On the first suggestion. Why not still require the payment, but if the new player is eliminated, the original bet is returned? This allows for those games where joining means just getting in on a draw.

On GR, differentiating between the two would be impossible. The database doesn't record the CD if the player is replaced.

I think having an option on game-make for any CDs to auto-draw or auto-cancel the game might be another good suggestion.

My first ever win was taking over an 8-center Turkey with a juggernaut under way. I stabbed Russia after a year and walked away with a very easy win (he'd left himself wide open, no doubt because Turkey had been NMR for a year before I took over).

No way should my buy-in for that have been free. Not all CDs are created equal, and lots of people leave the game with their nation in good (or at least acceptable) position.

I like Geofram's idea, although it would encourage some gameiness since not all players are created equal. A CD takeover player would likely be more reckless than otherwise, knowing he has nothing to lose (points-wise, at least) from losing and thereby affecting the game.

Do you still count that as your first true "win?"

The problem with auto draws for CDs would be "Stop attacking me or I'll CD". I guess that it would be ok for early NMRs, but wouldn't really work unless you are playing with very reliable players who wouldn't do that.

I think one problem with takeovers is that the cost is often unfair. A one centre country has almost no chance or doing anything so really these should be free to take over. On the other hand if you take over from someone with 17 centres in a WTA game (maybe they were banned for cheating) then you should probably pay more.

I think its better if the takeover cost is low to encourage people to join games as replacements.

A solution that I'm sure the mods will probably want to kill me for is making 3 or 4 accounts named CD_Replacement1, 2, 3... maybe 3 or 4 of these. These accounts are solely for the purpose of taking over CD countries. If you're willing to play one of these accounts you sign up for a month or two with the moderators and they'll give you a temporary password for the account. During that time you take over as many CD positions that you can, probably around 10 or 15 (playing a 1 center game isn't that difficult). If there is need for some kind of reward system maybe the mods could give out say 20 for running one of these accounts for a month (only if enough people didn't sign up). To be clear these would be mod created accounts only and I'm not encouraging anyone to make a second account.

Good point FreeThing.

The games were CDs predominantly happen are so low bet that it really doesn't matter. It's GR that so many people worry about, and I think if you're that concerned over your rating, you're probably not the altruistic type to help players finish their game anyway.

Geo, while the system doesn't currently track CDs when the player is replaced, it should. If changes were to be made in this area, that should be the first one. That then allows further changes on top of that. So the fact that it currently doesn't should be used as an argument against making certain changes.

Regarding the cost to buy-in, right now it is setup so that after your points are added to the pot, your new country's value will match your buy-in. While mathematically logical, it isn't socially logical. A 1 center country isn't worth 1/34th

On the one hand, you could make CD takeovers cost nothing, but also gain you nothing point-wise and GR-wise. But that might encourage people to just go in and mess with things, or even specifically mess with someone that annoyed them in another game. Especially for larger countries being taken over.

So maybe just adjust the buy-in amount so the further below average size, the less it costs. A buy-in at average size or higher would cost the normal amount. If the size is less than average, divide the buy-in by the difference. So with three 11 center countries and one 1 center country, divide the buy-in by 8.5.

As for auto-draw on CD, that certainly doesn't seem workable. Better to allow an option where the game auto-extends the phase on the first NMR and auto-pauses on the second NMR and puts the country in CD. Then the player can be replaced or the game drawn or cancelled. If the CD player comes back but then tries to hold the game hostage when everyone else is ready to go on, a mod could restart the game since the pause was due to the CD.

"Geo, while the system doesn't currently track CDs when the player is replaced, it should. If changes were to be made in this area, that should be the first one. That then allows further changes on top of that."

Now we're talking about way too much extra work for kestas regarding something that rarely happens above the live game and random public level.

I'd love to work on it myself, but I don't have too much experience with web facing applications, or php. At my work I've started working on java/sql running under glassfish, but getting webdip installed on my home pc is a step I haven't figured out yet. Just not sure what tools I really need.

forum.webdiplomacy.net might be a place to look for help, but be careful getting involved under the impression that if you add something it will be included here, ultimately it is kestas's decision and again, this would be a HUGE change for something tiny.

I really like jmo's idea. Seems to solve the problem with the most minimal headache. I'd take over a few games for the hell of it with zero risk zero rewards and get some xp.

Guys, the average bet for the ~40 or so games with a CD (over half of which are world games) is 3 . The highest is 8 . If you're the type of person that likes to help out games that have a CD, which likely means your'e the type of person that likes to try and be some kind of kingmaker, then you're going to do it regardless of losing those 3 .

Whilst I think discussion on anything regarding the site is healthy, I'm going to be the on the other side of this. Finding a way to get more people involved in taking over CD countries is not a pressing issue.

Besides, there are people out there that LIKE the challenge of joining a game with a few centres and trying to come back or convincing the bigger powers to include them in a draw and get some points. We can't change anything because of that fact.

A few thoughts about CDs and their handling on vdip.
1. We have a reliability-rating.
This measures how many phases you missed submitting an order. If your country goes CD each phase you missed still lower your reliability too. With a low rating you can't join that much games, and everybody will see that you have a bad reliability.
(Maybe sometime in the future I might add an option to set a minimum reliability during game creation)
2. AutoCD:
If a player does not submit an order in the first 2 turns (not phases) the game does not process, the game-phase is extended for a full phase and the country is send in CD, so another player can take the position without any harm.

jmo's idea is the work of genious!

I would modify it slightly in saying anyone who wants to can create their own CD replacement account, and call it something along the lines of CDR followed by that person's name (eg CDR_Octavious). This would have what I see are two important benefits:

1. The other players can see who they are playing against (or who they were playing against in anon games)
2. People who only really have time to take over one or two CDs can do so without any pressure to take on more.

As it would be more of a pleasure than a chore I don't see how any reward system would be needed, and the potential to abuse the system in a multi-kind of way is next to nothing.