I reject your binary gender roles. I play this game while painting my toes. Also, I love everyone. Except Zmaj.

Don, I've noticed a disconnect on this issue between players that think of Diplomacy as a seven-player game and players that think of Diplomacy as multiple, smaller games that might interact later on. I suspect that if you take England in F1901 with a decision to make between, say, putting a fleet or army in Norway and whether to bounce Belgium, Holland, etc., you'll find that you can get a pretty good idea of the strength of a player by seeing how many powers they mention prominently if you ask them to analyze what to do. In the small number of games I've seen you play, you appear to be a strong tactical player doing mostly local instead of global analysis. Hence my earlier comments: I think you could rapidly become stronger by giving more consideration to the entire board. Obviously, you're welcome to disagree with me, and I will freely admit there are major flaws in my own game. If anybody who's played with me has some advice for improving my play, I'd appreciate it.

Well done to finish in the top 10 in 2000 - that was a very strong field. That was my first foray into playing live with strong players, and I don't think I did all that well. I certainly did a poor job of understanding how to play in time-limited games; in my best result, I stabbed for a solo out of a Russo-Turk because it was a forced solo, but four games years down the road, and the time limit meant I had no chance of getting there. With rules stating that any 29 centers could declare a draw of their choosing, my stab turned a big 2-way draw into a big 4-way draw. I did have better results by email that year, including a solo against Simon Bouton in the World Masters, but email is a different game - I had nearly unlimited time to decide the right strategy. In any event, I'd at least like to think that I've gotten better at this since I was a teenager, even if I mostly stopped playing for ten years.

And, I'm always trying to learn from the games I play and get better, so if you have some good advice for me, it's always appreciated.

I SHOUT LOUDER THAN YOU THEREFORE I WIN!!!!!!!!

There is no way to debate someone who resorts to ad hominem attacks. Sarg you can give up now.

Chucky, thanks for that wonderful analysis of my poor play. Now factor this in: I've been playing ftf, postally, and web off and on since before you were born. I've probably played every opening and alliance you've read about and stabbed more times for the win than I care to remember. So now I just play to play. And a *lot* of the time I decide to move in directions that aren't the obvious or logical choice because those have just become boring. I do what looks like it might just be interesting, more often than not. That may be of what you think you see as not looking globally.

And that just wanting to play is also why I don't care if there is an nmr or cd. I really don't care how it affects the board. I'll adjust accordingly as best I can, and I figure the other players can also. I just want to keep on playing the game, regardless. So put that in your pipe and smoke it, and you may think differently about what you're seeing from me.

Regarding the first World Masters you mentioned... if you can find it, go look at the winning team and who stomped as Austria. yeah.

Gobbledy, if you read more carefully and you'll see that Sarg (poisoning the well is an adhom) and stein (suggesting I'm an inferior player) are clearly using adhoms in their arguments on the issue. I've just been a little less subtle, but maybe that's what you need to recognize an adhom.

I was just making a joke, Gobbbledydook. To lighten this thread up :)

@Don: You're obviously welcome to play the game however you see fit, and you should play the games you'll enjoy the most. If you're playing moves that you think are inferior because they're more fun, then of course that's your call. My earlier response was due to your claiming that you saw little difference between a Turkey that gets attacked by all of its neighbors, leading to a quick loss, and one that CDs. I believe that stronger players will see a clear distinction between those two situations (at the very least, a Turkey about to die is a possible small ally if one of the powers attacking it stabs), so if you don't see a distinction, then yes, I am being critical of your play. If we agree that a CD anywhere in the board is destabilizing, but you think that instability is fun and I don't, then it's not a leak in your play, and it means you should continue to play in such games and I shouldn't.

Personally, I most enjoy playing against strong players who are doing everything they can to achieve the best result, and I want the player who plays the game with the most skill to be rewarded in terms of results. CDs tend to act against this happening, so I see them as spoiling the game I am playing. If it happens early enough to affect the result substantially, I'd rather end the spoiled game and start a new one instead of playing it to a conclusion.

Fortunately, strong players with a similar attitude are, at least in my experience, less likely to NMR. This might because they hate when other people NMR in games they are playing well in, or it might be because there is usually *something* you can get out of any position, even if it's a learning experience. Playing 1-2 center powers can be a lot of fun, and helps develop skills that don't get developed when you're larger.

The normative judgment - "Is a CD bad?" - may not necessarily be the policymakers' call to make. I can agree with that. But what has to be understood is that implementing the RR would not be making such a judgment. The RR is a positive measurement of a positive phenomenon: how frequently someone fails to play out their position in a game. If you personally do not believe that is a bad thing, then a low RR, consequently, would not be seen as a negative thing. Thus, you would not be concerned with joining games which are restricted based on RR, and would make games which don't restrict by RR, because RR doesn't mean anything to you. And if you believe it is a bad thing, then the RR becomes not only a measuring stick for your own commitment to what you think is proper play but also a filter to ensure that people who will CD don't ruin your games.

So... I'm not sure if I'm missing the point of the discussion here, but it seems like the objection is that we shouldn't be making policy which casts a normative judgment on a behavior which isn't universally esteemed or reviled. I would put forth, then, that the RR policy doesn't make such a judgment, and that the objection to it based on that doesn't hold.

Hoorah to all.

Random CD's, NMR's and players leaving and joining games is a feature of WebDiplomacy, get used to it gang !

I used to get cranky about it as I never seemed to get any advantage
and other players did.
How you respond is a collective & individual thing, I am happy enough to agree to
draws when there is a collective choice to draw, i have experienced games where the majority want a draw and one or two selfish holdouts keep the game going ( result instant alliance against the holdouts, they get eliminated then a civilised draw )

I understand the less skill ,more luck proposition, but i don't accept that as axiomatically correct.

I reacted by by seeing Random Cd's, NMR's as a feature of the internet game, and certainly more common in open, low points games.

I actually find the unpredictability and increased anarchic behaviour where you have mixes of players of differing abilities & levels of interest an enjoyable challenge to my skills.

If I play the board game with my old board game mates, they are all experienced hands at the caper and have appetites for sc's to rival a white pointer shark, so one slip and you are gone. Plus there is a predictability to those games, they will invariably play the most efficient & effective option / moves in a given situation.

More unpredictability means more opportunity, if you have the skills to exploit them.
( suggestion, less adherence to rigid orthodoxies, especially at the tactical level )

So I would suggest that the less skill more luck proposition is contestable.

might I suggest that aquiring and tuning the "anarchy detector" skill set is a way of improving your game, enhanced diplomacy skills are required as well.

Yes there will be times you get stiffed, but that happens in the real world.

The anectdotal evidence indicates the "problem" occurs less as the stakes go up
& where games are password protected.

I think the points made about workload for administrators need to be heeded,
the mighty mods have plenty to do as it is & it's my policy to grovel sycophantically at the mere mention of them.

The more anarchic CD's and NMR's might just reflect reality better than a situation where all countries have competent leadership, the "devil's advocate" in me would think that at the time this game is set (Europe 1870 to 1914 ) with all those inbred monarchies, incompetent and irrational government was as much the norm as competent and rational goverment.

Draugnar, get a haircut & a clean ironed shirt with a proper christian tie. Constant casual sex is to be encouraged but you go too far, too often. That Lapeno muppet has a lot to answer for, bloomin Furry Tv indeed, regards mm

I think PE made a good point, so did MajorMitchell. It's not clear whether NMR/CD is is a bad thing at all. We all know cases when it happens and no one argues (like when the player has only 1 unit left, and will go under for sure) and there are cases when it's on purpose to ruin the game, or even worse it's on purpose to trick the others and force them into a cancel, so you save your points.

Where's the borders? Where is the point where you say this has been a justified NMR and we should continue but that one was on purpose to bail out from the game instad of losing points.

None of us can give a proper answer how to decide these situations consequently. Therefore I still suggest to put some punishment system into place, whether it's RR or automatic points takeaway really doesn't matter I guess.

As PE stated it will just result that you will play with high RR rated players if you think NMR-ing is bad, and you will not care about RR if you think it's part of the game.

A thread is about to figure out a punishment method which reduces the number of NMRs, but most of all, wipes out those NMRs which are used to bail out from a game where you are going to die. Still it's an arguable question whether NMRing can be used as part of the game to express your agenda, or once you joined a game you are meant to put in orders? RR system would answer this as well I guess.

But, since there are cases when people can think NMRing on purpose to bail out, and they have high RR rating, so they do not jeopardize their rating, I would still stick to mz original idea, that ANY kind of NMR (having over 2 SCs) should be punished immidiately by taking away bet size points from the player, regardless how the game continues or being cancelled.

Would the punishment actually be an NMR deterrent, though? Assuming that most NMRs come in lower point live games joined by perhaps three or four decent players and a smattering of riffraff, I highly doubt the punishment will effectively deter a player from quitting, especially if points are reset to 100 after the loss and newbies could just create a different account if points run out due to punishment. Those same players are the ones who don't value points or reputation to begin with, effectively nullifying the punishment.

Whether or not an NMR is a bad thing or good thing is a moot point, imo. Above all else, Diplomacy is a game. We can't force people to play if they aren't having fun, and its not fun if you're crippled early in the game and have no chance of winning. Hell, professional sports teams tank on purpose because a loss may be more rewarding than a win in terms of draft picks or luxury tax earnings.

IMO, there are only two options to dealing with an NMR/CD - the easy way and the hard way. Programming RR into the site would eliminate some of the riffraff, but its no guarantee that a player like MichiganMan wouldn't enter a game and quit halfway through. The other option, which is a bit more difficult, would be to only play with quality players through a game setup thread or passworded game. Giving up live games may be the logical conclusion, but the vast majority of my most memorable, fun, and quality games have been set up in advance through the forum with 24/36 hour phases. I still play a lot of live games and try to avoid low pot games advertised by new players and tend toward those set up by Lando or Sarg and the like, but I accept that a CD or NMR is the likely outcome in those games and play accordingly. Most of the time, the CD doesn't work in my favor, but occasionally it does, and evens out in the long run.

Steiny wrote: "My earlier response was due to your claiming that you saw little difference between a Turkey that gets attacked by all of its neighbors, leading to a quick loss, and one that CDs. I believe that stronger players will see a clear distinction between those two situations..."

That is an interesting admission. So, your supposed observation and analysis of my past games was fabricated after reading one question I posed to another player. And you labeled me a weak player in order to support your claim that stronger players don't like nmrs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_honesty

I think I can safely ignore any further posts that you make because you can't argue honestly. In the words of Bugs Bunny, "What a maroon!"

Don, I don't really see the value in a flame war here. I'm going to take one more shot at clarifying what I've said, in case the problem is that I'm doing a poor job of communicating rather than that you're spoiling for a fight. If you prefer a fight, then perhaps we could take this to another thread and not pollute what's otherwise a useful discussion?

I haven't lied to you or fabricated analysis. Your earlier statement and the play I have seen from you in the two games I remember playing against you paint a consistent picture of a player who generally makes decisions based upon local rather than global conditions. You have said that you were intentionally playing weaker moves than you are capable of because you have more fun that way, and I'm happy to take your word for that. Obviously, in a gunboat game I cannot tell whether a player ends up submitting something other than their best set of orders, so I can only discuss the moves you actually made. I would be happy to defend my analysis of those moves in another thread, should you insist upon continuing the argument.

So, let me try and be a bit more precise. I believe that strong players who are attempting to play like strong players pay attention to the entire board, and that for such players, CDs often have a major influence on the game, because the rate at which a dying power dies is important. I also believe that strong players are less likely to leave dying positions, in part because they often have positive experiences to draw on where they've ended up with good results from seemingly hopeless spots. Anecdotal evidence from this thread does suggest that stronger players on this site are less likely to quit a game, even in a poor position. I don't have enough experience with strong players attempting not to play like strong players to really draw any conclusions; I notice that your resign rate is low and nonzero.

If that's unclear, then again, I'm happy to try and make sure I'm not being misunderstood. You're welcome to be upset with me for the opinions that I hold and express, but I'd prefer you not to be angry with me for opinions I don't actually hold.

Save it, Stein. You've already outed yourself.

Sarg, you haven't answered a bunch of my questions. If there are too many for you, then focus on the hypothetical situation first brought up by Roka and changed by me:

A player looks like they are going to nmr with an early morning deadline. Suppose it is an intentional deception (which you know very well happens in high pot games), but the player screws up and doesn't wake up to submit orders. He nmrs. Do you think he should benefit from everyone voting to cancel? Why? If not, how are you going to distinguish this situation from the legitimate and unavoidable emergencies that may cause the occasional nmr?

I thought the argument was about cancelling on COs, not NMRs. Who the fuck cancels over an NMR?

"Who the **** cancels over an NMR?"

Oh, well, here's a current example: http://www.webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=88274#gamePanel

Up until a few hours ago, everyone but G/E were voting to cancel all because France nmr'd. But this thread isn't about that game...no, no, no. Because we're not allowed to discuss ongoing games. That's against the rules.

I knew you will jump on that sentence :D :D

Ongoing anon gunboat. Geez you like to push the edge. But I still ask who thevfuck cancels.over an NMR. That game is anon so I can only say anonymous might. And why is that? Because if it goes through anon remains anon as the game ceases to exists from webdip's records.

NMRs happen. They aren't a reason to cancel. I'd only consider it if a true "missed last phase" NMR occurred in Spring 01 and even then it would depend on the specific situation.

Draug:
1) descissuing ongoing gunboats is forbidden
2) all the info DipperDon wrote is publicly available (the existence of the game, the NMR, the votes, even the players can be found in the Forum
---
I don't think pointing out facts violates any rules, I'm sure the rule is about discussing who should do what in that game, or any moves, order related topic. And I'm also sure no one want ti discuss anything about that. This thread is about NMRs/CDs and how to handle them. Dipper's example is just an example for this.

sorry for the typo :)

Please do not discuss ongoing gunboat games in the forum.

Actually any withdrawn votes are not publicly available and the moment the game moves on to the next phase additional.details about the NMR (was it just no orders entered/all holds or was it a true mused phase) cease to be publicly available. So you are incorrect on that, Roka. And the rule exists. Period. There are no exceptions for what is being discussed as it could lead to further discussion that affects the game (like conjecture as to why the NMR occurred)so it is banned.

Thanks, abge, for the backup there.

Draug: more or less you are right, but let's close the issue for now.

Anyhow, back toothed theoretical... Beyond anon players who know the cancel would delete the game and keep their anon participation a secret or cancelling and restarting for a true NMR in Spring 01, why would anyone cancel.over a simple NMR. Throwing away a serious investment in time and energy because someone else is a fucktard and missed turn? Don't expect me to do it.

I don't like cancelling. Why?
1) The offender gets off with no points penalty
2) The other players don't get to know who this potentially unreliable guy is.

I also don't like drawing with an NMR affected game after 1903, but I usually go with the flow here.