I'm out of this site.
I won't comment this game as it's the style of play I would do 1% of the time.
Bye everyone.

It's a shame you're leaving. This site is losing one of its best players (even if it didn't get to know you well enough to fully appreciate it).

I'm curious, what is the style of play that sly objects to?

I think Sly was convinced that MM would play an honourable game to the very end. He wanted to prove that it was possible, that the best player on the site could sometimes do it, and that therefore it was a good way to play the game.
So I would surmise that Sly objects to the idea that someone would play the "honour" card to the extent that MM did (I'm presuming he played it really well if Sly thought it possible to abandon his lines of defence the way he did) only to stab and gain victory at the hands of his former ally.

Let's be clear though: that last move that cost him the game was not the demonstration that Sly isn't a good player. He might have gotten carried away a touch in wanting to prove that the honourable game was possible even with the best, but he did play very well until then and he is a very good player otherwise.

@ Cachimbo, how could you warn Slyster, i cant see you in the game?

All that to say: though I won't try to convince him otherwise, it's a shame that he's leaving this site.

Slyster is a RL friend. We talked about the game a lot.

Oh, I only made that mistake with MM once - he is very fond of promising long term benifits to working with him - or letting you *believe* he has agreed to them - but he assesses the map at the end of each sequence, so once the situation changes, so do his agreements.

I don't think less of him for it, of course, but his combination of long term strategic vision coupled with tactical ruthlessness is why he has 26K points ;)

I believe that the best players will always try to stab you given the chance. You can't climb to the top of this game if you only play "honorably". After all, all's fair in love and war, and this is war, plain and simple.

I see nothing wrong in what MM did, I just wish I were able to do the same... :-)

keep in mind this game was anon. so sly may have not known it was MM. but ANY good player would stab for a solo and the set-up italy german had obiously favored germany... i cant believe italy thought it was a good defensive set up . I saw it immideately when i saw the Nth bounce and realized the army in hol could take bel. that was just a dumb set up on italy's part.

of course, MM played well as always and i'm sure his silver tongue got him the result he wanted. well done MM.

ps. I wonder if the thread about 17/17 draws affectd sly's vies on this game and how it might end... but a great finish, and nothing will detract from another MM solo.

Turkey
Well I can write an essay about this the latter part of this game! The pages I wrote to Italy showing him what would happen if he tried to attack me! However I was ignored! I did everything I knew to persuade him away, but Italy was convinced he would get a 17/17 split! Did I go too far with my forum posts and global press? Probably! However the history I have experienced on this site was mostly to blame!

Ok that's the sanctimonious bit out of the way! Now about the rest of the game!
1901 I decided to ally with Russia fairly quickly as Austria wasn’t too communicative and although Russia wasn’t exactly writing pages, he did seem a more attractive offer! Austria offered to support me into Rumania and then retracted the offer, which left me with Russia as a partner. Unfortunately he moved the fleet into Rum (not the army) in the fall which meant I was unlikely to be getting out of the corner in a hurry.
1902 Italy turned west, which was a shame as he was a far better writer than Austria and Russia, and I felt would have made the best ally on my half of the board. Russia’s attack on Boh was fine but then in the autumn he went for Munich letting Austria into Galicia. No chance of me getting out of Bulgaria any time soon! At least Russia finally got an army into Rumania.
1903 Austria moves his fleet into AEG letting me into Greece, which was awesome! Austria took Rumania and Russia was in Bulgaria but at least I was out of my box! It in the autumn I rettok Bul and Russia retook Rum. On the other side of the board, England’s misorder let Germany into the north sea and France was struggling, with Germany joining the attack. I decided at this stage that as long as France didn’t die too fast and England worked with him, that Germany and Italy although a danger were not yet in danger of overrunning us.
1904 was a bad year for the west. Instead of England helping France he took Brest and with it the last remaining hope that the west would balance! Now I was concerned and although I finally got my 2nd build I was looking for a way to get people working against Germany. Italy was the obvious candidate, so I started grooming him to finish France off and head into Germany. He seemed particularly hung up about the fact I had 2 fleets and although receptive to my ideas, i never got the confident warm feeling you get when you truely know someone has taken your ideas and advice. I have to say this nagging doubt stayed with me all the way.
1905 Italy’s protestations about my 2nd fleet resulted in an agreed bounce in EMS and a promise to work together against germany. I started pointing out that to hold a line against Germany, we would him to move at least one more fleet west. In the fall Russia supported an errant german army into Galicia. It was becoming apparent that the German player was no novice ;) this army had only one purpose and I warned both Austria and Russia that it was here to keep the balance on our side of the board while Germany finished England off. As it happened my progress with Russia hadn’t been exactly spectacular, and I knew Serbia was mine in the fall. I started to plan for the endgame with 3 survivors.
1906 The errant German army repaid Russia support by supporting Austria into Rumania ;) This German sure was good. I refused to support the Russian fleet back in saying that a fleet in Rumania was of zero use. Russia grudgingly agreed and supported my army in. I accompanied this move with a fleet move to Con, preparing to stick the boot into Russia. France died and Italy was about to help finish off Austria so we could steam into Germany and hold a stalemate line if necessary. At least we would get a 3 way draw out of this. Italy still made no move west with another fleet!
1907 I stabbed Russia and Austria got eliminated in the fall. Italy continued to procrastinate reguarding the movement of fleets and I sensed that Germany had a strong hold on him. Still with Russia nearly out (2 centres) a 3 way draw wasn’t far away! It would mean some rapid movent ment to get to the stalemate line if Germany didn’t agree to the draw but it was still saveable.
1908 Italy asked which of us would take Vienna and I said it really didn’t matter as supply centre count was just not important anymore! It worked out that although Italy would take Vienna my army would be needed in Trieste to support it. I never got a reply to this. I could see an obvious stab from Italy but I didn’t think for a moment he would do it! The game was a sure fire certainty 3 way draw. Why would anyone do anything different? So he attacks me!
The moment he did that I knew my chance of getting anything out of the game was gone. I would likely survive, (again!) but Germany would get the win. I was furious! I had specifically joined this High stakes game to distance myself from 2 previous games which had been “thrown” to players getting 18 and several other games which had to be reported to the mods. Now I found myself reading press from a player who was utterly brainwashed, and what is more he was trying to brainwash me that he would get 17 centres.
My anger lasted at least 24 hours which I regret! During this time I made a forum post to judge the opinion of the rest of the site. I did this because my experience on this site has been so poor so far that I wondered if this was just common place here. My answer was emphatic and most seemed to agree that if the game was played “properly” a 17/17 draw was just about as hard to achieve as a date with a nun. I drew some consolation from this and Germany also did his best to cam me down.
Resigned to my fate, I ordered the rest of the game so as to get it over fairly quickly. Once I had calmed down I decided that if I was right, and Germany took the win then at least the game will have been played properly. Had it been a 17/17 split then I would not play on this site again. As it is I will try a few more games ;)
Finally I cannot give enough praise to Madmarx for the way he played both the game and the Italian! From early on It seems that Italy was just a puppet state. I have played against most of the best F2F players in the world and rarely seen such control on another player. Thank you Madmarx for an excellent (if extremely frustrating) game and very well played.

Again: I want to warn people that Italy was far less MM's puppet than that of his own ideals. You may disagree with what he did or how he played it. You may even commend MM for having set up the stage wonderfully well to stab Italy at the end. But don't underestimate Sly's skills even if his ideals got in the way of what should indeed have turned out to be a 3 way draw.

I'm pretty sure that, after your rant on the forum, Balaran, Sly had no other desire than to prove you wrong. Though that was clearly short sighted and ended up costing him a place in a draw, that was not so different from you waiting to see if your ideals would be confirmed before continuing to play on this site.

I disagree with Sly's decisions in this game (and he knows that only too well), but I will take issue with anyone trying to say that he represents something wrong about this game, or trying to argue that he's not a good player.

I guess it all depends on your definition of the word properly! Ive played this game postally and F2F since the 80's and only very recently started online. To me the purpose of the game is to get to 18 centres regardless of honour etc. the 2nd priority should be to make sure no one else gets to 18. Call me old fashioned, call me a dinosaur but this is how I learnt the game and how i have always seen the game played.
I have seen some despicable acts involving duplicate orders etc F2F but the ideals have always remained constant. If people play differently to this to try and "engineer" a result (which is what would have been required in ABI24) then I don't consider this as in the spirit of the game. If a win is possible you should take it! If it isn't then you should take no chances which may give a win to someone else.
Sorry if my opinion is a bit strong! It is just how I see it. I absolutely hate the PPSC scoring system this site uses, as it has encouraged players in my previous games to attack me whilst I'm trying to stop a player getting to 18

I think I've made the point before, Balaran: Diplomacy is a game where the objective is to dominate the board. That objective, however, can be interpreted and accomplished in a number of ways. And because the game has no "rules" beyond those which constitute its very structure, there is no "right" way to play it.

In consequence, you'll almost always have a clash between people playing it because of the differences in how they approach the game. As far as I'm concerned, a good player adapts to whatever the circumstances are and whoever he is playing in order to accomplish what he or she takes "domination of the board" to be.

I could not play the game as Sly did. That doesn't mean I don't understand where he's coming from. I just don't share the same approach to the game, that's all. But I wouldn't go so far as to say that one of us is getting it "wrong". I would maybe hint at the idea that on a site such as this one, where it's all about competition, Sly's approach might sometimes lead him into problematic situations, but even there I don't think it has to be something that would happen all the time. Granted, his approach would not, on this site, give him a great shot at becoming number 1, but the fact remains that his GR was quite decent regardless.

And I'll bet you anything he has more fun than a lot of us do when playing F2F

I'm not going to say that people are wrong if they don't share my ideals about the game.

No, but you did imply that it "wasn't in the spirit of the game" to act differently than what you have described.

I, on the other hand, believe that the "spirit of the game" doesn't exist beyond the way it unfolds through the interactions of the various players in one given game. In other words, the game never has the same "spirit" twice, not even in a perfect rematch (same players, same powers), because the repetition of the game's setting involves something that wasn't in the first game.

And at the risk of repeating myself, I think that this is why such a simple game can be played again and again (and again) without ever becoming completely boring in and of itself.

Reading this thread, especially Cachimbo's input, makes me realize why Cach and I always seem to clash in game. I have no compunction against lying and using another player to get what I want. Sometimes it puts me on top, other times if things turn bad, it costs me the game if I run into someone like Cachimbo (and his play *is* perfectly valid) who won't ally with me because of my early game deceptions and half truths and even outright lies.

That said, I probably will forget this before I play Cach again and will have to relearn it along the way. :-) So I guess my style is ,like MM's, but not as successful because I'm not as ruthless or as smooth talking.

The spirit of the game to me says that if you can persuade Sly to play again, then i would be happy to play too. Forgive and forget.

Balaran: I've heard a lot of variations on this argument, and most of your problems can be avoided by simple not playing PPSC. Your goals and stratagems are highly sound in a WTA setting, but in PPSC there will always be those who are willing to take a point-gain survive rather than risk losing more (though, in this example, Italy was foolish imo in either point system).

"I think Sly was convinced that MM would play an honourable game to the very end."

Sly is quitting the site because someone lied to him in Diplomacy??? I am surprised that he has lasted this long then. It's Diplomacy stupid!

@ Draug: we'll talk about this again you and I, but not here.

@ Spyman: No. It's not the lie that got to him. It's that he made the wrong assumption that he and MM shared the same opinion on the issue. That, and the fact that he's put too much stock into his opinion of how honour should factor into alliances.

So his disappointment really came at his own hands.

And again, look at his GR before calling him stupid, even in a qualified way. I'll be the first to say he's made a mistake in how he played the game, but I'm not ready to call it a stupid mistake.

The "stupid" comment was tongue in cheek. No offense meant.
What is this "honor" you speak of? And what "opinion" did hoped they shared? You says it's not the lie that bothered him, then what? I don't understand.

I hope sly writes his EOG to cast some light on the matter. I am always curious as to how others view this game. The "it's the style of play I wouldn't do" comment has baffled me. What does he mean?

To specify my thoughts about why I won't answer (and to some pretty much disrespectful comments, you know who you are), is because I think MadMarx and only the people playing in that game owns the right to hear what I have to say about this game and the way it has been played. Thanks for everyone else to understand.
To all those disrespectful people commenting on this thread: just bug off and act like grown ups.

That will be my last comment, thanks.

Eurg... I don't want to speak for someone else where details are concerned. Let's just say that Sly thought this game could be used to make a point, that alliances could be formed that would play for a 2-way draw out of honour. He was then convinced by MM, both in game and through his contribution on a forum thread, that he too was into making that point. And when Sly got a touch too... arrogant ( ? ) trying to make his point, MM didn't miss the opportunity to bring himself to 18.

I still think that if he had made sure to keep his units in a position where the 18 couldn't be had in one swift move, MM might have gone through with it. But that's just my opinion, and MM could certainly shed more light on the matter than I can.

Be like that then. I really didn't mean disrespect. But I do think it is good if all players have a shared understanding of what this game is about. But i am not sure what your understanding of the game is. I think I get MM's. It's simple, he plays to win. He doesn't cheat and therefore he is honorable. Or at least that is my understanding. But if you have a different idea of the game from, please share. I won't laugh, I promise.
But your statement about quitting does make it sound like you feel you have been wronged in someway.

" Did I go too far with my forum posts and global press? Probably"

Balaran, where is this thread?

Hmmm... I thought MM would have posted an EOG since he started the thread and all.