Civil Service Medals

[CaptainFritz28]

how far are we willing to go to achieve the supposed goal of maximizing points?

Now we're at the crux of the issue. I think reasonable people can disagree about this.

Glad I finally hit the nail on the head. I think you are right about this being the center of the contention, actually.

I think your position about the morality of lying in this game is a little extreme and probably not shared by many others. I also think your definition of deception is so narrow that you're giving yourself a pass for all sorts of deceptive press and actions that you're also participating in. I'm totally unconvinced that your stabs aren't fundamentally just like everyone else's lol. I also think that the game itself would stop working if everyone played in such a way as to be eligible for the award you've proposed - it'd just be role playing and big draws rather than actual competitive Diplomacy.

You are probably right - I'm likely more of a hypocrite than I realize. The trouble is, I'll have times where I think that "oh, lying isn't so bad; after all, everyone is agreeing to be lied to," followed by periods of "however, this person had a particularly nasty reaction to a stab, and I don't want to cause such reactions in the future." I guess I'm sort of trying to figure out what my position is on lying, and right now I'm on one end of the extremes.
In that light, I'll ask this - what would you say qualifies as honesty? I should have asked this far earlier. I would say that it is telling people things that are in line with your actions, and in line with the information that you have at the time. I'm curious to see what you think of it.

But I too found my own limit with a now-banned player, Ginge86. His press strategies were extreme. Sometimes they outright broke the rules (metagaming, sexually explicit and violent messages, etc.). But even in the circumstances where Ginge stayed within the lines (extreme anger, making a big show of throwing the game any time he didn't get his way, relentless spamming of press until he was muted, trying to make the game so unpleasant that it ended in a draw favourable for him, etc.), I found the way he played very distasteful.

I doubt that his approach was always effective, but it certainly worked sometimes. Games with Ginge were interesting and sometimes fun. It was occasionally fascinating to see how the board would respond to his shenanigans. But too often it made the game unfun in my experience.

I personally think a good loadstar is to act online more-or-less how you might act in an in-person gaming group. I'd definitely lie to a friend in an irl game of Diplomacy if it were strategic to do so, but I probably wouldn't squawk at them until they got so annoyed they didn't want to play anymore lol. There is one other game objective that does supersede the rules, which is that people should still want to play with you again in the future.

Here we are. This is what I suppose I was trying to drive at, although I was going about it entirely wrong. There should be a measure of decency that goes beyond all purposes of winning. When you stated that winning is the greatest objective, I think I got defensive and thought that you were willing to go to all sorts of extents to win. I apologize for assuming that.

But despite this I would not want to narrow the range of acceptable press strategies. The free-form nature of this game is truly what makes it special and fun.

Good heavens, of course! I don't mean to say that everyone has to follow what I suggest, nor that lying is not a strategy that is employed and should be allowed. I am simply meaning that honesty is a strategy that should also be allowed, which you seem to be against.

One other thing I'll mention is that deception and lying doesn't need to be done in an abusive way. I typically apologize after a particularly nasty stab. Even if Ginge had done all this crazy stuff, but then went in the global chat and said "sorry for putting you all through the ringer, but look, I achieved goals x, y, and z by being an extreme asshole" then maybe one could leave those games without such a bad taste in their mouth.

I can agree with you here as well. I always forgive a stab, no matter how egregious, and I think most people would. I would also say that everyone who plays Diplomacy should do so willing to forgive a stab.


Moral of the story (to me) is this:
In the end, we all agree that there is a limit on how far one should be willing to go for the sole purpose of winning. For you, that is leaving your opponents where they would be willing to play with you again. For me, it is honesty. However, I don't always achieve my goal, and often I lie to other players. I am still trying to determine if I should allow myself to lie or not, which tends to lead me towards lying. Honestly, I think your method, of treating others as I would in a face to face game, is probably best. I probably would treat people differently in person than you would, but not by a lot.

So how does all that relate to medals?
Well, I still think medals are a good idea. Flawed, perhaps, but not beyond fixing. Will they ever be a good enough idea to implement? Probably not.
It might also just be a matter of my frustration with the current way civil disorder take overs work, and that I wish there was more incentive for that.

[CaptainFritz28]

I've written a few things throughout this thread that I probably wouldn't entirely agree with in hindsight, or that I wrote simply in stubborn defense of my ideas which I was just refusing to recognize were flawed. My most extreme statements here might have been a bit more extreme than I meant. I apologize for anything I that wrote that was rash, or that came across as insulting. I did not mean to insult you at all, so if I did I am incredibly sorry.

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

This has been very interesting Captain. I wasn't insulted in the slightest. If I was ever grumpy in this thread, it's only because I'm a little tired of playing games with players who seem oriented at something other than winning (e.g., the much remarked-upon Carebear phenomena) and your medal seemed like something that might encourage/reward this playstyle.

Your aversion to lying is probably noble in other contexts, but it seems to me totally unnecessary in this game. At a minimum, you will occasionally *need* to do sneaky things that other players would prefer you wouldn't.

I strongly encourage you to let yourself off the hook for people who get mad! You're not responsible for their reactions. I just had someone get very mad about a stab that I was an absolute gentleman about. My stab wasn't the problem - it is their reaction that was childish, rude, and counterproductive. Partnering again with someone who stabs you is a fairly common occurrence, but it's less likely to happen when the stab-ee throws a hissy fit. Like you say, everyone should forgive a stab in a game that's based around stabbing.

I also encourage you to try playing roguishly, even just for one game. See if you can lead a lamb to the slaughter. Share a rumour about another player that isn't true. Commit to do one thing and do the opposite. As we've fleshed out, these things aren't strictly necessary, but they're a legitimate part of the cornucopia of strategic options this game offers and they're fun!

Maybe think about it like scaring someone. It's wrong to scare a random old lady by jumping out of the bushes. But if you're a horror movie director, then you're doing someone a service by giving them a good scare. I genuinely love when someone deceives me in this game - the more elaborate deception, the more fascinating I find it.

[CaptainFritz28]

This has been very interesting Captain. I wasn't insulted in the slightest. If I was ever grumpy in this thread, it's only because I'm a little tired of playing games with players who seem oriented at something other than winning (e.g., the much remarked-upon Carebear phenomena) and your medal seemed like something that might encourage/reward this playstyle.

Your aversion to lying is probably noble in other contexts, but it seems to me totally unnecessary in this game. At a minimum, you will occasionally *need* to do sneaky things that other players would prefer you wouldn't.

I strongly encourage you to let yourself off the hook for people who get mad! You're not responsible for their reactions. I just had someone get very mad about a stab that I was an absolute gentleman about. My stab wasn't the problem - it is their reaction that was childish, rude, and counterproductive. Partnering again with someone who stabs you is a fairly common occurrence, but it's less likely to happen when the stab-ee throws a hissy fit. Like you say, everyone should forgive a stab in a game that's based around stabbing.

I also encourage you to try playing roguishly, even just for one game. See if you can lead a lamb to the slaughter. Share a rumour about another player that isn't true. Commit to do one thing and do the opposite. As we've fleshed out, these things aren't strictly necessary, but they're a legitimate part of the cornucopia of strategic options this game offers and they're fun!

Maybe think about it like scaring someone. It's wrong to scare a random old lady by jumping out of the bushes. But if you're a horror movie director, then you're doing someone a service by giving them a good scare. I genuinely love when someone deceives me in this game - the more elaborate deception, the more fascinating I find it.

Glad to hear I haven't given any offense.
You are right about a few things. I should not allow others' poor reactions to change how I play, unless it is really a direct result of some egregious thing I have done. But you are right, if someone can't handle a stab they shouldn't be playing Diplomacy.

My suggestion here was an attempt to achieve a long-term solution to what you achieved with your thread about civil disorder heroes. I wish to reward those unsung heroes of this website. But I think a majority of your criticism is correct. My intentions were good; my methods were flawed.

As for honesty... I am still on the fence. I have played before as a rogue, I have pulled off daring feats of cunning plans (not on WebDip, which I am somewhat new to, but on Backstabbr), and I have reveled in the success of a master plan working together.
Not that that happened often; indeed, they were few and far between. Even when they did work, they seldom gave me a solo. As you stated as well, I also found great pleasure in watching as the final pieces of another's genius strategy finally came together. However, none of that was quite as invigorating as the games I played on WebDip with global press only, where everything must be honest or else everyone knows that you are a liar. Sure, we ended in four way draws, but the enjoyment of the game was increased dramatically.
I can say one thing, though - I don't think I can say that lying in Diplomacy is a moral evil. When people play Diplomacy, they must assume that they will be lied to. It is a controlled environment in which your lies do not affect the real world.

Regardless of all that, I greatly appreciate your discussion on the matter.