Dip YT - 7-way draw

[jeep]

So, no one could diplom anyone else to switch sides? Maybe I just don't understand.

-JEEP

[mith]

Well, we certainly tried, as did they. However:

1. Obviously I wasn't siding with them. At various points in the course of talking, Maximus claimed that he came up with the entire plan to attack France before he even knew who was playing it, that he wouldn't work with me because he was scared I would stab him (yes, all the way from France to India), that he didn't like how I played... rarely the same story twice. I tried to get fmb and cello to talk about the possibility of working with me, as fmb was apparently carrying a similar grudge against Antrax that Maximus had (hopefully I can use the past tense here) against me; I was even open to the possibility, I always keep my options open. But fmb claimed to be busy (and he may well have been), and cello didn't talk at all, and there was no way I was risking a stalemate unless there was a definite move toward India/Italy and away from me (enough that I could grab some of Italy and secure myself if they attacked again).
2. Similar situation with Antrax. Maximus changed stories on him, and it was clear fmb wanted him out. They actually *did* approach him about attacking me, but with the underlying message of "eh, sorry mate, you're next, but at least mith will be dead!"
3. I don't even know if they tried talking to CB, but he didn't really have much to gain from attacking Antrax, and he'd have probably been wiped out before he could've gotten near me (by any of Antrax, Maxine, or Maximus).

You'll have to ask them why they settled for a 7-way draw instead of playing Diplomacy.

[Fried Egg]

It seems to me that there's two many people who would rather end the game in an unsatisfying stalemate rather than take a risk of switching sides. Personally, I would find a 7 way draw worse than being eliminated.

[Sparhawk]

So I can claim a moral victory for getting eliminated?

[mith]

Sorry again for stabbing you Sparhawk, but I just couldn't risk turning on Italy with you still behind me. Besides, it *was* a lot of fun playing you and Germany off against each other.

[Antrax]

Fried Egg, over the years I've learned to trust my judgement of people. The alliance left me no opening, and wouldn't even lie to me to make me consider stabbing. I will post fmb's reply to my approach here at a later date (kinda busy right now, with the roadtrip and all).
Antrax

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"If it comes down to a choice between being unloved and being vulnerable and sensitive and emotional, then you can just keep your love." -Victor Mancini, "Choke"

[mith]

('sides, I had, what, 4 armies sitting in or near Germany most of the time? You wouldn't have gotten much out of me, I'd have just marched toward you as soon as I gave up on surviving. )

[crazycellist]

The main reason I went for the draw was that I'd gotten too busy to do the kind of planning I really wanted to be doing. I remember there was some point a month or two ago where I thought I'd seen a way to break the stalemate... but then the next few weeks orders all I managed to do was forward on what my allies sent, and so I missed my chance to look for it.

As for switching sides... I did recive one email from mith on the subject. However, I considered it highly irregular to receive an email from one of my enemies claiming that he and one of my allies had been considering joining together and would like me in, without ever having heard of this from my ally. If Mr Pres had contacted me instead, I might have gone for it. Of course, the way I play the game, I wouldn't have been doing any backstabbing, and I don't know that mith would have been too happy with my insisting that I would have to give maximus fair warning before I switched sides, but it might have worked. I guess that Mr Pres busy schedule, if that was really all that kept him from wanting to switch, ruled me out, too.

[mith]

There was never any way to break through on our side. Even if we hadn't gotten it closed up on Russia/Turkey's end, I'd have been able to hold you out for a while, long enough that'd you'd have to start worrying about Italy soloing. Regardless, a three-way draw, which I was offering, was much better than a "possible" four-way draw.

For the bit about Mr. P/fmb not having contacted you, I had just contacted him the day before or something, so I'm not terribly surprised. I expected you would talk to him to verify I wasn't making the whole thing up.

And as for "the way you play the game"; well, sorry to anyone that I might offend by saying this, but that's simply not how Diplomacy is played. You can give people warning if you feel it will help you with them later on, sure, but limiting your options out of some notion of backstabbing being wrong is just silly. Games are about winning, not about being "nice". Would you warn someone that you are about to attack their queen in chess? And, btw, if this is actually some moral thing with you lot, I definitely have some problem with you hiding behind it while you attack me without warning, stab me, etc. I may not play the same way you do, but if you actually think for whatever reason that playing a certain way is right, my style is not an excuse for it.

It wouldn't have affected my offer, though. Just Maximus knowing you were coming would have been fine with me. It would've given me a bit of breathing room against them.

But, alas, we'll never know if I would've gone through with it, or stuck with Antrax and CB.

[Antrax]

Here is my approach, and then fmb's reply. Any questions why I didn't stab mith?
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Originally posted by Antrax:

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Vote draw? Vote draw?! with 7 countries on the board? What's wrong with you people?

You're playing this game as though it was an extended version of risk, and not diplomacy. If you don't want to play diplomacy,
> don't sign up for it. But don't take perfectly good games and turn them into this farce.

By now you should've realised that you really aren't going to get into Russian home land. I find it surprising you didn't figure it out before, but the theme of underestimating me recurs throughout
this entire game, so why should you change it now? YOU WILL NOT GET INTO RUSSIA. I WILL NOT DO YOUR DIRTY WORK AND ELIMINATE TURKEY. Get those two concepts into your head, and evaluate your position. Your allies have refused to sell you to me in exchange for me giving them mith (bad play, diplomatically, but you're obviously playing a different game), and in fact failed to provide me with any outs, forcing my cooperation with mith. VERY clever, seeing as they want
him out. Now, you have two other fronts. You have India, as always wide open with almost no home SCs left in his idiotic crusade
to stay in alliances even when it doesn't benefit him and only his
allies. You have Japan, who's extremely occupied with mith at the moment, in your futile attempt to break into Europe. Since Russia can't THEORETICALLY be taken, you have to turn on one of them, if you're even playing this game.
However, I don't have much hope in any of the remaining players, all of them are valuing alliances in such a way that it becomes preposterous to attempt and even negotiate with them. They will sacrifice short and long-term benefits in the name of the holy alliance, disregarding the game's purpose and other players' enjoyment.
You can either continue playing poorly and end in a very patehtic 7-way draw (congrats, you had an alliance going since 1901, you had superior numbers, and you managed to FORCE A DRAW on the underdogs. Go
you) or take your head out of your arse, remember this is a game, and try to serve your OWN best interests for a change, and not of the 4-country clump. Let me know what you decide, MY alliances aren't set in stone.
Russia.

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Originally posted by firemeboy:

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Antrax.

I did not vote draw. Next time why don't you check
your sources before you go shooting off the bilge
spewer you call a mouth?

If anybody needs to be reminded that this is a game,
it is you, sir. What fantasy land have you staken
claim in? Are you this obnoxious in real life? If so
I truly feel sorry for your parents, your friends
(though I doubt you have any true ones), and just
about anybody who has to listen to a speck of the
garbage-ridden parlance that ejects from your foul and
puss ridden mouth.

If this is just a persona you like to portray online,
speciously surmising it's clever, let me give you a
subtle hint; IT SUCKS. You are nothing but an
insignificant troll as far as I'm concerned. If you
want to whine, go do it to your mother, I, nor the
rest of the planet, want to hear another peep out of
you.

Your impudence is exhausting at the best of times, and
down-right revolting at the worst. You caught me on
a bad day. Take a flying leap you piece of
bile-filled mass.

All my love,

FMB

---

Antrax

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"If it comes down to a choice between being unloved and being vulnerable and sensitive and emotional, then you can just keep your love." -Victor Mancini, "Choke"

[Fried Egg]

Hmmm....

If only we could find a way of dividing up players into "honest" games and "two-faced" games. Those players entering into a "two-faced" game must accept that all other players may back-stab them at some point and that all other players have apriori fair warning of a back stab against them. Any result other than a solo victory is considered a Null result and everybody loses.

That way, if people really don't like playing a dishonest game, they can confine themselves to the "honest" games and should avoid this kind of conflict.

I don't think there's a problem with people playing an "honest" game if they want as long as the people they're playing with are all like minded people.

Now that we have had quite a few diplomacy games, it is becomming more and more apparent who are the "honest" bunch and who are the "duplicitous" bunch. New games lead innevitably to the "honest" bunch teaming up into a rock solid alliance to take out the "duplicitous" bunch. The "duplicitous" bunch, by their very nature, are prevented from doing the same.

Perhaps this is the way to go?



[This message has been edited by Fried Egg (edited 07-17-2003 09:00 AM).]

[Sparhawk]

I would think that things even out in the end. If you have a couple of players who always are trustworthy allies with either other, then it is to the advantage of the rest of the players to remove the quickly so that they can play a game of back-stabbing. So always being completely trustworthy and always working with one or two players should have a natural balance.

Being labeled as a 'backstabber' has it own natural balance too -- the player won't find anyone willing to trust them or help defend them unless it is 100% in their best interest. So a 'backstabber' will find is necessary to be come more 'trustworthy' to survive.

In short, I think in the meta-game the different styles can balance each other. However, Diplomacy is not for the faint of heart -- people *will* get mad at each other. It is the nature of the game.

[crazycellist]

I really don't understand all of this about the right and wrong way to play the game. The game of diplomacy is a simulation of a world war, with the goal being to take over the world, and other people trying to do the same thing. It happens that the role I choose to take is of an honorable leader, who also happens to want to take over the world. This means that I do my best not to break my word. In the first game I played, I had agreed to play for a two way draw from the beginning. That's not something I'll probably do again, because I realized starting this game that I wanted to leave my options open for a win. So the alliance I made this time wasn't until the end of the game. It was until we decided to end it, presumably after we'd accomplished the goals we'd set out to. I would also like to clarify the fact that my choice of allies in this game was based on position on the board. It helped that I'd been allied with them before, and thought I could trust them, but I didn't seek the alliance because of that. I would have happily allied with almost anyone else on the board (although I would have had serious doubts allying with mith, since I already knew how strongly opposed to my style of play he was).

But honestly, all of this talk about how I'm not playing the game is nonsense. Diplomacy is a complex game, that allows for a lot more variety than just one style of play, the one which backstabs freely. And if I choose to conduct my diplomacy knowing that I will keep my word, that's my choice. It's up to me to be careful what I say and only say the things that I think I can keep and still win the game... but if I make a deal which later hurts my chances of winning to keep, that's not me refusing to play, that's me simply being hurt by poor play earlier in the game.

[mith]

[Antrax]

Like I've posted in the thread, I expect leaders of nations to roleplay properly, ie try and get the best interests of their nation, whatever they might be. I'd be happy if anyone could explain to me why throwing SCs for zero gain is in the best interests of a nation. While there are long term benefits to consider as well as the short term ones (which is why, surprise, I didn't take Turkey out), some plans are clearly inferior to others. For example: giving up a chance to grab multiple SCs with no chance of retaliation, while not losing ground and/or leaving oneself open, in favour of the better plan, aka "throwing SCs away".
Antrax

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"If it comes down to a choice between being unloved and being vulnerable and sensitive and emotional, then you can just keep your love." -Victor Mancini, "Choke"

[AhoInu]

As the moderator of this game I'd realised early on that there were 2 "camps" and it looked like the game would end much as it did. Perhaps we're getting more sophisticated as dip players as time goes on.

Anyway the bottom line to me seems to be:

Youngstown is too big and too complex to be played by a group of relative newbies. The study of the board and connections themselves takes several hours, as does the identification of stalemate lines - all very necessary tools for decent players.

It was an interesting experiment, and if Dip is still popular here in another year or so we can maybe have Dip 27 (YT2)

[Antrax]

Actually, I think the YT map is very poorly designed -- Russia is WAY too easily defensible, for one. The Off-Board areas are too easy to lock, for another. There were some other points, but I forget. Vote: mith's magic 12 country map.
Antrax

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"If it comes down to a choice between being unloved and being vulnerable and sensitive and emotional, then you can just keep your love." -Victor Mancini, "Choke"

[mith]

Yeah, I agree, YT has some ridiculously easy stalemate lines for the Europeans. I mean, ours is a 33 SC one defended by only 23 units. And I doubt they needed many more to defend their side from us.

[CrystyB]

what's "mith's magic 12 country map"??

[mith]

The one where every power has 2 "regions", and one of each power's regions is touching a region of every other power. It's kinda like Pure diplomacy, and could be played that way (that is, with 12 powers and 24 SCs/territories), but it could also be set up so that each region has a few SCs, and there are some non-SC territories, etc.

[Fried Egg]

How about this then...In the event of a draw, the last player to be eliminated from the game is declared the winner? That should stop people playing for draws...

[mith]

Well, no, there are some perfectly legitimate draws. For example, in both of my solos, if I had been stopped short, they would almost certainly have ended in a draw (I could've gotten to a stalemate line in either pretty easily if necessary). Basically the idea is that you will:

a. Try to win.
b. Try to keep everyone else from winning.

If both of those are happening with everyone, the most likely result is probably a draw in most situations. For instance, take someone in a fairly even three-way game. If he tries to win, unless for some reason he has a really superior position (and then it wouldn't be a fairly even game), the other two can easily stop him from doing so. So, no one can win if everyone follows b, and it's a draw. A two-way draw could also be reached, but the situations where they would arise without giving either party an opening to solo are pretty infrequent (in Dip 4, Turkey could have easily soloed, for example).

Basically, it's not the drawing that leads to problems, it's the game-long draw-alliance (or, in this case, the unbreakable eliminate-everyone-else-even-if-I-could-do-better-with-the-other-side alliance).

[Fried Egg]

Mith

[mith]

[Fried Egg]

Mith

[mith]

[Fried Egg]

Actually, if anyone's considering hosting another variant game, I quite fancy the colonial map. Needs nine players I believe but looks like fun...

[Fried Egg]

Mith

[mith]

[Fried Egg]

I can't seem to find the dip4 thread. What happened in that game that wouldn't have been dealt with by this rule?

[mith]

(html is here)

As you can see just from that image, Russia and Turkey (cello and fmb) completed the two-way draw, with Turkey having an opportunity to solo. However, the last eliminated were England and Italy (Maximus and Magness), who refused to fight against them (it wouldn't have really mattered in the last few years, but earlier on we could certainly have stopped them). I was eliminated the year before (defending Italy, incidentally, in hopes that fmb would try to grab Tunis and Russia SCs to solo, as I had pointed out he could, and it would be an amusing end).

[This message has been edited by mith (edited 07-18-2003 10:31 AM).]

[mith]

Colonial is 7 players, btw (at least the one that comes with DP). Not sure the map is all that balanced, but it's worth a try sometime. I am going to design my own 7 player map one of these days, though.

[Fried Egg]

Well, I still say my rule would have made Turkey go for the solo.

If not, then what do you suggest? If there isn't a rule that actively discourages team victories, they will plague the game forever...

As for the Colonial map, yes it is indeed seven players (I wish I could count ) and I think it is a little unbalanced in order to be a more accurate reflection of the historical situation. You would definitely have to randomly assign players I think...

[mith]

[Fried Egg]

Mith

[casinopete]

Originally posted by Fried Egg:

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Something like this perhaps: A solo winner gets points equal to the number of starting players. Players who draw will have to share the points (rounding down)?

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Are there no points for second place, then?

Clearly the goal is to win, and barring that, to prevent an opponent from winning, but barring that, shouldn't there be something for lasting?

From a political/historical perspective, I would think that becomming a vassal to the winning power should be better than getting eliminated, and from a gaming perspective, the person who comes in second has played better than the person eliminated first.

[mith]

Not true, pete. For lots of reasons, really.

Originally posted by Allan B. Calhamer:

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The assumption behind the 18 centre victory criterion is that, given 18 units to a disunited combination of only 16 units, the leader can in general eventually conquer the whole board. Thus, no country survives except his own. Critics have claimed that there are positions in which certain countries could survive by stalemate, or by regaining a combination of 17 or more units; consequently, the notion that a country gaining 18 units could sweep the board is not invariably correct. It is my opinion that this point is of negligible importance, because almost all of the games will not come out that way, and because the victory criterion must have some hard and fast definition, and because it takes a long time to acquire 18 units as it is. Indeed, I would prefer some standard such as 16 or 12 units, or the biggest power after the elapse of a predetermined amount of time (real or game); except for the fact that such low victory criteria are unusually subject to upset by threats to "throw" the game to one country or another.

Following the assumption that a power holding 18 units can sweep the board, it then appears that no power has survived the game unless he has achieved either a win or a draw. The reward for a draw, then, is the reward for survival in a dangerous world.

The notion that all players sharing in the draw share equally reflects in part the considerable and logical difference between survival and elimination; anyone who has survived into the draw might conceivably win if the game went on, but no one eliminated can do so.

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Originally posted by ditto:

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Some players have argued that giving credit for "strong second" is realistic. This result is hard to determine, for when a player has won, he has presumably gained control of Europe, something which one country has never done. The strong second, then, is the last or largest to fall to the conqueror. Whether this situation is a good one or not is hard to say. The Mongols used to give the worst treatment to those of their enemies that held out the longest.

In terms of achievement, it is easy to believe that a strong second with 10 units is preferable to being knocked out early, or to succumbing with the rest while holding just one unit. However, in the final battle to prevent the leader from winning, one would normally expect the second place player to be the leader of the opposition. Consequently, something must be detracted from his achievement because he must bear some of the responsibility for the failure in the final battle.

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In addition, you could have the situation (see Dip AM) where a player finished with more SCs when someone else soloed simply because he was not facing the main attack.

But, for the main reason: it's not a goal in the rules. Only winning and drawing are.

Btw, FE, that's exactly the system I suggested, except you rounded down. I'm not afraid of decimals.

As for time period... I'm not sure yet, but I'll think on it and see what I can come up with.

[crazycellist]

Let me clarify three points...

First, I have absolutely no objection to anyone else's style of play. I don't think I ever said I did, but I'm sorry if I sounded like I did. I very much understand that not everyone plays with the assumption that they will keep their word no matter what, and I have no problems with this. I even acknowledge that it is possibly the better style of play... but I haven't tried mine for long enough to find out. The only thing I've ever objected to is people telling me that I shouldn't be allowed to keep my word no matter what, because that constitutes not playing the game. I really think the only reason this became so much of an issue is because of Dip 4, and I don't think I would make that exact deal again.

But, consider this possibility (purely hypothetical)... three people on the board, I'm the weakest. The weaker of the two others needs my help. I know that at this point I have little chance of a solo... I'm probably going to stay the weaker party in the alliance, even if the alliance comes out on top. So I might make my condition for joining up that he will promise to end in a two way draw. In this case, it makes sense for both of us... he'd probably be second if he didn't ally, two-way draw if he did. And I'd be second if I allied without the promise, and two-way draw if I allied with the promise. And I consider a two-way draw preferable to coming in second. At least that way I still have half the world to rule, instead of none of it. Of course, this only works if I think I can trust the other guy to keep his word. If I can't, I might as well ally with the stronger one and take second instead of third. So what I'm trying to do by keeping my word always, is become the kind of player that people can make deals like that with.


Second, I didn't know when I first allied with people whether or not they would prove trustworthy. In Dip 4, I allied with Mr Pres because he was nearest and gave me the best promise of help in the early game. I found out in that game that I could trust him to keep his word. I was also allied with maximus in that game, but he was the weaker party, so I didn't really learn much about what he would do. And I was rather worried that he was going to turn on me in this game. He was becoming the stronger power in the alliance, and I could have easily seen him deciding to break it. I could only hope that since he knew that I wouldn't break an alliance wihtout warning, that he would do the same. And Maxine I knew nothing about when maximus brought her into the alliance.

Third, I see no reason to warn someone I don't currently have an alliance with that I'm about to attack them. The only people I would warn are people I currently have an alliance with... because the terms of my alliances usually include things like giving each other fair warning before terminating them. I'm perfectly willing, and actually have before, in Dip 4, to make alliances which are more along the lines of, let's not build up troops in these particular territories where they would threaten each other. And I think I ended up attacking that person (Germany) with no warning... but I didn't come from the territories I'd agreed not to threaten him from.

Anyway, I hope that clarifies my position somewhat.

[mith]

[mith]

As for the rest, again, some of what I have said is not directed at you, but I *have* been told that it is wrong to attack without warning, and then been attacked without warning, lied to, etc. by the same person. I'm not terribly interested in convincing you to lie, I am only interested in seeing everyone play out of their best interest, and not getting drawn in by other goals, other "rules", etc. Your intentions may be pure, but a lot of people have the impression that it's the only way people should play, and everyone else is scum.

And as for deals, let me get this clear. I rarely make deals at all, and when I do, I stick to them (to the letter of the email, if not necessarily to the perception of the reader) unless/until there is a *huge* reason not to. Most of my diplomacy is along the lines of "let's do this, whee", or "bah, Macros is huge, let's get him". So, we're in future games together, don't assume that I'm not willing to ally with you, it just may not be on the long-term deal level you're used to.