One of the most important parts of a multiplayer game is keeping it fun for everyone involved. While I do see the use for the "surrenders have to be accepted" option, it does make it possible to troll your opponents: drive them into a corner, never attack and just keep building an ever-bigger wall of armies around them. Sure, your opponent could just leave the game, but that would result in a boot being added to their record, which some people try really hard to avoid.

The best attempt-at-a-solution I came up with is borrowed from chess: if no pieces are lost by either player for fifty moves, either player can claim a draw. It seems the number of moves should be considerably reduced for WL purposes, but how about the general concept? Does anybody know a game where not a single territory was captured for (let's say) ten moves, while it should not have been considered an automatic draw?

Also, does anybody have a (possibly completely different) idea on how to solve this potential issue?

Does anybody know a game where not a single territory was captured for (let's say) ten moves, while it should not have been considered an automatic draw?

it's possible especially for smaller maps (like small earth), when you need to grow your stack to numbers big enough that using some income to conquer another bonus won't affect your defence capability.

But still i think it's good idea, one will just need to remember about taking something somewhere to avoid draw.

if no pieces are lost by either player for fifty moves, either player can claim a draw.

What if you play an USA big 1v1 and you both started on the other side? It will take 50 turns to reach eachother, so will it end in a draw then? Do you suggest an amount of turns that you can control? Like you can control luck, you should be able to control this? Or do you want it to be a number that is decided and will stay the same?

Or do you mean with no pieces are lost, that they are not taking over territories, neutrals included?

@RvW
that is not the whole rule you take from chess, pawn moves will also "reset" the counting towards 50 moves.. My point with that is if wl is going to implement something like that such exceptions will probably be needed. for example if army cap is involved.

also the way this rule is formulated small attacks on the losing player will avoid the 50 moves issue, since both players will lose pieces.

Does anybody know a game where not a single territory was captured for (let's say) ten moves, while it should not have been considered an automatic draw?
there`s plenty examples of this, I guess the pirate v.ninja tournament is one, how would it be decided if (almost) every game ended with a tie?

@min, you lose armies attacking neutrals on most settings, but if lets say if neutrals are set to 0 that could become an issue.

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How about make a rule something like this: if all players have surrendered, but one (player a), and player a is the only one who have not accepted surrenders then the surrenders will automatically be accepted and the game ended.

Hennns, you overcomplicated matters. You are talking about armies lost when RvW is clearly talking about territories captured.

It's clear that he meant territories captured, thus negating Min34's concerns and your comments about small attacks voiding the counter.

The one issue I see with the ten-turn limit is in the instance where a clearly beaten opponent refuses to surrender. Instead he puts himself behind a massive blockade, one too large for his opponent to break in ten turns, and thus turns an obvious loss into a draw.

territories captured will still fail with army cap, and on games such as pirate v. ninja, but I did indeed read it too quickly :p it'll also make any game where a lot of diplomacy cards is involved draw. gift cards will also allow for trolling.

Regarding Gift Cards still allowing for trolling: I don't think it's possible to completely eliminate the problem. For instance, instead of boxing in one territory a troll could box in a small group of them, conquering one just before any anti-trolling mechanism activates. Even if that fixes the problem in theory (by limiting the troll from an indefinite amount of time to a limited amount of time), if a troll can still keep going for hours, the problem isn't solved in practice.

Good point about lots of Diplomacy Cards. There might be an easy solution for that though: simply not counting any turns where at least one Diplomacy Card is active.

Truthless Hero also has a good point, which I'm not certain how to address...

Any argument only valid for the map Pirate vs. Ninja is (as far as I care) moot.

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I do have to say I like Hennns counter-suggestion. It might need to be tweaked / detailed a bit though:

• If two non-surrendered players are on the same team, I think the mechanism should still trigger. So the rule should become something like "if all players except (some of) the players on Team X have surrendered and all surrenders from players not on Team X have been accepted by everybody not on Team X, all surrenders (including any surrenders of players on Team X) can be accepted". (I removed the "... and the game ended" clause, see next bullet.)
  Yes, this gets slightly messy to explain in one sentence. Maybe a step-by-step explanation would be more clear. Explaining corner cases with examples is probably also easier.
  
• Any AIs should probably be left out of consideration. (This is true even in games where they are not set to surrender themselves; once all-but-one human players consider a game pointless, they should be allowed to leave. They still turn into AIs, at which point the sole remaining human can try to finish the game.)
  
• I'm unsure whether this should happen immediately (automatically), or whether it should only enable a button, or popup, "force surrender" (or prevent unwanted triggering through some other mechanism).
  On the one hand, cluttering the interface is bad, on the other hand, triggering when not intended is bad... I've been in a few games where one player offered to surrender but (by mutual agreement in chat) it was decided to play for a few more turns (or, to the end) anyway.
  Note that automatically triggering would mean the option "surrenders have to be accepted" will lose all meaning on two players games (I'm not in favour or against that, just an observation).

First with pirate v. ninja I mean the blocked situation you get, where the best both players can do is to sit still and build up for a lot of turns until one player will win (I\ve an example of this on another map, couldn`t find it now, but if needed I\ll)

There will always be weak points with those kind of rules, I must say I agree with all your points as for the last one I think a popup is best). Also as for blockading yourself in there`s an easy solution for that too, simply force the surrender tru instead of making the game a draw. Remember that the main point is to prevent/stop trolling and not to punish trolling, and most people getting trolled just want the game to end.