Yes. It always seems like players have no interest in winning. I say to someone "we should work to stop this person from soloing". And that person says to me "nah, they're not going to solo. I'm doing a four way draw with them and two others". And they usually end up being right. People who are close to victory don't even make an attempt to get it.

In my system, it is always in your interest to try to solo. There is no risk.

But it also removes any incentive to play once a clear winner is found. If I'm a 12 center England and there's a 16 center turkey and a 5 center France. Why should 5 center France keep playing?? Neither I nor turkey will agree to a draw now and since turkey will hit 18 first (especially if France just gives up) then what incentive do I have?? Pretty much you solved the non-issue of people playing strategically by creating the problem of mass late game CDs from pivotal powers on a possible stalemate line. Not to mention the idea that Austria eliminated by 1903 will share equally with a 2 center Germany who through excellent press and diplomacy became a indisposable part of a stalemate line forcing a 2 way draw.

It sounds to me like you want a no-draw game.

That last part should say 3 way draw

I think the art of this game is the subjectiveness of it. You may see a clear oath to victory but that person who think threw away their game for a draw or the person who is blind and doesn't see the eminent stab is all part of the game. Unfortunately you end up on the wrong side of that game and lose. This isn't chess it doesn't come don to pure strategy and move sets. This is diplomacy, and while strategy is key; your press and the way you use your opponents personalities against them is more important. I'd suggest playing gunboat. Those tend to end in solos. Or try chess. Or checkers. Or go fish.

Maybe the problem here isn't that other players don't want to win and thus ally up to get the easy draw. Maybe your press is shit and you can't ever get someone to commit to being your ally. Thoughts.?

@CommanderByron

I don't see why France wouldn't keep playing. It's in their interest to prevent anyone else from soloing. That way they either squeak out a comeback solo or get a draw. Why would they quit in this system but not the others?

@CommanderByron

Really? You going to start with the ad hominems?

Because the chances of a comeback victory are near to none. Helping get the solo implies all their effort is rewarded with their exact bet. (No gain even for the effort) and while some outstanding players would see it through to the end; if you are right about how incompetent the players are here then wouldn't they just give up when the going got tough?

@bo_sox48

Essentially. I realize a lot of people here put a lot of value in drawing but for me the game is about winning. I find myself in situations where people basically say "draw with us or we will eliminate you and then draw". That's not to say there isn't a point where a game has reached a stalemate, there is. But in the games I play it usually ends before that point.

Absolutely horrible idea.

This game simply doesn't work if there's not some form of escalation levels of reward, you need to be able to dangle a carrot to get people to do what you want to do or else you'll never never never see solos occur. Stalemating a game leader really is not that hard and as soon as one player pulls ahead of everybody else by 3-4 SCs that's all your going to see. I find it frustrating enough that we don't give enough incentive towards smaller draw sizes that we get the "draw is a draw" mentality that causes many unambitious/uncreative players to get into stalemate mode barely into the mid-game stage.

I completely agree that solos should be everybody's goal in a game and a definitive "winner" in any game would be awesome, but this just isn't the way.

Possible alternative options:
- Find a better way to structure the reward system where the gamble to try for more is more the risk
- Find an alternative way to decide the "winner" in cases of draws (player with most SC's, vote for winner among top 3, whatever)
- Introduce a map without stalemate lines
- Introduce a monkey wrench element into the game to keep things going whenever a stalemate occurs (i.e. every remaining country gets one unit randomly destroyed for rebuild).

They're not all gems, but you get the idea.

Sorry I'm a bit tired and cranky probably shouldn't of been so pissy. I just really don't see where this variant achieves anything honestly ideal. Solos are not the only means of ending the game. Even the official rules include a means of drawing. It is a part of the game so fundamental that this variant, which in essence removes draws, might as well remove the ability to support other units. Beyond that it isn't really fair to reward a 1902-03 elimination the same as a 1909 or 1914 small power included in the draw or even a 17-17 draw. Why should the other 5 players be rewarded when two players hit 17-17 and draw because they have each other pinned?

Not to mention, many a solo has occurred based on personal vendettas of trying to screw somebody else out of a place in a draw who already screwed them out of their shot in the draw. You completely wipe out this aspect under this proposal.

@CommanderByron

I'm not saying players are incompetent. I'm just saying they "play it safe" as they say to me and go for the guaranteed points.

I still don't see why the France player would quit. I mean, if they don't care about their initial bet why would they care in any scoring system?

Also, quick note:

This would be in addition to the current system and would be for players who want a game that's focused on soloing.

"It's cool, it'll just be an option so people can just choose if they want it or not so no harm in having it."

Sincerely,

Every kooky feature proposal ever made on this forum

@VillageIdiot

It would be a different kind of game for sure. Offering a 4-way draw wouldn't work. But I don't see why that's a problem

Regarding your point about stalemates: do you think this game mode would end with more draws? I think it would result in more actual stalemates but fewer draws (this is because of the high number of artificial draws)

This mode would also be affected by personal vendettas just like the others.

"Every kooky feature proposal ever made on this forum"

I imagine some of the kooky proposals were about completely replacing an old feature. So you're wrong there. And some of the non-kooky proposals were additions that didn't require elimination of old features. So...

Stalemates are draws, and yes i think that's 99% of what you'd see in this scenario which is completely counter-productive for what you're going for.

Personal vendettas would be awfully counter-intuitive. Most the time you see somebody king make it's because they're all but certain to be eliminated and want somebody they hate to feel that same pain because their ego dictates that other person isn't worthy of doing better then they did. But here, nobody is every really eliminated or gets a better result unless it ends in a solo, otherwise everybody is in the same boat.

We can't just overload on additions simply because they're an option. Setting aside the development time it requires there's other considerations in play as well. Too many differing scoring 'options' completely waters down the legitimacy of any rating system and spreading out the community into too many niche game types completely dilutes the player base to the point you start seeing the same 20 guys rotating through their favourite configuration. We need to keep some type of standardization and quality line in place here. I've seen it done elsewhere where that's not the case and the site suffers for it.

I can't see how rewarding defeated nations equally with surviving nations where there is a draw has any merit. It's just another form of WTA, of which type we have two already.
But I read the same old issues being thrashed about, games becoming every remaining player after the initial culling out, trying to stop a solo and force a draw..which ends in a stalemate, why, because with WTA scoring systems there is no incentive for anyone to break ranks in the stalemate apart from certain players love of a double cross to create anarchy & opportunity, which usually ends in the solo happening.

Exactly MM.

I cut my teeth over at PlayDip, and while their scoring system has it's own flaws there was no arguing that it properly incentivized playing for best possible results. If i was playing in a game with players that statistically i should have at least gotten a 3WD out of then i would actually lose points if the game ended in a 4WD or less. Eventually i got to the ranking where depending on the players i was against I had to solo or would get penalized for it.

I don't mind the scoring system you propose, but I would never play it. I'm one of those players you don't like playing with because I enjoy going for cooperative outcomes and the repeat player game theory aspects of non-anon games.

@VI, GR does that pretty well here, and points aren't really treated as or even intended to be a meaningful scoring system as much as an admittedly ineffective means on limiting how much people can play.

You should try playing some sum of squares. I think it does a better job encouraging solos.

Solo encouragement is less the issue, it's more "best possible result" encouragement. I get frustrated by the "a 6WD is just as good as a 3WD" mentality that causes many a game to be sold short.

You're quite right i'm fairly content with the way GR generally handles things for the most part, it's just not as incentivized in this one area which i think the other system does better. It has flaws in other areas for certain, but there probably is some best of both systems that could be devised if somebody put the thought towards it.

@VI

I don't think it would be draws 99% of the time. Keep in mind that the current two systems are WTA and still result in solos. In a game theory situation with perfectly rational players every game would end in a stalemate but these are people and so I think you would see many solos.

Personal vendettas would still work. A player who is angry for being stabbed and has has a very small chance of winning may decide to help someone win. They may lose out on 1/7 of the pot but if they are angry enough their initial bet may be less important to them than revenge.

@MM

It seems like your issue is more about WTA and less about my specific implementation.

@slypups

"repeat player game theory aspects of non-anon games"

How would this be eliminated in my system? If, in game 1, player A stabs every other turn and player B proves to be very trustworthy then players will have these expectations of them in game 2.

Here's an example of a game I played where there was obvious disinterest in getting the solo:

http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=169559

Carebear games most definitely happen on occasion, i actually don't generally mind that people have different game philosophies going into games because it's the illusion that a soloist may be one of these people that often helps get them close enough to the line to be able to take it.

Diplomacy really isn't that effective in a black and white format, it needs these shades of grey to push it forward. The game leader needs to have a means to deal with people in lessor situations and that's very difficult to do in an all-or-nothing (let's face it, a 7WD is as good as nothing) type format. Also not sure i'd like the direction the game would go if people could suddenly make a bunch of suicide plays in order to advance the stop-the-leader attempt. This really starts to seriously stack the deck against solo candidates.

My view is that a draw is always a seven way loss. I realize others put a lot of value into draws but I don't.

VI, as I said, it's a different kind of game. That said, I don't think soloing will be more difficult in this system than the others. They're all WTA so there's no reason for players to be less careful about preventing a solo in the other systems.

I have plenty of examples of games where players weren't interested in soloing.

Here's another super obvious one:

http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=183396

For the following one, there was a point where France could have easily taken Warsaw but didn't; opting instead for a draw.

http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=15505

@Merirosovo - your system pretty much guarantees stabs, just a matter of when. So hard to identify cooperative players from stabbers if everyone is forced to become a stabber to have any chance.

"My view is that a draw is always a seven way loss. I realize others put a lot of value into draws but I don't."

Yes, great sentiment but still a flawed solution.

Let me show you some examples:

In this game: http://webdiplomacy.net/map.php?gameID=168928&turn=13

Germany is clearly in the lead and only getting stronger. Under your premise everybody most likely just drops what they're doing and stalemates but not necessarily the case under a regular situation because perhaps Russia is worried he'll get downsized or maybe Turkey and Italy think they can force a 3WD if they let things go on long enough for England and Russia to get eliminated and Russia and Turkey can't get along.

Or in this game: http://webdiplomacy.net/map.php?gameID=160111&largemap=on&turn=9

The only chance this has of going onto a solo is if Italy, knowing he's being pushed out decides to king-make, under 'everybody gets a participation award' mentality this game stalemates in a couple turns.

In this game: http://webdiplomacy.net/map.php?gameID=80849&largemap=on&turn=12

The solo opportunity presented itself only because Turkey and Russia both knew if there was to be a draw they needed to step on each others heads to keep their spot in it causing enough instability for a solo to occur.

This game http://webdiplomacy.net/map.php?gameID=67632&largemap=on&turn=19 was soloed because the writing was on the wall for France so didn't bother even defending Munich. Had he just bounced Munich, despite still being eliminated the next year the rest could have taken Tunis back and stalemated. He'd get the shared win anyways, but since that wasn't an option he didn't care.

So there's a lot of solo paths here you cut off by introducing this, far as i can tell you start limiting your solos to either games where two players are completely equally matched and race for the finish line or scenarios where the player times his final stab so perfectly and so out of nowhere that it's too late to do anything about it. Both fine respectable finishes, but for what you lose i don't see what you gain in this? Maybe more people try for solos but the climb is now harder for them to get there. You're encouraging stalematers just as much as you're motivating solo seekers. The game would be much more interesting if the solution involved a means to keep everybody invested in seeing the game carry on as long as possible, that's when solo opportunities open up and that's when the competitive juices really come out. I love me a good heated end-game.

You say it's a flawed system but your only evidence is assumptions about what players will do. You think that players will suddenly become perfectly rational both in their tactics and their diplomacy and therefore prevent solos from occurring. I think this is very unlikely to be the case. If it were, all the current games (which are all WTA) would also end in draws. They don't, and in many cases where they do it's not because they achieved a stalemate (see my above examples).

In your first game you won because the other players were incompetent at preventing you from winning. You say they were motivated by a 3 way draw, but that doesn't really follow from their actions. I'd say they got caught up in their fight despite the fact that it wasn't strategic to continue fighting. (Looks like it may have been Italy's fault)

In your second game, it is a similar case of players being bad at preventing you from winning. It is in their interest to prevent you from soloing. If Italy's being pushed out than that's Turkey and France being incompetent. If it's Italy that's refusing to work together than it's Italy's fault. The point is, someone was being incompetent and that's how you won.

For the third example Russia and Turkey saw the threat by Italy, and started to work together. Turkey then went full imbecile and attacked Russia, and didn't even try to defend himself from Italy. There's no strategy there, just incompetence.

Same goes for the last example. France was attacking other people despite the clear threat posed by England. At the end it looks like France NMR'd twice. Again, France wasn't being strategic.

I have no problem with players making mistakes or playing badly, that's part of the game. And these bad plays are often what leads to solos. As I have said, players will play with just as much messiness and incompetence in my version as the others and therefore there should be plenty of solos.

What I want to get rid of are the games where players have no interest in winning.

@slypups

It doesn't guarantee stabs. Players are capable of making temporary truces that end at a certain point. In my experience this is a lot more common in offline games.

Players can also get reputations for being rational or irrational. That is, if player A has a reputation for being highly strategic you know you can trust them to do what is in their own interest. This contrasts with player B who may go full kamikaze after losing a single SC.

"What I want to get rid of are the games where players have no interest in winning."

It sounds like you mean: "I want to get rid of [the players who] have no interest in winning."

Weak games happen, usually with weaker or inexperienced players. Create games with 101 point antes or more and you'll get rid of some of the riffraff who aren't committed to playing to win.

Just sounds to me like Merirosvo wants to be able to turn his many defeated games into draws.

@Merirosvo - true, temporary alliances or truces do happen that end without a stab, but stabs happen a lot more.

I think it is a very interesting suggestion with merit. It would at least be fun to have a few games with these rules, if only to see if they played out the way that the OP imagines or in some other way.

Why don't you give it a try and find out, it's easy enough for you to test your premise. Just arrange a game where all participants agree to cancel the game rather then draw if it doesn't end in a solo. That's basically what this is.