Freestyle and missed turns

[EricPhail]

This is a question about design intent (and maybe technical limitations):

Why in freestyle games when someone misses a turn is the last person to actually play given the 12hr or someone else first penalty?


I can see why you might choose not to punish the person who missed (somewhat, as it seems all too tempting to abuse), but I see no reason to punish the person who played last bar those who missed. Is there some reason for this decision that I don't see (or is it merely a consequence of the way the engine is coded?)

For reference my preferred solution in these cases would be: If 1 or more players missed no-one gets the played last penalty

[Artimis]

I'm thinking that maybe this one belongs in Q&A if you just wanted the answer.

But if you wanted the debate instead then it's a good question. The double turn bug that once plagued Freestyle was a minor oversight after the turn delay was implemented for the last person taking their turn in round A, to stop them immediately taking another turn when the game increments to round B afterwards. Some players discovered that they could sidestep this by running the clock out. They would delay taking their turn until 23 hours had passed, then make all their assaults, then refuse to end reinforcements. So Freestyle was modified again to log who had their turn active and then count them as having taken their turn and mark them as last to go with a turn delay of 12 hours or until someone else started their turn. It would seem to me that players skipping their turns not being logged as last to go is a similar unintended consequence of the coding.

Perhaps you should post in Suggestions and see if anyone else has noticed or agrees with you?