zultar: Thanks for weighing in.

First off, let's put this to rest right now: SoS violates the very letter of the rules in the second section of the rulebook, "Object of the Game". That scoring system is definitely a variant since it fails the test that "all players . . . share equally in a draw". PPSC (thanks for calling it PPSC) does not violate the letter of the rules. You can claim that "[t]he language of" the Diplomacy rulebook suggests that PPSC violates the spirit of the rules, but there is no direct violation like you have with SoS right now. To "[do] away with PPSC as it is a variant of the original game" as you just explained and simultaneously introduce SoS was and still is a slap in the face.

Secondly, I would like for my concerns about the relative point incentives of taking over positions in civil disorder in PPSC vs. WTA scoring systems be acknowledged. This has been one of my main concerns since PPSC was stripped of its default status. For the health of the website, we can neither pretend that CD's don't happen nor that new players don't exist. Nor should we ignore the learning opportunities and enjoyable challenges of taking over marginal positons in civil disorder (where PPSC provides a functional scoring system while WTA does not).

@Zultar: "You either win/draw/lose. That's it."

Then why does your site record "survived" and "defeated" as separate outcomes?

ghug: Thanks for chiming in again. I gave you a reply on the 2nd page. Did you miss it?

We can probably work on changing the site record to combine survive and defeat.

captainmeme: In the example you gave, MadMarx and The Czech look like they were just lazy. (If MadMarx had simply stabbed and let The Czech win that would also have been lazy, of course.) Given the location of the traditional SW-NE stalemate line, y2kjbk could have fairly easily been removed from the game. Under both PPSC and WTA, the correct approach would have been to go for a 2-way since the game was already set up along the normal stalemate line.

That didn't happen because the game was no press and coordination was difficult. In fact, both y2kjbk and MadMarx seem to agree with me in their post-game comments. The former was surprised to avoid elimination and the latter admits to being a "a pretty timid gunboater".

If I were playing in that game I would have done everything in my power earlier in the game to avoid pushing for the boring stalemate line where creative options are limited, but this was the end-of-game scenario you presented me with.

zultar: I believe there is a meaningful distinction between Survived and Defeated.

I can see why you prefer PPSC if you would have tried to eliminate Y2k if you were in Marx's place there, JECE. That would 100% lead to a French solo, given that France already had control of StP (4 units adjacent vs 3 defending) and Ber, Mun and Mos could very easily be thrown to him. As you said last page:

"Great Powers who would otherwise face certain elimination have a points incentive in PPSC to jump on the solo bandwagon (because eliminated players receive nothing)."

This is essentially true for WTA, since an elimination also nets no points so if it's a choice between elimination or an enemy solo, the player can choose whichever they prefer - they're worth the same.

If y2k was stabbed there, he would have thrown to France to say a final 'screw you' to Italy.

Y2k's comments regarding his being afraid of his elimination refer to his situation in 1909, with divided forces and one HSC lost, not his situation in 1914, which was safe.

I definitely agree with JECE on there being an important difference between surviving and being eliminated. Both are losses in my book, but one is a lot worse than the other.

I'd prefer a defeat over a survive, because that means I laid down each and every resource I had to make it a win or a draw for myself, whereas a survive often times means that I had something left to give.

come in here dear boy and have a cigar!

--"My main argument for PPSC scoring is based on encouraging CD takeovers and thus quality of play for new users."

Encouraging CD takeovers should be the provenance of specific provisions for people taking over CDs. Engineering a scoring system for all players in the game around that incentive creates all sorts of unintended consequences.

--"PPSC, in my view, is better because it gives people more willingness to risk going for a solo."

What risk? Under PPSC, the risk for a big power is drawing, not losing. Naturally people will play to either win or lose rather than draw if that's the case, but that's not taking any sort of risk, it's just playing safe in a game with fucked-up incentives.

--"If I was going to play four games, I'd rather get a solo, two decent "survives" and a defeat, rather than four draws. However it appears that some of you would vastly prefer the four draw outcome."

In vanilla WTA, four shitty draws is worse than a solo and three losses. Four good draws is better than a solo and three losses. This correctly reflects both the lack of value in merely surviving to any draw, and the risk in always playing for the solo. Eliding differences in draw quality is convenient but unsound. (Never mind your later attempted erasure of draws entirely. "To me, a draw is a form of defeat"--what poppycock. Why should anyone consider the participants in a 3WD equivalent to the players who were eliminated?)

What's *actually* weird is that under PPSC, your losses could be better than the alternative good draws.

This is not to say that vanilla WTA scoring necessarily offers ideal incentives. But PPSC offers a far inferior alternative.

--"PPSC is encouraging to new players because it gives them a chance to gain some points even if they don't win."

So does WTA. New players can gain some points even if they don't win, by drawing.

If unranked isn't enough, alternative scoring systems without fucked-up incentives can be constructed/considered for the purpose of helping new players avoid being discouraged while still having some stakes. Any non-WTA system does as good a job as PPSC of allowing new players to get points for a loss. PPSC is a terrible non-WTA system, and should not be the flagbearer for that cause.

--"Then why does your site record "survived" and "defeated" as separate outcomes?"

The legacy of a broken scoring system? :3

For what it's worth, I think there's room for non-WTA scoring systems that give meaning to survival vs. defeat. But see above: PPSC should not be the non-WTA system of choice. At the *very* least, the scoring system should never incentivize throwing solos.

Thanks to zultar for giving more explanation of the thought process than we've ever had, and to Leth: if that scoring system could exist, I suspect most of the PPSC supporters would happily accept it.

Thanks for the posts from Ghug, JECE, Lethologica and the omniscient Zultar. I think a certain response to Zultar's post questioning his playing record was most unfair and raised an irrelevancy imho. Clearly Zultar and I differ in our views on PPSC, but there's no need to be that disrespectful. I'll go along with the new status quo, but I'd still like some form of non wta scoring (that's not unranked games) looked at in the future. I'd also like the Deities of Diplomacy to strike down this blighter who can't get a simple retreat done promptly and who has been an inveterate and spiteful enemy in a game I bad high hopes for, but this pernicious blighter has nobbled me I fear.But as Mick and Kieth sing, you can't always get what you want, and despite trying I'm not getting what I need in that game.
Glorious day here, I've been swimming and body boarding this morning with a mate who drove down from town in his Monaro CV8R small swell, but very light breeze early, clean and on the turn of the tide, so tide going out. Still.heaps of tourists.cluttering up the place. One day I should tell of our Festival of the flipper ( clipping a tourist behind the ear.for getting in the way in the water) when Brad the surfer with not much Ticker, and myself had a lot of fun, climaxing when I nailed a silly, noisy young woman's bikini top going fast, at pace on a decent wave & got away with it undetected.I should point out that of all the tourists I.mock terrorised, including dealing with the dad's on this particular day, a few days after the bikini top stunt, ( myself Brad and a couple of other locals cleared sixty to eighty bobbing visitors out of a break in about 45 minutes to an hour, then a little while later about ten new surfers appear in the water trying to hustle us and getting lippy, then I notice they are all 50yo men with expensive kit, but not that much ability, and realise, it's the dad's who were on the beach watching us drive their offspring out of our little bit of watery turf, and they've come out to sort us out, oh what fun. They were despatched quicker than their teenage offspring.
But the point I wanted to get to was the absolute best stunt I pulled was on Brad for sitting wide on the break and constantly dropping in on me. It got to the point I was going left instead of right to avoid him and running the nasty rocks. As the afternoon went on we started getting bigger four wave sets every fifth / seventh set so Brad and I started sitting out in deeper water waiting on these bigger waves, well the set of the day looms up and we're paddling for it and I realise Brad is not paying attention to me, and probably assumes I'll go left again, which was sort of where I was positioned and paddling, with Brad ahead of me away to my right. So I thought, no I'm going right on this one, so I did what's called a backdoor take off, so paddling in I jam it right and run a small tube through the centre peakof the wave so have lip water obscuring my sight, then it clears and used the bottom of Brad's body bouard about two feet above me, coming at me, and this is a genuine six to seven foot swell, so at this point there's probably a twelve foot drop to the flat water out in front of this wave from where Brad and I are perched, so I jam my right forearm into the bottom of Brad's body board, which stalls him in a tricky spot, and i throw my weight forward and launch. Oh what a wave, up of a bottom turn and then run a really fast 80 metre tube section, before having about hundred metres run of easy play type wave, then over the top and back of the wave, and use the rip to get back out. Poor young Brad.
Over the falls on a serious wave, full tumble and rinse being hd down, he told me he finally got to the surface, gulped in fresh ajr, opened his eyes and saw an eight foot high wall of white water from the following wave about two feet from hitting him and he got worked a second time across the break.
My point being that I dished Brad better than any poor tourist. And the young lady who lost her bikini top, well when thirty or forty years go by, then what summers day at the beach from her youth will she remember ? The day she lost her bikini top. Ok luncheon soon with the fire breathing MemSahib, and then afternoon delights with Princess Estelle.

Someone show this man how spell check, grammar check, and the enter key work.

I dunno--even before that, maybe we should buy this man a diary.

zultar, ghug, captainmeme et al:
I assume you all are imagining this chart when you say that large Great Powers have a points-incentive in PPSC to throw games to an even larger Great Power?

Full pot† 7,140
initial bet† 1,020

solo win† 3,780
2-way 3,570
16-SC loss† 3,360
15-SC loss* 3,150
14-SC loss* 2,940
13-SC loss* 2,730
12-SC loss* 2,520
3-way 2,380
11-SC loss* 2,310
10-SC loss* 2,100
9-SC loss* 1,890
4-way 1,785
8-SC loss* 1,680
7-SC loss* 1,470
5-way 1,428
6-SC loss* 1,260
6-way 1,190
5-SC loss* 1,050
7-way 1,020
4-SC loss* 840
3-SC loss* 630
2-SC loss* 420
1-SC loss* 210
0-SC loss* 0
† Assuming no CD positions taken over
* Assuming no neutrals left and no CD positions taken over

That is a very simplistic understanding of PPSC. Remember that there is always a points-incentive in PPSC to go for a win or (short of that) a 2-way draw. If you have two Great Powers in a game that have between 12 and 16 supply centers, then in your scenario there should be at least one Great Power barely holding on for survival but with enough SC's to influence the outcome of the game. So far so good, right?

In PPSC, your collective wisdom interprets this scenario as cause for the slightly smaller of the two Great Powers which dominate the board to throw the game in favor of the slightly larger of the two, effectively screwing over the tiny Great Power(s) still around. With WTA, you say that the slightly smaller of the dominant Great Powers should band together with the minor Great Power not to eke out a victory of its own, but to stop the game in its tracks at a stalemate line. (Note here that I'm not referring to other early draws without a stalemate line which Jamiet99uk and I have also been blaming on WTA because in similar situations PPSC discourages drawing.)

You're entirely forgetting that small Great Powers still have agency in this narrow scenario with two superpowers and are somehow missing that in PPSC the lesser of the two superpowers has a better option. I'll start with the small Great Powers.

In WTA, small Great Powers have zero points-incentive to play well unless they were lucky or smart enough to have placed their redoubt along a relevant stalemate line. Instead, their erratic behavior can decide the outcome of a game in the given scenario on caprice with little regard to the diplomatic or even tactical skill of either of the two superpowers. With PPSC, small Great Powers always have a clear points-incentive to survive and grow. Of course, with both WTA and PPSC scoring systems small Great Powers have a clear incentive to seek a draw, but often they do not have this option.

Here is where it gets interesting. In PPSC, both of the dominant Great Powers in your scenario can work with the minor Great Power(s) still in the game to win. Instead of being lazy and throwing the game or settling for a stalemate draw, the lesser of the two dominant Great Powers has a points-incentive to instead provide one or more minor Great Powers with avenues of either growth or stalemate line security (i. e. front-line placement). Working in the interest of minor Great Powers leaves open the possibility that the sponsoring dominant Great Power can (with cunning Diplomacy and tactical skill) surpass the position of the other dominant power and win the game itself.

The minor Great Powers for their part gain obvious short term benefits even if one of the major Great Powers clinches victory. With a PPSC scoring system, minor Great Powers can play the dominant Great Powers off each other in turn (Hey, just like the real world!) to grow their SC-count, knowing that they will always be rewarded even if they slip up and one side ends up soloing. But as a minor Great Power grows, so too does its ability to force a stalemate or even make a solo push of its own. There should never be a scenario where simply throwing the game is the preferred course, even for a small Great Power.

What do you all think?

I guess the draws in that chart should also have a dagger.

With those numbers, the dominant incentive for small powers is still getting into a draw, and the dominant incentive for big players is still grabbing centers and avoiding any draw less than 2WD. Only small players are seriously incentivized to prevent a solo--the players that are likely to throw are *big* players, and the way they're likely to throw is by working with other big powers to gobble up small powers. Whoever doesn't get 18 is still plenty happy with the outcome.

@_JECE wow what a post, I've read it three or four times. It's good. Sorry but I was in a dash earlier so spillchucking & grandma missed out.

From that JECE post, with PPSC one or two minor powers have a points incentive to help the lesser Great power defeat the stronger greater power, or I suppose to support either great power to a victory, as well as go for a draw, so they have more negotiating clout, and more ability to play two great powers off against each other. There's more incentive for players with smaller nations to support a chap who is honest and says " I want to beat this blighter, not just draw" from the get go.... With WTA the only line either great power can run is "let's play to draw" then after getting help from minor players at some point to get the win it's via the backstab.
With PPSC the player can be honest with the players he's trying to recruit, he can say straight up, I want to win, I need your help, if you do help then once I'm in a winning position I can slow up, help you improve your sc count and we get to share the majority of the points...in wta that's too high risk

Again, why not make PPSC a variant only playable after X games. Say 20. This way players who enjoy PPSC can play it but new players till must learn WTa

Lethologica: No . . .

As I explained in detail if you continued reading, avoiding a draw (by shifting the game away from major stalemate lines) is not a strategy for big players to throw a game to an even bigger competitor. On the contrary, it is a strategy for big players to keep the game in play and set themselves up for a solo push.

"Only small players are seriously incentivized to prevent a solo"
So you admit that PPSC scoring does give big players a points-incentive to prevent the solo of a competitor, only you also believe that the points-incentive isn't significant enough? That's an odd stance to take, especially since I go on to explain how in WTA scoring, small players often have no points-incentive at all to prevent a solo.

Lethologica:
"Encouraging CD takeovers should be the provenance of specific provisions for people taking over CDs. Engineering a scoring system for all players in the game around that incentive creates all sorts of unintended consequences."

What you fail to gather is that the same factors in PPSC which encourage CD takeovers are the same factors that encourage minor Great Powers to keep up the good fight. With PPSC you provide a comprehensive, functional points-incentive system for quality play and short CD's in minor Great Powers that WTA lacks entirely. To me that is far preferable to an ad hoc system which ignores small Great Powers' performance after they join the game and is inconsistent with the points system at large.

In regards to supposed unintended consequences, please see my recent long post with the chart.

I read what you wrote, JECE. Did you read what MM wrote? The plan is literally to ally, grow big together, and throw the solo to one member of the alliance. And MM *loves* that PPSC lets him honestly propose and execute this plan. If you'd like to solidify your case that PPSC incentives don't promote throwing solos, you should probably shut MM up.

Yes, the smaller power in the alliance gets an *even better* result if they can manage things to a 2WD, or turn the tables for a win, but it hardly matters. It's much more important for them to get big. Winning is negligible--both winners and losers reap the rewards of being big.

Meanwhile, you're wrong about WTA--WTA scoring always gives players an incentive to prevent a solo. Your claim that small powers far from stalemate lines can throw solos doesn't support a claim that they don't have incentives, it supports a claim that they have diplomatic leverage. If your goal was to talk about incentives, you should have made the opposite claim about those small powers. Then you would at least establish a situation where their quality of play doesn't matter, instead of a situation where their quality of play matters a lot.

Indeed, from your phrasing, it sounds like your objection is actually that they have too much power--bad play ('caprice') from small powers can ruin the game for large powers--rather than too few incentives. If that's the discussion you want to have, have at it, but don't phrase it as an incentives problem.

"What you fail to gather is that the same factors in PPSC which encourage CD takeovers are the same factors that encourage minor Great Powers to keep up the good fight."

Since you've successfully argued that WTA does a great job of encouraging minor powers to keep up the good fight and giving them the tools to do so, you don't need PPSC by this rationale. Maybe your argument was actually terrible, in which case, feel free to make a different argument.

"Your claim that small powers far from stalemate lines can throw solos doesn't support a claim that they don't have incentives, it supports a claim that they have diplomatic leverage."
Diplomatic leverage to what end? What does diplomatic leverage matter if they will end the game with zero points no matter how hard they fight? (I insist on points-incentives because an insufficient points-incentive is the convoluted accusation leveled at PPSC.) My reasoning stands: with WTA scoring, small powers away from a relevant stalemate line have no points-incentive at all to even keep playing. Indeed, even a veteran player like denis was sorely tempted to bail on my most recent game once his situation turned sour.

"Indeed, from your phrasing, it sounds like your objection is actually that they have too much power--bad play ('caprice') from small powers can ruin the game for large powers--rather than too few incentives."
You can see from my record that I used to love joining games in progress as Great Powers reduced to a small handful of supply centers. I know exactly how much power such microstates wield, which is why I care so much that their power be respected. Your accusation is uncalled for.

Lethologica: While it is not my place to defend what MajorMitchell wrote, I will say that the Major gave a great summary of the expanded diplomatic options which minor Great Powers enjoy under a PPSC scoring system.

I don't agree with the following at all, however, which is inconsistent from a points-incentive perspective and against the spirit of the game:
"once I'm in a winning position I can slow up, help you improve your sc count and we get to share the majority of the points"

"Diplomatic leverage to what end? What does diplomatic leverage matter if they will end the game with zero points no matter how hard they fight?"

If they are capable of throwing a solo (the claim you yourself made), they are capable of using their ability to throw the solo as leverage to make people work with them instead of attacking them. You're asserting that these players have a highly impactful option on the table, and then using that assertion to argue that they don't have options! Ridiculous.

Nor have you shown that these players actually enjoy more options in PPSC. You and MM talk about playing big powers off against each other like it's unique to PPSC. But the tool you use to do that in PPSC ("he's a threat to your territory"/"his territory is an opportunity for you") is perfectly available in WTA, while the extra tool for that in WTA ("he's a threat to solo and make all your territorial gains worthless") can't be used in PPSC. What is this alleged extra diplomacy tool weak players have in PPSC?

As it stands, the only players who are getting zero points no matter how hard they fight in WTA, who could get points in PPSC, are people facing an inevitable solo (and having 'more options' at that point is like having options for deck chair arrangement on the Titanic). Everyone else who's inevitably getting zero points in WTA would get zero points in PPSC, because their options for impacting that situation are actually reduced, not enhanced. And some players doomed to zero in PPSC could save their situation if they were in WTA.

"You can see from my record"

That's as may be, but your record is not your rhetoric, and just because your record says something doesn't change the content of your rhetoric.

Lethologica:
"You're asserting that these players have a highly impactful option on the table, and then using that assertion to argue that they don't have options! Ridiculous."

No, I'm asserting that they don't have points-incentives. They can certainly choose how to lose all their bet.


"But the tool you use to do that in PPSC ('he's a threat to your territory'/'his territory is an opportunity for you') is perfectly available in WTA, while the extra tool for that in WTA ('he's a threat to solo and make all your territorial gains worthless') can't be used in PPSC. What is this alleged extra diplomacy tool weak players have in PPSC?"

Rather than re-hash what I've already written, I'll stick to the diplomatic options you laid out in this quote. The "'he's a threat to your territory'/'his territory is an opportunity for you'" tools are only available in WTA from a Defeated/Survived perspective, but the discussion we are having is about points-incentives. From a points-incentive perspective, those diplomatic options in a WTA scoring system don't hold the weight they do in a PPSC scoring system because simply holding territory is no guarantee of any points reward in WTA scoring whereas holding territory is a guarantee of points reward in PPSC scoring. While it is true that the latter part of "'he's a threat to solo and make all your territorial gains worthless'" doesn't apply in PPSC, 'he's a threat to solo' is still a valid tool in PPSC because solo pushes still threaten the points-incentives of opponents.


"As it stands, the only players who are getting zero points no matter how hard they fight in WTA, who could get points in PPSC, are people facing an inevitable solo"

Right. Moreover, the given scenario with two Great Powers which dominate the board which is used to criticize PPSC scoring suggests that minor Great Powers face an inevitable solo from two directions. For example, look at the late stages of my most recent game, where denis was squashed between two Great Powers on the verge of a solo (with no stalemate line in sight because I made sure there would be no stalemate line in sight). With PPSC scoring, denis may have had expanded options.


"Everyone else who's inevitably getting zero points in WTA would get zero points in PPSC, because their options for impacting that situation are actually reduced, not enhanced. And some players doomed to zero in PPSC could save their situation if they were in WTA."

To be clear, a player ending a game with zero points in PPSC got eliminated from the game. Do you have any evidence or arguments for why eliminations are more common in PPSC vs. WTA games? I would argue that eliminations are most likely more common in WTA games because WTA games encourage a monotonous process of narrowing the draw.


"That's as may be, but your record is not your rhetoric, and just because your record says something doesn't change the content of your rhetoric."

My record provides evidence that you misread my rhetoric.