(You know who you are.) Problem is there is no policy to resolve such disputes. Camp A says, yes you did. Camp B says, no we didn't. So maybe, like all sports, the games should have a referee or several. I am thinking maybe one of:1. A single referee for a match. This person is absolutely not a player in the game. Their duties would be minimal, basically to resolve a dispute if it should come up. They are informed by email of a problem, they consult the forums/polls, and make a call. Perhaps they would have Observer status in the game, or maybe some special player status where they have some unkillable units with which they mete out punishments? More on that in a bit. Problem with this one is it might be difficult to find someone not playing who is willing to do it.
2. A group of referees, maybe call it a Tribunal. Maybe 3, 5, or 7 (it should be an odd number) players who are or are not playing the game. They look at the problem and vote on it. Not sure how to determine who these would be, maybe polls to vote them in or out. Problem here is you have the possibility of several members belonging to the same alliance, so they might be biased. I suppose for a Team game, each team picks one person from their team, or the team leader. Or maybe the Senior Committee, if such a thing is implemented, could play this role for all games.
3. The players decide by poll. You would have to be really explicit and clear in this poll, since it may have been a poll which created the dispute in the first place. Can't say I like this one, but it's a possibility. It would be slow and decision would maybe just go to whichever camp is bigger.
In every sport, there are penalties for offenses. Hockey has the penalty box, Basketball has the free throw, etc. So maybe the ref has some power to exact penalties. Maybe a system of:
1. minor penalty: player has some units disbanded
2. moderate penalty: player has some cities nuked
3. major penalty: player is disqualified, forced to surrender but can still play
But those are just rough ideas for punishments. For nuking cities, the ref could be given some special 1000 hp subs with nukes of unlimited range. Or he could have some hard-coded powers like kill any unit on the board, make a penalty to attacks or production for a number of turns, additional unhappiness, etc.
There is another thread about revising the game rules. Maybe this system of penalties could be implemented regarding all offenses, like password sharing, too much delegation time, whatever. Idlers already have the penalty of being removed for idling, for example.
The best thing would be to hard code the game rules as much as possible. This would outright prevent such violations in the first place. This is some work for admins, but things like max alliance size and max delegation time could be coded I think.
