Okay, I took a look at the game and that can't be the reason he won. He out strategized his opponents. Simple as that.

Believe me, I would have loved to have stopped the solo. I have the same view on PPSC as you do, in fact. That game was a mess of frustration for me because Germany nor England understood any of my communications. I moved to West Med to attempt to help you hold Tunis when the time came. Obviously it didn't matter because England did not care about Scandinavia.

Once Turkey had attacked austria I think it was a done deal.

@SteveC If it was WTA there would have more likely been an attempt at a stalemate. Don't make general comments you couldn't possibly have had time to analyze that game.

I'm with Steven. His win might have been delayed if everyone else had worked together, but he may well have had a hand in that diplomatically as well, disrupting alliances and promising survival to those who would take it.

You can't say PPSC is terrible just because of this game (and those like it). It is certainly different than WTA, but different doesn't mean terrible. People could just as easily (and often do) complain that WTA promotes too many draws.

Whilst I wouldn't say this proves PPSC is any lesser than WTA, I do think it shows less than perfect play. When Turkey began to swell up it would have been nice to see more of a resistance.
However, how to do this? England & France would have had to cease fighting, which is quite a gamble in gunboat since each has to hope the other is a decent enough player who will stop the solo rather than fighting on.
I think a much larger factor in this was the loss of Italy. If he had been there, Turkey would have found it harder to grow at the rate he did, and this delay might have been enough for FE to sort out some form of agreement (although to be honest from Englands orders I don't think they would have)

Draws are the sign of a well played diplomacy game. A perfect game would end in a seven way draw. I've played won. It was 1909 and there was no one with fewer than 4 SC's. WTA promotes draws because in WTA, people play correctly and don't try to intentionally lose.

Well Italy was clearly a problem too. There were lots of things about that game that were depressing...

Heh, I've played *one*...

hey dude...i was italy. my bad for leavin. parents suddenly popped up with dinner. ive got to say though, i was comin for ya. would have been a bit more interesting if i was able to stay

...actually, I know that England and Germany would not have cooperated to stop the solo bid anyway >_>

I gave a forewarning in the advertisement thread that I was playing with some friends. (Who, as you can see, I stabbed anyway -- no metagaming, no communication outside the game, etc.) These friends... well, I think this is their first gunboat for all of them. I'm not a big fan of PPSC either.

@Triumvir: It was gunboat; there was no alliance disruption going on. I pre-empted Russia's stab in 1902 and went after him, lunged into Scandinavia while the opening was there (kind of shocking to me...), and then stabbed Austria before he could get 4 builds from Italy and destroy me.

Yeah. I saw that after I posted...my bad.

And everyone commenting about Italy isn't thinking how I was. I only stabbed Austria because I saw him in position to eat all of Italy in one go. I wasn't going after Italy if he had stayed; he was my plug against Austria while I broke into Scandinavia and encircled Austria to the north.

lol, I got raped... sucks for me... lol... but twas fun as usual...

"I gave a forewarning in the advertisement thread that I was playing with some friends."

I didn't know that was the case, as I took over for lentz as a favor. I somewhat regret that, but at least it's not on my account and the only consequence I suffered was feeling incredibly angry.

I'm not sure which I have the harsher opinion of though, PPSC or playing with real life friends. Needless to say, I would never have joined this game myself.

And yeah, I knew you were coming Eden. Anyone would have stabbed Austria, and if you hadn't that turn, I would have stabbed you the next.

It was the same number of builds if I held Buda or took Venice though, and there was always the chance you were an idiot. ;-)

lol, well, they always stab eachother, so it's just like they aren't really friends...

I don't think the real life friends affected the outcome other than that the real life friends did not know gunboat.

I am in your boat here smiles, although it is my own account. I am a little frustrated but no angry. It shows me why I dislike PPSC so much. But it was also a decent tactical lesson for me. Shows that France can fend off a hostile G and E at the same time on occasion (granted they didn't really give much of a fight)

This doesn't prove anything. This is more of a matter of bad play on behalf of at least one of the Western powers. If, in a PPSC game you thought that stopping a solo would hurt your standings, would you do it? Of course not. Doing anything else would be far more hurtful to yourself.

The most frustrating thing is that Germany moved his units towards me, not to help me stop the solo, but to attack me (presumably) as vengeance for taking Munich, whilst handing the solo to Turkey.

Had he helped me with Warsaw, we might have been able to delay and set up a stalemate...

"If, in a PPSC game you thought that stopping a solo would hurt your standings, would you do it? Of course not. Doing anything else would be far more hurtful to yourself."

And this is why I hate and detest the style of play in PPSC. If someone gets to 18 centers, and it's not you, I've got news, but YOU LOST! It doesn't matter if you had 16 centers or 0.

Would you say that second place is worse than first place?

*last place

I mean that as in to say that Second place is undoubtedly better than last place, and clearly, still better than third. Not to say that 1st isn't best of all, though, but some people realize that sometimes they can't reach 1st, and aim for 2nd instead.

No, but neither is it better. Second place is just another word for first loser.

That's one way of looking at it, and not one that I personally agree with...
But do you realize that first loser is better than last loser, and would you try to be the first loser instead of the last if you had the chance?

You wouldn't. But what you fail to realize is that you can tie for first too. That's called a draw, and THAT should be your goal if you can't get to 18 centers.

@Rommel - In a WTA game no. In PPSC? Much more difficult question. If I thought we could force a draw by working together, then that's what I'd do

I agree with you Smiley. But its the nature of PPSC that cause people have a different judgment. Like I said, there was nothing I would have rather done than build a stalemate with England's cooperation for a 3-way draw.