Board Game Arena

I just completed a Terraforming Mars 3P tournament game in which I finished 1st with 140 VP versus 2nd place's 78 VP. Yet I didn't qualify for the next round because, apparently, in a game with a leave/kick, the oldest account qualifies no matter what - even though I had the most VP and most time left on the clock.

What kind of system is that? Totally arbitrary and demotivating. Why would anyone want to play a 3+ player tournament on here under those conditions?

And yes, I kicked the other player because he had -15 hours and the game would not be resolved normally unless he was removed. In hindsight, I should have let him stay on and taken the win with most time left on the clock.

Once a player is kicked from a game, the result is void - your points don't matter. And yes, if there is multiple elimination from a tournament game and that game has been voided, there has to be some way to determine the other person who is eliminated (the kicked player is also eliminated), which someone decided should be the age of the account. Many people don't like it (including me). But at the same time, I'm yet to hear a suggestion for another way to determine who else should be eliminated that's fair to everyone (likely there isn't a way).

Also, your opponent that you kicked seems to have been playing regularly, possibly they just drew the short straw in terms of their play order, and it probably went to their turn during their sleep period more than you two others. In this case, I absolutely would have played out the game, as there would have been a chance of it completing in time, depending on when your opponent was able to take their next turns. And as you say, the decision to award rankings for an expired game based on time remaining (which many also don't think is fair, totally arbitrary and demotivating) would have favoured you.

Lettuce03 wrote: ↑09 November 2025, 22:58 I just completed a Terraforming Mars 3P tournament game in which I finished 1st with 140 VP versus 2nd place's 78 VP. Yet I didn't qualify for the next round because, apparently, in a game with a leave/kick, the oldest account qualifies no matter what - even though I had the most VP and most time left on the clock.

What kind of system is that? Totally arbitrary and demotivating. Why would anyone want to play a 3+ player tournament on here under those conditions?

And yes, I kicked the other player because he had -15 hours and the game would not be resolved normally unless he was removed. In hindsight, I should have let him stay on and taken the win with most time left on the clock.

Fortunately, there is now a setting for tournaments to prevent skipping players that are out of time. You can choose to only join those tournaments in the future.

No it doesn't work as the game has a max duration. If the game isn't ended by then, the same will happen.

As i told in this tournament chat, the only way i found was to qualify all players but one. In this case the looser will always be the leaver and the other players will qualify for next round.

nik592 wrote: ↑09 November 2025, 23:55 Once a player is kicked from a game, the result is void - your points don't matter. And yes, if there is multiple elimination from a tournament game and that game has been voided, there has to be some way to determine the other person who is eliminated (the kicked player is also eliminated), which someone decided should be the age of the account. Many people don't like it (including me). But at the same time, I'm yet to hear a suggestion for another way to determine who else should be eliminated that's fair to everyone (likely there isn't a way).

Also, your opponent that you kicked seems to have been playing regularly, possibly they just drew the short straw in terms of their play order, and it probably went to their turn during their sleep period more than you two others. In this case, I absolutely would have played out the game, as there would have been a chance of it completing in time, depending on when your opponent was able to take their next turns. And as you say, the decision to award rankings for an expired game based on time remaining (which many also don't think is fair, totally arbitrary and demotivating) would have favoured you.

I have kicked people twice iirc in 733 games, so I don’t do it lightly. I only did it now to get an opportunity to finish the game normally instead of taking a technical win on time. The game was on day 9/10 before ending, and it’s very unlikely that the kicked player would have committed to play enough turns to end the game on the final day (only 50% progression after 9 days). Also, the kicked player was at the most advantageous time slot, being a European player 2, sandwiched between a European player 1 and US player 3. So he did not draw the short straw in terms of play order.

The game continued and ended normally, so let’s award the qualification to the winner. What’s more, the game doesn’t warn you that if you kick, you can’t qualify for the next round. Finally, if a player should choose to leave, you just lose, which is absurd.

Lettuce03 wrote: ↑10 November 2025, 00:59 The game was on day 9/10 before ending, and it’s very unlikely that the kicked player would have committed to play enough turns to end the game on the final day (only 50% progression after 9 days).

Admittedly, I didn't look closely, just at the graph on the game replay of time. You were all losing time at reasonably similar rates actually. At the end of the game, you were at about 11.5 hours, your other non-timed out opponent at 6.5 hours, and you say your opponent was at -15 hours when you kicked them. It was about 12 hours between the kicking and the game ending. So if you were only at 50% by that point, then based on the speed you had been going at, I don't think you were on track to finish it even if the other player hadn't gone into negative time. But a lot of moves got played in those final 12 hours, I'll agree.

Lettuce03 wrote: ↑10 November 2025, 00:59 Also, the kicked player was at the most advantageous time slot, being a European player 2, sandwiched between a European player 1 and US player 3. So he did not draw the short straw in terms of play order.

How do you know? They were both European, but were they on the same timezone? There is more than 1 European timezone. Even if they were on the same timezone, how do you know what each player's schedule was? Within a given 24 hour period, most people take a large chunk away from their computer. That MAY be overnight, or it may not. But the play time taken shows that the third player was losing larger chunks of their time than you and the other player, hence them being the first to run out. Their moves did indicate they were getting online more than once a day, although possibly not enough to complete the game in time. But then, as I said, based on the time each of you had left, I don't think you would have made it even if the other player had somehow managed to stay out of the red.

Lettuce03 wrote: ↑10 November 2025, 00:59 The game continued and ended normally, so let’s award the qualification to the winner. What’s more, the game doesn’t warn you that if you kick, you can’t qualify for the next round. Finally, if a player should choose to leave, you just lose, which is absurd.

The game didn't continue and end normally - one player passed all of their turns because they were no longer in the game. While you can argue that's a valid playing strategy, that's not normal gameplay. BGA currently made the decision that games that end abnormally are considered void - the booted player loses, all other players tie for the win. Scores don't matter. If you've kicked people before, I would have thought you would have seen that. It doesn't matter if you play on against the dummy AI and win - that's not normal gameplay anymore.

As far as warning you, I doubt there's anything in BGA that would be able to figure out at the time of you kicking that due to the combination of your account ages and the settings of the tournament (multi-player elimination), your decision to kick might lead to you being eliminated. You can figure that out, but I'm guessing the way it's programmed is that the tournament flow is completely separate to the game flow. Game ends for whatever reason - then it moves on to figuring out who gets eliminated from the tournament.

And you're right, if that player had quit on their own, the outcome would have been the same. Unfortunately, that's just bad luck for you. But that's not what happened - you chose to kick without checking the consequences first.

nik592 wrote: ↑09 November 2025, 23:55there has to be some way to determine the other person who is eliminated (the kicked player is also eliminated), which someone decided should be the age of the account

I often wonder, did someone actually make a conscious decision that age of account would be the deciding factor? Or did the coder just not give any thought to this possibility, and the code happened to be written to benefit the player with the smallest player-id number.

Mathew5000 wrote: ↑10 November 2025, 05:59 I often wonder, did someone actually make a conscious decision that age of account would be the deciding factor? Or did the coder just not give any thought to this possibility, and the code happened to be written to benefit the player with the smallest player-id number.

Given how long it's been this way, there's definitely been a decision to not change it, which is almost the same.