I would agree. Also, even once you make your long term alliance if you end up with a 17 17 split, there would tend to be stabs of people along the way, even beyond the broken NAPs from the first turn.

One of the things that I often see come out of "PPSC is teh devil" is that it encourages people to make decisions contrary to their longterm well-being in order to be allowed to finish the game with 4 SC (or whatever would make them get out as much as or more than they put in). However, I see this happen in WTA all the time too, where people fight in order to get a "survive". I can understand making some decisions to become part of a draw, but I really don't see how "survive" is better than a loss.

A survive is a loss whether you play PPSC or WTA. In PPSC there is a consolation in points and GR bump for strong survives.

I think the problem that people have is that people in PPSC tend to forget that a survive is a loss more than in WTA.

I dunno, I see plenty of people gunning for a survive once things go south in WTA (and even begging larger powers to let them have one). The website counts them separate. If we're going to pooh pooh PPSC, we should pooh pooh the site counting a survive as separate from a defeat.

well they are different. I believe a survive is often worse than a defeat. they are both losses, however, even if they are different in nature.

The strongest argument I hear against PPSC is that it permits 17 17's, which are against the stated goal of the game: to achieve 18 SC's. I AGREE, THAT IS THE STATED GOAL OF THE PRINTED GAME AND OF THE FOUNDER IN ALL INTERVIEWS and as such, 17 17 violates that rule. (Had Alan been far-sighted enough to build the game with 35 SC's, we'd not be having this discussion.

Having said that.... it is an independent decision by WebDip's site owner to reward 17 17 ties (one could program the game so that any draw became a draw amongst all 7 players, or only offer WTA games). One must therefore assume that 17 17 draws and three way draws are "permitted" to split the points amongst those smaller groups (and therefore "rewarded" due to popular demand.

In short, Dr. K supports 17 17 by enabling and rewarding it.

Likewise, our hero Ghost's rating system presumably (not a math major) rewards 17 17 rather than punishes it. If the GR ONLY rewarded wins....behavior would shift radically. Can one say, therefore, that Dr. G supports 17 17? hmmmm?

17/17 draws happen in WTA too. Everyone involved in the draw gets an equal shake, so a 17/17 draw in WTA and a 17/17 draw in PPSC are exactly the same.

Ahhhhh good point, never thought about that.

I don't really understand you, Indybroughton. 17 17s can also happen in WTA games

What if the site just offered an option to turn off draws pre game? Just like you can turn off messaging, or on winner take all.

WTA or PPSC really does not matter, it's who plays in theses games that matter.
PPSC players tend not to go all out to stop the victory. WTA players know it's that or you get nothing in return. Newer players do not understand this concept. I have had 1 17/17 in all my games. I now regret doing so as I could have won that game.
Victories do come easy, so enjoy the moment if you can get it.

17-17 is less likely in WTA because the stab for a win gains you a 100% increase, rather than a <6% increase.

G-Rating doesn't make any comment about PPSC or WTA at all.

Victories do NOT come easy is what I meant to say.

I have a feeling that we have had the PPSC v WTA debate before.

There are a couple of elements to the debate that I just don't understand. The WTA proponants tend to say that PPSC encourages draws and that as the staed aim of the game is to win, then WTA must be the purest version. But in a WTA game with 1 dominate player and say 3 others trying to stop the victory surely only 25% of the players are aiming to win the game - how is that pure?

I also think that part of the art of diplomacy is to try and help people acheive their goals whilst you try and acheive yours, part of this art therefore is understanding the other players goals rather than just assuming them. Some players will play for fun, others take it serious, some regards losing as better than a survive etc, having more than one scoring system helps keep us all on our toes as it throws up different challanges. By way of illustration I played in a PPSC game recently where a player had decided the leader was going to win and therefore he was just going to maximise his points value in defeat. Knowing that points were move important to him than his survive/draw record, meant I had to put him a position where he would get more points by drawing than he would by losing. I helped the leader get into a winning position. As the other player's SCs decreased he became keener and keener on the draw. Our efforts were in vain due to some poor moves, but the diplomatic challange of getting that player to see things my way was achieved, this challange wouldn't have been presnted in a WTA game where all losing players are easily gathered around the common cause of stopping the leader.

"If we're going to pooh pooh PPSC, we should pooh pooh the site counting a survive as separate from a defeat." - Agreed, but we should be against both.

Ahhhh...Ghost.....but the logic goes like this for those who find 17 17 anathema to the game of Diplomacy:

IF: 17 17 is completely contrary to the spirit of the game
AND If GR are the premier measuring stick that players use to compare themselves
AND if GR fails to punish players for 17 17 or any draw
THEN GR fails to support the primary goal of the game - to WIN!

Let me undermine my own argument with a question: Is there a significant difference in reward in GR, when playing PPSC, between a 17 17 and an 18 16?

Maniac +3 The "ubergoal" of Diplomacy is not to WIN but to experience the art of Diplomacy in its fullest.

Figle: I don't agree. Better to live on one's knees than to die on one's feet :) (I don't believe this in real life, but the fact that I survived rather than was defeated means, to me at least, that I played better than the player who was defeated <in general>

@Indy-to-Ghost: No. GR does not redefine the method of point distribution, merely how much each player bets in entering a game.

@Man: "The WTA proponants tend to say that PPSC encourages draws and that as the staed aim of the game is to win, then WTA must be the purest version. But in a WTA game with 1 dominate player and say 3 others trying to stop the victory surely only 25% of the players are aiming to win the game - how is that pure?"
No they don't, far from it. WTA players cite that PPSC encourages choosing to lose. That is, that if a game reached a 16-14-4 situation, it is in player 2s interests to let P1 win rather than try and stop this.

@Indy: Well whilst I can see this logic also, and do rather agree with you, there is no distinction between a survive with 1 SC and a survive with 10. In both cases you failed to stop someone else winning, and as such have lost.

Particularly if you join a game part way through. It can be an interesting ride trying to wrangle a survive out of joining a late stage game where the nation you take over has only one center. I'd say in instances like that, a survive is much better than a defeat.

my post was meant to be agreeing with Indy's most recent point about a survive being better than a defeat imo, in most instances.

As a proponent of WTA, it isn't about the draws - as others have said - this is a likely outcome of a good quality game. The difference lies in how a 10 center finish in treated when someone else has solo'ed.

In most WTAer's view - that finish is worthless - worse than getting knocked out - if you have 10 centers - you were probably the one who should have stopped the other player solo'ing.

To the PPSCer, it's a good return, and therefore a desirable outcome. IMHO, that is how the game can get affected in a way the original inventors didn't intend.

As the person who said the title quote, (Although I was agreeing with someone else when I said it) I feel I should respond.

So many people, so many times have articulated this better than I will now. If you'd like more explanations, I would suggest searching the replies of some of the top rated ghost ratings for "WTA" or "PPSC". In particular, I recommend the writings of Babak, although he does tend to be a bit extreme, claiming that (As it was then then) phpDip was ruining the diplomacy community by offering PPSC.

But whether or not PPSC is ruining diplomacy, (I personally learned to play diplomacy on this site and started playing PPSC before I even knew anything about the argument, and am now a convert.) he's right. It IS a disgustingly horrid variant. This is primarily because it incentivizes playing to lose. There is almost no incentive to stab an ally that is going for a solo, but rather to continue beating up on smaller powers in order to gain as many SC's and points as possible before the game ends. As a result, the solo rate (Which should be regarded as a measurement of poor play, more later) is far higher in PPSC. (Although it is still abnormally high in WTA than it is in other places, like play by e-mail. For more on that, you should see this thread: http://www.webdiplomacy.net/forum.php?threadID=662653) In a WTA game, people almost always gets stabbed around 9-10 SC's, as should happen, so that they don't solo. WTA isn't so much about winning yourself (Although that certainly is the goal, it is far more difficult) as it is stopping others from winning.

Some people complain that WTA promotes draws. This has always baffled me, as a true 7-way draw, where no player can make no progress is the outcome of a perfectly played game of diplomacy. (I've only been in one, sadly.) A high solo rate is indicative of poor play. In quality play, the remaining players would put aside their differences and unite to stop the solo, and indeed one only solos when this does not happen. For more on draws, "strong seconds" and solos, I recommend this article, by the creator of diplomacy, Allan Calhamer: http://www.diplom.org/~diparch/resources/calhamer/objectives.htm

All of this being said, it's unfortunate but true that I think PPSC has some advantages. First, it encourages people to not CD, which was a HUGE problem when this site began, and one of the instigations for the point system to begin with. And to be fair, it accomplished its objective.

Some claim that it's fair to give more credit to a player who survives with 14 SC's than one who survives with two. This is a misunderstanding of one of the fundamental assumptions built into the creation of the game, namely that any 18 SC army can conquer the rest of Europe with ease. Ergo the game is "called" for the player at 18 SC's, as to not waste time. This is discussed extensively in Allan's article from above. Ergo, even if you have 16 SC's at the "end" of the game, it is presumed that you would be wiped out (And you almost always would be) and would eventually have nothing. If we accept this assumption, which, as Allan points out, is almost always true, then WTA is the only logical scoring system. Because a survive is really a loss, "a draw, then, is the reward for survival in a dangerous world." People should stop conceptualizing a "survive" as different from a loss, and start conceptualizing draws as survives.

WTA has two inherent problems:
I encourages the killing of survivors in order to maximize the draw
It usually leaves people in kamkadze positions, where they have no shot at a draw and can only chose who to hurt while dying

Still, it's the better system. PPSC is just very flawed and can produce absurd games.

One thing i think a few of you might be overlooking since you mostly all have a lot of points, I think one of the reasons many people who are just starting out play PPSC (certainly the reason i do) is that, compared to a WTA game of the same bet, it is much lower stakes. When you only have somewhere in the ball park of a hundred points, and you are confident enough you aren't going to be fully destroyed in your games, PPSC is a way of making it so you don't lose 50 by a single supply center. Now, i know when you drop below 100, you get your points back, but I for one don't like using that as a method of getting my points back. Also, that would just shift the argument to a slightly higher point range, for people in the 125-200 point category say.

^^ But that 1 SC is critical.
If you have made it to 14SCs and someone else has made it to 18, you have still lost.
Suppose you're Turkey, and England is approaching the solo, with Italy & Austria blocking him at the stalemate line. PPSC says you should take out Austria from behind if you could make it to 15ish SCs

but if you think about it, if England offered to have your nation be the second largest power of the world(/europe/whatever) as opposed to being one of four super powers, shouldn't you take that?

Firstly, let me thank everyone. This is the most civil, reasoned discussion I've witnessed in a long time. Even if Figle does have a ludicrous name.

Secondly, thanks to :) for his reference to the thread by The Founder (http://www.diplom.org/~diparch/resources/calhamer/objectives.htm). It is right on topic.

Even after this discussion, where I think my argument for playing PPSC - and for 17 17's - is underpowered..... I still find myself leaning to that side. I think it is probably because I enjoy the challenge of creating a true partnership, of guarding against a stab, and the enjoyment of a shared win. Why I can accept fully that coming in second in a game of Hearts is worthless...and second in Cosmic Encounters is worthless....and yet feel that trying for a 17 17, or even ending up with a 16 18 is not an entire loss...is a mystery to me. Probably because 17 17 and 16 18 still advance one's bank roll and one's GR, and that is how one is measured. Until the measurement system is in sinc with the Founder's philosophy, we'll probably get what we measure - and I'll still strive for 17 17.

Thanks for a great and civil discussion. I learned a lot.