Tournaments Timeout

[OmegaOm]

I suspected this was the case for so long.
I just got timed out in Field of Glory tournament, when my opponent took more time. I played every day sometimes twice. He was away days and even apologized. There is no way I could of got time out. Both games were close and would of been finished if he played.

Either your timer doesn't work right, or like I suspect some how the guys that goes last doesn't get the timeout.

Also found an exploit. In medieval game. Guys deployed as far pack as possible, and did not move, so took forever to get there. He must of had job at home, cause could do his turn not too long after I do mine. I work out so I can do most two turns a day. So he got 70 pts for that match I got 6. we just started fighting when time was up.

So there should be a reasonable limit on time to, not just who returned turn faster. If you play a reasonable amount of time, there should be no turn time out. If you playing every day and its a long drawn out match like last rounds setup, and game doesn't not get finished. The guys that was say 1 min faster on turns should not auto win the game if both players played reasonably amount of time. Make sense. See my point.

[rbodleyscott]

I suspected this was the case for so long.
I just got timed out in Field of Glory tournament, when my opponent took more time.

He didn't.

I played every day sometimes twice. He was away days and even apologized. There is no way I could of got time out. Both games were close and would of been finished if he played.

Either your timer doesn't work right, or like I suspect some how the guys that goes last doesn't get the timeout.

You are mistaken.

I have analysed the log on one of those games, and although he had one round where he did not play for more than 3 days, overall the game spent more than 60 hours more in your in-tray than in his, because most of his turns were returned really quickly.

Also, you had the last turn in one of the games.

Here are the logs:

Game A3.jpg (142.79 KiB) Viewed 580 times

Game A2.jpg (141.64 KiB) Viewed 580 times

Game A1.jpg (48.38 KiB) Viewed 580 times

To avoid this sort of thing happening to you in future:

1) Are you signed up to receive email notifications when it is your turn?
2) It might be worth taking a look at the lobby about an hour after taking your turns. More than 50% of twyearling's turns were returned within less than an hour after you made your turn.

[rbodleyscott]

Also found an exploit. In medieval game. Guys deployed as far pack as possible, and did not move, so took forever to get there. He must of had job at home, cause could do his turn not too long after I do mine. I work out so I can do most two turns a day. So he got 70 pts for that match I got 6. we just started fighting when time was up.

So there should be a reasonable limit on time to, not just who returned turn faster. If you play a reasonable amount of time, there should be no turn time out. If you playing every day and its a long drawn out match like last rounds setup, and game doesn't not get finished. The guys that was say 1 min faster on turns should not auto win the game if both players played reasonably amount of time. Make sense. See my point.

I do see your point.

Part of the problem is Time Zone differences that make it difficult for some player matchups to get in more than one turn each per day, which isn't enough if the game goes to the Turn limit.

Part is due to some people simply having more time to play than others, which allows them to more reliably return their turns quickly.

We could increase the length of the rounds, but then some of the players who do finish their games quickly might get bored and drop out. So the 14 day round is a compromise to keep the tournament interesting, while accepting that some games will be timed out.

With regard to how exactly Timed Out games are dealt with by the tournament system, I personally am not an employee of Slitherine (I am the director of Byzantine Games, who develop FOG2, which is published by Slitherine), and have no say in how Slitherine's tournament system (or its timed out algorithm) works. I will draw the attention of those at Slitherine who do decide how the tournament system works to this thread.

[OmegaOm]

I suspected this was the case for so long.
I just got timed out in Field of Glory tournament, when my opponent took more time.

He didn't.

I played every day sometimes twice. He was away days and even apologized. There is no way I could of got time out. Both games were close and would of been finished if he played.

Either your timer doesn't work right, or like I suspect some how the guys that goes last doesn't get the timeout.

You are mistaken.

I have analysed the log on one of those games, and although he had one round where he did not play for more than 3 days, overall the game spent more than 60 hours more in your in-tray than in his, because most of his turns were returned really quickly.

Also, you had the last turn in one of the games.

Well then. It is not fair rule then if he is able to return turn immediately, if he doesn't work or something. I do my turns in morning before work, and I can not return turn while I am at work for 10 hours. I think maybe in this case you would not use the time out rule unless it was extreme. Like I said in a different post. If both players where playing almost equal times, and game did not finish, why should the guy that had the time tray of a few hours more lose the match in an email game. Probably better just to do a live match and finish it in a hour. I never had this problem, now I am getting timed out all the time lately.

[OmegaOm]

Also found an exploit. In medieval game. Guys deployed as far pack as possible, and did not move, so took forever to get there. He must of had job at home, cause could do his turn not too long after I do mine. I work out so I can do most two turns a day. So he got 70 pts for that match I got 6. we just started fighting when time was up.

So there should be a reasonable limit on time to, not just who returned turn faster. If you play a reasonable amount of time, there should be no turn time out. If you playing every day and its a long drawn out match like last rounds setup, and game doesn't not get finished. The guys that was say 1 min faster on turns should not auto win the game if both players played reasonably amount of time. Make sense. See my point.

I do see your point.

Part of the problem is Time Zone differences that make it difficult for some player matchups to get in more than one turn each per day, which isn't enough if the game goes to the Turn limit.

Part is due to some people simply having more time to play than others, which allows them to more reliably return their turns quickly.

We could increase the length of the rounds, but then some of the players who do finish their games quickly might get bored and drop out. So the 14 day round is a compromise to keep the tournament interesting, while accepting that some games will be timed out.

With regard to how exactly Timed Out games are dealt with by the tournament system, I personally am not an employee of Slitherine (I am the director of Byzantine Games, who develop FOG2, which is published by Slitherine), and have no say in how Slitherine's tournament system (or its timed out algorithm) works. I will draw the attention of those at Slitherine who do decide how the tournament system works to this thread.

Sorry to be a pain. Thanks for your patience and help. I am just trying to point out things that seem unfair in the game, in hopes to make it more fair. Its a great game and over all I am happy. Frustrating, though and I won one of those matches and I ended up loses cause of time out and I played every day.

[twyearling]

Sorry to be a pain. Thanks for your patience and help. I am just trying to point out things that seem unfair in the game, in hopes to make it more fair. Its a great game and over all I am happy. Frustrating, though and I won one of those matches and I ended up loses cause of time out and I played every day.

No OmegaOm, what's unfair is incorrectly painting a negative impression of you opponent over one delayed turn and then complaining about it because the rules won't be changed to suit your working/playing schedule. I played a fair set of games against you and you had no grounds to complain about it. (ultimately, as the logs show, you were the slower player. If you had played faster, both battles would have finished.)

[grahamed]

Hello Chaps

Interesting thread, I play quite a few, though not all, the fog tournaments, the ones i miss are where i know i am likely to have a problem getting turns done on time.

I too have been timed out, when i felt i had tried hard to get the turns done, and, perhaps my opponent had not tried as hard.

I believe a while back some tweaks were made to the timeout process to reduce the frequency of timeouts, and , indeed that seems to have helped, however, i think that usually (usually NOT always) the player who feels hard done by has not been able to do all their turns ASAP, so is not entirely “innocent”

No such system is perfect, and forever tweaking it may cause more issues than it solves, so my thoughts are leave it until/ unless more people are unhappy than are satisfied, meanwhile those of us that fall foul of the system need to “suck it up”