by ChaunceyMo on Thu May 25, 2006 6:03 pm
It's not so much a problem of the strategy itself, which at times will pay off (early on, if you have a big stack no one wants to attack) or horribly backfire (if someone who cashes in earlier manages to wipe you out while you're stalling), it's the cost to the other players. People who only have a regular account can be trapped in games that last days longer than they should because one or more people are intentionally skipping turns for this reason.
I agree that the penalty for missed turns, particularly consecutive missed turns, should be steeper. If not losing cards, which I actually don't think is a bad idea, then getting fewer armies when you come back (maybe -1 per missed turn, so you'd get a base 4 after missing two turns, or 3 after missing 3 turns).
Another idea, maybe better saved for another discussion, is having a "deadbeat rating" for every player that increases every time they miss a turn. This would both be publicly available, and maybe if it got too high the player would somehow be penalized (loss of points, loss of ability to participate in as many games, etc). It's one thing to miss the occasional turn or two because RL circumstances get in the way, it's another thing to habitually miss turns as part of a strategy.