I am in two games and the drop out rate is massive and totally affects the game.
One of the aspects is that players give up when hit.
In another game system (Imperia) they had a 'Babysitter' or Back Up function where each position could have up to 4 other people as back ups including people in the game. There were restrictions on what a back up could do.
One idea for here would be to allow Coalition people to back each other up and:
1. make production
2, buy and sell goods
3. move units within their own provinces
4. research things
5. Assign spys to defense
6. read and send correspondence (but not delete it) and have the correspondence indicated that it is from the Back Up.
This would allow people to run positions faster, may cut down on the drop out level, and you could still have a position go inactive if the BASE player drops, or you could make it that the Back Up could continue but basically only in a defense role.
Better than giving someone your facebook or login code to play for you.
I like it. I would say not to allow just anyone in coalition though, but instead specifically allow another player and be able to set permissions. For example, able to use gold, able to attack, able to trade ... etc. The problem though is that for a newer person that has no one close enough to trust or just someone that tends not to interact much would be at a great disadvantage.
Ahh, that is when joining game with a bunch friends is the most fun! We join a map, recruit some friends, make some enemies, and have a blast
Sounds interesting something such as this could also get abused of course keep that in mind and not everyone may play with the same people from previous games again and again in regards of trust. It may also be the fact that player x placed their units in province y for a reason. But ya other than that the idea certainly has it's charm. And making some internal Coalition rules how to handle some things such as these shouldn't be to hard either.
Still I think the current system is ok just may need some enhancements. One of the current problems is that admins usually don't re-invite people which sux. At a certain day there wont be anymore invites at all because the game is too far in progress. That's bad as well.
I would rather suggest that the devs write a script which checks the current amount of tech, active game day and what has been researched so far by most players within the game. Or by determining the number of provinces a computer or afk country has + time it takes to research and then unlocks techs accordingly to bring the new nation of humans in line with the remaining players. That way admins could reinvite people throughout the game without ever having to worry about an empty match.
Something like that should only work for slots (countries) which are somewhat untouched or got a high enough province number. I wouldn't like to join such a game and discover that I got only 1 province left.
pro:
-Players can get re-invited throughout a match.
-Lesser experienced or inpatient players get a direct chance to enter into the action (assuming the predecessor or AI did it's job)
-No more empty matches!
contra:
-It may prolong games but better that then playing against idling Ai's.
-It requires match admins to actually do something for once (preferred would be an automation system)
-Certain Countries which posed no treat or danger could suddenly become very dangerous and other player might be out of position. (Surely some sort of protection or warning system for other players could get implemented when new people join late game.)
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