Board Game Arena

In this tournament table:

https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=843393048

At the moment the skip happened, I had 72 VP, while the other players had 57 / 53 / 51 VP.

Only one heat step was needed to end the game in Generation 8, and either of the last two players could have done it.

However, the player on 51 VP skipped the turn of the player on 53 VP, even though there were still 14 days left before the tournament setting would automatically force the game to end.

It's obvious that he simply refused to accept finishing in 4th place. But this is extremely unfair to me, because the game was essentially over and could have ended normally.

I recommend you immediately remove the player name and link to their profile as it is against the rules to do this.

To the OP:

This is a well-known problem with multiplayer games. If you choose to play multi-player, this is a risk you take. Any player is allowed to skip any other player who is out of time.

What you did, however, is not allowed, so as xspuipuke suggested, you should remove any references to the player who did this. I won't report you, but someone else might.

That is unfortunate and understandably frustrating, but when you're playing games set to "Participants can kick out of time players", that's the rules. When anyone times out, anyone else is allowed to end the match with a tied victory for the other players.

You can avoid tournaments with "Participants can kick out of time players" and only join ones set to "Out of time players are never kicked". If the total tournament round time runs out on such a game, the players are instead ranked ordered by their remaining clock, so the one who has spent the least time wins, and there won't be a tie.

ErikLevin wrote: ↑12 May 2026, 23:38 That is unfortunate and understandably frustrating, but when you're playing games set to "Participants can kick out of time players", that's the rules. When anyone times out, anyone else is allowed to end the match with a tied victory for the other players.

You can avoid tournaments with "Participants can kick out of time players" and only join ones set to "Out of time players are never kicked". If the total tournament round time runs out on such a game, the players are instead ranked ordered by their remaining clock, so the one who has spent the least time wins, and there won't be a tie.

Thank you for understanding but I know how the current rules work.

Of course the rules currently permit it, but that does not mean the system is optimal or should remain unchanged forever. Community rules and tournament settings should be continuously refined when loopholes or unfair outcomes become apparent.

That is exactly why I am raising this discussion here.

And how do you propose to fix this? Regardless of what you do, there will always be unfair scenarios. Even the alternative, players losing on clock time, is not fair. The only way is to stay away from settings that you don't like.

And, why is this in the Terraforming Mars forum? This is a site-wide issue that has nothing to do with Terraforming Mars specifically.

FrankJones wrote: ↑13 May 2026, 09:55 And, why is this in the Terraforming Mars forum? This is a site-wide issue that has nothing to do with Terraforming Mars specifically.

At the end of Generation 8, before the final actions of the last two players, both players were at 50 VP and each had more than 14 MC available. Both clearly feared that spending 14 MC to raise the temperature and end the game would lock themselves into 4th place, so neither chose to do it. Instead, they took other actions to increase their scores to 53 and 51 VP respectively, which gave the 51 VP player even more incentive to skip the 53 VP player afterward.

Technically, by that point in Generation 8, the 53 VP player had already run out of clock time. However, the 51 VP player deliberately waited to observe his actions first, then realized that skipping the turn was the only way to avoid finishing in 4th place.

This demonstrates that the mechanics of Terraforming Mars make the game particularly vulnerable to this kind of behavior.

xspuipuke wrote: ↑12 May 2026, 17:47 I recommend you immediately remove the player name and link to their profile as it is against the rules to do this.

For example, in a Swiss tournament with 28 days allocated per round, it makes little sense to allow players to skip opponents when there is still ample time remaining. In our case, the table had only lasted 14 days, so even after skipping a player’s turn, we still had to wait for the other tables to finish anyway.

The player with 51 VP claimed it was entirely the 53 VP player’s fault for playing too slowly. However, our table gained no practical benefit from the skip. We still had a very high chance of reaching a fair result naturally. Even in the worst-case scenario — if the game still could not be finished within the remaining 14 days (I‘ll make sure to trigger the end with such big advantages) — the slowest players would still be punished by the system through the remaining-clock ranking rules. That outcome would still be fairer than what actually happened.

Since the most likely outcome would have been a fair and decisive finish, I would strongly recommend disabling the ability to skip opponents’ turns in turn-based Swiss, round-robin, or multiple-elimination tournaments.

You're basically proposing the tournament creator choose the “Out of time players are never kicked” option instead of "Participants can kick out of time players", which has nothing to do with fixing the latter.