@hellalt, I don't think it would be appropriate to declare a WebDip champion from the outcome of only one competitive event, for a number of reasons. Some of the reasons:
Clearly, it would be pretty tough just to get everyone to agree on the same competition format.
To be an accurate claim, many many players would have to be involved resulting in a huge logistical nightmare.

@yebellz
My proposed event makes sure that the champion will have to play 6 or 7 games. That's more games than what the current league system offers. Besides this cup will be played every 6 months and champions are nothing but temporary in all kind of sports or games.
Not everyone has to agree on the competition format, just a critical mass. Besides, not everyone agreed on the current cups and leagues anyway.
There will be many many players involved. 98 to be exact. I don't think it can get bigger than that...

to be honest, TGM REALLY put in some serious time and study to give us the GR. The amount of factors you have to deal with concerning a game of 7 people that only one can win that can have different starting positions and result in draws.... that's some SERIOUS fuzzy logic. Now put into the fact that some people can play 20+ games at a time, while others only play 1 at a time? So 5 losses for one is negligible, but 5 losses to the other is devastating. Can you really understand that magnitude?

Will we ever get the perfect system? Nope. The best we can do is say "these people tend to trend as the top X players on the site" and rank them in pretty decent order.

@hellalt, by the way, I guess there already is the TGM Champions Trophy, which somewhat serves that purpose, and the placement in that prestigious tournament is based on exemplary performance in other events. I'm certainly not saying that we replace events like that with a ranking system. In fact, I think that an event like that would classify as a "major" with respect to how the ranking could be calculated.

@fortknox, I've also put in a lot of thought to the GR system. It gets the job done, and I really appreciate that TGM has put some much effort into making it possible, but I certainly have some qualms with it. I have long been planning to implement my own system. I even talked to TGM a while ago and got his code to work from, however, being busy with graduate school and other things in life has kind of stalled me.

I'm NOT saying that we get rid of GR. I just want to propose an implement an alternative, parallel system. People would be free to look at GR, my system, both, or neither. But either way, I don't think more information would hurt the cause. Give me some time, I'll work on something and show everyone what I was thinking of.

By the way, if you have any thoughts on how GR is calculated and its benefits and/or drawbacks with respect to Elo, I would love to hear them.

Okay, finally had time to read through all this. Just got back from a trip last night and had a lot to catch up on at work.

First, I am currently the tournament director for the League, but I don't own it. I assert that the people that play in it own it. Although it would also be fair to say that TGM owns it.

@Draugnar, and I just squeeked into the Premier league so I understand how you feel, but at the same time, I recognize some problems. In the A league, game 4 ended very quickly and I found myself seriously considering throwing game 3 to ensure I advanced. I found it a very distasteful situation to be in.

@Sargmacher - "considering how popular the Leagues were this season"
This season had the least number of boards since the first season. The previous three seasons had 4 or 5 boards each. A number of better players have bowed out of the leagues because of the meta-league aspect. The C league had several players that hadn't been in the previous season, that's how many people dropped out from previous seasons!

@The Czech, regarding pausing for so long, I'm very sorry about that. I hope to do better as tournament director next season if y'all will have me.

@abgemacht - "There is not much tangible to winning the Premier, other than a title." - There is also entrance to The Champion's Trophy if that is still being done. And also, this season the mods approved point awards for each league level, for whatever that is worth.

@Dragunar - "if you exapnd them too much, then you don't get to know the other players because you aren't playing them over the course of several games." - This concerns me too

@Draugnar - "Make something more tanglible as a prize for the leagues. Maybe points to the winners and second place as has been discussed in the past." - Supposedly points are supposed to be awarded this season.

@Dragunar - "So bump the A league to two leagues like B, and make all 6 of the non-winners move down. Metagaming solved." - sounds interesting. I worry though that it could lead to some games being thrown so that someone who pissed you off doesn't end up in 1st.

@Babak - "but by its nature, FtF has to be non-anon." - ninja outfits and voice modulators, enough said.

@rdrivera2005 - "The league quality is falling year by year in the way I see things, so we need to consider some changes." - clearly since I'm advancing to the premier

@yebellz - "I think it's kind of interesting that the league structure mirrors the structure used in multi-tiered European football (soccer) leagues." - Well, a brit (TGM) put it together probably intentionally mirroring it, so not too surprising.

I really enjoy the "league" aspect. The aspect where you get to know other players. At the end of a Masters game I find out who I've been playing against, but it doesn't really stick with me the way it does in the League. I'm strongly against anon for the League, but do enjoy the anon of the Masters.

For those that are high ranked or points and feel ganged up upon, I challenge you to find the people that will be happy to take advantage of that and joining you. In the first masters season which was before anonymous games, I was Italy and Babak was Austria and he stabbed Turkey and Russia and was large quick. Everyone was afraid of him and wanted to gang up on him and I used that to my advantage to join him and grow in size next to him. One of my favorite games.

I never look up peoples records. My god that is too much work. This is supposed to be fun. While you are at it, I couldn't give a flip about a WebDip Champion. Again, I'm here for fun. Some of you sound like college football playoff proponents. Let's ruin the game so we can determine who is best. Ugh. Let's just play some fun games against quality opponents, okay?

I think expanding each league to 14 players would be beneficial without changing it too much from what it is. 14 in premier, 14 in A, 14 in B1, 14 in B2, and then the remaining in individual groups of 7 being the minors.

Maybe we should send out an email to all current and former league players with a list of options to see what people think, rather than depending on the handful of people that have responded on this thread.

I'm sad I get no mention.

@ Ald... I remember that game! ;) was indeed fun. I enjoyed that entire season of Masters games, this season was a massive let-down in comparison =(

regarding the proposal to 14... I think its a legitimate alternative... but I agree with you that the better option might be to put down 3 or 4 options... then have a vote from those that have or would participate... including a "yes" or "no" as in which they would or would not join...

the proposal ortho and I put forth conceives of two main leagues, not 4 or 6. 14 players will have almost the exact same problems as the current 7... it will be just as easy to meta-league and meta-game in such a scenario.

as for anon v non-anon... i am convinced a majority prefers non-anon, and for good enough reason. that has not been my main point at all. I personally prefer anon, but like I said, I would not base my decision to drop out of the leagues on this point alone.

anyways - I hope this has been an informed and informative discussion. in the end, each of us will decide to move on in the leagues or not based on our own perspectives.

@ abge - I'm very curious to read more about how you plan on changing the other tournament...

'Metagaming was an unintended consequence of the fact that it's hard to make a league for diplomacy. A league in which you are encouraged to suicide yourself to give someone a solo *IS A BAD LEAGUE*.'

No, meta-gaming is an inevitable consequence of linking hte results of multiple games together.

once the games are linking in almost ANY way the game stops being about winning an individual game and things **LIKE** what you describe become the 'correct' move.

any league which doesn't take this into account will be terribly flawed.

i've played in the DNWC, an online competition where 7 irish players competed in 7 games against 7 teams from other countries (France, USA West, South Africa, UK A, New Zealand... and i forget the 7th team in the group)

There is a huge complaint about the meta-gaming, but it is a team tournie, and you expect to throw one game for the team effort to earn points in another game. That is the only reason i managed to solo.

If people don't realise that they're competing on a team and thus the meta-gaming is to be expected then they will be unhappy with the 'unfair' result.

UKA made a huge complaint about the Irish team's performance, and the TD basically had to tell them we'd broken no rules... but I am a firm believer in the necessity of acknowledging plainly the meta-element of this league.

You need to take it into account when setting up any league.

The advantage of the current league setup is that you only have your specific 6 opponents to worry about, and they will almost all be trying to best you... so whatever deal you make it will be at risk of a stab... it works, more or less.

"As far as I'm concerned, the current league is just a bunch of people playing a bunch of games and pretending like it counts for some measure of skill or talent. "

We enjoy the current setup, personally l like getting to know multiple opponents, and over time learning to best defeat them, while they learn about me. It is personal and the non-Anon element is very important.

It is also a measure of skill, because of the promotion/relegation - however it is not the same skill which is measured by a single (anon?) game with people you've never met before. It is a very different thing to repeatedly play the same group, you get to know when someone will be very defensive, you get to know when someone else is plain lying... and this is disticnt. I don't care if you don't like this 'skill or talent' or if you don't consider it 'real diplomacy' - that doesn't matter to any of us who enjoy playing in the leagues as they currently exist.

" I like the grouping reducing some of the heavy metagaming with games being staggered in their start so you won't be ablke to do cross game alliances as you won't know who is in that future game."

i don't think you're looking at the new system the same as i am, i fear it will only increase the meta-gaming.

in a 21 person league, three people can solo game 1, and they go to the top 3 positions in the league - then suddenly in games 2&3 you will have players 4-12 ganging up on the top 3... it will encourage meta-gaming as much as the current league format, if not more so... though it will also complicate matter so it is less clear who you should support at any given time (and thus you are more likely to just play for your own best individual game performance..... unless you happen to be really good at keeping track of 12 different boards and 20 different personalities... again a test of skill, but somethings go beyond an individual human... having a team of people working together would actually help a lot at this task... )

'In the A league, game 4 ended very quickly and I found myself seriously considering throwing game 3 to ensure I advanced. I found it a very distasteful situation to be in.'

as the person who you were not throwing the game to, i must admit, i think that would have been the right call... especially as i wasn't willing to draw (leaving me in 4th place and not promoted)

I don't think this should be accompanied by some level of shame, because playing a league should be about PLAYING A LEAGUE. No one game result should be more important than the overall league placing...

After reading this whole forum I really want to try a 7 person league! =D

I didn't say shame, I said distaste.

@Geofram, some of your comments were ambiguously referenced in the later half of my post. But in general I found your comments indicating how little you thought of or cared for this event so shrugged them off. If you aren't going to participate in this event, then your preferences don't matter. /shrug

OK, so we clarify. A league is a game unto itself where you game the league to get the best overall position. I like this aspect of the leagues. and our current structure also has people playing for best 2nd of two leagues in the B leagues because first and best second move up. So there is always an awareness that alters how one plays by needing to look to the other league(s) at your tier.

As well as we retain that aspect in some way along with the "getting to know others" aspect of the leagues, I'm good. eliminate either of those two and I'll go about forming my own one with fortknox and anyone else who wishes to join me.

@Orath

But the Leagues *don't* take metagaming into account!

When they started, metagaming wasn't allowed, now it kinda is, although apparently FK was told not to metagame in the *exact* same fashion that was happening in the Premier League. These changes in policy are inconsistent and were not followed by any change in the rules, which would compensate for the enormous amount of metagaming.

Metagaming has not be an integrate part of the Leagues, it's been a dirty secret that everyone does and is afraid to admit

So why do the rules state that "playing for league position is allowed"? League position is outside each game so, by definition, this is metagaming and allowed *according to the rules*.

@Draug

But that wasn't always the case. You would think once meta went from not allowed to allowed, then some rules would change, no? Shouldn't scoring be affected once that change was in place? Because it wasn't.

Also, how much meta is allowed? I was under the impression you could meta as much as you wanted, but apparently that isn't true because the TD told FK not to do what everyone in the Premier was doing.

Oh, and I'm not afraid to admit I metagaming. I don't cross game ally, but I do encourage alliances and seek alliances based on what will get me the best league position. Hell, I told hellalt to kill me off and use my SCs to go for the win in B1 game 3 because I didn't want one of the game 1 drawers to be part of a game 3 draw or worse yet a win. I wanted their chances of beating me in league B1 reduced to slim or none as there was a chance 12 wouldn't be a strong enough second depending on what happened in B2. But I never made any cross game deals with him.

And why are cross-game alliances wrong?

Also, to be clear, I'm not blaming Alderian for any of this. I know he took over half way through this season and I greatly appreciate that. I really hope he decides to TD again, as I'm sure he'll do a great job.

There are no cross game deals allowed and defoinitely no outside the league meta gaming. But manipoulating others to improve your position in the league or to make certain someone else doesn't get ahead of you is acceptable. At least that's my interpretation of "you may consider position". Game three worked such that two players wiht no points were Austria and Russia so that my sacrifice as Turkey could trengthen them to either a 2 way draw or even a solo (as it happened, hellalt solo'd). This played well for my position. Turns out, it wasn't necessary as my alliance with those two players in game 4 allowed me to stab and manipulate my way to a second win. But I didn't know that at the time.

Cross-game alliances could result in three players always drawing with two of the three killing the third in the final game or four players all agreeing to give a win to each of them before the leagues ever started. 4 acting as 1 on 3 is impossible odds, so no cross-gaming.

I our case, the game one trio was ganged up on in game two (I had a hand oin that conspiracy against them) and I pulled out the win. I then played it such that I sacrificed myself to two others so they could keep the trio down in game tyhree, giving me the comfort to go for the win again in game 4.

I understand it's in the rules, but I don't see why it's there. Half-assed metagaming is probably the worst, because it's never clear what you should or shouldn't be doing.

As someone else pointed out. The foru games make up a greater game. So it isn't really metagaming so much as playing the league for position. And it's pretty clear... No cross-game deals and no deals outside the league. All must be related to league position.

Before they put in the no cross-game deals, I know of one case where two people conspired to get them each a win and they both moved up a tier. But this was 2 or 3 seasons ago.

And is not Diplomacy the game where "cheating" is encouraged? Is that not why we don't have but a few explicit rules of unacceptable cheating? I mean, we all metagame if we look at our opponents record or remember what they did to us last time and learn from it. I'll never again trust Turkey to not stab my Italy after we have finished of Austria and most of Russia and I go after France. Instead, I will keep enough units back to cover my ass. Especially against one certain player who will remain nameless. that's metagaming but not unacceptable. I learned from that stab not to trust that player in the late game.

@abg, fort did not consult with me, the TD, he consulted with the mods. So I'm not sure how that conversation went.

But Draug has the right of it, at least according to my interpretation of the rules. You can say in game 4, let's take out Germany so he'll end up with less league points than you and I. But you cannot say I'll help you solo in game 3 if you help me solo in game 4. If that level of metagaming was going on in the Premier, or other leagues, then that was over the line.

Of course it can be hard to know if that is really what is happening or if things have just played out the way they have.

This time around, having just taken over half way through, I haven't been very active as the TD. I plan on being more active, keeping an eye on things and talking with folks next season.

Unfortunately, the two times I wanted a consult, one was WITH the TD (Aldy), the other would have thrown a game he was doing well in to me. So I was in a situation where alerting the TD would have given away all my strategy.

I basically emailed the mods and asked them if throwing a game in one of the leagues so the other player would thrown another in my favor... does it seem outside the scope of the 'allowable' meta in the leagues. TrustMe responded that in his opinion, he thought it was outside the 'allowable' meta. I agreed, so that was the end of it. I was going to discuss it with aldy when the game ended, but this popped up before I got around to it.

And, yes, if you allow a 'little' meta, then the more competitive the game is (read: the high up in the tiers), the worse the meta will get. It's just how competition works. You need more of those teeny-tiny edges in the higher competition to win. That extra study, that extra work....

...that extra *fun*!

ah... knox, why didn't you ask me, as a mod i would have been happy to help :P (we are talking about league game A3 this season, right? oh and well done on your draw, in case i haven't mentioned it - infact good game to all the A league guys, i had a blast... despite my poor result.)

OK. So I'm not sure how long this post will be, or how much I have to say. Well see how it goes.

In three years on the site, I've never joined the leagues, precisely because of the metagaming aspect. And if the structure of the leagues were to change, I would be very interested in joining. Below are some of my thoughts (from an outsider's perspective_.

1. First, multiply the points for everything by five. Thus a solo is 60 , and then an n-way draw is 60/n. This has no affect in and of itself; it is merely inflationary. (This also has the incredibly minor side effect of 60 being also divisible by 5, whereas 12 is not.) Second, before the tournament starts, players start with a number of points proportionate to their current ranking in the league. If there are 14 players in the league, say first place starts with 14 (or maybe 28, depending on what people think is fair). This encourages people to always play for the best result for themselves, which should hopefully combat the metagaming, to an extent. Perhaps it shouldn't scale linearly - ie first place should be 30 , second 25, third 22, fourth 20, etc. But I think some bonus for differential rankings would help cut down a lot.

2. Do not make it Anon. This may seem surprising coming from me. I refuse to play any game that isn't Anon. But what appeals to me, in reading this thread, is getting to know players styles, etc. I don't get that with my pure-anon games, and I'd love to get to know some of you all better - especially when "some of you all" are the best players on the site.

3. Discount games from GR. I think this is a good idea. But it can only make GR rankings less flawed, not perfect. Ultimately, any ranking system is going to be impossibly flawed (and generally slanted towards those that have played many games).

4. Increase the number of players in leagues from 7 to 14, and change the structure so that players move up and down more. I'm somewhat ambivalent on the matter of increasing the number of games - I have no experience, but I think 6 might be better than 4, when increasing the number of players. I would structure it as follows, although this may be admittedly poor:

There would be seven leagues:
Premier League, A1, A2, B1, B2, B3, and B4. Each league has 14 players. At the end of each season, the top 4 players from A1 and A2 would feed into the Premier league, and the bottom four in Premier league would be demoted to *level* A. The same would happen for A and B. Top four in B1 and B2 would feed into A1. The top four in B3 and B4 would feed into A2. The bottom four in A1 and A2 would be demoted to *level* B.

Demoted players would then choose open spots, in order of demotion (ie 10th chooses first, then 11th, etc.) whether they would like to go into division 1 or 2 (or 3 or 4). Third place in each division would then switch with third place in the corresponding division, A1 and A2 would switch, B1 and B2 would switch, and B3 and B4 would switch.

TL;DR: My ideal structure would be a non-anon, GR exempted pyramid of small leagues - leagues that have cross pollination between seasons, but theoretically exist on the same skill level. Players should start the season with a certain number of points based on their ranking from a previous season.

I like some of this, but have a question. If ranking from previous season gives points, does that mean the winners of A would start with the same number of points as the Premier winner? And the winners in B start with more than the third places who hing onto their A spot? Likewise would the premier or A losers have fewer points than the 3rd place survivors in the league tobwhich they were demoted?

Oh and the computer could just randomly place the players at each tier and eliminate the wholepicking thing.