Speaking personally, I dislike it when people post in the forum things like "I need a replacement for a CD Italy...who was allied with my Austria..."

And then, if the Turkey that was trying to roll him CD's, it's "Whatever."

I guess what I'm getting at - is there some kind of "duty" to advertise a CD promptly and without bias?

And if there is, what about my last concern - "There is also the question - what if you can be fairly sure the original will soon return, but he hates you, so you take your chances and advertise hoping to get someone who will be more amicable with you?"

Give the CD (cancel/draw) treatment for a CD player.
Or find a good player, but not a puppet, willing to take over. Otherwise, it's as if you have taken over the CD position yourself.

Yeah but, how hard are you obligated to try and find this "good" player.

Who decides if they're "good" enough.

And many of us have well-known personalities. What if you seek out someone whose traits happen to work out nicely for you, and not your opponent?

Right, I mean, let's say that...for instance, you know that I play a really badass Austria (it's the only country I'm at all good with). And you're Russia, and your main concern is uppity Turkey. A badass Austria would help. Would you try to time your post with when you suspected I'd be looking at it? And if you did, would you be ethically sound in doing so? I think PM'ing me would be wrong, but I don't know that trying to maximize the chances of me doing it are wrong.

Well, in my opinion, cancel/draw is best. It eliminates all sorts of biases. I'm trying to get people to do that just now in one of my anon games since a fulcrum country has gone CD.
How hard? Put it in the forum and ask for people who have a decent/good win/draw percentage and/or good GR to take over.

Hmm... This has given me an interesting idea... Only ever taking over CD's from now on, on the condition that they have 3 SCs or less... It might make for a fun time!

I'd have to hope the games were PPSC, though...

Being that more than one player can advertise for the CD opening - and thus it is a level playing field in that regard, I guess the argument could be made that it's fair to go looking for a patsy or whatever. However, this clearly takes the game outside the confines of the game proper... and though not meta-gaming by my read of the precise definition given on this site ("alliances for reasons outside a game, such as because you are friends, relatives or in return for a favour in another game.") it is a bit shady because it takes the game outside of the game. Interesting question. Phrased another way, what you describe is expanding the public chat to truly be public (outside the game)... at least in some regard.

One more along this line came up for me just now. Voting or not voting for draw when there is a CD player. What is the expectation on that? Some players are going to be tempted to not vote Draw when it benefits them in the game to take advantage - even though they realize that a game missing a player is a degraded game and they might have voted for Draw had it been a different country that went CD. But I guess it is their right. Probably the only way around this problem would be to make games automatically draw given certain circumstances. Not sure that is palatable either.

I think some players think it's fair to vote draw when it doesn't benefit you. Some think you should always draw when a player, who can still swing the game one way or another), CDs. I am learning to lean heavily towards the latter camp.

How about a radical solution?
IF any CD at all, discount ratings / decrease points / force a Draw.
The obverse impractical answer to the above is that becoming "disinterested" or having a losing position the Usual Suspects then force the Draw/ point / ratings drop.
- Anyway, WHAT is a non-Traditional metagamer? If you want the shadow/ghost metagamers, why not play the Avalon Hill board game with Hera, Athena and other magic "forces"?
Au fond, Dip. is more psychological strategizing. Like Kissinger and part of his staff going to unspectacular, nay boring, Asian cities to avoid the press and then from Rawalpindi take a 2 day slipaway to work out the "Nixon in China" arrangements.
Feint, lie, even "bully", but play to gain allies, SCs etc. etc.

Something that I really think should be changed is password protected games with CD's. I think that once someone goes CD anyone in the community should be allowed to take over the country if want. What I am hesitant about is voting for a draw in a game where the dominate player goes CD. Is it fair for the rest of the players to draw when they would have ended up losing if another player took over that country? Is it fair to take over a country that is in a dominate position and refuse a draw if the other players want one. Is any of this covered under the rules?

It's interesting that I've never really thought of this before.

For most games, when you start 7 people agree to play with each other. Once someone CDs, a new player can join without any invitation (non-anon, non-pw) or with only the consent of one person. Now, 5 people are playing with someone they didn't agree to play with. Interesting...

@abge,
There is related issue to CD and consent, and that is a sitter. I agree that sitting in for someone is a nice gesture, but it does bring up some challenging aspects such as the other players not consenting to play with the sitter (especially in an invitational passworded game) or the sitter not following the player's wishes. However, this is not the issue that Thucy brought up.
@jmo, if everyone else in the game wanted a draw, then the draw would happen because the CD player doesn't get to vote until someone takes over. So it's never the case that only the replacing player refuses to vote draw. Unless there is a short window where someone was going to vote draw based on CD, but now someone takes over right before (this seems to be unlikely).

jmo1121109 said: "What I am hesitant about is voting for a draw in a game where the dominate player goes CD. Is it fair for the rest of the players to draw when they would have ended up losing if another player took over that country?"
I haven't seen a dominant player go CD yet, but I guess it could happen. Regardless of who CDs, they, quite reasonably, forfeit their investment in the game. A CD is quitting... and quitting is losing... it only seems fair that just as when a player does something else boneheaded and loses, that the other players should benefit from it. Should it matter whether the boneheaded losing maneuver is when they are already weak or when they are strong? Either way they lose... the rest of the players win. The American Women's soccer/football team yesterday snatched defeat from the jaws of victory giving up two leads and imploding during penalty kicks. Should the Japanese team who exploited these failings by the Americans *not* get the win? I think the Japanese team should get the glory of a win without any question. They earned their spot and they took advantage of the opportunities given them. They earned it - regardless of any American version of woulda/coulda/shoulda. Similarly, a CD is a loss - and how the other players benefit is part of the game. That's my two cents.

a sitter is a far preferable thing to a CD

1. Everyone on the board has the chance to look for a replacement, thus, in general, the board remains equal (statistically, based on the idea that you will encounter multiple CD's over time).
2. Everyone experiences games with CD's, and thus their win/draw/survive/loss percentage is equally affected by the random CD....and thus from a global stats point of view, it is meaningless, particularly the more you play, and thus the more average the impact of a CD player become on your personal stats.
3. Trying to RECRUIT a player specifically to HELP YOU or HURT SOMEONE ELSE is the VERY DEFINITION OF META-GAMING! You are talking about the idea of a pre-determined alliance before someone joins a game. The very notion that some of the more experienced players than I have not **completely** dismissed this idea as offensive and illegal is mildly disturbing to me...
4. If you are worried about CD's, minimize the prospect by the games that you choose to play in.
5. CD'ing is a very real part of the web-version of this board game. As such...deal with...
6. NEW SITE CONCEPT: Instead of the games list, there should be a special option to look for games the ONLY have a CD'ed position, so that people looking to fill in can do so easily. Yes... I know...I could probably apply some filters and do this on my own from the Games menu....I'm just saying make an option button for "Seeking A Fill-In for a CD Loser" and then more random people would seek these positions, instead of people seeking a buddy in chat to come be their bitch.

@6. "New concept"? Isn't that called an "open" game?

Dominant player CD'ing:

gameID=45328

I still regret going with guilt for the draw there, I literally had the win after the CD.

@3. That is not what was meant before. What people were asking is, is it ok to advertise an open game to someone who you know has a more or less aggressive style of play that might help your position in the game, but without making any agreements with that person. For example, I am England and Turkey goes CD. Turkey is in a great position against Russia who is the dominate player on the board. In this case I would try and find a really good player to take over Turkey knowing that s/he will cause Russia endless grief. I don't have to make any agreements with that person because I know what they will do once they take over. In a situation like that, would you really consider that meta-gaming? I am not sure if I do or not.