I have more games ruined by constant backstabbing than by NMR's and CDs

Don't have anything to say about the rest of your post Major, it's clearly a matter of different preferences. I take issue with this though:

"Classic Diplomacy is based on a collection of European nations who had governments that were collectively incompetent enough to embrace the tragic folly that became the Great War 1914-18, so I think it's quite OK for players to do Daffy things."

Diplomacy the game isn't a roleplaying exercise based on the historical scenario it models. It's a strategy game. Strategy games have a very careful balance to them that has to be maintained for the games played to have any integrity. Diplomacy is already pretty poorly balanced, adding extra imbalancing factors is clearly detrimental to the play experience. For a wholly deterministic game there's an unfortunate degree of variance already built in... no need to add to that with conceding CDs as being a part of the game players should have to adapt to.

I will suggest that CD players should be public. CDs ought to auto post to a thead in the forum

The problem, as I see it and as Pres said, it unbalances the game to the point where it's almost no contest for the beneficiary. Yes, all games are different, but they're different like all chess games are different, or all poker games are different. The way it is in Diplomacy when one player just up and quits in 1902 because he lost an SC, is akin to white getting an extra turn or getting an extra card. Everyone has seen it: Russia bails because he loses Sevastopol early, and by 1906 Turkey has all the Balkans, most of AH, all of Russia save St. Pete and is moving on Italy. Is that fun to you? If it were an occasional thing I might enjoy the challenge of it. But it's game in and game out ... and players just refusing to cancel. I get it, I want to play too and often times have to wait for several games to get one to start. I've just grown sick of it, but don't to be a hypocrite and quit playing, but it's hard to stay in a game so unbalanced.

Webdip should implement the classic old dip judge feature that does not let any phase proceed without orders from all powers. If someone NMR/CD, the game should pause automatically and wait for the missing orders from a replacement player.

"I will suggest that CD players should be public. CDs ought to auto post to a thead in the forum"
Yes people CDing should be outed!

Personally I've always found the benefit of having a CD position taken over rather than simply CDing is pretty negligible. If it's a major power the game is fundamentally altered either way, and if it's a minor power then its units ceasing to act is very much preferable to them becoming random elements.

My instincts are always to play on if it is relatively insignificant, and offer a cancel if not. Playing on with a major power CD'd or replaced by someone with no connection to that player are equally grim.

Odd that MM would be the one to throw stones over NMR and CD; his stats:
Game stats:

Defeated: 467 ( 25% )
Won: 124 ( 7% )
Drawn: 860 ( 45% )
Survived: 333 ( 18% )
Resigned: 114 ( 6% )
Civil disorder: 265
Civil disorders taken over: 15
No moves received / received: 315/12151
Reliability rating: 78%
Total (finished): 1898

For reference, this is the game that set MM off.

http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=185442

I remember the game pretty well. When there was an NMR, I had my cancel up for almost 2 years, with no one else putting up their vote. You didn't have a problem with it when you were blowing up like a balloon in SCs. Then once Turkey got the better of you, you put up your vote and posted this thread. I couldn't respond then because the game was still going on. Don't be a hypocrite please.

False, I had my cancel vote from the moment Russia was in CD, IIRC. Turkey didn't get the better of me, turkey was unfairly rewarded by Russia's CD and refused to put up a cancel vote -- big difference.

@Brad, you're relatively new here, so maybe you weren't around years ago when my stats were messed up. One of the major issues back then was the site was overrun by meta/multi cheaters. When they were present, I'd just quit rather than play on. Also, I was foolish then and joined more games than I had time for. I actually apologized to the community and have since been diligent remaining in a game, no matter the circumstances.

Guys I think this thread may be straying toward aggressive banter rather than constructive discussion. Just thought I'd mention in hopes of steering us back toward the middle .

The Diplomacy board and players should self balance if someone CDs. Just like any other board game when someone gets too powerful.

My annoyance is not towards CD players, but rather towards those that keep attacking the only player that can do anything about the other players that are benefiting from the CD.

MM shut up - glass houses and all that...

Best solution mentioned - a game can't proceed without all orders. Nmrs and CDs therefore impossible

Well I had a look at that game and MichiganMan got a tough break due to that Terry giving up with Russia, so I looked at Terry's profile page and his RR is gee a mighty 18% ....so how tf did he get into the game in the first place ? Well whoever set the game up presumably set a low RR requirement for entry.
At one level I am sympathetic towards MichiganMan, and at another I am not.
Yes he got stiffed because Terry gave up with Russia, that's not fair,.... But..it was a 5 minute game, no press, hidden draw votes, worst of all WTA, and the RR for entry can't have been high enough... So if you are not selective, not choosy about what sort of games you choose to enter, then this stuff happens.
There's more than a whiff of "political correctness" and "do gooder authoritarianism" if you ask me in this "Ban the CD / NMR " movement.

@Wusti, I think your comment telling mm to shut up is unfair and rude. MichiganMan has every right to raise this issue, if that's the best you can contribute and you choose to do it in that way, then maybe you should have shut up and not posted

He's welcome to raise the issue, but I'd also point out that as much as he claims to now remain in games whatever the circumstances, his last resign was all the way back on...November 10. The one before that was October 31.

Yes, NMRs/CDs can ruin games because they shift the balance of power. MichiganMan has ruined at least 114 such games in his time on the site (likely more, as some would have been cancelled or his power would have completely been conquered before the end so he would not have gotten a resign). I'm glad that he's now sensitive to the problem, but I strongly suspect his two resigns in the past two weeks are more than almost all of his opponents over that span.

The point is, players on the site have different views on the level of commitment that's made when joining a game. Most believe that it's a commitment to keep submitting orders until the game ends, even if it goes poorly, but others take the view that when the game stops being fun, they can just leave.

The site offers a solution -- we can create games that are only open to players with a history of continuing to submit orders. I can appreciate that this might cause a problem for somebody who regularly would CD in the past and has since reformed, and I'd be in favor of a revised RR system that gradually phased out one's history in favor of recent games. That way, a player with a poor track record could establish themselves as reliable and then be invited to high-RR games. However, it must be said that such a solution would leave MichiganMan deservedly excluded, because he continues to abandon games when they go poorly for him.

The flip side of creating a high-reliability game queue is that players who frequently miss turns can no longer count on finding opponents who will diligently submit orders for every deadline. Rather, it means that MichiganMan will increasingly find himself in low-reliability games against players whose sense of the commitment made when joining is similar to his own. That seems fair to me - I want to be in games with players whose sense of commitment is similar to my own as well, after all. And in a game with players who feel that regularly quitting is okay, then I think it's unreasonable to expect that players won't quit. I sympathize because it makes the game look less like the version of Diplomacy that I enjoy playing, but I think it's unrealistic to expect otherwise.

@CSteinhardt +1

Thanks CSteinhardt, excellent contribution. A modest, sensible reform to the RR system is all that is needed. Leave decisions about cancelling games up to the players in the games... Grass roots democracy is best. .I probably have a decent RR, so as long as I can join games with less reliable players and get to enjoy the chaos of surprise CDs & NMR's I'm happy.

I never tried a fisting game --- but I've seen the video's on pornhub

Just a question then: would people be able to edit the settings, perhaps a bot developed for players who drop out? Obviously, it might not be advanced enough to play full press but a gunboat should do (that is, if there is a bot/AI for this site).

Also, I know this might not be the right thread to bring it up in, but would people consider adding the option of choosing your country before the game starts? And perhaps enabling a global chat beforehand if everyone joins early? Just some Qs.

Perhaps public shaming is the best way to go about CD players, nobody likes them honestly.

^multi

Who do you think you are -- accusing me of being a multi?? I came over from vDip!!

No multi accusations in the forum. This is your warning, doing so again will result in a point-dock or silencing. Meta/Multi accusations may ONLY be done so by going through [email protected].

-webDip moderator

Balieros dont mind me. I think im alot funnier and above the rules than everyone else. Welcome.

:(

I only joined today at 9:11 PM on this site, I've been on vDip since late October. It's a bigger community here.

@Balieros, what's your username over there?