The question I have for you is this:

How often do you find yourself in a position where you know that someone is going to solo no matter what you do, but not within the next year or two?

I have been in such a position once, but fortunately I was the winner of that game. I was france, established the holcombe line (Bur-Ruh-Kie), and I had many more fleets than Russia/england. Since I had the board stalemated with my three armies, there was nothing they could do to prevent me form taking everything up to Stp. I held tunis as well, so that was game over.

And I have played a live game once where we had several years of poinlessly trying to defend a flawed stalemate line.

Basically, this situation would describe the feeling best. You have an almost stalemate line, but it's not foolproof. Every combination of supports allows one specifically designed attack to crash through. You know he's going to guess right eventually, but it can last quite long.

the defense rests its case.

I agree with basva that it's debatable the fact you can always make a come back.
I have been in situations where the only reasons I continue playing is cos of the bad opinion other player might have or me, and others where the only hope I have for a come back is that some other player plays very bad, or loses turns.
(that's specially true in gunboat games, where you cannot try to convince othe people that if they continue attacking you they'll lose the game)
I'd invite you to consider, on the other hand, how often a player with 2 units comes back, and if nothing weird happens in case he manages it.

Here are the problems I have with this idea:

1) More important updates first, such as proper NMR unit disbandment, proper EOG winning conditions, etc.

2) It won't do anything to prevent CDing, as most CDs occur in early/mid of game when this feature wouldn't be used.

3) No real increase in functionality. This doesn't do anything that just not support holding wouldn't accomplish almost as quickly.

*4)* Bad influence on new players. If a new player sees a "resign" button, that's the first thing they're going to hit when things go south. Then, they'll complain when a) it doesn't resign them from the game and b) no one agrees to resign. Having this button, imho, will significantly hamper a new players ability to look ahead to a future comeback.

I have NEVER found myself in a position that someone is going to solo no matter what.
They only reason I would press resign would be utter boredom in some games I can't stand my neighbors.

I feel that this proposal doesn't actually boil down to what you are requesting Bas.

Simply because what your asking for I feel is the option to cede games to a winning player. Which other sites do have. On those sites it's possible to have a three way draw and have a fourth power get a survive.

Or for the remaining players to agree that person x should win the game and cede the game to him. This is a good suggestion. Calling it a resign button. Blech bad idea, I think opening up the way the game ends so the players can decide how it ends would be good.

I think a better way to do this would be to vote for a certain country as a winner.

So you know exactly what I said. Minus the partial draw part Mr. Smile :P

No thanks.
In almost all cases where you may want to resign, if you get your diplomacy right you can change the result of a game.

No, damian. What you said was a system where, if everyone except one person voted resign, that person was awarded a win. In my system, if France votes Russia to solo, and everyone else votes Germany to solo, then the game progresses.

Also, this would not work in PPSC. Not that I'm really concerned with any game that's PPSC. It's a horrible variant, and I don't know why anyone would play it.

Smile, I didn't make the opening post.

I thought the resign button was silly. What I suggested was the system you just repeated in this post. The one that is used at other sites. Where if all the players agree on an outcome for the game then that's what happens. So you can have a 3 day draw +1 power survives.

Oh. Yeah, I just glanced through the thread. Sorry.

I disagree with your system though. Draws should only be used in cases of diplomatic or tactical stalemates. Ergo if someone survives to the stalemate, they should be a part of it.

In all fairness I just reread my first post in this thread, and realized that I didn't even understand what it was saying. Disjointed mess that it was.

What I was trying to say was a system where the result could be voted upon by players. So say there are seven players left, three of which only have once center left, and a fourth has three centers. All seven powers could vote to give the three powers have more then three centers a three way draw so the rest of them could survive.

Or everyone could vote to cede the game to a player who easily has 18 centers on their side of a stalemate line.

I don't know. I've just started playing over at Diplomatic Corp, and it seems to work out well enough as a system there.

While I understand your point. Small powers don't have to agree to not being made part of the draw, and if they hold crucial positions they could still force their way into a draw, this would just allow people who are in less crucial positions to try and force there way into a stalemate.

PPSC?
Also, i like the idea of a system to let a game be ceded, and have a two way draw etc. THe only issue, is i have been in games (Well, one game in particular, but i am sure there have been other games where it happened too) where i was a small fish about to easily be crushed on two fronts, and with two clearly dominant players on the map. (This was ancient med; carth had caved and made rome very strong, and egypt and greece both hit me as persia, but greece grew much faster than egypt) It got to the point that i was looking at a full defeat, no survive, and egypt had just been stabbed since greece was big enough to take us both on with rome hitting egypt targets of opportunity from the west. (Although greece let me hole up in my home centers while he dealt with egypt, so he wasn't actually fighting us both)

If there had been a way for a two way draw, greece and rome would have voted it and egypt and i would have had to carry it. But since there wasn't, egypt and i were able to hole up and defend ourselves long enough that i managed to turn rome and greece against eachother and it ended up being a long grind with egypt getting some centers back and fighting rome's carth holdings, and greece fighting in the north and most of the oceans. The fight eventually ended as a four way draw.

Now, I could only do that since i convinced both partners of the major alliance, greece and rome, i was on their side but that the other partner was about to stab them. If they had been able to vote for the two way split, i never would have been able to do that.

Sorry for the wall of text. if you didn't want to read it all, i basically was saying that i like the idea of a winners-survivors drawing system, but that i could see where in a few instances it would limit possible comebacks.

Yes it could limit potential comebacks and diplomatic ways out. However I think that the new options it makes available diplomatically make up for that. Imagine your are a smaller power with three other powers left who are all big. The one power is strong enough to hold off the other two and is coming for you to take your centers and make things a three way draw.

You could threaten to offer the other two powers a two way draw, if they will help you all out go for this power.

Were as in the current system offering them a two way draw would mean letting yourself get killed.

So it opens up more options for weaker powers to find ways to survive games.

In other words.... Vassaldom.

We don't need another hero! we don't need to know the waaaay home. All we want is diplomiuhuuum..... and Vassaldom!

So, the arguments against my proposoal boil down to two points:

1) As long as no one has captured the 18th center, you are never sure to lose.
2) It does not add much to the functionality, there are bigger issues to solve first.

Regarding the second point, this is meant as an addition to the site, not to fix something which is broken. If some stuff is broken, then by all means fix that first.

Then about the first. It has also to do with attitude. My reason to be on this site is to get cool and interesting games, so I can enjoy myself. I enjoy the mental challenge of setting up a good alliance, outguessing my opponents, and trying to fix my mistakes. I do not play to score as much points or GR as possible.

Suppose a game reaches the point when someone is practically sure to win, let's say for the sake of argument he's got a 90% winning chance. Playing on gives you some chance to draw or win, but a very small one. When you hit the resign button, you concede this chance, and you just stop your resistance (of course, only if everyone agrees). There is always a concession involved in resigning.

In my opinion, it's a gentleman's move. You think he deserves the win, and playing on spoils the beauty of a well-played game.

Now, to react explicitely to some other points:
@ smiley: I agree, it's better to phrase it positively, we should vote for a winner.
@ smiley and AncientMemories: I admittedly did not consider ppsc in this proposal. I think that will not work. ppsc is not a gentleman's game, as far as I'm concerned.

Finally, I would like to mention that conceding has been a very viable option in every face-to-face game I've ever played.

In the face-to-face games I've played, it was always possible to vote for any end result: being it a draw or a win for someone.

That would be extremely nice to have, but probably not easy to implement in a beautiful way.

There was a game posted on the forum once (I can't find it now) that was a guy who came back to solo after having only 1 sc as Russia. Pretty impressive. But, if I recall correctly, he had some help from one or two very fortunate CD's/NMR's.

I can see how it could be good, but as soon as it is implemented I fear you'd find games ending early since it can be used as a safety net.
ie: Two big nations either side of a stalemate line, a small one in the middle.
Now, they try and force him to abdicate. If he does, great: they get their draw.
If not they kill him off as it is anyway, but in doing so there's a chance one of them *might* go for a win/ be stuck at a 3-way draw.
Thus the little player has the option accept defeat+survive with abdicate or probably death with play on.

The more I think about it, the more realistic this option would be, but the less with the spirit of the game in my opinion.

I absolutely wouldn't allow you to draw the game with only a few people. Figle's reason is only one of the many reasons that wouldn't work.

Giving a solo to a certain country just to save time might be OK. (Especially in live gunboats)

But as I said, this would not at all work in PPSC. And you're absolutely right basvan, ppsc is NOT a gentleman's game. PPSC isn't anything good.

PPSC v WTA: the debate rages on...

To me, PPSC is like a cash game of poker in that everyone gets what they have in front of them and WTA is a sit-n-go (one winner takes the cash set aside for SnG).

@bas

If you've already addressed this, I apologize, but I just don't see when this would be used. I've never played a game in which I know someone is going to solo in more than two years. In other words, I either believe there is a chance for a draw, so I would not use this option, or I can see that the win is so close that we save almost no time by using this feature. I'd rather use the last year to chat about the game (like mini EOG) then just abdicate.

So, in short, I just don't see when this button would ever be used.

Let me rephrase that. I can imagine many times when it would be used, but can't imagine when it *should* be used.