The worst thing about Gunboat is that the first turn, which dictates the direction of the game more than any other, is purely down to luck.

Gunboat is like a slugfest, in my opinion. How can you call people who play that 'true strategists'?

Also anyone can follow the logic of a gunboat game, it's quite easy to guess at/explain. Full press on the other hand...

Sun Tzu said "All men can see the tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved."

This to me is the essense of the issue: gunboat (more tactics) vs diplomacy (more strategy)

rollerfiend: clearly, without offense, you have no idea what you are talking about.

lol, okie, but full press has got to have more strategy involved.

Okay roka I take back what I said :) there's tonnes of strategy in gunboat

I think you and I (or you and the others) have a different definition of strategy. In gunboat, you have to know which will be you 18th SC by the time you have your 9th. Personally I prefer to know it by th time I have the 6th. You have to have a clear vision how you will get it, and you have to be capable of thinking 2-3 years in advance, sometimes on exacts moves. See my webdipquiz (http://webdipquiz.blogspot.com) for more.

For example Quiz #10 is about thinking 4 years ahead, and proving you have to be much more tactical. Tactical is the word I think you and me confuse with strategy. However, in my opinion you confuse it.

In gunboats you have to know till the very end which steps will give you the win, who will you ally with at what phase and how you will do it. In FP, the variations are much much bigger, hence you cannot plan 2-3 years ahead, as the number of unknown variables is way too much. You can compensate it with talking and negotiations, but it has nothing to do with strategy.

In gunboats, every player is well aware of, how the map will look like 3 years from now, and what you have to do now, to change the future. In fullpress you cannot really predict how the map will look like a year later. GB is more chess, and in my definition chess is a strategy game.

Anyway, I strongly suggest you to play some gunboats, if possible around the 100-200 bet size range and after 5-10 games, we may consider your opinion. But the sole fact that YOU HAVEN'T PLAYED A SINGLE GUNBOAT makes your entire argument baseless and to be honest offensive to those, who have played 10s if not hundreds of gunboats.

Yes roka I was speculating, sorry about that. I prefer talking-kinda strategy but yeah gunboat seems more complicated than it appears

I wouldn't go so far as to say offensive, just ignorant.

I was just thinking from the precept that people do gunboat games because they don't want to do write press. So I thought that it would only simplify the game. What I didn't realize is, and what roka kept pointing at, that a gunboat game really is a beast of its own, especially at higher stakes.

Yeah sorry about the offensive remark, I guess I was offensive at the end, didn't mean to.

No problem roka, I really was being kinda ignorant. Thanks for enlightening me about it

I'd say the most important turn for directing the course of the game, is not the first move, but the second one, which encapsulates each individual player's reaction to the first move.

My last post was in response to Octavious from a little back, hadn't refreshed the page.

Another thing I really enjoy about gunboats is if you lose a game (in WTA) the only person you can really blame is yourself. (Unless multi/meta is involved) So far I've never lost a gunboat without being able to identify the move(s) I made which put me in that position. It's a little harder to identify where the error that results in a draw as opposed to a win occurs, mostly because I'm not sure if it is possible to win a game of diplomacy without someone else making a mistake. (Usually in diplomacy you trick someone into making an error)

As I am still learning the game, gunboat has been the way for me to watch moves unfold without the chatter. I enjoy both GB and FP. GB forces me to read the board and forces me to understand the consequences of moves. My record in both types of the game is shit, but I'd like to think every game has taught me something.

Full press is about successful lying. Gunboat is about successful misdirection.

While I don't play many gunboat games I fully agree with Rokakoma's description of the strategy involved. At anyone who challenges that, and says that anyone can play gunboats I would challenge you to play against some of the best gunboat players the site has ever seen: Barn3tt, Rokakoma, SplitDiplomat, the Czech, CSteinhardt, etc.

The classic game of Diplomacy has two main elements, strategy and negotiations. Either aspect can be the most important element of the game depending on the players and the variables surrounding that game. Arguably the best player on the site is MadMarx, he plays full press games, and generally doesn't enter gunboats because he prefers press. Getting to manipulate people's perceptions and interpretations of the moves made. However, the few times he's played gunboats he's been able to match those top gunboat players, because to be a top diplomacy player (either press or no press) you *have* to completely understand the tactics of the game. You have to understand what every move on the board signifies, and you have to understand how to use your moves to prove (in press) or signal (gunboat) your intentions.

So sure, gunboats have different elements then a normal press game. I don't find them as enjoyable because I love the press interactions in a game, but they both require significant skill and understanding of the diplomacy map in order to be a successful player.

@hecks, I disagree, the best press players don't lie that much. They misdirect, they leave loopholes in their press, and they manipulate everyone around them to do what they want. If you are outright lying to your neighbors from right off the bat you're going to get eliminated quickly. Same as if you are playing a gunboat and start attacking a new neighbor every year.

Well, there is lying and there is deceiving. Sometimes players don't understand the difference. I had one recently where I told a player I would be sending a certain unit off in a given direction. I knew he would try to attack another unit, so I support help. When he complained, I told him I said I would be moving there, not when, and until he backed off, there would be no moves in said direction.

@rokakoma

"In gunboat, you have to know which will be you 18th SC by the time you have your 9th. Personally I prefer to know it by th time I have the 6th. You have to have a clear vision how you will get it, and you have to be capable of thinking 2-3 years in advance, sometimes on exacts moves."

That's no different in full press though.

"In gunboats you have to know till the very end which steps will give you the win, who will you ally with at what phase and how you will do it."

Again, the same applies to full press. Although both in gunboat and in full press you need to be able to adapt to the situation as well, i.e don't just have a plan A, also have plan B, C and D.

"In FP, the variations are much much bigger, hence you cannot plan 2-3 years ahead, as the number of unknown variables is way too much."

I don't agree with this at all. If you're proficient at reading people and not just moves then the additional information will help you make a better prediction in full press than you can make in gunboat. In addition, if you're proficient at manipulating people you can use the diplomacy to make your plan (= prediction) happen. This also increases the likelihood of your prediction turning out to be accurate. I would say that in gunboat you can get away with looking only 2-3 years ahead while in full press you really need to look 5-6 years ahead (2-3 for the moves, 5-6 for the alignments).

"You can compensate it with talking and negotiations, but it has nothing to do with strategy."

If you don't think that being an effective negotiator involves having a strategy for your negotiations then frankly, you're not going to be much of an efficient negotiator IMO. Just as with moves you have to think ahead of what you wish to accomplish with your negotiations and how will you go about achieving it. And in fact, as mentioned, you have to look ahead even farther.

Sorry for being blunt, but from the above I think it's safe to say that you should stick to gunboat as you don't seem to have a clue about what's involved in full press.

oscarjd74, while I can respect anyones opinion, and some of that you say might be true, may I ask exactly on what experience are your claims based on? I am just asking, because seeing ZERO games finished, it's hard to take your arguments seriously.

For the record, I'm a terrible fullpresser, that's true. Even further, I hate when people lie to me, and in gunboat that NEVER happens, because moves don't lie (not in the classical way, they can misdirect) I hate full press solely because I hate being lied to. In gunboat, even if I lose, I still respect and admire my opponents both as a player and as a man. In FP, I cannot really do that, that's my bad.

I don't want to go into the rest of your argument though, because I haven't played too many FP games, and I was never really good at. What I saw and what I have experienced is, in FP clear solo situations are sometimes lost, because the potential winners do not have the strategic (let's say tactical) skills to finish it alone. I do admire negotiation skills, and I always looked up to people who are good at that. But I hardly beleive FPers have the same tactical skills (and patientce to analyze moves) as GBers.

"If you're proficient at reading people and not just moves then the additional information will help you make a better prediction in full press than you can make in gunboat. In addition, if you're proficient at manipulating people you can use the diplomacy to make your plan (= prediction) happen. This also increases the likelihood of your prediction turning out to be accurate. I would say that in gunboat you can get away with looking only 2-3 years ahead while in full press you really need to look 5-6 years ahead (2-3 for the moves, 5-6 for the alignments)."

I completely disagree with this. In a press game with 7 top players everyone in the game is manipulating everyone else. It becomes a web of deceit and misdirection. There are very few press players who can make a plan and stick to it for 6+ years in a game like this.

There are different styles of press players. Some people are the bold outgoing players, who are the most vibrant diplomats in whatever specific game they are in. This person generally will have an easy time making alliances, but will also have a target painted on them. Some players seem to be weaker diplomats but are actually the ones who gather information and who are quietly influencing the board, waiting for an the moment that other players plans leave them an opening. Then you have players who fall in the middle, or who don't have strategies at all. There are so many different types of press players that trying to make accurate predictions in a game, ESPECIALLY in the yearly years is nearly impossible.

No, you cannot be focused 5-6 years away in a press game, or you'll end up being eliminated before you get to that point. Press requires you to be flexible. When I play in a press game I always have a general idea where I want my next centers to come from, who I want to be allied with, and who I want in the end game, but I'm always willing and ready to redesign my plans if one player manages to manipulate others into some unorthodox moves. Now you can always predict with some accuracy, what is going to happen, but you will not always be right. The entire point of press is to get people to do things that help your position, even if those moves are not the most tactically sound for that other person. That is why people who plan long term and then try and stick to those plans are generally the middle level players, who's record reflect that lack of adaptability. Now like I said, there are some top players, who are downright incredible who can accurately predict everything in a game, and make unchanging plans for years and years ahead, but they are rare. Everyone else has to make sure they plan enough to make progress, but are flexible enough that they aren't lost when people make unexpected moves.

If some of this doesn't make sense to you I recommend you check out some of the SoW (School of War) games to get a better feel for how play in a high class press game.

Now onto the gunboat portion, if you are just looking 2-3 years ahead you will get destroyed. The majority of top players in gunboats are planning years and years in advance, and if you don't understand that, and figure out what their goals are you will just end up blindly stumbling around the map like a fool. Not only do you need to plan out your general strategy, but you should be trying to figure out what all 6 other players in the map are planning and take that into account. The entire gunboat game is like an absurdly complex chess game where everyone has a unique strategy to win, which they are basing off of their opponents strategies. The main difference between press and gunboat is that in press you get to use words to manipulate your opponents strategy and to manipulate their viewpoint on your strategy.

When we finish this non-live GB, I want to talk about this some more.

Draug, I expect you to do so, VERY much ;) I will remind you ;)

I just can't wait to find out who was what country.

I was recently playing a top GR FP game and at same time a top gunboaters game, so I can compare it a little bit.

The effort on both games are completelly diferent, in GB you have to think on all tactical aspect you can imagine to try to find allies, prevent someone stabing you and also preventing other ones soloing and still try to find a viable way to solo yourself. You think ahead but you also have to rebuild all your plans after each turn. It´s a lot like chess but with 7 players, a great intelectual effort.

In FP you have to talk with everybody all the time to try to influence his decision and have to sometimes trust a lot more your feelings about what each player will do and how they will react to your actions and diplomacy and also keep in mind the tactical aspects, but this is not the main focus (at least to me). The way people reach in FP is unpredictable, sometimes one word makes someone think you are stabbing him or make him decide to trust you. It´s something between incredible fun and also an incredible pain sometimes, because besides the intectual aspect you have an emotional effort too. Much more like a family meeting :-)

"Much more like a family meeting :-)"
- have you got issues with your family ??

@rokakoma

"oscarjd74, while I can respect anyones opinion, and some of that you say might be true, may I ask exactly on what experience are your claims based on? I am just asking, because seeing ZERO games finished, it's hard to take your arguments seriously."

I've played a ton of games on Ken Low judges, both full press and gunboat, and I've also played a lot of face-to-face. So, your fault for failing to realize that webdiplomacy.net is not the only place where you can play this game.

"For the record, I'm a terrible fullpresser, that's true. Even further, I hate when people lie to me, and in gunboat that NEVER happens, because moves don't lie (not in the classical way, they can misdirect) I hate full press solely because I hate being lied to."

The thing is, if you weren't so terrible at full press, you would be able to spot a lot of those lies. Rather than being surprised after the moves are adjudicated, the fact that they are lying would just be additional information to help you decide what your best course of action is.

Also, in gunboat a Turk could still order Bla S Rum in the Spring and Bla S Bul-Rum in the Fall. I would definitely qualify that Spring move as a lie, so it isn't like gunboat is exempt from lies.

"What I saw and what I have experienced is, in FP clear solo situations are sometimes lost, because the potential winners do not have the strategic (let's say tactical) skills to finish it alone."

If someone lacks the skills to grab a clear solo when they can then it's their lack of skill that causes them not to solo, not whether the game is full press or gunboat. You seem to think that gunboat players don't make tactical mistakes while full players do. That's not true though. It is however a lot easier to solo in gunboat than in full press because in gunboat it is much harder for your opponents to coordinate a last-minute defense.

@jm0122...
"I completely disagree with this. In a press game with 7 top players everyone in the game is manipulating everyone else. It becomes a web of deceit and misdirection."

In my experience it are mostly those that suck at full press that think negotiations are all about deceit and misdirection. In reality the best full press players are truthful almost all of the time, using much subtler means than deceit and misdirection to advance their goals. The reason is that once you have a reputation as a liar in a full press game it will seriously hurt your ability to use press effectively from then onwards.

"There are so many different types of press players that trying to make accurate predictions in a game, ESPECIALLY in the yearly years is nearly impossible."

This is what I meant by being able to read people. The best full press players will quickly have a pretty good estimate of what type of player is playing each country and use this information to decide what their best strategy is.

"No, you cannot be focused 5-6 years away in a press game, or you'll end up being eliminated before you get to that point. Press requires you to be flexible. When I play in a press game I always have a general idea where I want my next centers to come from, who I want to be allied with, and who I want in the end game,"

First you say you can't look 5-6 years ahead and then you go on to explain how you do look 5-6 years ahead with your "general idea". That's funny.

"but I'm always willing and ready to redesign my plans if one player manages to manipulate others into some unorthodox moves. Now you can always predict with some accuracy, what is going to happen, but you will not always be right."

Good for you for being flexible and sure yeah, unpredicted things can happen in a full press game. That's no different in gunboat though. If you're not willing to adapt your strategy in a gunboat game as new information becomes available after each adjudication then you won't win too many gunboat games. The only difference between gunboat and full press in this respect is that in full press new information comes available not just with adjudication but also during negotiations, and also you will have more information in full press than you'll have in gunboat. Neither of those change the fact that good players adapt as required to new information though.

"The entire point of press is to get people to do things that help your position, even if those moves are not the most tactically sound for that other person."

This is a complete misconception about press. You can't just manipulate players into making unsound moves. Not if your opponents are any good anyway. Therefore press is not primarily about manipulating people into doing stuff they shouldn't. That's just a rookie view of how press should be used. It is instead much more about knowing what your opponents are thinking and planning and using that information to optimize your own strategy.

"If some of this doesn't make sense to you I recommend you check out some of the SoW (School of War) games to get a better feel for how play in a high class press game."

Thanks for the tip. I might look into it. I've already reviewed many high class press games elsewhere though.

Press is the equivalent of getting your opponent talking at the poker table. What they say, how they say, and if they are talking at all are all tells that the good diplomat can use in his arsenal of discovery.