Perhaps I was exagerating at 80%. But still, just looking at my active and most recently completed games here are two more examples:
Russia/Germany http://phpdiplomacy.net/board.php?gid=1668
England/France http://phpdiplomacy.net/board.php?gid=1627

Perhaps a way to solve this would be to allow the game creator to specify either a winner-take-all or use the current point system when creating the game. Of course, the winner-take-all approach might draw multi-accounts like flies.

I liked it better without points. I think the level of experience should be made more obvious instead of points. My games have felt much less victory motivated. Winners need to get 70% or more of the pot and the other players still in the game get to split the remaining 30% using this system already in place

> Italy had to know that Russia was going to win given the way the
> game was going. There was no chance Italy would gain 18 SD
> while remaining allied with Russia and 100% chance that Russia
> would.
Then why would Italy continue playing, unless the points system is there? The points system gives players a reason to continue to battle to the end. Without it, in this example you give, Italy would just go into civil disorder and make it even more likely that Russia would win.

People want there to be a big incentive to win, for all players to play to the end and work with others, and not just give up if they don't think they're going to win. People want a way to play with players at their own level and exclude players who go into civil disorder, and people want a way to rank players in a way that reasonably reflects their skill at the game.

If anyone can think of a better way of achieving all these, or at least getting closer to these goals than the current points system, I'm all ears.
But having x% for the winner and 100-x% for the loser isn't a solution, it's just a trade-off between the problems of a points system and the problems of no points system.

I think this argument over the points system is just an argument over whether players should play to win, or whether they should be able to co-operate and draw, but this is a personal preference which varies from player to player, and the current points system tries to achieve a balance or compromise.

I think Masterminds V actually took that route for a different reason.
As you didn't help against Russia nothing could be done to stop the Juggernaut until Russia itself stabbed Turkey. At that moment R offered Italy an alliance, and when Italy thought Germany was going to stab him he accepted it. When Germany retreated from France Russia was already past stalemate lines so even breaking the alliance would have been pointless.
Then maybe things went a bit differently, the last part is just my opinion.

As for the points matter, I wouldn't like giving a bonus to the winner but I can understand it's only a matter of tastes, so allowing the game creator to do as he wishes should be okay. There will always be games to join with and without that bonus, I think.

actually, it's 24 SC's total for a team victory.

kestas, most of us are actually suggesting extra from the winner without taking points away from the rest. it's not that much of a trade-off that way.

what perentage does the winner take currently?

It depends on how successful they are in their final turn. Anywhere from 18/34 of the pot to considerably more if they finish with more than 18 SCs.

They need to take at least 70% of the pot.

i agree with Von Bismark, i'd even go as far as to say 75% of it.

why do you bother. kestas will never agree with this opinion

I think you're wrong, alamothe. It's just that this (I think) is a not-so-important issue, so he will change it after more important things (i.e. adjudicator) have been done. So it's good to discuss it so that he can read and decide what to do.

Again, I think it's ok as it is (just change units with SCs), but as many ask to change it I see nothing bad in giving the game creator the ability to give the winner an extra percentage of the points if he wants it.

then fork it :) it's free software, after all, and the change should not be difficult to make and to maintain.

That is true Lukas, although i think that much of this comes from trying to keep the community going.
Personally, i think 25% straight to the winner, the rest by units

In Diplomacy tournaments I've played in, points are awarded based on placement, and not on number of units left in the game; i.e., first place gets X points, second place gets Y points, etc.

In this system, usually first place is divided up among multiple players for a shared win; solo wins are quite rare. In such instances, each member of a team gets an equal # of points, regardless of how many units each member has.

The only different points system I've seen used had a rule that either it was a solo win and winner took all, or else every remaining player on the board received an equal share in the win, even if you only had a single unit left. In that system, solo wins got a certain # of points, and a shared win got a percentage of that # based on how many players were left in the game. (With three players left, each got 1/3 of the total points awarded.)

I've only played online diplomacy here at phpd. What kind of point systems do other services use? I've heard of dipbounced and a few others, but never tried them, as they seem too complicated in comparison to phpdiplomacy's simple interface.

Please note that I do not recommend either of these scoring methods for phpd. Points here are more for the benefit of the community, and so you don't want to rob people of hard-earned points. What I've described above are point systems in tournaments, where it is okay to screw over losing players by awarding little to no points. So don't think I'm advocating change. At least not to a tournament point system.

Although I will mention that in the past, before the point system was implemented, I had a habit of joining games under civil disorder where I could make the last couple of moves for a country with one or two units left to be intelligent rather than just sitting and holding. I thought this was a benefit to the community, because it made civil disorders that were sure to lose more active countries, rather than simple passive holds. But as a result, my points rating was affected quite negatively once the points system was implemented. I would definitely like to see a modification to the points so that countries where there is no chance left to win can still be entered without hurting your points. Maybe an option to join for a fifth the price by foregoing your chance to win anything in return? Then you might join as a civil disorder country just to play is last few turns without feeling like you ruined your points score because of it.

I can't believe I am responding, but I feel I have been called out, even though dangermouse has been careful to refer to me as Italy rather than by name.

Noirin nailed the reason the game played out the way it did. I wanted to win and would have backstabbed Russia, but I made two really stupid mistakes (ordering my fleet into Aegean rather than Tyrhennian and, relatedly, allowing Sun to survive) which left me way too out of position to stab Russia. Germany offered to re-align with me against Russia, but he was in no position to help me win and a stab at that point would have cost me units given Russia's position. Russia played a great game and was a worthy winner.

dangermouse and chrispminis were both interested (to varying degrees) in retaining their points. I told both of them this reinforced my distaste for the system. And, as Noirin pointed out, the biggest factor in my not being able to turn on Russia was dangermouse's complete unwillingness to work with me.

I think any analysis of the this game, both on its own merits and in terms of the impact of the points system, would be greatly aided by making the chat viewable for all to see. Is this possible?

real diplomacy doesn't have alliance wins. thats pansy diplomacy

What are you reffering to by "real?" If you mean in the real world, you are dead wrong. Even Hitler didn't try to go it alone. Ideally, succesful "real" diplomacy would mean that nobody ever stabbed anyone else, and everybody was in on the alliance.

If you're talking about the "real" way to play this game, I'm afraid you are wasting your time, as that is completely up to the interpretation of the player - one of the strengths of the game, in my opinion.

Official rules of Diplomacy by Avalon Hill require one winner.

I'll admit I wanted to retain as many points as I could, however that was a means to an end - coming back somehow and winning the game. From my perspective, Italy/Mahatma never offered to work with me to fight Russia. Only that he would not attack me if I pulled back from all territories near where he wished to expand in France.

I have no complaints regarding opening all of the conversations up from the game. There may be some interpretation difficulty in matching up when comments are posted relative to specific turns though.

As to the points system... I think kestas is right that this system is a good balance. Differing opinions are due to wanting different things out of the game. One possible solution is to have two different ranking systems. We could keep the points system and have additional tournaments with their own rankings based on winning outright. Those with a drive to show their world domination prowess can do so in the tournaments.

no, the official rules by Avalon Hill require one player to reach 18 or two players to reach 24 (total) AND AGREE TO TEAM VICTORY. but that's stupid; you could claim you won even when your "ally" was your worst enemy.

TeutonicPlague: no, we've thought of that and ruled it out. it's just that everyone thinks they have a better way to make this "fair" than anyone else.

official rules have draws, read page 1. it would be best that creator of the game chooses how to split the points, but for now, until that is programmed, the best solution is to award 70% for the winner & the rest equally among survivors

lukas, if it's so easy then you do it.

alamothe: sort of. he might partially agree but he'll refuse to implement it.

What if points were awarded based on the players max number of supply centers held during the game, rather than their total at the end? This would give everyone more points but would encourage more play, especially taking over Civil Disorders.

@EricHerboso: actually, many tournament scoring systems (at least in Europe) *do* take into consideration also the centres you end up with, and at times also other things (number of survivors for example, or results in other boards for the same country)

@dangermouse: as alamothe said, page 1 speaks of draws too; and this not only in the last version, but also on the first

No I meant the board game you dumb ass. Have you ever heard the allied victory called a "team win"

Blipblopin, calm down. If you're actually Diplomacy King of the World, correct me, but your authority on the "real" way to play Diplomacy is just as valid or invalid as any other person's. If we look at the classic postal play that allowed Diplomacy to survive as a game, we find that the majority of games ended up with some sort of draw, and that solo wins were the minority in fact.

Concerning Masterminds V, I don't actually see many major problems with it. I got outplayed by Russia, although I was planning to split the win with him, and consequently, he won. I respect The Mahatma's decisions, and probably would have done the same myself, although that may not have come across as much in game because obviously my goal is to persuade him. My apologies to dangermouse who played well and deserved more than he got, but I stabbed him and surprise migrated to England and stole his land. A funny tactic, I think, and it's a definite consequence of the points system.

Since there are varying opinions on the points system, I think that we should implement a system where the creator chooses a percentage of the pot that is added to the winner's score as a bonus. If they chose 0%, then they would be playing as per the current scoring system, if they chose 100%, they would be playing closer to the old scoring system. And percentages in between would be a balance.

I really believe if we adopt a simple "laissez-faire" attitude to points, than the appropriate winner's bonus will resolve itself over time, through trial and error.

> kestas, most of us are actually suggesting extra from the winner
> without taking points away from the rest. it's not that much of a
> trade-off that way.
Then points are being created out of thin air, and on average players that play in lots of games will get more points than players that don't, regardless of skill, because if you win a game you get so many more points than you put in.

> i agree with Von Bismark, i'd even go as far as to say 75% of it.
Who's going to play until the end for the hope of winning a slice of 25% of the pot? It might as well be winner takes all, it's just a trade-off between the problems of having a points system (there is an incentive to tie) and having no points system (there is no incentive to continue if you're not going to win). It's not a solution :-/ I don't get why everyone is saying "70% to the winner" without explaining how it would be better than a trade-off between two types of problems, as well as introducing an arbitrary number (where did 70% come from?) and messing up draws (if winner gets 70% what do 2 winners get?).

If you want there to be 70% of the pot for the winner you might as well want no points system at all, because no player is going to fight to win a share of the remaining 30%, and no-one is going to take over a civil disorder player to fight to win a share of the remaining 30%.
And if you want no points system at all, why not create games that require, say, 5 points to buy into and just ignore the points altogether? This way players who don't want to deal with points don't have to, and can play in the pre-points way.

> I would definitely like to see a modification to the points so that
> countries where there is no chance left to win can still be entered
> without hurting your points.
With the current points system there are two possibilities:

- A CD player is definitely going to be defeated. Anyone who takes over will lose points, but there's no benefit to the other players if you take over the CD because the CD will be wiped out anyway.

- A CD player could win back some units. Any increase in size from the starting size means an increase in points for the player taking over, and there actually is a difference in outcome when a player takes over the CD.

So either there's a chance to win points from a CD by taking it over, or there's no chance to win points and so the outcome is the same whether the CD is taken over or not.


I don't mind debating the points system but it's getting pretty tiring going around in circles. No-one responded to a long post I made in the last one of these threads that went over various situations and how the points system would affect your decision, and no-one is responding to my complaint that 70% is just a trade-off between the points system and no points system.

Well Kestas, what you say makes a lot of sense. I have just another question.

Do you plan on keeping the forum in-house? Is there any problem with using a phpforum? Even a free one? Because I've noticed that yes, many of the same issues are brought up all the time, and if we had a more effective forum, these wouldn't be brought up as much. Just throwing the idea out there.

Kestas, I have made several suggestions for improvement. I strongly disagree with this system and intend not to play much anymore, but I recognize and respect that ultimately it is up to you.

As to dangermouse's comment about Masterminds, it is simply factually incorrect. Dangermouse - when I go to the game, I don't see all of our chat. If you can see the whole history, I encourage you to go over it again.

Alternatively, you could introduce a system of dedication points in parallel to the current point system that would encourage people not to go into CD, to submit moves etc. Has this idea come up before? (Well, I'm pretty sure it has, but it's hard to tell in this forum...)

A heretic but honest word: I love the point system. And if it was changed, I would still love it. I simply love points. ...

kestas, that argument works and makes sense, but if the bonus only goes to the winner then it's not a VERY big problem. i can't really think of anything better. it keeps most of the benefits of the new system while making it slightly fairer. maybe a 12.5% bonus to the winner? this helps because players are less likely to want to end up in a 16-18 split so it discourages very long alliances.

for those of you who do not understand me, an example of how this helps:

G: 12SC
F: 14SC
I: 2
T: 5
A: 3

France and Germany are not as likely to keep the alliance forever because draws are unimplemented. so they'll try to have the smaller powers help them, like regular Diplomacy. but the smaller powers are less likely to help the leader (once one of F or G gets significantly ahead) just to get more centers. remember, the system for real diplomacy is all or nothing and every survivor shares equally in a draw.

however, this system will have almost no benefits once draws are implemented.


lukas: i had the idea to give a small bonus to survivors with 4 or less centers, but someone (dangermouse, i think) said it would just encourage people to lose their 5th center.

The Mahatma: please don't leave just because of the scoring system, a boycott will not help things go faster, just give Kestas more to worry about.

bliblopin: read the official 2000 rules by Avalon Hill. it's there.

Chrispminis: we could theoretically do that, and it might eventually happen, but that'll take forever. and surely you agree the adjuticator is more important?

well, trial-and-error might work, and it won't take as much time, but we should at least agree on what to do first. hmm, no, that wouldn't work, we'd never agree on anything, not even which of our various crappy system ideas to switch to first :) *rolls eyes*

Well, I mean just let the creator of the game choose the percentage bonus for the winner. I'm not sure how the coding is set up at the moment, but would it be that much work? Then we could stop theory crafting and get some real results.

@kestas - I recall reading your analysis of the different possible situations and disagreeing with some of your conclusions but I don't recall exactly why. I was too busy to respond at the time and I do have to admit that the format of the discussion board discouraged me from trying a bit later.

@aoe3 - I don't recall your bonus for players for 4 or less SD rule, but it does seem rather arbitrary to set the number at 4.

@Noiren et al - The only way to "win" an official Diplomacy game is to control 18 SD by one country. The game can also be "drawn" if all surviving players agree and they all "share equally in the draw". I don't know where someone got 24 for a two-person victory. I think it's a good idea but not an official rule. In addition, every game I've played in requires that before the game starts all players agree on whether joint victory will be allowed.

@all - I agree with Chrisp. It seems silly to set an arbitrary % to go directly to the winner since we can squabble over the exact number forever. I do like the idea of all surviving losing players splitting the pot evenly but that encourages middling players to make last ditch efforts to eliminate the weakest remaining country.

What if the rules were: Stay alive and get 1/7th (i.e. the amount you bet or possibly more if somone takes over a CD) back. Winner gets the rest. This means the winner's profit will vary based on the number of players eliminated in the game and probably won't be high enough for some people in games where 4 or 5 players survive. But it definitely discourages players quitting the game....

I was about to say that at the same time it encourages losing players to band together against the leader, but that's not really true is it? Players with one or two units will really just try to survive off in a corner rather than anger the large power and face elimination.

Sigh. I do think points are better than no points. I'm just not quite sure how to fix it.

I can't say I really like the point system. It really does alter the way we play the game and that shouldn't happen. I see the argument for having it, although personally I wish I could just play a fun, engaging game of diplomacy without people worrying about some useless number. I think it promotes elitism among other things.

All that aside, it is nice to be able to compare yourself to other players but I just don't think these general purpose points are the way to go. I would much rather click on a person to be welcomed by a big, glorious stat sheet of things such as Win%, Most Common Country, Survival % etc. Leaderboards for certain categories would keep the competitiveness alive. Well that's just my opinion.

Chrispminis: of course you're right; kestas should decide. it's his game, after all.

dangermouse: i think it's 4 in C-Diplo. that's where i'm getting this.

and like i said, the allied victory is in the manual version of the Avalon Hill rules. i'm not sure if it's online, but i think it's an exact copy.

dangermouse, that's a great idea! the only problem can be fixed by scaling the amount the winner gets by how many players survive. for example, if he wins but everyone else is still in the game (this is all hypothetical - remember that these players have mental issues) we can give them more points.

aren't we all. i hate this.

PolishTeaParty: like we said, it's better than nothing.

yeah, i think detailed stats work better too. maybe we should be able to sort the hall of fame by other stats?

p.s. not survival %. average centers left at end of game is better.

dangermouse:

> What if the rules were: Stay alive and get 1/7th (i.e. the amount you bet or
> possibly more if somone takes over a CD) back. Winner gets the rest. This
> means the winner's profit will vary based on the number of players eliminated
> in the game and probably won't be high enough for some people in games
> where 4 or 5 players survive. But it definitely discourages players quitting the
> game....

It means that winners have an incentive to eliminate as many players as possible before reaching 18 SCs. This would change the game dramatically, I think.

Fair point Lukas. I know it's been said before, but as both arguments have their relative merits, surely the best solution would be a cross; with some proportional to SC's, and some related to position (25% to the winner).
The other point that seems to have disappeared is why have we changed back to units from SC's?

Diplomacy is a zero sum game, there's only one winner and 6 losers.

With such blatant generalizations and touting personal opinions as facts, it's a wonder we can't come to a consensus on these issues.

Is it possible to hold a vote of the options? Of course, then we'd get into a huge discussion of which items are worthy of voting on...

TeutonicPlague: i vote we ignore you because what you just said actually makes sense.

:)

The main goal of the points as I recall was to encourage losing players to complete games. What if games were set up in two "rooms". Beginner's and Experienced. Anyone can play a game in the Beginner's room. To participate in the Experienced games, you must have finished a minimum number of games and played a minimum percentage of your games to elimination/game end.

we don't need that, remember how the points system helps stop new players from playing in high-stakes games?

Yes, but the point system also alters playing style. My suggestion would have all of the benefits but none of the drawbacks.

umm, no, we would have to have a new point system which would also have some flaws. unless we kept the current point system in your suggestion, which would keep some flaws, not be fixed like you say.