So beside talking with the person before hand what are some way to reduce slow play by someone that winning and knows going another turn risk them the game.

We had a player that would measure every ship maneuver on both sides. He sometimes took 10 minutes to move on ship. At the 90 minute marks we had table done, and this table was at start of round 3.

We where thinking 135 diving by two gives each player roughly 67 minutes each, then 11 minutes per round. So almost have a timer where if they go over 11 minutes they lose the rest of their activtion. But that seem a bit of a major move to make.

Any suggestions

Just now, mobow213 said:

So beside talking with the person before hand what are some way to reduce slow play by someone that winning and knows going another turn risk them the game.

We had a player that would measure every ship maneuver on both sides. He sometimes took 10 minutes to move on ship. At the 90 minute marks we had table done, and this table was at start of round 3.

We where thinking 135 diving by two gives each player roughly 67 minutes each, then 11 minutes per round. So almost have a timer where if they go over 11 minutes they lose the rest of their activtion. But that seem a bit of a major move to make.

Any suggestions

How was he measuring every ship maneuver on both sides? Like, he activated his CR90 (say) and then checks every possible spot he can legit maneuver to with a dial and a token or something like that?

Because that to me sounds like slow playing and should result in some sort of punishment from the TO or judge for that.

Before picking a ship he would figure out where they would all end up, then he would try and figure out where the other players ISD would end up. Figure out the firing range for the ISD when it did move then finalu move his ship.

But what should the punishment be? We all agreed it was slow play. Juat wasnt sure how to handle.

13 minutes ago, mobow213 said:

Before picking a ship he would figure out where they would all end up, then he would try and figure out where the other players ISD would end up. Figure out the firing range for the ISD when it did move then finalu move his ship.

But what should the punishment be? We all agreed it was slow play. Juat wasnt sure how to handle.

You can only use maneuver tool on the ship that is moving, when it is moving, was he breaking that rule as well?

16 minutes ago, mobow213 said:

Before picking a ship he would figure out where they would all end up, then he would try and figure out where the other players ISD would end up. Figure out the firing range for the ISD when it did move then finalu move his ship.

But what should the punishment be? We all agreed it was slow play. Juat wasnt sure how to handle.

Yeah, what @Darthain said. You can only use the maneuver tool during the maneuver step. As for the actual consequences? Call up a @Drasnighta Corvette, I'm sure he has an idea?

TO discretion. My favorite threat for slow play is to say you move by x minutes it goes current movement straight and activation is forfeited. Time is determined by time remaining divided by total number of ship activations left. Example 1 hour remaining with 3 activations left on turn 4 and each turn has 9 total activations. Total activations remaining is 21. 60/21 comes out to roughly 3 minutes per activation.

From the above example if a player did not complete their activation by the 3 minutes it immediately makes a current speed straight maneuver. All items like squadron activations (even if in the middle) are skipped and the same with shooting.

The one time I was called over for slow play and verified it the game sped up significantly. I've not had to follow through with the threat yet.

In the case both players decide to slow play I essentially do it timed chess style. Each player would have half the remaining time. Any decision on that player starts the timer. If a player runs out of time they forfeit all actions resulting in squadrons sitting in place and ships going straight.

I comment on rules validity.

In this case, yes, you can only measure the maneuver for the ship you are maneuvering, and only at the maneuver time. This is clarified and stated in the FAQ.

When it comes to punishments, You don't want to know my answer on these things. I only ever suggest one punishment when it comes to gross and repeated rules violations.

A Search will turn up the one time I offered a suggestion.

8 minutes ago, geek19 said:

Yeah, what @Darthain said. You can only use the maneuver tool during the maneuver step. As for the actual consequences? Call up a @Drasnighta Corvette, I'm sure he has an idea?

This is the only way I'm doing that from now on.

8 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

Its Defenestration.

That might be my new favorite word.

It's highly underused. Both as a word, and as an action for solving problems.

Regarding the slow play, it's down to the TO to make the decision on a punishment, but realistically it sounds like it's not just a point of slow play he's breaking, but fundamental game timing, egregiously and to his extreme benefit. Part of the point of this kind of game is that you're rarely playing with all the information to hand. You don't know exactly where your opponent is going, when they're going, or who they're going to fire at, but you can make an educated guess based on knowledge of the game, and spatial awareness. Measuring every conceivable option is not just slow play, it's gathering information he's not supposed to have.

Speaking personally, I think the first action is to simply tell the player that they can't do that. If they disagree or do it anyway, beckon for a TO and explain the situation. Let them clarify the timing of measuring, and if they continue to do it after that, they can be dealt with as any other person breaking rules or not heeding TO calls would be: a Drasnighta special.

3 hours ago, Drasnighta said:

When it comes to punishments, You don't want to know my answer on these things. I only ever suggest one punishment when it comes to gross and repeated rules violations.

A Search will turn up the one time I offered a suggestion.

Its Defenestration.

I've been slow played in a tournament and I concur that this is the appropriate response.

Seriously, though, notify the other player ASAP that he needs to speed it up (politely). If he doesn't, call the TO. I made the mistake of giving the other guy the benefit of the doubt and waiting until it was too late. Whether it's intentional or not, it's unsporting and specifically not allowed.

I think what really sucks about being slow played, especially if you play a fleet that needs to get to turn 6 to perform (i.e. TRC90 Swarm), is it puts pressure on you as the one getting slow-played to speed it up in order to get to turn 6 before time, which could cause miscalculations. I've played 8+ squadrons in tournaments and 7 ship swarms as well, and never went to time before Round 6, personally. It would almost be nice to introduce some sort of chess clock mechanic, though I don't know what would happen after one side runs out of time.

Without knowing much about the history of the player and what he is actually doing on the table, it is hard to make good recommendations.

If he's got a long history of games only making turn 4 in 135 minutes, then that's a problem. Composition of the fleets matter, so squadron-heavy lists tend to play a bit slower, and I see plenty of top tier games that finish on turn-5 from time, and I wouldn't say that's because either player is necessarily playing slow.

On the 10 minutes per ship, there are plenty of times where I might take 10 minutes to move my Madine Liberty. But we're talking two total turns per game where the movement absolutely has to be right or the game is lost. I've never had a game not make turn-6, and some of the time that is devoted to moving that ship is built into how the list is designed. Ideally, you want some easy decisions and only a few difficult decisions. And most games feature only 2 rounds of difficult decisions, with the rest being fairly perfunctory. So that's the only caveat I'd say to forcing a specific time limit.

And I do come at this from the game of chess, where each player is awarded a pool of time from which to make all of their moves. Managing the clock is part of managing a chess game well. What that means is that you have to gain a sense of how critical the move is. Then you learn to ensure that you don't waste a bunch of time on non-critical moves so that you can save it for the critical ones. So take the 10 minute Madine-Liberty move. There might be two turns per game that it really matters. It is worth it to make sure they are right. Beyond that, you want to be able to play pretty quickly with everything else because it is not that consequential.

My main issue with this is that he was checking multiple ships, including the opposing ship!! This is directly against the rules. Call the TO.

8 hours ago, Caldias said:

I think what really sucks about being slow played, especially if you play a fleet that needs to get to turn 6 to perform (i.e. TRC90 Swarm), is it puts pressure on you as the one getting slow-played to speed it up in order to get to turn 6 before time, which could cause miscalculations. I've played 8+ squadrons in tournaments and 7 ship swarms as well, and never went to time before Round 6, personally. It would almost be nice to introduce some sort of chess clock mechanic, though I don't know what would happen after one side runs out of time.

deathclock would be nice but i dont think FFG wants to put stores/TOs in a spot to go buy the clocks.

if you clock out id just say you lose the full 400pts and then compare to what you have killed of opponents. the time limit on rounds is high as is and generally time only happens to newer players who are over analyzing. some experienced players get analysis paralysis but i've found it to be rare.

13 hours ago, mobow213 said:

Before picking a ship he would figure out where they would all end up, then he would try and figure out where the other players ISD would end up. Figure out the firing range for the ISD when it did move then finalu move his ship.

But what should the punishment be? We all agreed it was slow play. Juat wasnt sure how to handle.

his punishment should be a DQ for cheating. harsh? maybe?

if hes a local in your regular group explain that he can not do that per the rules. when playing again reinforce the rules/call a TO/warn a TO to watch him ahead of time.

Remember as well: The only non-warning punishment that Organizers are empowered to use through the rules framework of the Tournament regulations is " Disqualification for Unsportsmanlike Conduct. "

Its a very broad category - but its also a harsh punishment.. So honestly, a Warning should get through...

Now, in this instance, not knowing any history or specifics beyond what was specified - I would contend that it might be ignorance of the Rules, and Ignorance of the Rules should always first be corrected through Education of the Rules...

... Only if it continues after that, should it be warned....

... Only if it continues after that , should it be considered deliberate and unsportsmanlike...

Can't use clocks in games like this, or X-wing or Axis And Allies or hell even Monopoly. To summarize what I have said in other threads simply, Chess clocks work for Chess, and Go, for a reason. The clock in games like that can time a decision making process to make one advancement of the board which is equal to one turn, and demonstrated by a very brief physical component manipulation, in a small play space, and both players at every point start with the same number and type of component and reduce the pieces from play, and have components can only occupy surviving points in the play space. You can't in any way measure the time it takes to make a decision AND compare that to the actual handling of the game pieces in a complex component game like this. It just doesn't work. To use a clock penalizes a player for every manipulable piece they bring from ships, to squads, to flipping defense tokens, to how many command tokens they want to get out, to how complicated and far a maneuver can be, to how many attack pools they generate, and how many mods go into those pools, to how many times they have to adjust a shield dial, or a speed dial, to how many damage cards they have to track... Get it? All a Chess clock will do is Force a meta change that takes away strategic depth and variation of builds and replaces it with fast-to-play builds.

53 minutes ago, ForceSensitive said:

Can't use clocks in games like this, or X-wing or Axis And Allies or hell even Monopoly. To summarize what I have said in other threads simply, Chess clocks work for Chess, and Go, for a reason. The clock in games like that can time a decision making process to make one advancement of the board which is equal to one turn, and demonstrated by a very brief physical component manipulation, in a small play space, and both players at every point start with the same number and type of component and reduce the pieces from play, and have components can only occupy surviving points in the play space. You can't in any way measure the time it takes to make a decision AND compare that to the actual handling of the game pieces in a complex component game like this. It just doesn't work. To use a clock penalizes a player for every manipulable piece they bring from ships, to squads, to flipping defense tokens, to how many command tokens they want to get out, to how complicated and far a maneuver can be, to how many attack pools they generate, and how many mods go into those pools, to how many times they have to adjust a shield dial, or a speed dial, to how many damage cards they have to track... Get it? All a Chess clock will do is Force a meta change that takes away strategic depth and variation of builds and replaces it with fast-to-play builds.

Superb. I play a lot of chess, and the clock works for that game. There's no way to make a clock work fairly for Armada. In some ways, that makes Armada a more casual less intense game that relies on the generosity and goodness of the players toward each other for its success. I must say that I'm thankful for the gentlemanly behavior I've seen in countless tournaments all across the country and from the world participants I've met here.