(note I am not mentioning which game this is, of the names of the players who have upset me, as the game is still in progress)

i don't think it's metagaming, but it is selfish unsporting behavior that is really pathetic. if you have to force someone into NMR through refusing to pause in order to win, that is reall sad.

please feel free to name and shame them here, jamie!

I agree, its a dick move, but its not bannable, just someone, or in this case, three someones, being unsporting.

We need a wall of shame.

You name them and shame them. Also, if its clearly for in-game purposes that they want to refuse the pause, email a mod and they will probably force pause it for you.

Would that just be a shrine to all the people who have been banned?
I think that would be fun:]

Centurian, I disagree with that. No one is required to pause, and as long as its not wrecking a league, a mod should not get involved.

@Centurian: It is too lae to ask the mods to force a pause in that game, because a turn has now taken place during which my ally NMRed. Unless the Mods would not only force a pause, but also move the game back one turn? I doubt they would agree to that.

Ok as for naming and shaming, which people seem to be in favour of, the game in question is "Moscow or Bust". I am particularly unimpressed by the Italy player "Mrlimmer", because he asked for a pause earlier in the game, and everyone politely gave him one.

*late

that's a good question, is there a policy that mods have on forcing pauses in cases like this? no one is required to pause, it's true, but one if one person is just being a jerk? i guess that's life.

I agree this isn't moderatable. It _IS_ shameable. Name'em! Shame'em! It's a completely dickish move.

@Dingleberryjones - I actually don't think a mod should make an exception because a game is "a league game." Let's remember that the leagues is still an informal player organized designation. As neat an idea as it is, it's not an official part of the site, so the Mods should not be making special exceptions for league games.

Otherwise I agree with you, this is not a moderator issue, but it is an issue of very very poor sportsmanship and I for one would never play with any of these fellows.

The reason I think it should be considered meta-gaming is because the pause request was due to factors totally unrelated to the game, which some players in the game have abused to gain an in-game advantage. Why is that not metagaming?

While I disagree with the dickish players not pausing, it could be argued that requesting the pause was the metagaming to begin with. He let outside influences control whether he could play or not and he chose not to get a sitter. I'm sitting for Crazyter right now, so they can be found.

It's not metagaming on the part of the person requesting a pause, because they are not attempting to gain an advantage.

DrOct, I suppose when mentioning league games, I was thinking of a recent situation my league which was forced pause due to a player dropping out of the league. It WAS specifically referred to in the league rules that pauses should be granted.

As a person that tries to pause when requested to do so, I just want to say that on this site, its annoying. The reason is that it has so often become a major pain in the @ss to unpause the game. It just takes 1 person to go CD or stop playing entirely to make unpausing a game a nightmare. And while I believe that the moderators here do an excellent job, it can take several days for them to agree to unpause a game by force. Here's a concept...if you know that you may not be able to finish a game before you're in a position where you will be away from a computer, then don't start the game in the first place. Emergencies happen, which is why I pause when asked, but it seems that too often there are players that need a pause for vacations or weekends away...are these not planned??

My 2 cents. Probably unpopular, but blast away. And let it be known that I have never actually refused a pause.

I will not pause games at all. Period. I have paused in the past and people have failed to unpause. I come on here to play and expect others to devote the time needed to play properly. Until we get a pause for 24hrs, pause for 3 days etc, I will not pause games. I don't think this is unsporting at all. I post my views about pasuing in my profile so anyone can view it at any time.

We must also remeber it is a game. If I was playing cards with someone and I had to leave for something more important I wouldn't expect everyone else to stop playing until I returned to the game.

@Maniac - While I don't much like your policy, at least it's consistent and known before people start playing with you. What happened to Jamiet99uk was a much more dickish move, where they were willing to use pauses when they needed it, but not when someone else did.

I won't forcibly *pause* a game unless I know the rules under which the game was started (such as if there was a forum thread and the player said "Yeh, love to play, but can we pause from the 8-10th?" and people agreed).
Maniac, whilst I respect your transparancy, I hope you relax it a bit in future, because there are times when an unforeseen absence occurs. There are other times when you can alert people you expect a pause for a certain time before starting the game, which is also fair.
As a future improvement I hope we can add the option to define the length of a pause.

I agree with Jamie99uk with regard to it being a form of meta-gaming.

If I were playing face to face and someone needed a bathroom break, we'd take a five minute break.

Someone refusing to pause for a short break is being a dick (with the exception of someone in Maniac's position which I understand.)

Someone refusing to pause for an enemy after the enemy paused for them is beyond being a dick. They are an outright prick.

Regarding Maniac's position, this system really does need a way of voting for a limited time period pause. Unlimited pauses just cause so much trouble.

Regarding leagues, if the person running the league says that players must pause in certain situations and a player refuses to comply, then there are two options. Have a moderator force the pause and optionally kick the player out of the league if it wasn't just a misunderstanding.

Yeah, this wouldn't be force paused. It's a real dick move by the other players, but it would be autocratic to force it.

However, in the case of the Leagues, I think TGM is justified in pausing games where the rules he's set down say he should. If he was not a mod, and he asked me to do it, I would. It's not my responsibility and I don't have to, but I think since he organized the tournament according to the rules, everyone participating in the tournament recognizes those rules when they join. If you refuse to pause in a League game when the rules say that in this situation the game should be paused, you are breaking the rules of the League.

Here's a question ... do you guys feel the same about draws? I am in a position where I am holding off on drawing the game because I have 16 SCs. I feel kind of like a schmuck when everyone else wants to draw, but I want the win.

@pootercanon: Refusing to draw is perfectly reasonable. If you think you can win, you should go for it.
If the situation is clearly a stalemate (No significant change in position for the past few years) and you're just being stubborn, that's a different story.

To quickly offer my 2 cents, and, I haven't read anything past "I am particularly disappointed with Mrlimmer...", so, bear with me, but, I do want to apologize for the way things went in the game.

It is true, I was graciously given a pause for a long period of time by all the players in the game. I wanted, first off, to thank them for that, as it really meant quite a bit to me.

That being said, I did not read the global thread. I rarely do, as I usually expect it to be "Good game, all!" and "Oh, I missed my orders!" etc. etc. This was my fault. I take full responsibility for my negligence.

That being said, it was just that. Negligence. Not malicious in it's intent. I did not try to gain an advantage over the missing player (nor did I, mind you, as our nations do not, at the current moment, touch at any point) I apologize for my negligence, but I do feel that the onslaught of "What a dick move!" comments is a bit hasty.

That being said, when I asked for a pause, a spring phase went by before the pause was enacted by all players. So, in effect, the exact same thing happened to me as to the missing player several turns later. I did not cajole about it, as I assumed that the pause would, either A), not be respected, or B) take a little time to get everyone to agree on it.

I, once again, take full responsibility for my actions, but nothing more. My intentions were nonexistent, I had no idea a pause was asked for. Likewise, I ask everyone to take a bit to calm down before assuming another player is a dick. It was an honest, simple mistake.

Hint: Always read the Global tab. Often its somebody revealing their plans by accidentally posting in the wrong place.

@pootercannon - If a reasonable chance exists for you to win you have every right to not draw. In fact, I would say you're going against the spirit of the game if you take a draw at that point.

The question is - what is a reasonable chance? If it's obvious that your opponents aren't turning on each other and there has been no movement for a couple years then it is not fair to hold out until someone gets bored. At that point it becomes you are no better than jamie's opponents if you don't agree to draw. I would even be willing to force draw a game in situation like that if it were obvious enough.

Sorry Mods, but you have done it in the past. In fact, two of my games have been paused by mods forcibly. But I suppose thats because they have mods in them and so have a harder time turning a blind eye to what is terrible sportsmanship? Seems hypocritical to me.

The only time I've force paused a game was when I was investigating likely multi accounters who were about to win in a game, and I wanted to save the other players, and twice for each of my Round 2 GFDT games when I had to go camping but Signalseven had left. I waited until everyone else, except the absent Signalseven, had voted to pause and unpause before I carried it out. There's a natural issue with having a non-mod sit my account when I have mod powers.