When everybody votes for a pause, in essence, the deadline for the current phase is simply set to infinity. The game will remain paused until everybody has finalized their orders for that phase, at which point the orders will be processed, the game will move to the next phase and continue as normal.

I only figured this out myself through some trial and error; my earlier thoughts on it can be found here: threadID=495364

It used to be that everybody had to vote for a pause, which would freeze the deadline clock until everybody voted for an unpause, which would resume the clock (with the same amount of time before the deadline as before the pause).

One thing that I think is missing is any sort of indication in the game screen that the game is paused, but when the pause occurs, a message to that effect will show up under Notices (on your Home page).

So if I request a pause in a phase where I have no moves to enter, and the pause is granted, yet people Finalize (or mark as Ready) their moves, then the phase advances (which is fine) and the pause ends (which is not fine). Because now I still need a pause, but I'm not there to vote for it!

Is that right?

Thanks for you explanation ( and the link ), ajohnson. That is fairly similar to the way I was expecting it to work, although I wasn't certain on exactly how it would unpause.

In other games that I've been in that have been paused, it shows "Paused" up there in the next phase timer, just about like it shows "Now" up there when it's processing the game, but that could have been before these changes were made?

@Toby: That is correct.

@msmth82: Yes, I recall it showing that under the previous system, but I don't think it does any more.