This happens all the time. Such people should be hunted down and killed.
But is just holding any kind of answer? I'd often prefer for such assholes to go CD so that someone who's actually going to play might have a go.

I'd prefer to ban these people. They ruin games intentionally. Play it out to the bitter end.

The problem is, if your country gets taken over, its completely striken from your record like nothing ever happened

No, not really. It's counted under "Left", which is for me the most important counter to evaluate a player.

There should certainly be some kind of punishment that eventually bans them (or at least that account) from phpdip

The punishment is that they they won't gain as many points.

Its not counted under 'left'. If someone takes over your country, it is stricken. If the game ends with you in CD, then I beleive it is counted under 'left'. THis was covered under a previous thread.

But thats not really a punishment. They abandon a game because they assume they will be eliminated, so there is no difference in their mind to playing out the game or CDing, because they will get no points either way.

I'm going to have to check the "Left" count from now on.

Are you sure about that Dingle? if one goes into Cd then its taken over you can avoid receiving "defeated" or "left" dent on your stats?
thats not good, thats an incentive to leave bad positions.
that definitely should be changed if that is the case

Yes, Dingle is correct. The stats on Left/Defeated/etc. refer only to who was the "owner" of the county at the moment the game ended. People go CD early in the hopes someone will take over the nation before the game ends, preventing it from appearing on their stats. A CD entry which goes up anytime a players position goes CD would do a lot to help play here.

Why not have the person forfeit 33 percent of his points the moment he goes into CD. That is sort of a three strikes and you are out sort of approach.

Though a negative of some sort could be applied with again a few drops leading to people being banned if it is not appealed to a System Lord for Real Life situations.

The biggest problem I see with this is variable phase times. Otherwise, I think:

CD in one, CD in all...

More penalization will probably lead them to create multiple accounts to exploit the same strategy, but on a larger scale. They are still forfeiting whatever chance they had at winning. The point is, the more games they affect by going CD, then the worse they must be doing. Hopefully you'll rise above such players soon.

Actually, and you may disagree with me here, but I think an 'abandon game' button would improve the lowbie games some what. Because lets face it, sometimes a person is going to leave a game and there is nothing anyone can do about it. so lets give that person the option of officially leaving the game earlier than later, so that another person has the opportunity to take over the game right away, instead of 3 turns later when all hope is lost.

I agree with Grizzly. People who go into CD intentionally are going to leave games no matter what penalties are in place, so we might as well let them go without taking a part of the game with them. If such a button is implemented, there should probably be a confirmation request, as I've seen a few accidental country takeovers, and the reverse could be much worse...

I have seen experienced players CD when they are losing a game, this makes sense now that I know that a country taken over doesn't count as a "loss" or a "left"

I think Grizzly's idea of an abandon option has great merit. I also feel that "left" should be reflected for all instances of civil disorder, even if another player parachutes in at the last minute to take over.

I have a textbook example of an idiot who chickens out of one game where things are going bad for him while continuing to post orders in another where things are looking more sunny. I'm playing against figer_buenos_aires in two games, and he hasn't posted any orders the last two turns in "Ride of the Valkyries" (http://phpdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=5119) where he was recently reduced to 2 SCs (as Germany), while in the game "Industrialized Warfare" (http://phpdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=5127) he's continuing happily (also as Germany), presumably since he's set for the win in that game. What really irritates me is that the guy doesn't even make an effort to hide that he's bad loser, and his ally in "Ride..." is obviously suffering from his absence, making things much too easy for my ally and me. To add insult to injury, earlier in the game figer_buenos_aires accused me and Azzaron (the guy playing my ally in "Ride...") of multiaccounting, simply because we were cooperating against him, which, apparently was a little more opposition than he liked (I've forgotten the header, but the accusation was made on this forum a couple of weeks ago). I'm currently getting my ass kicked in "Industrialized..." by figer_buenos_aires and his ally - and I don't have a problem with that. What I DO have a problem with are wankers like figer_buenos_aires who can't stand up and take a defeat like a man and who goes CD when things don't go their way, which consequently ruins the gaming experience for the rest of us. To think that it won't show up anywhere that he has chickened out of games where he was losing is really depressing and some kind of penalty/sanction of players like figer_buenos_aires would be a really good idea, I think. I would personally favour the "three-strikes-and-you're-out"-suggestion made by Edibirsan a bit earlier, although two offenses would certainly be enough to warrant eviction in my book.

I'm recent to the site and every game I've played so far has been damaged by CDs to the extent that the winner can't really be considered the winner and at least one player lost or was eliminated because an ally went CD on him.

I'm sorry to say points guarantees nothing. I'm in game 4731 with a current pot of 1112. So far we have had one Italy and Austria, two Germanys, Turkeys, and Frances, three Englands and six(!!!) Russias. These weren't all hopeless CD's. The lead country is Turkey with France and Germany in a rough tie for 2nd. Austria and Turkey are eliminated and Italy will be soon.

Given that people are leaving such high point and non-hopeless positions I don't think there is any cure to CD's other than carefully recruiting and vetting your own players.

The only possible cure would be for the system to track CDs and give players an option when they create a game not to accept a player with less than a certain number of completed games or more than a certain ratio of CDs or a CD within a certain time period. That way CD's would prevent players from joining games and creating a new account would not help since they need to complete games before joining those new games. Draconian, but probably the only solution that does not put a real burden on the game moderator.

You can always do it yourself by making a password protected game and then posting on the forum. The high pot is probably because of all the people joining. Generally a 101 point bet

is good for avoiding cds

You'd like to think so but like I said, not in my game. Look at Global there - it is incredible. In the Fall 1903 phase we got a new England, France, Germany, Turkey, and Russia. Granted England was two SCs and Russia one (leading to Russia turning over five times in seven turns). Turkey and France though were seven SCs and Germany five. Don't understand that one at all.

The plague of Drops is often discussed here. What are the Real Statistics on it?
My own experiences are very limited having just started and in that I have taken over as a stand by (replacement player) for 3 games two of which were games in Spring 1902 where the players had NO orders for all of 1901. The other I took over a two center france with an enemy unit in one of my two centers, just to see what I could do with it.
I am now in an 'invitational' game with high rated players who have sustained enough points and stuck around to be reasonably dependable.

How much do we know of the mind of the players that drop in 01-02
to understand their motivation and thinking so that we can address some of the root causes of it? Are there other solutions from the past that have been overlooked?
Is it simply the nature of the beast with open game creation and new players?
Is there a cultural issue that is identifiable by age, continent or region?