2018 World Diplomacy Championships - Washington DC

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MadMarx
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Re: 2018 World Diplomacy Championships - Washington DC

#101 Post by MadMarx » Mon Oct 08, 2018 3:30 am

ghug wrote:
Sat Feb 10, 2018 5:20 am
500 points and a front page banner to anyone who wins anything.
Does this include first solo of the tournament? Best country (Russia, for example)? Highest placing webDip player?

All sound reasonable to me...

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Re: 2018 World Diplomacy Championships - Washington DC

#102 Post by bo_sox48 » Mon Oct 08, 2018 4:28 am

Kingdroid wrote:
Sun Oct 07, 2018 11:42 pm
metagamed in what way? I'm not calling you out, i just have never played ftf so im curious as to what can happen.

also, why do some ppl only play in 2 rounds?
I would rather not go into specifics regarding my first board as I don't want to bash the tournament in its own thread or make it seem like every face to face experience will be marred by what online players regard as cheating as it really does not happen often. I will say, though, that every tournament has their own rules and the TD of this tournament did not seem to think that what happened was illegal or problematic to the point where he needed to step in. Other TDs in other tournaments may consider it illegal. I'm not a super experienced face to face player but I have played enough of it to know it is not common for that to happen at tournaments and as far as I'm concerned it's the exception, not the rule.

As for playing two rounds, I wasn't all that interested in winning the tournament. I was there to have fun and to meet good people from this site and from the face to face world and I did that. A lot of us from webDip, Playdip, and the face to face community had a great time together on Thursday night. However, in my half-drunk, fully-hungover stupor on Friday morning, I certainly did not want to play. On Saturday morning, I did some sightseeing for a little while before checking in to play in the afternoon round. My flight out today left out of Baltimore so I didn't have time to play today. As such, I only played two rounds. Given how long and exhausting these games can be, that was plenty for me.

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Re: 2018 World Diplomacy Championships - Washington DC

#103 Post by Durga » Mon Oct 08, 2018 4:30 am

MadMarx wrote:
Mon Oct 08, 2018 3:30 am
ghug wrote:
Sat Feb 10, 2018 5:20 am
500 points and a front page banner to anyone who wins anything.
Does this include first solo of the tournament? Best country (Russia, for example)? Highest placing webDip player?

All sound reasonable to me...
Yeah honest shout out to Balki! Although, I'm not very comfortable of the idea of him as a webdipper... Given his *association* with playdip much more than webdip. Maybe he should make the change. :) play a non tournament game here Balki

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Re: 2018 World Diplomacy Championships - Washington DC

#104 Post by MadMarx » Mon Oct 08, 2018 6:40 am

Durga wrote:
Mon Oct 08, 2018 4:30 am

Yeah honest shout out to Balki!
Balki? He died. Months ago.

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Re: 2018 World Diplomacy Championships - Washington DC

#105 Post by Vecna » Mon Oct 08, 2018 2:45 pm

The level play on that top board is phenomenal for a ftf game

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Re: 2018 World Diplomacy Championships - Washington DC

#106 Post by eturnage » Mon Oct 08, 2018 3:56 pm

I enjoyed meeting everyone. Got to play in games with Bo and YoYo. My daughter went out drinking with some on here Thursday, which caused a lot of damage in general. I went to bed at 11 in lieu of the afterparty.

Game with Bo. I was Italy. He was Russia. We allied with Turkey. I took Trieste in Fall 1901. However, a western triple involving excellent German and French players spooked Bo and Turkey thought I was allied with Austria (despite the move to Trieste.) Therefore, the Austrian campaign disintegrated and I died.

Game with YoYo. England for Yo. Germany for me. Doc Binder, a great FTF player, was France. Couldn't get Italy interested in attacking France. France gives me Bel and proposes attacking England. Then, Yo convinces him to stab me. France switches back and stabs YoYo. France tops the board. I take Scandanavia and secure Stp. Come in second. We could have ground it out, but I just like playing for fun more than points.

Game 1 (first round). I get France and form an alliance with England. We talk Germany into a western triple and stab him while he invades Russia. Eric Grinnel is Turkey. We all get 10 centers and call a draw with three very minor powers left. (6 total).

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Re: 2018 World Diplomacy Championships - Washington DC

#107 Post by Balki Bartokomous » Mon Oct 08, 2018 4:06 pm

It was a pleasure to meet a whole bunch of players on this site, who I felt like I knew, but I didn't really know. Everything is so different when you're looking at someone right in the eyes. Thanks for being so welcoming, and sharing the experience. Hopefully our paths cross again soon.

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Re: 2018 World Diplomacy Championships - Washington DC

#108 Post by Yigg » Mon Oct 08, 2018 5:12 pm

brainbomb wrote:
Sun Oct 07, 2018 7:41 pm
Getting drunk every night with bo and yoyo would be amazing tho.
There were a lot of really good times from the weekend. I can tell you from my personal experience that getting drunk with bo and yoyo was, in fact, extremely amazing!

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Re: 2018 World Diplomacy Championships - Washington DC

#109 Post by Balki Bartokomous » Mon Oct 08, 2018 5:35 pm

MadMarx wrote:
Mon Oct 08, 2018 3:30 am
ghug wrote:
Sat Feb 10, 2018 5:20 am
500 points and a front page banner to anyone who wins anything.
Does this include first solo of the tournament? Best country (Russia, for example)? Highest placing webDip player?

All sound reasonable to me...
No banner mention is no big deal, but I'm definitely going to add this slight to my profile.

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Re: 2018 World Diplomacy Championships - Washington DC

#110 Post by eturnage » Mon Oct 08, 2018 6:15 pm

Congrats on making the top board. I posted some twitter pics of you and the others at #WDCinDC .

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Re: 2018 World Diplomacy Championships - Washington DC

#111 Post by shield » Mon Oct 08, 2018 6:28 pm

Super awesome meeting yoyo, jmo, balki, bo, and others in person!

Game 1 Play Italy, open to Trieste, Apulia, Ionian. Followed up to Aegen in fall 1901. France came south to help Turkey, but crushed Turkey with help from Austria and Russia. Got to build F Naples, F Rome the build after France entered Tyrhennian. Pushed him back, set up stalemate in Spa and Mar with England (a final board player) who took the rest of his centers. Ended with 2nd place.

Game 2 Played Russia, moved too slow. Austria got carved up by IT I went to fight IT while England (a final board player) took St Pete and Sweden. Went all out north to screw with England. Eliminated. Turkey (a final board player) stabbed Italy for 17 center board top.

Game 3 Played France, allied with England, crushed Germany quickly while also opening against yoyoyozo in Italy. Ended up with a big board top and best France.

Came in 15th going into the top 7 board.

Game 4, Played England, went for EF. 1902 revealed 3 center germany. France and Russia attack me at the same time while ATI alliance rolls unopposed into Bur, Mar, Wes Med, Sev. Russia keeps moving north against me in England "for lolz" while giving his centers to Turkey, france turns around to fight, but lacks fleets to stop italy. Germany totally overhwhelmed by ATI lost its centers so I stabbed Germany hoping to stalemate in MAO. Germany kept 1 fleet and worked with ATIR against EF.
France died. Germany, Russia and Italy easily cracked my defense so I convoyed Austria from Bel to Edi for lolz. ATI shared a top E R G eneded 2 2 1 respectively. Dropped to 20th place in final standing.

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Re: 2018 World Diplomacy Championships - Washington DC

#112 Post by Durga » Wed Oct 10, 2018 12:58 am

Okay here are my game experiences, I dropped round 1 of the tournament to recover from my lovely Thursday night (which, I don't recall tbh but... fun partying with you all I guess). So a quick summary: I got blitzed in one game, got a middle score in another, and topped two of my boards.

So Round 2.... This is my board:
--------------------------------------------------------
Austria........Nathan Barnes
England........David Johnson
France.........Don Woodring
Germany........Brian O`Connell
Italy..........Daniel Lester
Russia.........Matthew Shields
Turkey.........Tanya Gill
--------------------------------------------------------

So Diplomacy is like 90% skill and tactics, but it is also 10% luck of the draw. And I had absolutely no luck with this draw. I was surrounded by Barnes, Shields, and Lester (great players, Lester being one of the best in the hobby I imagine). But that wasn't really the issue, I love playing with good players over bad ones... The issue was that I was Turkey. And I was pretty much told that it didn't matter who I was or what I was saying, Turkey had to be removed from the game.

So I was blitzed. Out by 1903. I don't think I've ever had this experience before, but it was absolutely horrific. And I felt horrible after it. It was kind of like not actually getting a chance to play at all? Not really a good start to my tournament and I think it got me in a bad headspace.

I also got even more pissed off at the end result of this board, which ended up being a three way draw between the players who blitzed me - Austria, Russia and Italy. Which makes absolutely no sense in a SoS game but here we are. Also, these people are very good friends and sometimes you’re just going to be on boards where you’re surrounded by three friends who’ve been to each others weddings and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. They've played together many times and can trust each other and know how to work together.

Usually I learn some life lessons from games that I get eliminated in, but I have gone through this game in my head over and over and cannot take away a single lesson from it.

---------------------------------------------------
Round 3
Austria..................Tanya Gill
England..................Rachael Storey
France...................Sven Vasseur
Germany..................Graham Woodring
Italy....................Jordan Connors
Russia...................Adam Sigal
Turkey...................Fred Olowin
---------------------------------------------------

This game started out fairly promising as we quickly got rid of Turkey (only because I didn’t like his press) and Italy (Balki) and I were heading towards what I thought was a pretty solid AI which should get us to the middle-end of the game with a good score (expecting a late game stab). So I attacked Russia (Adam) who would have been down to 4 if I had been able to keep pushing and likely ultimately eliminated… But of course things never work out the way you want them to, and for some reason Italy stabbed me for 3 dots, but then pretty much lost 2 of them the year after and lost Russia as an ally. Pretty shit stab that essentially slowed down both our games and ultimately we were stuck on 8 supply centres each trying to stop a 14 SC Russia from soloing the game. We ended up tied and Russia topped.

------------------------------------
Round 4
Austria Noah Hess
England Tommy Anderson
France Jeff Ladd
Germany Tanya Gill
Italy John Jamieson
Russia Emily Turnage
Turkey Chris Brand
-----------------------------------

This game was beyond frustrating when I look back at it, because if there was a game where I could have done really really really well, it was this one. And the saddest part was it was my fault that I did not let Chris Brand get removed from the game. I should have realized that if there was one person to stop me from soloing here, it was the 2016 world champion. Ultimately, I topped the board, but it was still not as good as a result as I would have liked.

Not to mention, by the time this game ended I was at 17 hours of straight diplomacy. The easy part about playing online is that you never play for that long. By the end of the game I was so delusional, tired, exhausted, and misordered every second turn. Chris Brand said “I would draw the game but you keep making mistakes so let’s keep playing”. I really missed having a preview button by 1am. Thankfully, I didn't fuck up enough to break the line.

--------------------------------------------------
Round 5
Austria..................Grant Steel
England..................John Barringer
France...................Tanya Gill
Germany..................Zak Hammond
Italy....................Mike McMillie
Russia...................Michael Topczewski
Turkey...................Craig Mayr
---------------------------------------------------

I topped this board as well but it was likely one of the most boring games of diplomacy I have ever played. We got rid of Zak and Craig (OB) and it was a horrific 5 way draw after like 5 years of game play. I don’t think I’ve ever drawn a game this early, but no one wanted to keep playing… And when no one wants to keep playing and they have a stalemate line up, you can’t be the only one who wants to play. So we drew, it was shit.

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Re: 2018 World Diplomacy Championships - Washington DC

#113 Post by Balki Bartokomous » Wed Oct 10, 2018 5:20 pm

Durga wrote:
Wed Oct 10, 2018 12:58 am
---------------------------------------------------
Round 3
Austria..................Tanya Gill
England..................Rachael Storey
France...................Sven Vasseur
Germany..................Graham Woodring
Italy....................Jordan Connors
Russia...................Adam Sigal
Turkey...................Fred Olowin
---------------------------------------------------

This game started out fairly promising as we quickly got rid of Turkey (only because I didn’t like his press) and Italy (Balki) and I were heading towards what I thought was a pretty solid AI which should get us to the middle-end of the game with a good score (expecting a late game stab). So I attacked Russia (Adam) who would have been down to 4 if I had been able to keep pushing and likely ultimately eliminated… But of course things never work out the way you want them to, and for some reason Italy stabbed me for 3 dots, but then pretty much lost 2 of them the year after and lost Russia as an ally. Pretty shit stab that essentially slowed down both our games and ultimately we were stuck on 8 supply centres each trying to stop a 14 SC Russia from soloing the game. We ended up tied and Russia topped.
I'll share my perspective on this game as well:

Interesting board. Russia and Germany seemed like really strong players, and I've wanted to play with Tanya for at least a year. I was really looking forward to this one.

Russia proposed a Wintergreen alliance, with Turkey dying first, and then Austria. A good plan for Italy, so I said "absolutely!" Tanya was keen to eliminate Turkey first as well, so the opening moves were a fairly quick blitz to the corner. Meanwhile, Russia was making swift progress in the north, and looking to be in strong position. And the swift collapse of Germany and England gave France the center lead and the best position on the board.

As Turkey caved, and Tanya stabbed Russia, I was eager to go West and contest France, but I was smaller than Tanya, and it would likely take 2+ game years for me to get even one dot against France. So, I asked Tanya for a dot. She had stabbed Russia and was making gains. I wanted one more dot so that I could place another fleet and get a jump on France. I figured that if Tanya was unwilling to prop me up to be at least within a unit or two of her, that I would not be able to contest France and that I would eventually be overextended and stabbed by Austria. She said "no."

So, I stabbed Tanya/Austria for Trieste, and maybe one more center, I forget.

Russia, who had encouraged the stab, immediately swapped back over to work with Austria, and neutralized my move. The chaos in the east just gave France more room to grow, and ultimately the three of us alive in the East (RIA), made up and agreed to put our wars behind us and go east together to knock back France.

That worked for a while. We knocked France back from around 11 to around 6, before Russia inevitably stabbed Austria and took off on his own. There were a couple of worrisome turns in which it looked like Russia might push across for 17-18 centers, but (a) F/I/A got our act together and put up a decent defense, and (b) the hour was late, Russia had already clinched the top board, and the rest of us were ready to be done so that we could play again in the next round, which was starting in just a few minutes, so we drew.

This was my worst result of the tournament, other than the embarrassing top board. Tanya didn't like it when I stabbed her, but I don't think I had a better play. I think that if I just slinked off west, as a smaller power, I would have been stalemated by France while Austria just kept swallowing up Russia. And I don't think that game would have ended well for me.

I kind of wish that Tanya would have given me a dot and sent me west.

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Re: 2018 World Diplomacy Championships - Washington DC

#114 Post by Durga » Wed Oct 10, 2018 5:49 pm

I can't recall you stressing for how/why you needed a dot. I'm always happy to balance out alliances when there is a good reason to do so, as you would recall later in the game, I told you to take Trieste so that you would not have to disband. Your stab on me was greed (which I would not blame you for if there was a way it would work out in your favour), and it didn't work out well for either of us. I knew that if you stabbed me Russia would be on my side despite me attacking him, so I didn't think you would actually do it. Perhaps I should have stressed it.

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Re: 2018 World Diplomacy Championships - Washington DC

#115 Post by Durga » Wed Oct 10, 2018 5:55 pm

Either way, Jordan -- playing with you was nice and it would be fun to do it again. I would like to hear your impressions of your other games too if you have time.

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Re: 2018 World Diplomacy Championships - Washington DC

#116 Post by eturnage » Thu Oct 11, 2018 11:26 am

Thank you both for your analysis.

Balki, I would like to hear of your impressions of the FTF game as compared to online play. I heard this was your first tournament, but you did amazingly well adapting to the terrain of FTF.

In fact, it would be great if everyone would chip in about the differences and how one should adapt to the differences in the game. I almost said variant, lol.

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Re: 2018 World Diplomacy Championships - Washington DC

#117 Post by Balki Bartokomous » Thu Oct 11, 2018 5:57 pm

Thanks eturnage.

I feel like the FtF game has a lot more similarities to online play than differences.

My biggest challenges were not strategic, they were just comfort level with the mechanics of the game. Writing orders is hard when you are used to point and click. And my knowledge of the board is just way behind someone who is used to looking at a board with wooden pieces and writing orders on a piece of paper. I made a lot of misorders, and I found it hard to "see the whole board" in my head. I was much more focused on getting the tactics right in my little corners of the map than on taking a step back and seeing the big picture. That was certainly a function of short time limits and having to double- and triple-check my orders. It was also a function of my unfamiliarity with looking at the board game map. I'm used to seeing centers colored by the power that owns them, and easy to understand preview order buttons. Being unfamiliar with the board view, it was harder for me to see the big picture.

Negotiations are different too. There are things you can do in a face-to-face game that you cannot do online. For one, if you really need to make sure someone is not lying to you, there are steps you can take in face-to-face unavailable elsewhere. You can look someone in the eye. You can watch them write their orders. You can ask them to write their orders in front of you and put them in the box with you. You can see who is talking to who and what they look like during their negotiations.

Through all of these added tools, you can generate a lot more intelligence on what other people are doing than you can behind a computer screen. And it seems to me that playing a lot of face-to-face games would improve one's ability in those aspects of the game quite a lot. I'm sure there are dozens of similar tools that one learns through familiarity and repetition.

While the skills above require time to develop, the online player has a lot of skills that do translate. Most of the alliances you are used to playing online translate well to face-to-face play. Most of the openings are just as popular face-to-face as they are online. Most of the tactics and the timing of the stabs seem consistent. And the arguments people make to do one thing over another are more or less the same, with just a few differences that arise based on the tournament setting and scoring system.

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Re: 2018 World Diplomacy Championships - Washington DC

#118 Post by dancing queen » Thu Oct 11, 2018 7:13 pm

Video of the "Welcome to WDC" song and dance is up!

https://youtu.be/usrTQ6vmbp4

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Re: 2018 World Diplomacy Championships - Washington DC

#119 Post by Durga » Thu Oct 11, 2018 9:53 pm

dancing queen wrote:
Thu Oct 11, 2018 7:13 pm
Video of the "Welcome to WDC" song and dance is up!

https://youtu.be/usrTQ6vmbp4
OMG. How did I miss this!?! This is amazing

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Re: 2018 World Diplomacy Championships - Washington DC

#120 Post by dancing queen » Thu Oct 11, 2018 10:58 pm

Durga wrote:
Thu Oct 11, 2018 9:53 pm
dancing queen wrote:
Thu Oct 11, 2018 7:13 pm
Video of the "Welcome to WDC" song and dance is up!

https://youtu.be/usrTQ6vmbp4
OMG. How did I miss this!?! This is amazing
This was Friday morning - I think you were still recovering from Thursday night .... :nmr:

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