Diplomacy 9 - waiting on CB to start a new thread. :)

[mith]

With AM and 6 at an end (or close, anyway) and 2 stalled, we've just got YT and 8 going, and no one is in more than one of them. I say it's time for another.

I think Antrax had said he wanted to moderate one, but I don't know if he's able to yet. I don't have the net access for it, but would like to play. I would, however, like to run 10 (or 11, if Antrax doesn't run 9 and wants 10) when I get back to the States.

Anyway, I vote for a normal game, with preference lists for countries (mostly so I can pick someone in the north for once ). But both are up to the Mod, really.

Moderator: CrystyB

Players:

mith
Fried Egg
Sparhawk
casinopete
Mikko
firemeboy
dethwing



[This message has been edited by mith (edited 02-12-2003 11:12 AM).]

[Fried Egg]

Isn't it the Mod who usually offers a game first?

I'll play in a game but I don't want to mod another one for now...

[Sparhawk]

Well, I am in both YT and 8, but since I took over a country in 8 that is being run over (and the game is stalled anyway) I am interested.

I am also possibly interested in modding a game; I will have to think some more before making that commitment. One caution (threat?) for any game I mod -- I will run the turns on a schedule, even if it means that everyone NMRs.

[mith]

Fine with me, as long as everyone understands it at the beginning and has the decency to find a replacement if they get bored (instead of potentially throwing the balance off by not moving).

For potential mods that don't already have it, a good tool for adjudicating (or for just playing, it can help alot to see the moves and their outcomes) can be found here. It's the same one CF, FE, and CB have used; you can input the moves by clicking countries (i.e. for Sev-Rum, you click Sev then Rum), or by text file (I've never used that though, so if the format is weird, you'll have to ask someone else how to do it ). And, of course, you'll also need webspace, though you could probably use glpics, or I could set you up a folder on mafiascum.

[casinopete]

ooh! ooh!

*waves arms frantically*

is there anyway a newbie can get in on one of these?

[mith]

Sure. Here's some links if you don't already know how to play (or for any other newbies that are interested), stolen out of a current game:

Rules. Thanks Chuck. Tutorial and Strategy. Thanks Fried Egg

[Mikko]

I want to play as long as it's the Standard version.

One possibility is that we play it on the DPjudge ( http://www.floc.net/dpjudge/ ). I've only played in one game there (still going on), but the web interface is great, and you only have to provide your real name and your e-mail address in order to use it.

[firemeboy]

There is only five in a standard, right? I'm in if anybody drops out.

[Fried Egg]

There are seven in a standard game...

[mith]

I'd prefer we ran it on here, for a couple of reasons. One, it doesn't require me to go to yet another site to play games. Two, I don't really like the map; I think the one we use is much easier to read, plus the bonus of being able to use RealPolitik to look at options.

However, if most people would rather play on there, then I'll still play.

Oh, also, someone should get Hy to make Diplomacy tags.

[Fried Egg]

I prefer the realpolitik map as well...

[mith]

After reading everything on the GL and mafiascum, and being fairly bored (Luna was in town, and I'm ill), I decided to write something that would sort through preference lists and come up with the best possible country assignment. For some reason, I decided it would be a good idea to do it in Excel, so 16 MB later... (Seriously, this is one scary spreadsheet. I never learned how to do proper programs in excel, so all I used as far as functions were IF and SUM.)

It works, but I'll write a C program so other people can use it. But if anyone can write a smaller spreadsheet, I'd love to see it.

Anyway, yeah, does anyone care to use preferences, or do you want random assignment? It's really up to the Mod for this one, but I'm wondering which I should do for the one I run.

[Sparhawk]

If you want to send me your spreadsheet, I will see what I can do to make it smaller. Are macros okay, or do I have to stick with Excel functions?

In general, I prefer to provide a list of choices for countries so that I have some say. Of course someone has to get stuck with Italy.

[CrystyB]

Last autumn, i have made a VERY SMALL (Pascal) program that does country allocations with minimum dissatisfaction - starting from (possibly incomplete) lists of preferences, like the way i hear the Judges do. If more allocations exist, it outputs them all. Can take (almost) any number of players/GreapPowers... However, there are two catches: it has two criteria and if the minimums disagree, the mod will have to decide... And second, the input and output are numbers. I had no incentive for implementing full names or even just initials.

(I can make it into a Java applet in no time)

After running two romanian dip games, i find my only flaw is reluctance to issue NMR's. If you can live with that, i am available to mod you. Provided someone mods (simply collects orders and answers any newbie questions arising) my romanian third, in which i was invited to actually play... We have only players there also!

[This message has been edited by CrystyB (edited 02-05-2003 10:39 PM).]

[mith]

Not really worth it, Sparhawk, though I could tell you what I did so you could write something better. I'd write something better myself, but I don't have access to perl or C.

1. I made a list of all possible permutations of 1234567. This is clearly a ridiculous thing to do in excel. 5040 combinations. An example of my functions (this one is from the sixth column):

code:

---

=IF((IF(INT(MOD(I2,2))>=J2,1,0)+IF(INT(MOD


(I2,2))>=K2,1,0)+IF(INT(MOD(I2,2))>=L2,1,0)


+IF(INT(MOD(I2,2))>=M2,1,0)+IF(INT(MOD(I2,2))>=N2,1,0


))>=1,IF((IF(INT(M OD(I2,2))+1>=J2,1,0)+IF(INT


(MOD(I2,2))+1>=K2,1,0)+IF(INT(MOD(I2,2))+1>=L2,1,0)


+IF(INT(MOD(I2,2))+1>=M2,1,0)+IF(INT(MOD(I2,2))+1>=N2,1,0))>=2,


IF((IF(INT(MOD(I2,2))


 +2>=J2,1,0)+IF(INT(MOD(I2,2))+2>=K2,1,0)+IF


(INT(MOD(I2,2))+2>=L2,1,0)+IF(INT(MOD(I2,2))


+2>=M2,1,0)+IF(INT(MOD(I2,2))+2>=N2,1,0))


>=3,IF((IF(INT(MOD(I2,2))+3>=J2 ,1,0)+IF(


INT(MOD(I2,2))+3>=K2,1,0)+IF(INT(MOD(I2,2))


+3>=L2,1,0)+IF(INT(MOD(I2,2))+3>=M2,1,0)+


IF(INT(MOD(I2,2))+3>=N2,1,0))>=4,IF((IF(INT(MOD(I2,2))+4>=J2,1,0)+


IF(INT(MOD(I2,2))+4>=K2,1,0)


+IF(INT(MOD(I2,2))+4>=L2,1,0)+IF(INT(MOD(I2,2))


+4>=M2,1,0)+IF(INT(MOD(I2,2))+4>=N2,1,0))


>=5,INT(MOD(I2,2))+5,INT(MOD(I2,2))+4),INT(MOD


(I2,2) )+3),INT(MOD(I2,2))+2),INT(MOD(I2,2))+1),INT(MOD


(I2,2)))

---

Fun, eh?

2. On a separate sheet, I made a little table for the players and their preferences. The way it's set up, the preferences are entered as numbers (higher number = want that country more). It doesn't actually care what sort of numbers you put in. On another sheet, where I was making random test values, I have 4 different systems: ordinals (7 is top choice, 1 is last choice, if there are ties you just take the average), weighted ordinals (just playing around; instead of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, it's 0, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 12. figured the ends might matter more to a player), pure random numbers (normalized so they add up to 1), and a little points system (you can assign 60/120 (can't remember what the final version was) with some rules). Anyway, the values are in a table, with the players on the left, and the countries on top.

3. I then transfered these values to the top of the first sheet. And then I had all the rows beneath hold the same value. The reason for this is that I was going to be calculating a value for each permutation, and if I had Auto Filled, it would've messed up the function (and there was no way I was going to hand-correct 5040 functions).

4. Once that's done, it actually does the rating part, which took about a minute to put in. Basically, it has a bunch of IFs which check whether a player has a country, and if so, it returns the preference value for that player/country.

5. It adds those up.

6. It also calculates a Deviation (square the differences between each preference value and the mean preference value, and then some other stuff that I'm not even sure is strictly correct because I hate statistics, and it didn't matter as far as ordering anyway).

7. Highlight all the columns, sort by whichever thing I want.

Anyway, a program would seem to be pretty simple to write. Once you had the preference values for each player/country, you'd just have a nested loop thing:

code:

---

for (p[1]=0;p[1]<Countries;p[1]++)


{


   for (p[2]=0;p[2]<Countries;p[2]++)


   {


      if p[2]==p[1]


      {


         skip; (can't remember the word you'd use in c, heh)


      }


      else


      {


          for...

---

And then at the bottom of the loop, it would add up the preference values:

[CrystyB]

wdym you don't have access to C?? (you're rusted if you can't remember continue... XLS-ing all day long? )
BTW, the way i use it is:

code:

---

for (x1...)


for (x2...) if (x2!=x1)


for (x3...) if ((x3!=x1)&&(x3!=x2))


and so on

---

or if i get lazy and want to just copy-paste

code:

---

for (x1...) {used[x1]=1;


for (x2...) if (!used[x2]) {used[x2]=1;


...


used[x2]=0;}


used[x1]=0;}

---

But if you don't know beforehand how many variables you're going to get, you should use backtracking. After all, it's the same thing...

Anyway, start making those lists!

(and mith, please remove me from the players' list. I thought my EoG from Dip3AM made it quite clear that except when invited/asked-to, i don't intend to play this either)

[This message has been edited by CrystyB (edited 02-06-2003 08:09 PM).]

[dethwing]

If you'll have me, I'd like to give this a shot.

[Sparhawk]

Dethwing: Sure we will have you. Just remember -- always trust me and *never* trust Mith.

CrystyB: If you want to mod this, I am willing to collect moves and answer emails for you.

[CrystyB]

ok so now that we have 7 players and a mod i will soon start a Dip9 'standard game' topic - but first you should all issue lists. In public or in private, however you want to.

[This message has been edited by CrystyB (edited 02-05-2003 10:48 PM).]

[Mikko]

I have no reason to keep my prefernces secret, so I'll post my list here. In case anyone finds it strange, I have ordered the powers according to potential enjoyment rather than success, e.g. by having powers I haven't played before at the top.

AEIRGFT

[Fried Egg]

My preference order is the following:

Italy, France, Russia, Turkey, Germany, England, Austria.

[casinopete]

England, Turkey, Austria, Germany, Italy, Russia, France

(Only anagram is "frigate", but I don't want France, so I reversed

[dethwing]

Hmmm......

Turkey, Germany, France, Russia, England, Italy, Austria

[Sparhawk]

Turkey, Russia, Germany, England, France, Austria, Italy

[mith]

Germany, Russia, England, Austria, France, Turkey, Italy

(What Mikko said. )

[This message has been edited by mith (edited 02-06-2003 05:38 PM).]

[CrystyB]

(by the way, i forgot to ask the WAY the list is ordered. I presume the first choice is the leftmost one, the one that was first written. If yours is not, do let me know ASAP)

There IS an inconvenience to public listS: the ones to submit last could set theirs up in such a way that they would get a country of their choice - perhaps screwing others above them. But in any way, if i were to post such a list i'd do it publicly, since if anyone were to get that analytical and work hard on his list i'd figure he paid enough thinking for such a little reward...

Wow. Already 6 lists for 6 players. This could start pretty soon...

[This message has been edited by CrystyB (edited 02-06-2003 07:58 PM).]

[casinopete]

I say we stick firemeboy with France. (penalty for being last to choose)

That way the other 6 of us get either our first or second pick!

[mith]

I'd be careful, France is next to England, he might not be too happy with you.

[CrystyB]

oops, i forgot to upload and post about it!

[mith]

I'm going to use my spreadsheet as well, and see if we get the same thing. I'm not sure we did it the same way.

[mith]

Ah, just realized I can send my spreadsheet to you all after all. The way I made it, everything can be Auto Filled.

mith's insanely big spreadsheet - Down to 80 something K since I only left a couple rows in.

Keep in mind that when you Auto Fill, everything may go incredibly slow.



[This message has been edited by mith (edited 02-10-2003 05:27 AM).]

[CrystyB]

ummm, "[URL=http://www.mafiascum.net/gl/Country.xls[/url]text..." is NOT the way to link!

[This message has been edited by CrystyB (edited 02-09-2003 09:00 PM).]

[mith]

Blah, I've mentioned I've been sick, right?

[dethwing]

So, when do we start?

[CrystyB]

ummm

[Fried Egg]

If you include dethwing, isn't that 7 players? Or is Sparhawk not playing?

[Sparhawk]

I am in. I believe we have seven people:

mith
Fried Egg
Sparhawk
casinopete
Mikko
firemeboy
dethwing

We don't have firemeboy's starting preferences unless they were emailed directly to CrystyB, but other than that we should be ready to go.

[CrystyB]

oh dang i missed the only post fire made in here I'll email him shortly now.

Done.

[This message has been edited by CrystyB (edited 02-11-2003 07:18 PM).]

[firemeboy]

No preferences. I can lose with any country you give me.

[mith]

These are the results then:

Austria-Hungary - Mikko
England - casinopete
France - firemeboy
Germany - mith
Italy - Fried Egg
Russia - Sparhawk
Turkey - dethwing