Missing turns..... should you get men for them?

[kevinc]

That's the thing, I think that for people who genuinely miss their turns tis fine, but it just pisses me off when people miss turns on purpose so they can mass all their armies at once. It would be really nice if we could stop people from using it as a strategy and still let people get their troops who actually missed their turns, but that's bascailly impossible.

Well, the best way to stop it is to advertise it. I've only recently come accross it. So when you see someone who does it, tell people in the panel. The reason missing turns is a valuable strategy is because it lulls people into a false sense of security. They think the person is only going to get a certain amount of troops but they get many more. Once people are aware of that strategy it becomes pretty useless. Actually taking your go would be better, since if you miss a go you're not fortifying for a whole go.

I think the rule is fine, not everything should be fixed by a rule change. Many things can be fixed by players themselves.

[Molacole]

why not just give them the units they lost during their turn?

First round you miss your turn. 2nd round you get 6 armies... OK this is fine. 3rd turn you get 6 armies... this is the problem. You miss 1 turn you should get no additional armies. So you missed a turn... big deal you get what you lost from your last turn. The reason it is abused is because you get an extra 3 armies at the very beginning of the game. That is huge when you're playing doubles. You can look around and see you have 2 terrirtories adjacent from each other. OK use your first turn to boost them up to 4-5. anyone who attacks this on their first turn is just asking for trouble. OK next round begins and you see nobody is attacking anywhere near you and all you see is 3's. It then becomes safe to skip a turn. OK you skip a turn and round 3 comes and still nobody has any territories for a bonus and all looks good.

ok you start your 3rd turn and get 6 armies. So now you have to choose wether or not to block someone who is close to taking a territory for a bonus that you can prevent from doing so or go for your own territory knowing the pay off will be huge.

You decide to go for your own territory and fight off the 3's in your way. So you battle with a 11 or a 10 to conquer 3's. Now you attack in the direction to cover a border, gain control, advance with all your troops. OK so now 1 border is built up with a 6-8 and next turn you're getting 6 more armies and anyone who attacks you is basically going to be useless after he attacks you. you still have a 10 left if you attacked with the 11 so if anyone starts to give you trouble you just move your troops on over accordingly.

Here is where the real problems come in. Say you have commons and computer lab on the CCU map. If you build commons to 5 and computer lab to 4 anyone who attacks you is just going to be burning troops off the map. so you skip your second turn and everyone has found their targets and begun that route of destruction. You just saw what everyone has planned for the most part. You get 6 armies, dump 2 into computer lab if nobody has attacked you to create 6, drop 4 onto commons to give you 9. OK 1 of your apponents put 3 reinforcements into the mens dorm totalling 6. No problem you attack the 3 in womens dorm or sit back and wait. 3rd round comes and your apponents puts 3 more guys in the mens dorm totalling 6, you put all 6 into commons totalling 15 and attack him. most likely you just won pretty easily. After this you have 2 choices, either you keep attacking for the rest of the bonus territory or you move your guys back to the commons and bring in your extra 3 guys from the computer lab. No an average attack you would have around 10 guys protecting your commons. Unless 2 or more people attack you it's yours. Only way to prevent this would be for everyone who had a territory in housing to reinforce it.

The chances of everyone working together like this in a non team game are slim because they would have to sacrifice 3 armies and that would leave them vulnerable in the area they want to protect or conquer themselves.


I say give 6 armies after you miss a turn and that is it. There's absolutely no reason to give multiple armies for the next 2 turns. That is an extra 3 armies for making everyone wait. I notice in just about every game I have played so far someone always does this and it revamps the whole game. There is no reason why someone who skips a turn should be able to get 12 armies in 2 turns if you can only get 6 without a bonus by playing when it's your turn. They should get 9 armies in 2 turns not 12. I mean seriously it's honestly better in most cases to skip a turn right before you make your move to conquer a territory.

[reverend_kyle]

Just missed a turn in every game i'm in... Shitty day...

Landgrab has a computerized player option for people who deadbeat and you can set timelimits.. This isnt a problem there... but neither is cheating.. thank god it hasnt been adulterated yet.

[N0g]

My take after being a victim of this "strategy":

I recently experienced this "strategy" and got hosed by it in a no-cards game. The issue is that you don't know if someone is holding out or they are a deadbeat and you have to assume that someone is holding out. This causes you to occasionally fortify a border that will actually turn gray in a couple of turns when those troops could have been put to better use. What I do now is make myself play slower even though everyone is holding out and looks like easy pickings. Very boring. Especially when a couple of people are using the technique.

Here's what I would do if I were a ninja turtle:

1. Stop it at 2x whatever you would have gotten. Show up for your third turn. Great. Sorry you were gone, but here's 2x bonus instead of 3x.
2. Add a "skip my next turn" button. Don't make those of us who want to show up and play wait 24 hours for you to not take your turn.

Here's what I'm doing:

Taking notes on who does this and not playing with them whenever possible.

[AngryAnderson]

No extra men for missing turns! - this is a game of risk not Machiavelli!

Have to admit though that the best board
game I've ever played is Machiavelli!

OK CC, there is your next challenge.

[Molacole]

This right here is a perfect example of how people abuse this rule.

Game
37979

[gavin_sidhu]

stacked armies are useful. Once i accidently missed the first turn of a game, and when i came back i found that there were not that many countries with three territories around, and i was able to secure a continent quickly.

[tonywalrus]

I posted exactly the same discussion subject a while ago. My opinion then was that you should lose the men. Using it as a strategy is pretty low and I was caught out by it but it does often backfire and if you see it coming there are tactics you can use against it.

Having played more games my opinion has changed. There are occasions where it seems pretty unfair to lose men when you have been playing honestly. I had been at a game for about three weeks with some slow players, at the end of the third week I knew that I was going to be without computer access for a couple of days. I fortified my position and dug myself in hoping to survive a couple of missed turns. The strategy worked and I was able to rejoin where I left off and with the men I missed. The alternative would have meant three weeks of play for nothing, that does not seem fair to me.

On balance I am now pretty relaxed about people keeping the men.

[beelzebub]

Hm, maybe you should get a fraction of the armies you would normally get, say half.

So there isn't this huge infusion of new, seemingly "unearned" armies when a turn-misser comes back, but they aren't completely penalized.

[wcaclimbing]

GGGGGRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!! why don't posts like this just go away!

i am so tired of this kind of posts and the posts about deadbeat points