Czuch: As AbigailII said, just flipping cards over randomly like the original war game would be some-what boring, at least for a turn based game site.

When I designed Strategy War, it was somewhat based on the old War card game - but designed in a way that would (1) make it less random, hence the name "strategy", and (2) work with multiple players - similar to the current pond system here - where all player make their turn simultaneously - with the results shown at the same time.

Each player gets 1 suit of cards - 2 through ace (13 cards) - and on each turn, you get to pick which card to play. In the main game (non-dark variant) you can see what your opponents have left - so even though there will still be a lot of "luck" in the game in guessing what your opponenet will play, you can use some strategy to try to figure out what to play and keep which will help you in the long run.

AbigailII: As for the time out rule - how ponds work now, if a player times out during 1 round - they just get the same bid as last turn - and if they are still in, able to come back. This is an important feature for ponds since it is a game where vacations do not come into play. That is why the "time out" rule was put into this game - so if someone does have to miss a turn for some reason, they will lose their biggest card, but would be able to come back and still play. They can't win anything in the round the timed out in, just sacrifice some points to the game.

Time outs would not extend the game at all. If the game has a 1 day time limit, like ponds - everyone has 1 day to make their move. If they don't, they lose their best card - but can still play the next round. Like ponds, weather they play or time out - the round time limit would still be the same.

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Now if it was just a 2 player game, then I think a time out would be lose of game. I never really designed the game as a 2 player game.... even though I did mention that down below. But after thinking about it for a few minutes, if a 2 player "regular" game was also introduced, then my opinion is a time out would be lose of game.... since vacations could then be used in that game situation.