[MN-dip] Thanks for coming out to diplomacy today

[Jeremy]

That's not how I would implement it, as it would have the flaws described.  

First, it would require majority, rather than unanimous support.  You wouldn't 
use this in a formal tournament, but for a social game where you may need to 
give some consideration if over half the players would like to leave.  
Majority support, then, is different than unanimously voting for a draw.

Second, the vote or preference system must be efficient in terms of time -  
long delays would only call attention to the clock.

In an online game, the option would be implemented as a checkbox somewhere in 
the program.  Set it and leave it.  When over half the checkboxes are 
checked, the game ends.  The tally is not published.  It is private, 
anonymous, yet authenticated.  

In a F2F game, it can be done with an impartial judge.  You can merely 
communicate your preference to them discretely, and they can remember it.  
From the perspective of other players, this too is private, anonymous, yet 
authenticated.

If you don't have an impartial judge, you need a device that can tally votes.  
There are many ways to do this.  If cellphones were universally owned, it 
could be via text messages to a game server.  There are other simple ways.

If the voting method is intrusive, another way to limit the game is to allow 
each player to name the *time* they would like to leave.  These times are 
secretly entered at the start of the game and cannot be changed.  When the 
majority of timers have rung, the game ends.  This has the benefit that the 
end time is not dependant on game situation, and it does not require any 
action on the part of the players during the game.  It has all the other 
benefits above.  It would require a computer that could privately hear each 
person's time limit at the start.

I will call that last one the "preponderance of egg timers" method.  It might 
work better in our case.  It would be easy to implement.

However, Ry4an does have a valid objection:  any early game end will alter the 
odds of a solo.  Comparable results require a comparable game.

Jeremy

On Tuesday 16 January 2007 10:23 am, Ry4an Brase wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 15, 2007 at 11:57:05PM -0600, Chad Walstrom wrote:
> > Jeremy <Diplomacy at lizakowski.com>  wrote:
> > > Rather than a fixed duration game, I might suggest a blind-voting
> > > method:
> >
> > So after each Winter Adjustment, you would have everyone vote?  This
> > involves an extra step that takes time away from the game; I'm betting
> > 5 minutes on average.  You would have to make it procedural so that no
> > one would "gain knowledge" that a player wants to leave by putting it
> > up to vote.
>
> Jeremy, I'm with Chad on that not making much sense.  Since "Draws
> include all survivors" there's no difference between a "should we
> end now" vote and a normal draw vote, which anyone can propose at any
> time and has to be unanimously positive like a "should we end now" vote
> would have to be (as it's a rule modification).
>
> The only problem I've got with the tapering victory conditions (which
> I've played and enjoyed greatly) is that it alters the likelihood of
> solos relative to draws (increases it) making the statement "I got a
> solo as Russia once" require a record-book asterisk.