Concise description:- Eliminate Freestyle Double Turns by Eliminating the time out bug.
Specifics:- Make starting your go count as taking your turn, in freestyle, even if you time out.
At present if you start your go within the last hour of the game, make your moves, then let your time run out, it doesn't count as you taking your turn, and so you can start playing immediately after the start of the next round.
By doing so you can play last, take all the objectives/bonuses in the last 5 minutes, without anyone being able to stop you then start first without anyone else having a go in between. This is being exploited by numerous members of the site (including King_Herpes on the City Mogul map (this is not a criticism against him as he is just exploiting a weakness of the site for his benefit and to the detriment of other players). Surely the players should have at least a chance of reacting.
My suggestion is simple. All the changes to be made is that if you time out mid go, it should still count as you taking your go.
This will improve the following aspects of the site:- Will make freestyle fairer and actually playable
- Removes the main criticism of freestyle play and the issue that drives players away from freestyle.
- Gives players a chance to react.
One example of the case i put is in this spoiler, where the loser had 1 seconds chance to deploy and take out the objective (that is if they were online at exactly when the turn ended):
[spoiler][game]4359809[/game]
2009-02-28 08:41:34 - Incrementing game to round 5
2009-02-28 08:42:19 - shivi gets bonus of 20 troops added to Y2
2009-02-28 08:42:19 - shivi gets bonus of 20 troops added to Y4
2009-02-28 08:42:19 - shivi gets bonus of 20 troops added to C1
2009-02-28 08:42:19 - shivi gets bonus of 20 troops added to C4
2009-02-28 08:42:19 - shivi gets bonus of 20 troops added to B5
2009-02-28 08:42:19 - shivi gets bonus of 20 troops added to B3
2009-02-28 08:42:19 - shivi gets bonus of 20 troops added to G5
2009-02-28 08:42:19 - shivi gets bonus of 20 troops added to G4
2009-02-28 08:42:19 - shivi receives 25 troops for holding Blanks
2009-02-28 08:42:19 - shivi receives 1 troops for 13 regions
2009-02-28 08:42:23 - shivi deployed 26 troops on Y2
2009-02-28 08:42:34 - shivi reinforced G4 with 20 troops from G5
2009-02-28 08:42:37 - shivi reinforced B5 with 20 troops from B3
2009-02-28 08:42:43 - shivi reinforced C4 with 20 troops from C1
2009-02-28 08:42:49 - shivi reinforced Y2 with 20 troops from Y4
2009-03-01 07:47:37 - King_Herpes gets bonus of 20 troops added to P2
2009-03-01 07:47:37 - King_Herpes gets bonus of 20 troops added to P4
2009-03-01 07:47:37 - King_Herpes gets bonus of 20 troops added to R4
2009-03-01 07:47:37 - King_Herpes gets bonus of 20 troops added to R6
2009-03-01 07:47:37 - King_Herpes gets bonus of 20 troops added to S2
2009-03-01 07:47:37 - King_Herpes gets bonus of 20 troops added to S4
2009-03-01 07:47:37 - King_Herpes gets bonus of 20 troops added to O7
2009-03-01 07:47:37 - King_Herpes gets bonus of 20 troops added to O6
2009-03-01 07:47:37 - King_Herpes receives 20 troops for holding Blanks
2009-03-01 07:47:37 - King_Herpes receives 1 troops for 12 regions
2009-03-01 07:47:42 - King_Herpes deployed 21 troops on O7
2009-03-01 07:48:16 - King_Herpes assaulted S1 from S4 and conquered it from neutral player
2009-03-01 07:51:22 - King_Herpes assaulted O8 from O7 and conquered it from neutral player
2009-03-01 07:51:28 - King_Herpes assaulted N2 from O8 and conquered it from neutral player
2009-03-01 07:51:34 - King_Herpes assaulted Mall from N2 and conquered it from neutral player
2009-03-01 07:51:47 - King_Herpes assaulted Y1 from P2 and conquered it from neutral player
2009-03-01 07:51:56 - King_Herpes assaulted N1 from S1 and conquered it from neutral player
2009-03-01 07:52:00 - King_Herpes assaulted CC Manor from N1 and conquered it from neutral player
2009-03-01 07:52:07 - King_Herpes assaulted R7 from R4 and conquered it from neutral player
2009-03-01 07:52:25 - King_Herpes assaulted Y4 from Y1 and conquered it from shivi
2009-03-01 07:52:41 - King_Herpes reinforced N1 with 20 troops from O6
2009-03-01 07:52:46 - King_Herpes reinforced N1 with 20 troops from P4
2009-03-01 07:52:52 - King_Herpes reinforced N1 with 5 troops from S2
2009-03-01 07:52:56 - King_Herpes reinforced N1 with 2 troops from N2
2009-03-01 07:53:01 - King_Herpes reinforced N2 with 204 troops from R7
2009-03-01 07:53:16 - King_Herpes reinforced N1 with 19 troops from N2
2009-03-01 07:53:25 - King_Herpes reinforced N1 with 8 troops from N2
2009-03-01 08:41:34 - King_Herpes ran out of time
2009-03-01 08:41:34 - Incrementing game to round 6
2009-03-01 08:41:34 - King_Herpes held the Become a Mogul objective[/spoiler]