Thanks lou and CoF for getting my back on this one, most appreciated. They are right too, I had a very difficult weekend with a trip I had to take to London relating to my new business set up, entertaining a potential investor. Theoretically I may have been able to sign in, I don't know, but it really wasn't appropriate.
Whether it's against the rules or not I don't know, I've never really looked at the rules! Either way, I can appreciate you may feel hard done by and whether it was within or without doesn't interest me. As you feel like this was unethical I'll answer in good faith and hopefully set your mind at ease.
I personally don't think it would be a good move to skip in a game like this, because you need a bit of luck, and playing for a lucky 3 carder that can leave you with a sweep opportunity is much better than holding on to 5 cards and making yourself an obvious target (particularly as you may be able to second sweep off someone elses failed sweep). Yes you could theoretically still second sweep, but much less likely if you were knocked down to 5 armies or something. I'm not going to "educate the enemy" too much, but there are a hell of a lot more reasons for cashing too, but they seem to be unknown to most people, so I'd prefer to keep it that way (unless you're a friend / clan or tribe member with me, then info is all yours!).
I also missed two turns in a fairly pivotal game in the final of a polymorphic tournament. The game was on a knife edge, and my missed turns cost me any chance at the win. Poly is my thing, I cared a lot more about winning that.
The last point to set your mind at ease is that I have never missed a turn with 5 cards in an escalating game before, and I've played quite a few. So to suddenly do it in 3 games is very clearly not a tactical move. It would make so much more sense to have just deployed the turn before and passed to not receive a card... why would I prefer to be 3 armies down when going in to sweep territory? (I didn't have any double pairs as far as I'm aware either, but even if I did the logic would still hold)
Again, when it comes to the rules, I don't particularly know or care. I do care that you feel hard done by, and hopefully this reply has cleared it up for you.
Either way, if enough people in that round of the tournament feel that this has given me an unfair advantage I am more than happy to forfeit or simply be removed from the competition (regardless of if it is inside or outside of the rules). I don't think I would agree that it gave me an unfair advantage, but it is the opinion of the other people in the game that matters. I suspect it would need to be ruled on and implemented by a tournament director though as there are obvious reasons that it would be unfair for me to just sit out.
No hard feelings either, I get why you want to make sure unethical play is called out