"I am away" option

[celamantia]

Concise description:

• I suggest that there should be a way to indicate to the game that you are away and unable to take turns to allow your turn to be skipped quickly rather than waiting.

Specifics:

• If you are marked as Away and your turn comes up, it is skipped and control passed to the next player.
• You could specify to place armies that you are due to receive randomly, or specify territories to evenly distribute your armies on (should you still hold those territories) via a multi-select list box, or receive themn deferred as you do now if you miss a turn.
• If you opt to have your troops placed randomly or on specific territories, you will not be deadbeated out of the game for missing turns.
• If you opt to receive deferred troops, you will be deadbeated out if you miss 3 turns as normal.

This will improve the following aspects of the site:

• Sometimes missing turns is unavoidable. In one of my games today, a player posted in chat that he unexpectedly would be without access for a couple of days and apologized in advance for the turns he may miss. If he was able to mark himself as Away, he would be able to save everyone else the delays in the game.

--Chris

[Bones2484]

If I knew I was going to have to be away for a small amount of time (and couldn't get a sitter), I'd almost prefer to miss my turns in order to extend the game out.

While it's nice for the other people to play the game more quickly... you, yourself, would miss even MORE turns by the game moving fast.

[wreckead]

very good idea for speed games thats for sure, 2 reasons,

1: saves the people sat waitng for 5 minutes everytime someone wants to miss for tactical (dodgy) reasons as we know many peeps do.

2. saves the people waiting if someone is a deadbeat or even has a genuine reason for leaving.

many times b4 i have had to leave comp when needed elsewhere, can easily happen when that quick speed game goes on for 6 - 7 - 8 hours you know the ones lol. I would love an away button or maybe even better a quit game button.....actually got foed once for missing 1 turn lol although that was the damned server lag i always get that caused that 1.

[barterer2002]

I can see this having some advantages when someone is departing CC with no intention of returning or as mentioned by wreckead where there is a speed game that you have to leave for whatever reason but for the most part I'd agree with Bones that if I was out for more than24 hours and didnt have a sitter watching for me I'd rather miss just one turn rather than the entire game.

[pipsqueak]

I think this is a great idea.

I don't understand the objection "I'd prefer to miss turns" - it would only need to be an option. So you could decide to not tick the box and miss turns in the same way as we do now if you prefer.

It seems to me that all the players in a game would benefit from this? Games would be sped up, and people who are away for a few days would have a simple (optional) alternative to missing turns.

Personally I would keep it simple - if the box is ticked, your troops are randomly distributed. But the main thing is I think the general idea would be a big improvement.