Ah. Forgot about the draws only. Yeah my survives don't add to it. Bummer.

GROUP D
gameID=110156 G1 - Russian solo - 13 rdivera
gameID=110157 G2 - 3-way draw - 2WL 4, rdivera 4, Nigee 4
gameID=110160 G3 - On-going - currently 6-way draw
gameID=110161 G4 - No Comment
gameID=110162 G5 - On-going - currently 6-way draw
gameID=110163 G6 - 5-way draw rdivera 2.4, TMOW 2.4, Lando 2.4, JimGov 2.4, Nigee 2.4
gameID=110165 G7 - 4-way draw rdivers 3, JCB 3, 2WL 3, TMOW 3
Table:
rdivera 13 4 2.4 3 = 22.4
2nd White Line 0 4 0 3 = 7
Nigee 0 4 2.4 0 = 6.4
The Minister of War 0 0 2.4 3 = 5.4
JCB 0 0 0 3 = 3
Lando 0 0 2.4 0 = 2.4
JimGov 0 0 2.4 0 = 2.4
Tota points awarded = 49

Congrats rdrivera on a very deserving victory.

Congratulations also to Turkey, as it was apparent that Russian solo was also his goal.

Also and especially congratulations to rdrivera for clinching a place in the second round.

"Congratulations also to Turkey, as it was apparent that Russian solo was also his goal. "
No Comment !!!!

"gameID=110160 G3 - On-going - currently 6-way draw"
"gameID=110162 G5 - On-going - currently 6-way draw"

NigeeBaby, (userID=40995), you have been silenced for 24 hours for continuing to make comments on an ongoing gunboat game.

Gunboat Tournament:
--------------------------------
Group A:
Active Remaining: 2
Split (17), gen. lee (14), trooth (9), yebellz (7), brianofboru (7), stressedlines (6), Chaqa (0)
gameID=110149 gameID=110151 gameID=110152 gameID=110153 gameID=110155 gameID=110164 gameID=110166

Group B:
Active Remaining: 4
josunice (19), Mapu (6), Czech (3), ava (3), fulhamish (3), pjmansfield (3), SpeakerToAliens (0)
gameID=110227 gameID=110228 gameID=110229 gameID=110230 gameID=110231 gameID=110232 gameID=110234

Group C:
Active Remaining: 2
y2kjbk (23), Your Humble Narrator (16), CSteinhardt (7), jesuspetry (6), Fairfax (4), AlexNesta (3), Draugnar (3)
gameID=110177 gameID=110178 gameID=110179 gameID=110180 gameID=110181 gameID=110182 gameID=110183


Group D:
Active Remaining: 3
rdrivera2005 (22.4), 2WL (7), NigeeBaby (6.4), TMOW (5.4), jcbryan97 (3), jimgov (2.4), Lando (2.4)
gameID=110156 gameID=110157 gameID=110160 gameID=110161 gameID=110162 gameID=110163 gameID=110165

Subs:
mdrltc
guak

Scoring:
Solo victory is worth 13 , draw worth 12 divided by number of players sharing in the draw. Survives and defeats worth nil. Tie-break in order - # of solos, # of draws, # of total centres (draws only).

There will not be a shuffling of powers in the first or second round.

Advancing:
Top 3 from each group and the best 4th place from Group A and D, and Group B and C.
The following round will consist of 7 games among the winners of Groups A and D and Groups B and C.

Lando, can those that make the 2nd round vote on this part or is it non-negotiable?
"There will not be a shuffling of powers in the first or second round."

And sorry, Nigee!

We can discuss, I am strongly of the belief that random country distribution in the preliminary rounds is more fair. I understand others have different opinions on this, though. I have to be brief now, can get into more detail later.

Can we kick Nigee out of the tournament? Who let him in anyway?

I suppose its up to the three remaining games if we can kick him out.

And to be honest, I don't have any problem playing games with Nigee. Hopefully we can all move past this continued "slip-up"

@jmo - Not that it's my place, but arguably there are only six players left int he game. It wasn't like Nigee indicated some short stacked player (to use poker lingo) was going to be eliminated then draw. But I can see where he shoudl have just said "no comment" or at most "6 players remain".

@Lando - going forward, tandom isn't so fair because it is weighted and, with all seven games involving the same seven players and starting at the approximate same time, the distribution is likely to weigh heavily towards one or two nations for the majority of the games. Remember, only completed games are used to determine the weighting.

Did you mean random and not tandom?

Yes, typo (or should I say rypo?) :-)

With non-random nations, i.e. shuffling to get one a piece over the 7 games, doesn't everyone figure out who is who by the time 4 or 5 of the games finish?

Only rainman-like people like you who try to figure out if license plates are prime numbers.

Fair enough, then I'm all for not randomizing

Draugnar, are you certain thats how it works?

Maybe if someone could explain the country-distribution algorithm my opinions could shift.

I personally don't see value in a 1 x 7 distribution. Especially, in my experience, it tends to pair people as neighbours through the games. Last time I played that style of tournament, I was a neighbour of one specfic player each game. This does weight the games, especially in the first two rounds where level of ply is extremely varied.

Of course, who knows if I will even be in the next round. Still, I am happy to conitnue this discussion.

I thought Yellzbellz has an algorithm to randomly put people in each of the 7 countries but not following each other around.

That is what Kestas indicated some time ago. You knew it was weighted random, right? So even if it took into account the full set (not just completed), one game as Russia isn't going to singificantly alter the weight of getting russia the next time for an established player. So you go form havbing had Russia 29 times out of 200 games to 30 times out of 201. Not a big change in the percentage and weighting. Considering most of your gunboat group come from live game players, they have an even higher number of games than normal. So the weighting is just going to screw with the randomization across the seven concurrent games.

I won't say which countries as my group has some still going, but I believe I got three of one country and two each of two others, IIRC, in Group C.

I wonder what Nigee thinks. He always has a comment.

He was silenced so we may never know. Well, we can *hope* we will never know. :-)

I'm all for random IF it were random, not weighted by prior distribution. Why is the algo unnecessarily complicated -- true random would tend towards evening out over time, albiet it at a slightly slower pace than this methodology, and would solve the tendency to end up with clumps of similar countries in concurrent games... My picks were also 3,2,1,1...

Simple is better. Random should just be random, not kinda' random or almost random...

Another point is that what truly makes a player great is their ability to play all countries. Some people complain about Italy, Russia, others about Austria or England, whilesome would pick any of those as their favourites. The early rounds reward consistency, which was my intention.

I think Lando is right, neighbors have a bigger impact than country. Although that said, the competition steps up a notch next round so neighbors may matter less.

HEy, like josunice, I think random is great. That said, it isn't random, it is weighted rasndom and, like it or not, getting the same country in nearly half the games doesn't test your skill with any country. It tests your skill with one specific country. A better solution would be to do it like the leagues. You can get a repeat country, btu if a third game starts with you in that country, that game gets rearranged.

But again Draug, playing England three times will likely result in three very different games. There are 6 variables on the board in your opponents, not every France is going to attack England, or be peaceful, or whatever.

My opinion remains that the randomness is a more pure form for these early stages.

As we talk about this, I am thinking about if the final (7x7) even makes sense.

I was thinking the game of diplomacy had been developed as a balanced game in which every power has the same chances of winning so don't see the issue about the draw..It seems there are lot of people here who doesn't think so.