VGB10 - webDiplomacy

RoganJosh, Wusti, Chaqa, Valis2501, captainmeme, mhsmith0, brainbomb

29 Mar 20 UTC	Autumn, 1902: GameMaster: Game was extended due to at least 1 member failing to enter orders and having an excused missed turn available. This has un-readied all orders.
12 Apr 20 UTC	Autumn, 1905: GameMaster: Game was extended due to at least 1 member failing to enter orders and having an excused missed turn available. This has un-readied all orders.
16 May 20 UTC	Don;t thank me Valis - thank Chaqa.
16 May 20 UTC	GG.
16 May 20 UTC	Completely missed that this one was heading for a solo.
16 May 20 UTC	I'm so confused about why France threw that. Italy even backed off him completely in 09 to let him defend himself
16 May 20 UTC	Gg
16 May 20 UTC	It was already lost by that point - that's why Cap.
16 May 20 UTC	Uh, no it wasn’t? You 100% three to Germany and I do not understand whatsoever
16 May 20 UTC	I was FUMING for the better part of a week over this game
16 May 20 UTC	I kept trying and trying to get into position to help hold marseille and Spain
16 May 20 UTC	Austria - why did you move a fleet to Ionian? That freaked me out lol
16 May 20 UTC	Also Wusti, is not sure what I did???
16 May 20 UTC	You didn’t have NEARLY the units to hold a stalemate - which was clearly needed. Even if I backed off completely earlier, you needed at least two or three of my units to help hold the line
16 May 20 UTC	I’ll not be playing with you again if I have any say in it. Game throwing is a real dick movement
16 May 20 UTC	Yes because attacking Mars in Spring '09 was such a friendly move. Make your justifications to yourself however you like but you earnt it buddy.
16 May 20 UTC	I hadn’t even realIzed the German solo threat until the next turn. I wasn’t aware one move warrants game throwing Like, wtf was your justification?
16 May 20 UTC	You actively went against your own win condition and self-interest for some nonsensical reason and lost out on a draw for.... why???
16 May 20 UTC	Not to mention for the years leading up to that you had been BLITZING ALL UNITS TOWARD ME
16 May 20 UTC	Your first sentence was all you needed mate - you pushed too hard for too long, so I went fuck you - and gave it to Germany. You saw it late - stop blaming and look to your own play. Throwing a game is a legit tactic to discourage exactly what you did.
16 May 20 UTC	how can you discourage behavior that isn’t willful? Lmao There’s 21 games going on. I was clearly trying to help set up a stalemate from Autumn 1909 on. You had no reason not to help form it
16 May 20 UTC	I’m never playing with you again, game throwing is only a tactic as a scare tactic or when it’s used as a reason to get into a draw. actually throwing the game is be most despicable thing in diplomacy
16 May 20 UTC	And it’s pretty hard to even contemplate a German solo when EVERY French unit is bearing down on you
16 May 20 UTC	I pulled back in Autumh 1909. You decided “HE WAS ONE TURN LATE IMNGONNA COMMIT SUICIDE HURR DURR” Fuck off
16 May 20 UTC	GG Please everyone, these things happen in gunboat, intent and rationales are hard to signal without talking. People have different risk tolerances. People have different ideas of what will happen after a stalemate is set up and whether they'll be whittled or will whittle. I myself was recently eliminated in a 707 (D) game where I expressed my frustrations with a meta that would back off a French player to make a stalemate, only to get killed off as soon as the leader backed away. https://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=272257#gamePanel so maybe I'm just particularly empathetic to such concerns at the moment. My other recent win was also a single year, maybe just a single phase, of France-Italy miscommunication about expectations and feelings (https://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=281282). Let us be kind. No one here is a bad player, even if myself included we make mistakes over the course of 50 games. I also apologize to anyone who feels sad or exhausted from joining too many, truly wasn't my intention to cause that.
16 May 20 UTC	Yeah, it is a critical point whether Wusti was expecting to be whittled or not. I mean, there was plenty of room to secure the stalemate still in A10, Chaqa is right about that. But if Wusti expected to be whittled, then of course he would throw the game in this position.
16 May 20 UTC	If you’re going to lose either way (German solo or potential whittling) strict game theory says take the path with a possible outcome in your favor (draw w/ stalemate)
16 May 20 UTC	In a single game, yes, but with a meta stretching a sequence of games, not necessarily.
16 May 20 UTC	In a single game, yes, but with a meta stretching a sequence of games, not necessarily.
16 May 20 UTC	I tend to disagree, IF I think it’s highly likely that I get whittled. That’s why I wasn’t THAT angry with valis in your solo, as I presumed he was trying to throw it to you either bc he thought he’d get whittled or to force us to NOT whittle him out of desperation.
16 May 20 UTC	Clarification: my comment above was to Italy, not England.
16 May 20 UTC	Whittling is the choice of the solo-ing player first, not the ones forming the stalemate. Though they do the dirty work, the one going for the solo is the one who has to present the opportunity. Throwing to Germany because of a perceived slight by me was a misdirection of emotion. Germany was the one eliminating France. All I did was advance in the only direction available and then make one move he perceived as hostile, and then its like France became a bull seeing red. Don’t forget, while being invaded by Germany you built a fleet in Marseille.... who sent the signals there?
16 May 20 UTC	W07 - F MAR?
16 May 20 UTC	@Rogan I'd be careful with such comments. People shouldn't necessarily be playing a certain way to influence other games in this series, I wouldn't find that particularly acceptable and certainly not good. But playing a certain way to influence the meta of gunboat overall on the site is acceptable (and/or possibly actively good). Sorry if that distinction seems small or petty.
16 May 20 UTC	But on the whole I agree with you I would say. But I am also an emotional player which is why I'll never join the ranks of Tugster/Split/Jose/etc
16 May 20 UTC	Yeah "series" was a bad choice of word because I wasn't thinking about other games in this series but rather webDip meta.
16 May 20 UTC	I think the Gunboat meta has become very polarized lately. There's a serious anti-France sentiment, and with so many new players flooding in, a lot of games are playing out weirdly. At the high-level, it seems A/I/G continue to dominate, with France/Turkey suffering.
16 May 20 UTC	Yeah, these structures are a direct results of a rise of the advice of "stop attacking Austria as Italy, all it does is mean you get run over by the Jugg / other bad things" by my first approximation. Not that I can say that advice, at a very general simple level, is that wrong. But it heavily shifts the available alliances/targets.
16 May 20 UTC	That advice is not only something I'm sure I've said myself, but something I've seen one of the top gunboat players, Tugster, say explicitly in an EOG just earlier this month. Of course this leaves France and Turkey as the only targets, with Austria and Germany being the beneficiaries.
16 May 20 UTC	Germany was strong already, and meta that weakens Russia and France is just making it a powerhouse. As England, I've often had to resort to being more anti-German and pro-Russia/France to get a leg up. Germany's natural fit with an A/I just means many games are going that way.
16 May 20 UTC	Both Italy and Austria gain so much from that alliance, at the cost of Turkey, that it's hard to see it go away. I also secretly hope a meta where A letting R into Gal in 01 becomes an A/R alliance. Russia needs that option.
16 May 20 UTC	If the players are experienced enough, I've been trying out the hard-Jugg opening as Turkey where you send your fleet to Con in order to stall out the Aegean play. It usually means Russia gets the Black Sea, but both you and Russia need to work together to survive sometimes.
16 May 20 UTC	Going hard at Russia in 1901 as Turkey can work too. If Russia is going to collapse quick, it makes Italy and Austria second-guess each other.
16 May 20 UTC	Yes, T attack R to entice A/I into attacking each other feels like the only way out for T. But, poor R!
17 May 20 UTC	For the record I was certain (and on back tracking cannot find a single signalling move or order on Chaqa's part that would change the impression) that Italy was attempting to at least whittle the field. At that point I was faced with a choice, die or die, and decided that given Italy should have a reasonable expectation of the results of his actions, that the error was his so my frustration got the better of me and I went full tilt throw. Given some of the weird shit happening in the overload of games, I figured an object lesson was in order. Let me be clear: I am not apologising for the throw, and frankly in a similar set of circumstances, I would probably do it again. Having said that, if this were just a one off game among 2 or 3 I was playing at the time I cannot guarantee I would act in a similar fashion. I think the context of this mountain of concurrent game played a subliminal role. Some of these games have been interesting with some amazing twists and turns, and some have been downright frustrating, whilst others drudgery weighed down by the sheer "workload" of it. @Valis - thanks for organising this, I never expected such a series to have this kind of impact - and I think we all learned something from it. Just maybe not quite so many next time :)
17 May 20 UTC	I sort of think it might be fun to try and have a stack of concurrent games where anyone with an insane appetite for punishment can go higher than 21, but it’s also ok to limit yourself to, like, 7 or so.
17 May 20 UTC	I thought moving back in 1909 was signal enough...
17 May 20 UTC	As I said, I hadn’t even considered the German solo until that point, and I thought neither had you because you were paying no mind to it - so I was trying to get into positions to secure the stalemate either way, but you weren’t getting into your position