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Dealing with player drops and the colonization bug

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unmerged(3571)

unmerged(3571)

Devil incarnate
May 2, 2001
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Ok, I have a question for all you MP players:

In one of our recent ongoing MP games we have had a couple of players who had some stability/connectivity problems and were being dropped frequently (like every 3 years or so).

Before being made aware of the colonization/save bug I had no problem with this, we had made compressing and passing around the save file by ICQ a science and restarts only cost us about 5-10 minutes of play time.

However now that I'm aware of this, I am wondering how to handle this fairly? Personally I am playing a semi-colonial nation (France), so this is hurting me, but some nations like Spain and England are getting hurt much worse. Those nations would like to continue playing for a year after a player drop so that their colonists can complete their missions.

On the other hand, a year with no player control (or even AI control!) for a smallish nation could seriously hammer them, and put them at a serious disadvantage. Personally I have been thinking that the cost to the unplayed nations is much too high, and have been supporting the idea of saving immediately that we are aware of a player drop. However I am well aware that this isn't fair to colonial nations.

What do you all think? How should this best be handled? I am truly at a loss. The cost to the primarily colonial nations has been very high (at a guess, they probably would average 2 or 3 colonists being lost per crash), but losing a year of control could be a death sentance to some countries, especially if they are only getting to play 3 years out of 4.
 
I can certainly see how this becomes a big issue when players drop out every 3 years but if that isn't teh case then waiting for settlers is done quite easily unless u have an idiot in there who wants to attack at that time or so. I find it more of a problem how to play with players crashing every 3 years than the colonisation thing.
 
While their connections aren't normally perfect, this last session was the exception rather than the rule in being so bad.

Still, I don't find it unusual for there to be player drops at least once every 10-20 years.

Do you know what happens to an event that triggers for a nation while there is no player and no AI? That was one of my biggest concerns in going on without them. That, and competition for things like colonies or managing their navies. 8 player games can be pretty competitive things, and sometimes a missed opportunity can be disasterous. At least with the colonization bug the colonist serves as a place holder even if he doesn't succeed.
 
Speaking as the England in the game satan referred to, I can say firsthand that it is extremely frustrating. England's inital income is pretty poor, and in our current game over 3/4 of my budget goes to colonies. You can imigane how frustratinging it is to lose anywhere from 3-6 colonists every 3-5 years.

This is also a problem for Spain (in our game he has very high inflation, caused by a previous spain player) so each of his colonists costs around 150. And France as well, though to a lessar extent.

The overall effect is to drasticly punish colonizing nations.

My personal feeling is that the game should be run after the drop for 9 months to allow colonists to finish. The exception being that if a player is involved in a player vs player war, we would save an quit immieadatly. Also depeinding on how events work when there is no player and no ai, if a historical event that contained muliple paths occured, we would revert to the point when the player left.

In the grand scheme of things, this method is only really necessary when the game is crashing more than once every 10 years or so. If crashes are that rare, the coloinists don't really matter so much. In a case where the game is crashing frequantly, however, I think it is more fair to punish the person who crashed (regardless of the fact that it was not thier fault) than the rest of the players.

For the most part, I beilive a lost 9 months would not be too painful, and I belive the exceptions to the rule prevent it from being catastrophic.
 
While I feel your pain Ackron, we should try to make a decision based on the problem, not the current situation of any of the nations. Really try to forget you are England now, and think about how you would feel if you were the player who is dropping (as you did at least once in our last game).

I'm not saying that you're not right, just try to be objective about what we decide.

Initially I felt that we should stop immediately on a player drop since that is what we have always done. Duma's suggestion seems pretty reasonable though - how about that as a compromise? 6 months (9 months or a year are also reasonable) to let the colonists complete unless the nation is at war. I don't think it is relevent whether it is a player or AI war since the player can still suffer pretty badly against the AI without anybody controlling their armies (not even the AI). A smaller nation like Brandenburg could be completely over-run.
 
I suppose that (quit immeadiatly if they are at war) would be an acceptable comprmise for me, but the time interval should be at least nine months, if we can't finish our colonists, whats the point?

I admit I probably sounded a little biased by my position in game, but I stand by what I said, I belive it is more fair for the person who dropped to sit out a while (even if that person is me), than to punish several of the other players.

also regarding:
Really try to forget you are England now, and think about how you would feel if you were the player who is dropping
Click to expand...

please don't patronize me, I realize you probably didn't mean to, but you sound quite degrading when you do. If you have a problem with what I said, say so, but don't talk down to me.
 
Originally posted by ackron
I suppose that (quit immeadiatly if they are at war) would be an acceptable comprmise for me, but the time interval should be at least nine months, if we can't finish our colonists, whats the point?

I admit I probably sounded a little biased by my position in game, but I stand by what I said, I belive it is more fair for the person who dropped to sit out a while (even if that person is me), than to punish several of the other players.

also regarding:


please don't patronize me, I realize you probably didn't mean to, but you sound quite degrading when you do. If you have a problem with what I said, say so, but don't talk down to me.
Click to expand...

Sorry, I didn't mean that at all. It is difficult to convey things like that in text without them being misinterpreted. I have never meant to talk down to anybody on these forums with the possible exception of Damocles.

Anyway, please accept my humblest of appologies. I guess I was reacting to the context of your post which was referring to your position as England. There is little doubt that England suffers the most from this bug, especially at the current time in our game. I didn't mean to imply that was the only reason for your position.
 
Oh, forgot to say that 9 months is fine by me, or whatever the longest term is for a colonist to arrive.
 
satan, apology accepted, no hard feelings

Also, does anyone know excatly how an event is handled with no player and no ai? My suspision would be that it simply doesn't trigger at all until a player rejoins the game, or the game is realoaded with an ai, but I have no evidance.
 
I suppose we could try to run a test if nobody knows. All it would take is a couple of players and picking a few years and nations where we know an event happens.
 
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