Most players surrender as soon as they realize they have lost. Some players will never surrender, even when they know there is no possible way they can win. What do folks think about this? Is it rude to waste another player's time? Or is there something honorable about refusing to surrender?

Edited 4/28/2015 12:28:26

It's definitely rude to refuse surrender. Waiting 2-3 more turns after you think you lost is ok and no problem but after a certain point it's just annoying

i blacklist the latter, they are fkin douchebags

I usually surrender because I don't feel like wasting my own time, but every once in a while somebody is a dick and needs to suffer for their win.

There is nothing honorable about refusing to surrender. Period.

Even worse is going on quadruply extended vacation to avoid having to surrender in already-decided games (https://www.warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=8200751)

For surrenders to happen instantly on 1v1s, especially when it has the word "fast" in the tourney / game name. I find it dishonorable to not accept a surrender, apart from if it's one of your teams' AI players.

Edit: You don't what a game like this (https://www.warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=8468576) to happen to you, do you?

Edited 4/30/2015 06:14:11

There's a big difference between not surrendering and delaying a game, one of those things is ok the other not.

Well, in 1v1 / team games stuff is clear (I hope): You surrender when you lost.

However I played a couple autogame ffa's on the Greece map lately. It happened about 2-3 times that I went 1v1 against an opponent and crushed him pretty early (of course...) but he kept throwing all at me while another guy surrendered to the fourth player so he could expand freely. I find it very unsportsmanlike not surrendering in a ffa, especially when you are stealing the victory from the player who has legitimately defeated you in a 1v1. In a ffa I surrender as soon as I realize that I won't win. This can even happen after first turn when I see that multiple opponents are throwing their full income at me.

Edited 4/29/2015 19:35:19

There are many reasons not to surrender:

1. The game is not a 1vs1, and there is still lots at stake. (As the poster above points out, surrendering or not surrendering can change the course of the game: especially if surrendering does not replace you with an AI, a surrender can change a certain victory for player X into certain defeat, as another player now has the luxury of expanding into the previously fortified space.)

My preference in all FFAs is that no one surrender until it's over (or that all surrendered players are replaced with an AI, as a second best option).

2. You do not have the skill or knowledge of the map to know you've been defeated. (More often the case than you would think; various levels of fog and occasionally other unfamiliar maps or settings may be the culprits, as well as new players. Local Deployment games are notorious for this.)

Some players will try to trick you into surrendering by saying, "It's over. You've lost!", sometimes even if that's not really the case - this happened to me once fairly recently, and I sure am glad I played on and won the game.

3. You're looking to learn as much as possible. Trying out new maneuvers or judging the difference between one defensive strategy and another is a valuable experience. Similarly, you may wish to stay in the game to watch and learn from your opponent's moves: how will he move to defeat you, where will he strike, etc?

I recommend all beginners to stay in games as long as possible, as there's almost always something to learn.

For example, once you are losing, you can experiment with different strategies: is it better to mount as dogged a defense as possible, or delay your opponent and expand into other areas of the map?

How can you learn what strategies are most effective when you are up against a superior opponent except by playing out a game once you're in a losing position?

4. Staying open to possibilities. A game may seem hopeless, but other circumstances can still turn into a win. Your opponent gets booted; someone surrenders at the wrong moment; you get a fortuitous card and your opponent makes a terrible error. This is particularly true in FFAs and in multi-attack games (with the settings I often use, gameplay is unpredictable: I could show you a few of my games and ask you to guess who will win based on the first 10 turns, and you'll likely guess wrong every time).

5. Trying to maximize your points/score/rank/win percentage. Even if you're losing, there's always a chance your opponent will get hit by a bus or lose their internet connection and drop out of the game (I'm sure you've played a game where you were losing and suddenly your opponent disappeared, so you won).

If your goal is to win as much as possible, you should logically stay in every game to the bitter end, just in case. It's simply the smartest thing to do.

6. You play in a culture (e.g. with a group of friends) where staying in the game is considered the norm. If you consider playing a social activity, or if you're playing a roleplay or diplomacy game, it makes sense to stay in the game just to keep watching what's going on or to keep contributing commentary. (Doesn't really apply to 1v1 games.)

...

All that said, do NOT ever waste anyone's time. Ask them politely if they're OK with playing things out a little further, and try to take your turns as quickly as possible. Nothing is more annoying than a player who is frustrated that they're losing and takes as long as possible to play their turns.

Edited 4/29/2015 20:03:05

Hennns, isn't not surrendering in a clearly decided game the same thing as delaying a game? Both unnecessarily drag out the game and are disrespectful to your opponent. When your only chance at victory is via boot then you should be surrendering.

That's assuming you can always tell that your only remaining chance is by booting your opponent. It's possible, though, that you don't have enough experience to tell that this is the case, or you're playing with a set of settings which make it hard to be sure (or on a map you're not familiar with).

Poireau, even the most novice player knows they are doomed when their opponent is deploying 100+ armies and they have 10.

You're speaking in corner cases, I'm speaking in generalities. I'm speaking of the clear-cut cases where the game has been decided and no amount of flanking or gamesmanship is going to earn you the victory

In that case (and assuming you're talking about 1v1 games), I agree.

However, my points 3 and 5 might still apply. In those cases, and perhaps with a note/comment/apology, I can see a player having a valid reason to stay in the game.

Just like some players are quitters by nature, others have been conditioned (perhaps since birth!) to never give up. Neither extreme of the spectrum is necessarily wrong; they're just going about life a bit differently.

Point 5 is garbage. If you are playing solely for your W-L record and would rather win by boot than lose you are a fool. Plain and simple.

As for #3, in my experience you are better off surrendering and asking advice rather than pissing them off. When the game is decided there is not much need for strategy from your opponent so there isn't much to learn and what little that can be learned is offset by the lost opportunity to learn by asking for advice (seeing as dragging a game out means the victor is often unwilling to advise).

Refusing to give up in a meaningless game is stupidity defined. If they somehow tie their honor to their performance on Warlight, or any game, then they don't actually understand the concept of honor.

Edited 4/29/2015 20:43:17

A lot of people who have just joined will play until eliminated. Either this is how they played risk or this is how they get the most fun from a game or they simply don't know any better (blah!).
Of course, this doesn't just apply to beginners.

Unless people delay out of spite, I don't think this is a problem. Sure the game lasts longer, but it's not up to the winner when the enemy surrenders. Respect their choice, good or bad. Just because someone plays in an illogical(?) manner or disagrees with you doesn't mean they should be berated for not surrendering.

Have a little tolerance.

Patience is a... I forget the rest. Must have dozed off in that lesson on clichés.

^^^

Coming from a standpoint of an older guy who grew up playing hours long games of RISK...

There were no surrender rules in RISK. You played until one player wiped out the rest.

As long as the player who is losing keeps trying to win, I will keep playing him without getting even the least bit annoyed. The point of playing the game is to play the game, not wuss out and run away as soon as you think you might lose, or complain when your probably defeated opponent won't give up to your hordes of pieces.

To the former I say:Fight to the end. You never know what might happen.

To the latter I say: Quit whining and have fun crushing the other player. :-P

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJ2hJezvd2I

:-P

Edited 4/30/2015 01:42:43

the problem is in the tutorial and single player games
it teaches us to eliminate the AIs till the very end,and new players don't know about the surrender button
i was told how to surrender in my 20th game or so and HOW TO USE THE MENU eventually but did know about it before that,the experienced players should check the stats of the player not surrendering and if they think they're new they should help them with basic unspoken rules atleast

i think "Menu" should be named something different and the options in the menu should be presented in a different way so new players can interact with it better

If there really is no possible way you can win, you should surrender. Nothing honorable about fighting till the end.

Only exception to me is when your opponents are **sholes, who for example won't vote to end if a player is missing during picks or so... I then feel like not giving them an easy win.

But I often get the impression that people surrender a bit too early where they would still have a chance and don't risk something... (after all, that is the name of the game!)

I pretty much only play Earth 1v1s, and in those cases, it's easy to know when you've lost. IDC if it's rude or not, but when someone is delaying a certain win, I tell them there's a surrender button under the menu. And besides, in 1v1 there's no point in holding out because wth can you do when your opponent has double your income?

A Copy of my post in the other recent thread on Surrendering:

I was the first to join an auto-created 2v2 team game... as a level 7... the next person was a level 9... they joined the same team as myself... so far, not a problem.

the two people who joined the other team later on were levels 45 and level 30.

Problem.

You want to fix something that reduces the frequency of people dragging on after they are clearly losing?

Fix that.

Fortunately for everyone involved, neither of us on team B were interested in dragging things out, either hoping to win by booting them, or just to be annoying.

We had both surrendered by Turn 20.

But it was rather tempting to drag things out to be annoying.