that starts with "player got fed up" has many ramifications that account for each of the turns they may decide to give up, with only one branch corresponding to the last turn. On the other side, "player decided to grab a win", the ramifications are not so numerous against the last turn, because a player is more likely to make this decision at a turn where they realized they lost, or at the turn where it's their very last chance to expel the player, so as a result the probabilities on this side of the tree are not uniformly distributed across all turns.

So, if the expulsion happened in the last turn, there are more chances that the path that led us there started with the player deciding to grab a win, versus them being fed up.

I could argue that the OP planned from the start to have a game with someone and go over time so they could get expelled on the last turn so they could come to the forums and make a complaint and smear their opponent. My hypothesis has just as much evidence as yours does. Mine is just as ridiculous because I have no evidence to show that it was even probable that this happened, even though it was entirely possible. They are both on equal footing in terms of probability, unless you have the data to back up your claim, as you seem to think you do. Making a "probability tree" isn't data.

Archisian wrote: ↑29 September 2026, 03:35 You have not shown how this is "logically" most likely. This is the structure of your argument.

1. Two players are playing a game. One player went over the time allowed.
2. The opponent expelled them on the last turn.
3. Therefore, the opponent expelled them because they wanted to prevent a loss since they were in a losing position.

This argument is flawed because you are appealing to probability. You believe that is more probable that it is the case, and thus draw a certain conclusion. However, not only have you not demonstrated that it is more probable, but you also cannot prove that this is indeed what happened. It is just your opinion. Fair enough. But your reasoning isn't sound and you don't have any evidence that could be convincing in your case.

That's not the structure of my argument. You're not even addressing what I tried to explain to you.

You could have argued that my argument was simplified, as it doesn't account for certain things, like what is the actual probability split at the top of the tree, or the fact that the first turn where the opponent goes out of time is a special turn too, or the possibility that the expelling player decided to act on the last turn because they wanted to punish their opponent after enjoying the game.

But instead of bringing up those points that make the situation a bit less clear cut, you decided to just, I don't know, not even try to understand what we are talking about. As if the world is just a big "either it happens or it doesn't" and there is no use analyzing the probabilities of anything.

Archisian wrote: ↑29 September 2026, 03:35 This is the structure of your argument.

1. Two players are playing a game. One player went over the time allowed.
2. The opponent expelled them on the last turn.
3. Therefore, the opponent expelled them because they wanted to prevent a loss since they were in a losing position.

I can help, here is the structure of every one of their arguments:

1. A player did something that tbhp personally does not like (in this case ended a game prematurely)
2. Therefore that player is bad and wrong
3. Ad hoc reasoning to justify point 2

It doesn't matter if you disprove 3, because point 2 stands: they are bad a wrong because they disagree with tbhp's preferences. Point 3 can be endlessly replaced with a new ad hoc justification because the conclusion was not arrived at rationally. It was arrived at emotionally and an attempt to explain it rationally comes after.