While some of these conditions are valid (I guess "death" is a valid example...) reasons for dropping a game position, a standby position creates a philosophical dilemma for the moderator.

In rare instances, a standby position will have the ability to affect potential game leaders. We would not utilize any knowledge that the player wouldn't have access to... after all, I can count enemy cities as well as the next guy. If you are in control of cities on my explored map on both horizons, chances are you are in one of the lead positions. The ethical question that arises is: "Should we utilize the standby position to effectively challenge a neighboring position?"

To tell you the truth, the optimum position for a moderator is NOT to have to make these kind of decisions, but that is not realistic based on the goals I have set forth when I purchased the game system. Our mission statement would have to be stated as follows:

"To provide a balanced, quality game environment that is exciting and

affordable for all to play."

PASSIVE play has the position making only defensive moves/builds; the units do nothing (AAAAA's) until an active player interacts with it. In most instances, a standby position is not capable of ANYTHING else due to being beset by multiple neighbors.

AGGRESSIVE play may be conducted if the standby had the ability to do so (not usually possible). The enemy would be any player who had taken a "ring" city or was actively moving against the neutral.

Historically, one of my associates or I would run a standby position as if it were a "snapshot in time." We would make appropriate moves based on what could be seen in that turn. Is the position being attacked? Does the position have the ability to attack? What are the chances of taking a city away from a neighbor and hold the city?

Past turns are not readily available, and since we are not playing these positions for "our ego gratification," we never conduct diplomacy or review past game information. Whatever the outcome, our goal was twofold: to maintain the impression that the position was aggressively played/defended by a "live" player, albeit a silent player, and secondly, maintain the position to the best of our ability in the hope that we would be able to offer the standby position to another player. In other words, maintain the integrity of the position and the stability of the game.

In one instance, we have had the game leader drop his position (11 cities!) due to financial difficulties. This type of position can present a variety of ethical pitfalls for us... It is the classical double-edged sword. Obviously, we at PTS can't take the position and win with the standby position. If we were to give the standby position to another player, we would probably be handing the player an unwarranted victory. Hence, to-date, we haven't done that. If we utilize the standby position's strengths against neighboring positions, it allows the untouched neighbors to ultimately prevail. (This inadvertantly happened in a recent game, and is one of the reasons for this article.) Lastly, if the standby position goes into hibernation, the closer neighbors can count on a peaceful border and focus their efforts elsewhere. None of the alternatives are attractive to game balance, and where you are in relation to the standby position will have a great deal of impact on how you'd like the standby to be run...

One faction would argue that the passive approach works best, and allows the subscribers to battle amongst themselves without undue interference from the standby position.

There are several problems with this passive approach. First of all, I would argue that the standby position IS A FORCE that should be reckoned with as if it was being run by a player. Remember, we will give this position to another player as soon as practable, and if the position has a defined enemy, then it would be disadvantageous to the position to become passive while the opposition infiltrates/entrenches.

Faction one would love to be next to the PASSIVE standby position, thereby guaranteeing a peaceful border. This would offer a great advantage to adjacent players; and would sound the death knell for the non-adjacent players who now could focus their units more effectively.