Doc_Brown wrote:(Apologies if this has been submitted before. I looked and didn't see anything, but I may well have missed it.)
Concise description:Eliminate the ability for a player to take his turn, capture or bombard a territory, then time out without being awards spoils. If a player times out on his turn, he will automatically be awarded any spoils he would have received if he ended his turn normally.
Alternatively, clarify that this is officially recognized as an acceptable and valid tactic on this site.
Specifics/Details:In escalating and nuclear spoils games, some players will start their turns, capture territories (to break bonuses or interfere with opponents), then refuse to manually end their turns to avoid receiving spoils. This is widely considered to be cheap tactic and is now being penalized in clan tournaments. Dako was removed as head of CCup4, presumably due to refusal to include a rule allowing Clan Directors to enforce penalties for using this tactic. Evidently, multiple members of Team CC believe this should not be allowed.
There are times when people time out accidentally, due to connectivity problems or real-life interruptions. Unlike the case where they completely miss their turns, these individuals have started their turns, deployed troops, and engaged in one or more battles. For all intents and purposes, they have completed their turns, so it seems unnecessary to penalize them. On the other hand, a rule against timing out in clan play requires a subjective judgement about a player's intentions.
How this will benefit the site and/or other comments:- Automatically awarding spoils will eliminate a possible cheap strategy.
- It will reduce the burden on clan directors, since they will no longer have to investigate timing-out complaints.
- It will eliminate a need for a subjective judgement about a player's intentions.
- In accidental cases, it will remove a penalty for currently incurred for accidental timing out due to real-life interference.
- If this is considered an acceptable strategy by Conquer Club as a whole, an official statement to that effect would clarify the situation for everyone.
Compromise Proposal:Automatically award spoils earned in all sequential games. Allow timing out without receiving spoils in freestyle games.
From the comments I've seen, it appears that the majority of the people that favor being able to avoid spoils do so in speed freestyle games. I don't like the idea of different rules between speed and casual games. However, freestyle already has different rules from sequential and allows for other types of tactics related to timing of turns. Also, freestyle games are not permitted in normal clan play, so this change would take care of all clan-related concerns about the rule.
Advantages- Clan players no longer have to worry about someone making a subjective judgement on motives when someone times out.
- Speed freestylers keep their lost spoils penalties for those that delay too long.
- The same rules apply in clan games and non clan games.
- There are no rule differences between casual and speed games.
- It becomes explicitly clear that timing out to avoid spoils is an accepted tactic in freestyle games (where precise timing of turns is already a key component of winning).