Don't discuss games in progress.

Why not?

It's bad form to discuss games in progress. There's nothing that says you need any justification at all to stab someone. It's never fun to be on the receiving end of any stab, whether or not you deem it reasonable, but be mature and don't take it to the forums unless it's an actual breach of rules. The reasons you think you've been betrayed are not necessarily the real reasons, and complaining or insulting the other player is rarely a productive diplomatic technique.

Naw, this is Diplomacy. There's no rule that you can't discuss games in progress. Seriously, stop imposing your bizarre, subjective beliefs onto the rest of us. :/

Man, this place is not that good, is it? I mean, people here think metagaming is a problem!

Just gonna play private games with people I know can actually play from now on.

Very, very unimpressed with the culture here. What Would Richard Sharp Do?

looks like you dont know the rules either talking about me =P

He wouldn't discuss games in progress.

Clearly you don't recognize that there are some differences between online play and F2F play.

That's not necessarily true. I'm not a big fan of metagaming or the like, but plenty of online Dip systems support varying degrees of "anything goes"... The old "Ken Lowe" online judge supported cheating to the point that you could order "FAKE_PRESS" commands. Come to think of it, the later DPjudge spinoff (which is nearly as "onlline" as a site like this, compared to the KL e-mail system) even lets you fake the sender of the message.

People around here would have an aneurysm over anything approaching many of the legit Dip tactics. Again, I'm not a fan of many of them, but you can't really make a blanket statement about online play versus F2F.

Problem is in the internet age, it would be too easy to send fake press, no way to tell it from the original, that the game would essentially change from a simple board game to one that was totally dependent on the technology it was built on. Sending notes in altered handwriting was always a staple of the original board game, but its too easy online. Stealing someone's order sheet and changing it could happen too - but again, encouraging people to either hack the site or steal a password totally changes the game from a simple board game to whoever is the better hacker. (Don't get me wrong, that would be fun, but it wouldn't really be Diplomacy per se.)

As for discussing games in progress, I think there were a few variant games here recently that dealt with that. I think the reason for the prohibition (I'm not sure if its a prohibition or just considered bad form) is because the game is supposed to be a match of wits between 7 players. If each of those 7 players was asking the community for advice, then whatever country is strategically best would win (If a computer ran all 7 countries, what country wins most frequently??) Personally, I like the idea of learning from my failures, but even with getting advice, talking to other players is more than half the game, convincing or threatening them, etc, so even with getting advice, not sure how much good it actually does you. Getting advice, or talking about ongoing games, would seem to work well only with gunboat games.

What of there is a juggernaut you need to stop, and you take a screenshot of your chat tab with turkey, then change what he said and make it look like he's going to stab Russia. And then when you're done, you send it to russia, and they both kill each other? Is that frowned upon?

what if*

No, but given that nobody has every tried to send me a screenshot, the overkill would make me very suspicious indeed.

@Acosmist- You've been here less than a month and don't want to follow the conventions and standards of decency and sportsmanship set out by the members of the community. I suppose you don't drive 20 miles an hour through school zones either. If you don't like the community, here's the virtual door. Don't let it hit your ass on the way out.

@NPRZ - so what would the equivalent of meta-gaming and talking about a current game in the forum be for FtF? that's where i see the difference. and wouldn't they both be prohibited or considered in bad form?

Draugnar, I must admit I find your comments incredibly funny. Considering you've threatened to quit here a dozen times in the last week because you didn't like the community. Pot, meet kettle.

@Draugnar: There are people who drive 20 miles an hour through school zones?

hahahahahaha, emperorjake. however, i agree completely with draugner and considering the jerkish and arrogant attitude acosmist has been displaying I wouldn't mind seeing him banned. but, sadly, I do not have the authority to do that, and the mods are smarter than I, and will thus not ban him.

okay, thought I'd reply to this.
Acomist, please remember that global chat is now public, so we can all read your little flame war. Precious. Also, though Italy may have betrayed you because he wanted you to do something impossible, the reason you lost that game is poor diplomacy. Germany and Turkey were attacking you at the same time. That's why.

Yeah it's a bit like calling five friends during a break in f2f asking for advice what to do...

You can do it... but it's kind of... well... sad. :P

But I am definitely all for what some people call "cheating," stealing orders sheets, sneaking around. The things I don't abide by in f2f are real-world threats of things like blackmail or physical harm. Not that those aren't real tactics... I just hate to use them myself because that's more rude than anything. But stealing an order sheet? Definitely. Using spies? Most definitely. Even what some people here would call "meta-gaming," things like using a third party to go spy or an eliminated player, or putting small microphones in areas... this is all just fine by me. It's your discretion how much of that you want to use.

To the reference about hacking the site and how it would just become hacking skill. You're right, and I basically agree, but the same could be said for f2f its just about someones skill in sleight of hand for stealing orders sheets or forgery or something. So yeah. I'm on the fence but I lean in favor of the metagame.

DJ, to be fair, Draugnar was on medication.

Is the Global chat visible for everyone? I thought it was only meant to be/only was mods who saw it.

@TGM - Yes global chat is now visible (if you know where to look).

*is on*, not "was on"

I only unreservedly oppose multi-account shenanigans and making deals in one game to achieve some result in another unrelated game (simply because the other players aren't on an equal footing since they probably aren't in both games). I don't like many of the other tactics but I see them as legitimate options (I follow the general "community conventions" so I'm speaking theoretically here).

@djbent: I've played face-to-face Dip in the presence of fairly large groups of friends (and beers) before, where everybody was commenting on the game. I don't see the difference between that and forum comments about a game in progress. Shoot, if I was this person's opponents, I'd be watching the thread very closely for clues about what he might be thinking and doing, and what sort of advice he was getting. It cuts both ways.

@Dingleberry & Thucydides: I like that you both brought up falsifying orders, I nearly mentioned it in my post. I've played exactly one F2F game where we tried that and nobody liked it much. "Manual" order resolution is complicated enough without the additional confusion it creates. But it makes a fantastic example of the extremes that are considered allowable.

ermmm ag7433 correcting TheGhaistMaker's post. Are you two multi-accounting lol :)

ag7433: Yes, but he also *was on* even though he still *is on* and the *was on* is relevant to the behaviour when he *was on* and that is why I used *was on* not *is on*.

In other words, was on *was right*, and, for that matter *is right*.

I can't see why global chat shouldn't be visible to everyone.

"Acomist, please remember that global chat is now public, so we can all read your little flame war."

That was the point, genius! :golfclap:

"looks like you dont know the rules either talking about me =P "

Yeah, it's not a rule at all. Whoops! Keep digging!

"He wouldn't discuss games in progress."

He does, in his book. Read?

"@Acosmist- You've been here less than a month and don't want to follow the conventions and standards of decency and sportsmanship set out by the members of the community. I suppose you don't drive 20 miles an hour through school zones either. If you don't like the community, here's the virtual door. Don't let it hit your ass on the way out."

How welcoming! What a cheerful place!

It's "Acosmist", folks. Not that hard. WAIT are you being rude by not calling me by my name? Man, you should totally be banned for that. obvobvobv

What a galling gaggle of retards.

"How welcoming! What a cheerful place!"

Welcome :)
Not sure which cave you crawled out of, but when in Rome do as the Romans do. Ongoing games are not discussed here.

"He wouldn't discuss games in progress."
"He does, in his book. Read?"

Do you know how space/time works? Or you read the book while he was writing it and playing the games at the same time? :)

+1 Ivo

It's a battle of sarcasm now! May the most abrasive cynic win! $10 says that Acosmist continues to maintain the facade of arrogant acerbic aloofness (I can alliterate too!) while bitterly bemoaning betrayal (Wow!). This one is still my favourite though, "I guess you can be too smart for your own good."

Welcome! Despite your mammoth ego, you seem like an intelligent fellow, and perhaps you'd care to participate in some of the more off topic discussions and offer your opinions in debates. We've had caustic participants before. =P

"Do you know how space/time works? Or you read the book while he was writing it and playing the games at the same time? :)"

Wow. "Indeed, looking at that position now, over three real years later, I can’t believe that I failed to win it. Still, it’s not over yet." Chapter Five, The Game of Diplomacy. You're welcome. djbent, this is probably not going to thrill you. Sorry! Can't please everyone.

OK, Acosmist is officially a troll. Everyone stop responding to him.

I don't know about everyone else, but I'm finding this pretty entertaining. This game sure attracts a broad spectrum of people.

:/ Because I cited the book that proves my point? Man up already.

Oh Furor you'd like that wouldn't you

I have incontrovertible proof that Furor once remembered the log-in name of a person he had been playing with, and entertained a thought about that person in a subsequent game. I'm not saying we need to bring in the Feds on this one, but, I think he bears watching for further shenanigans.

This is madness; my shenanigans have never borne watching.

furtive-whispering-about, then

is talking about ongoing games in general terms ok

like man I wish that dude would finalize, :shakes fist:

like man i'd wish that dude would STFU and play his games :shakes head:

oh I know, don't even TELL me about that one guy, seriously get off the forum and play amirite folks?

I'm giving 3:1 odds now.

If your question is legit, general terms are generally considered generally OK. :) You can even ask about move as long as you don't point out the game and you use either anonymous references or similar situations not on the board (i.e. France vs. Germany somewhere on the border to represent Austria vs. Russia on their border).