I agree with that sentiment as well yayager. I learned to play Dip face-to-face, which as peterwiggin says, is WTA. I enjoy playing WTA. I also enjoy playing PPSC. I don't necessarily play them the same way, and that is in part because I don't expect anyone else to play them the same way. PPSC isn't *less valid* just because it's different from the original game, in the same way that many people argue that Connery will always be the best Bond even though Craig is truer to Fleming's character.

Here we go again...

Diplomacy stopped to be "look at only this game" kind of game the moment points and GR were introduced. Now the goal is to get the most points and the higher GR (each with his own preferences). So, if I have a 50% chance to win and get 20 GR/points, or 90% to draw and get 14 GR/points, then the first priority becomes draw and not win (20*0.5 < 14*0.9).

@abgemacht - for the sake of the argument, the goal of any game is not to win, but to have fun. If someone finds a greater fun in drawing with somebody instead of winning him, you cannot blame him of playing the game "incorrectly".

Two and a half months ago, when I started playing here and had only 6-7 games, people shouted at me on this very forum that going for the draw is bad for GR and will bring me nowhere and that I don't understand how to play this game. Meanwhile, I climbed to top 150 in GR in two months. Stop telling people how to play - there is more than one way to play this game called Diplomacy, this is why this is such a great game.

@peterwiggin - I don't really care about the original design of the game, because webDiplomacy is not the original game. In the original game you gathered with 7 players and played a boardgame, and here you are part of the community that measures your performance by GR and points. The mere fact of the measure changes the way people play the game.

Regarding the PPSC vs WTA argument: Diplomacy is not strategy alone, but a combination of strategy, tactics, diplomacy and the ability to convince others. It is way easier to convince somebody to stab the leader at WTA than to convince him to stab the leader in PPSC. I think PPSC is more challenging when it comes to 'soft' skills like diplomacy than WTA.

@Bask

Yes, you have a good point. The ultimate goal should be to have fun. However, what I've found is that if everyone has the same goal, the game is usually much more enjoyable for everyone.

This is interesting. I think your first goal when playing the game is to have fun.That being said you should strive for your best outcome no matter what country you draw.I see alot players always whining that they suck at this country or that country and raise the white flag before even a single shot is fired or stab occurs.Even if you draw Austria and expect to be steam rolled have fun.No two games are the same play it out and who knows what will happen.
That being said play to win,draw,survive in that order and never CD it tilts the balance of the way the game is meant to be played.

I guess others have played F2F in a different environment than I did. We would play for 5-7 hours, and if lucky, have it clear which two players would eventually end up on top. If we had tried to play WTA, the games would have lasted for DAYS. So as to which is closer to the "original" games, I find PPSC to be much closer.

At least, such was true of the games I played in the 70s in high school, with my wooden diplomacy pieces.

I'm with Draug's point. PPSC and the fact that survival gives you points in the GFDT makes it so people won't STOP a solo. Just got stabbed by the player who SHOULD be helping me prevent a solo. Instead the solo'er promised him most, if not all of my SCs so he'll get a lot of points in the tourney...
Instead of... you know... PLAYING THE GAME.

@Bask : I see your point. You are claiming Heisenberg Uncertainty on the game: The moment you put metrics and measurements and ratings on the game, it affects the way you play the game.
However, the metrics and measurements and ratings are there to give you an idea, monthly, of how you compare to others. As mentioned before, gaming the ranking system simply makes the ranking system invalid (or, at least, more inaccurate). The only way we can rank players? If they play with the same goal as the rest.

The goal of the game is stated in the rules, and it is to reach 18 SCs.
Therefore WTA is a more faithful adaptation of the game.
PPSC is a variant created to keep people playing even if they are in a bad position, because they still can get some points.
Strong second is a legitimate strategy when people care more about points than being part of a draw. It all depends on what is your aim, independently of the objective of the game that is stated in the rules.
So I enjoy playing both.
In my opinion, playing WTA with uncommitted players can ruin the fun if a guy prefers to drop the game or plays stupidly when he is a necessary part of the stalemate line.. so I would play WTA only with strong players. But I believe that is the reason why WTA is only doable with a bet above 100 pts.

fortknox, I agree on some of your points and disagree on others. But this is not what I wanted to clarify. I want to clarify that there is more than one way to play the game, and there is no single "best" way to play the game - everybody has their own style that suits their own strategy, tactics and negotiation, and NOBODY should tell other people how to play the game "correctly". They might try to convince, to persuade, to explain why they think their way is better, but there is no such thing as playing the game "correctly".

@Julien
In order to win the game you have to reach 18 SCs. So, you stab around and get to 18 SCs once, twice, three times. After some time people realize that you are a stabber, and they stop trusting you. You begin to lose more and to win less. People begin to gang on you.

My point is that the point of any SINGLE game is to reach 18 SCs, but if you play MULTIPLE games (which all of us do), then there might be other legitimate goals, such as making it to the final draw (because most games end up with a draw), getting yourself a good and solid reputation as a trusted ally, etc.

In order to win, you have to get 18 SCs. Nobody said that getting 18 SCs is the best strategy to be a better player, because if you have 10 wins and 90 losses, and another player has 100 draws, I am not sure your GR will be higher than his, and you probably will have less D's than him.

This what makes Diplomacy such a great game - we are playing with the same set of rules, but each of us has a different way of playing, different preferences, different tactics, strategy, etc.

Even that "stupid" WTA player that throws a game in might actually do it on purpose. Yes, he will lose this game, but he will use this game as a reference to other players in next games to say that he means it when he says "if you attack me, I will give the victory to someone else". Don't judge people so quickly.

@Julien - you can do WTA below 100 and still have a fun, challenging, and complete game if you do passworded games. They are my preferred games to play.

@Baskinelli - That form of metagaming is bordering on cheating. It's one thing to look at a players past games and try to use that info against him. But this is bordering on more than that and I would love to hear from a mod what they think of your "repuatation playing".

"In order to win the game you have to reach 18 SCs. So, you stab around and get to 18 SCs once, twice, three times. After some time people realize that you are a stabber, and they stop trusting you. You begin to lose more and to win less. People begin to gang on you."

I don't believe this to be true of experienced players. Because, they do the same thing, they'll be willing to work with you, hoping to stab you first.

Would others care to comment?

Bask -

I'm going to disagree with you about your "people won't ally with someone who stabs" point. I'm fairly confident that a large percentage (well over 50%) of people on this site have and WILL stab, I find it hard to believe that you're arguing that noone will ally with them. Obviously, if they found a way to get to mid-end game in a position to stab and go for the win, then people allied with them. They certainly didn't do it alone. I bet if you polled the top 100 GR and asked if they've stabbed people to go for the win, you'll get a high percentage that has and will if it gives them a good chance at the solo.

I for one, respect the player who stabs me to try for the win. Not only does it show that he is attempting to go for that all elusive solo win, but it also teaches me something about my game. If I left myself vulnerable and got stabbed, I probably shouldn't repeat that strategy. If the ally-turned-enemy doesn't stab, I can't learned that lesson and improve my strategy.

"In order to win, you have to get 18 SCs. Nobody said that getting 18 SCs is the best strategy to be a better player, because if you have 10 wins and 90 losses, and another player has 100 draws, I am not sure your GR will be higher than his, and you probably will have less D's than him."

Irregardless of what points/GR say, given the same group of people, 10 wins is enormously more difficult to achieve than 100 draws. No offense to Kestas/Ghost (who both do great work here) but points/GR are both completely arbitrary scoring systems set up by two young guys. Why anyone would use that as their standard for accomplishment is beyond me.

Abge - Couldn't agree more. Experienced players only really get mad when there's a "bad" stab that either loses the game for both players, allows another power to solo, or is so insignificant that it made no sense to do like a 1 SC stab when they're both at 11 SCs.

I'd like to elaborate on my last point, because the more I think about it, the less I understand what Bask is saying:

Do I get a smile when I see my GR go up? Yes. Would I like to have greater than 9000 ? Yes. But, it has never affected how I play the game. I don't really even know the exact algorithm for determining GR. But it doesn't matter. Because, like any good scoring system, it will take care of itself my just playing well. If it doesn't, then it isn't a good scoring system and it shouldn't be noticed anyway.

Now, this is what I don't understand. As a scoring system, it *must* reward certain actions, mathematically. That means, contrary to Bask, that there is certainly a right way to play. So, more than anyone, Bask should hate the GR, because it rewards a certain style.

I do not think that if sb wins a game then other people will gang on him the next game.
First of all there are players who achieve consistent high rates of victories, so this is actually possible.
The reason why it is so is that there are so many players than past games do not always impact on current ones. Then if people are fair they will try to play their best in the game to advance their own interest instead of focusing on another player. Last but not least, many games are anonymous so past reputation is irrelevant there.

ab: GR essentially works like points. Everyone bets a certain amount, and the winner (or draw-ers) get the pot. The difference is that instead of betting the same amount, everyone bets a portion of their current GR.

@Bask
If everybody gangs up on the winners, could you explain my ~30% win rate, AgentK's ~40% win rate, or Julien's 29% win rate? And none of us have ridiculously high loss rates either.

Yeah, but it's a little more complicated than that because every game type is weighted differently, iirc.

@Draugnar
Saying "look, I am willing to suicide on you if you stab me, and you can look at my game history" is not cheating.

@abgemacht & drano019
I stab as well, but there is a big difference between a stab in the beginning of a game and a stab of a well established ally. The two stabs get completely different reaction by players.

@abgemacht regarding the 10 wins - I disagree. There are a lot of people here who have around 10% wins. It is not that hard to achieve. I think it is much harder to keep the percent of lost games to be lower than the percent of won games.

I think that solos are overrated. The point is that you need to compare the two values: (chance of winning * reward for winning) vs (chance of draw * reward for draw). The problem is that everybody estimates differently these four values, because you often don't know who you are playing against.

Frankly, I enjoy a successful super-country alliance than soloing a game myself. I think it is a greater achievement to successfully create a super-country with 100% trust and coordinated moves than to stab your way to a solo.

@peterwiggin - this is easy. You mostly play anonymous gunboats. That's not a real Diplomacy, that's Tactics and Stab-me-for-the-win type of game.

You have to understand that everything I say applies mostly to non-anonymous messaging game that have a phase length of atleast 24 hours. It also applies to anonymous messaging games, and it doesn't apply to live gunboats.

"I disagree. There are a lot of people here who have around 10% wins. It is not that hard to achieve. I think it is much harder to keep the percent of lost games to be lower than the percent of won games."

You would be wrong. Given the same group of players, a solo is much, much harder than a draw. I don't think many (if anyone) will disagree with me on that point.

Why do you need 24 hour turns to be "real" diplomacy? Especially since the rules call for 15min turns. Furthermore, I'd argue that anon is even more "real" than non-anon, as you are only affected by what's happening in that current game.

@abgemacht
I didn't say a solo is easier than a draw. I said that achieving 10% winning rate is not hard, if you look at other players statistics.

The reason you need 24 hours is because this is a web game and not everybody here in the same time. In addition, IRL communication is much faster and richer than text communication (voice intonation, body language, etc).

Anonymous game are far from the real-life games, because you have only text messages. You are denied even the history of the player. In real-life games you have the history of the players (assuming you know them), their intonation, body language, the time they spend with other players talking, the words they are telling you, etc.

@Bask
Actually, I have mostly anonymous press games. I believe I've played 5 gunboats and lost all of them -- take them away, and my stats become stellar.

Bask -

What's your point about the 2 different types of stabs? Whether it's an early game stab or late game is inconsequential. They still stab and according to you, would be ganged up on in future games. I am arguing that this is not the case as most of the high ranked players have and will stab in games. These very same high ranked players know that while they may get stabbed, they might also stab their ally first. It becomes a game of protecting your interests while still working together. After all, if you open yourself up and leave your back door undefended, you deserve the stab that will likely be coming.

@Bask,

yes, but you have no idea the quality of players those wins came from. If you have even one bad player, it can be easy to get a win. But, at the same time, it would then be even easier to get a draw. You just stop playing sooner.

I agree that some information is lost when not playing ftf. But, I have to ask, how many high-quality ftf games have you played? When I play in a tournament, it is very hard to talk to everyone each turn. Almost impossible. That isn't the case online, as you can send a message, then talk to someone else when waiting for a response. Given the same amount of time, you can talk much, much more online, than f2f.

Also, whenever I've played in a tournament, I've never known anybody. It's essentially playing an anon game. I suppose if you were really intuitive, you could read body language and look for a stab, but it's very hard when you don't know the person.