Separate, but equal. That's what I always say!

So the cutthroats vs. the carebears?

Mo, you should all follow my creed- aim for fun rather than victory. For fun a game must be challenging - so high quality opponents but not so high that you have no hope of winning. For fun a victory must not be cheap, (because if you want to claim victory and make it easy then i suggest you try this variant: http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~orathaic/multiswebdip/ )

So play to win, but do only because winning is fun. Play for fun. Enjoy coming so close that you really want another shot against the same opponents. Convert those with childish notions about winning, because they are the same people who are willing to cheat. Convert them of ban them!! (and i'm usually so nice and moderate...:? )

If there is a CD at start of the game or more than one I will call for cancel/draw.But at the same time still enter orders as I won't let my postion be ruined by others around me not calling for cancel/draw.If the CD is on other side of board will try and put myself in postion to stop the benefitting party/parties.If I'm the one who beniefits and others in game won't cancel.I will take of advantage of it and when they realize what is happening and call for draw/cancel I will draw/ cancel.

Firstly, an NMR mode where the game would be delayed once and then paused while a replacement was found rather than progressing without orders would alleviate this, would it not?

But as it is now, how do you propose the segregation? I already perform some self segregating by playing tourneys and the occasional invite only game.

I suppose you could create a published whitelist of people who have pledged to cancel (or draw) a game that is "ruined" under very specific circumstances. For example, a single CD or two NMRs (regardless of which countries) in first three years? And if you sign up for the list and then break it you go on a blacklist. Others that refuse to cancel or draw a game could be nominated for the blacklist.

But then you'd still have to vet the players of each game you join. And that only works if you are the last player. So instead it would mean more forum announced games where you PM the invite if the person is in "good standing".

Doable but somewhat annoying to manage. Another way?

@ PigInZen

Nonono. The carebears can go and drown in a pool of their own kindness. Its more Honourable Cutthroats vs (trying to think of a non insulting term for the other side.... ah... sod it) Scum Cutthroats.

@ Alderian

I'm sure there is another way that people more intelligent than myself can devise if they so wish. I'm really just trying to find out whether such a system (assuming it worked)would bring with it great benefits, or whether it would be the most pointless and harmful innovation since the EU

Vetting players for password-protected games amounts to such segregating.

Beats me how anyone could derive any satisfaction from winning simply because of NMRs and CDs.

Besides, I must say I'm rather shocked how many solos people can rack up here. Solos are fiendishly tough with good players. But some have 30% solo rates and such. That's just not a rate even the best of players can attain against sound opposition.

Indeed, one can well make the argument that solos should NEVER happen. Them happening presents some form of human failure another was able to exploit.

But we all like to see solos, so some human failure is to be welcomed. It should however come from imperfect play rather than NMRs - let alone CDs.

Here you incidentally have another divide: There are thoose who believe NMRs are the bane of the hobby - no ifs or buts. And then there are those who consider them (to some degree or other) integral to the game.

In my GMing of my variants, I've let my abhorrence of NMRs guide me. So I grant limited grace periods and, failing that, replace players and delay deadlines. A strict no-NMR policy.

But some think this removes opportunity from the game. It does. Some believe a limited scope for NMRs is to be welcomed.

I think these are both legitimate approaches to the game.

But the win-at-all-costs-and-under-any-circumstances attitude is a perversion of the latter mild tolerance of NMRs. I have no sympathy for that school.

>>> I'm really just trying to find out whether such a system (assuming it worked)would bring with it great benefits, or whether it would be the most pointless and harmful innovation since the EU

Are you a card-carrying member of UKIP? Sounds like it.

If you play against quality players, they almost never CD, so this problem seems to solve itself.

I'm with Alderian regarding a force delay for a NMR.

If there is a CD early in the game, I always motion to draw/cancel. If for some reason people didn't want to and I started benefiting, I probably wouldn't agree to it later, tbh. With me, cancels and draws aren't standing invitations. They come and go.

If someone CDs late in the game, I would be in favor of drawing. I may finish off a small player who was about to go anyway, but it would really depend on the situation.

@ Charlesf

Nah, but Nigel Farage gave me a rather nice bottle of plonk a few months ago so i thought i'd return the favour :D

I'm of the opinion that the NMR is part of the game, in the same way that the rules allow for mistaken orders - though this site does not support such a thing.

If you are on the verge or a solo but being stalemated and you 'fake' an NMR you are in a better position to then break through... I think this is a valid part of the game and would hate to see it curtailed.

I believe that solos are much more common in PPSC than WTA. In PPSC you often have a second country that is just playing for second place. Or even countries that won't stop a solo because they'll get more points surviving than drawing. I really wish the win/draw/eliminated/survive stats were separated for PPSC and WTA.

(Note I put eliminated above surviving. If you survive a WTA game then it was partly your fault that someone won. If you were eliminated then you can at least say "I told you so!")

I also believe that a lot of solos are the result of NMRs/CDs. And not just early game ones that should be canceled/drawn. How would you feel if you had a good shot at soloing and one of the grand alliance against you goes and CDs. Do you draw because they might have stopped you if not for that? Or do you push on because maybe you still could have won and that shouldn't be taken away?

So this site does have a lot of solos. But less so in good quality games.

I agree with what Alderian was proposing. A Whitelist -blacklist would be a good idea. It would also introduce racism because the whites won't play with the blacks, but its a good idea in principle

Well, we could call it the Honourable Cutthroats list and the Scum Cutthroats list.

PPSC ain't normal Diplomacy. It's basically a variant.

Agreed. Unfortunately, it is the default for setting up a game and is included in the stats (along w. all other variants).

>>> And not just early game ones that should be canceled/drawn. How would you feel if you had a good shot at soloing and one of the grand alliance against you goes and CDs. Do you draw because they might have stopped you if not for that? Or do you push on because maybe you still could have won and that shouldn't be taken away?

In pbem-Diplomacy, you don't by default put a power in CD. In fact, a replacement is sought for even the least consequential position. At least in my circles.

This whole site is a variant, the ease with which you can see what moves are possible (what you are able to enter) is great for newbies who are learning, but it means you can't 'accidentally' make some mistakes (though you can still support the other way around, or move to vienna instead of venice and claim it was a mistake... ) or order a unit to the moon - which i believe caused some trouble in cases where it was important whether the unit was moving and thus inelligble for support to hold...

Here you have to unanimously agre to a pause and then search for the replacement... rather than the pause being automatic...

@orathaic

Well, it's a variant because the turns aren't 15 minutes. So is PBeM.

@abge: you can play with 15 minute turns in pbem, or here... :( in fact i'm shocked to hear that you don't!

heh I understand. But, even that's a variant.

OK, i've come to a (biased) conclusion.

Segregation is bad because it reduces my pool of possible players and does not force the issue to be considered/confronted by both sides.

Also 'Scum Cutthroats' are wrong because they value winning over fun. (they might aswell win against a bunch of robots who only enter move orders...) The game is supposed to be fun, if you're playing to win but having no fun then you're wasting your time.

I'm with orathaic--play to have fun. Wins and points come later. I always hit cancel if there is a NMR/CD in 1901, even if I am the one benefiting from it.

I sometimes forget that people don't exclusively play live anonymous gunboats, as I do, but I'll offer my two cents for that particular situation.

I would never vote to cancel (a LAG). I see no reason to not draw it amongst the players who are actually left. That way everyone wins a little bit, and the CD is punished. But I usually won't draw with one CD at the start of a game, because that doesn't throw the game too much - everyone knows to pounce on him and to fight the people that are gaining from it. With two CD's, especially with two close ones, like Austria and Russia, for example, I would definitely vote to draw, because Turkey will almost certainly win.

The bigger problem to me is CD's in the middle of a game - when someone unpredictably CD's in the middle, if they have a significant amount of SC's, they almost always throw the game, and do so badly. I perfect example is the game (that I should have won :-P ) that I just finished. In that case I will always vote draw.

I agree with you mostly Mr. Smiles except I don't think everyone knows what you think they do. There are a lot of beginner players in LAGs we love so much. Why do you not partake in longer games?

excuse my ignorance what is a NMR?

NMR = No Moves Recieved

NMR = no moves received.

Technically the Diplomacy rule book (as I understand it) says if a player doesn't turn in orders within the allowed timeframe, their country is in Civil Disorder, all units hold, certain rules apply to disbands, and another person not already in the game can take over if the original player is missing in action.

This website handles things a bit differently.

First, if a player brings up a the game in their browser but doesn't change any orders from hold to something else, that still counts as orders being received.

Second, the first time they do not even bring up the game during a particular phase, then all units hold. If it was a retreat or build/disband phase then the same rules apply. But the country is not up for grabs yet. On this website we refer to that as an NMR rather than Civil Disorder.

Lastly, if a player NMRs twice in a row, then the country is up for grabs and is considered in Civil Disorder.

Reasonable, but slight variation from the standard rules (as I understand them.)

I don't see any feasible way to punish players that go CD except (and this is a coding issue) punish them by docking them 50% of their points on each offense within 30days and an account suspension if 2 happen in a 30day period.

i think the phrase NMR comes from mail/email based diplomacy where (unlike in a face-to-face game) it was not obvious why the NMR occured.... Whereas in a f2f game you would see that the person had left the room/fallen asleep/gotten drunk,,,or whatever.

Different method of play result in different mechanisms being used to rectify the situation. Here we don't allow someone to take over before the turn has been processed (as would be possible in Pbem games where a human adjudicator would be able to stop the game immediately upon realising that someone had NMR'd and if possible find a replacement to play...)

Here it would be possible to code a one phase pause if someone NRM'd and look for a replacement in that time, that may be better than the current solution...

Here's an idea that I think could help address these issues, and I apologize if I do a terrible job of explaining it.

Allow players to "tag" other players.

Each account's tag would be invisible to other players. However, once an account has created a bunch of tagged players, the account holder could then create games that are open only to players that the account holder has tagged.

Like how the new games list only shows games that you have enough points to enter, when an account holder who has been tagged enters the new game lobby, games created by someone who has tagged that person would show up in the game list. Conversely, if an account holder has not been tagged, the game would not show up in the game list.

You could even take it a step further and have an option to only show games in which the game creator and the game entrant have mutual tags.

Anyway, hopefully, that's enough of an explanation to convey the gist of the idea. Have at it.

That's a cool idea, but seems overly complex for a site that aims to be simple.

It really has the same effect of advertising a game in the forum and only giving the PW to people you know.

It would probably be pretty complex to code (I know nothing about coding other than some rudimentary knowledge of Drupal) but once implemented I think it would be pretty simple to operate and would definitely avoid the hassle of having to post to the forum and then individually PM people.

In any event, I'm just throwing the idea out there.

It wouldn't be *that* hard to code. But, as this is a free hobby site, the ROI needs to be very, very high. Although cool, I don't think it really meets the threshold.

Plus, I feel there is already enough segregation on this site. Making it easier will only make it harder to branch out and discover new players.

Been thinking about it over night (yes, I really didn't have anything better to do... quite tragic, I know) and thought of a possible way of doing it. A voluntary code of conduct could be drawn up and posted somewhere on this site (perhaps in the FAQ section) with a password stuck on the end, and any game that wants to follow said code uses that password and has the word CoC in the title.

Should be easy enough to implement and only suffers from the bloody huge problem of getting people to agree on the size of the CoC, what is and isn't good sportsmanship etc etc. Violating the CoC in a pro CoC game would be considered cheating and a punishable offense (The mods love extra work, so I'm sure they'd be in favour :) ).

It could be that doing this will just reduce the number of people willing to play the game, and make them bloody hard to get started, or it might even encourage a few extra players to join in who otherwise would have stayed away. Either way its almost worth doing purely for the chance of coming up with game titles containing humourous uses of the word CoC :).

"I feel there is already enough segregation on this site. Making it easier will only make it harder to branch out and discover new players."

True.

But as a player who presently seems to exist in the ghetto of webdiplomacy, something that would allow me to quickly distinguish the wheat from the chaff would be greatly appreciated.

Had to do it.
http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=44373

speaking of which... here's my attempt to get out of the ghetto

http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=44318

PM me for the password.

@ Lando:

I just don't like to play long drawn out games. It forces me to check the site practically hourly, if they're not gunboats. If all I play are live games, I can sign off and forget about this site for a month, and then come back and resume, if I want to. As for gunboats, I just don't think you have enough time to communicate in a live game unless you're face to face.

@oskar

if you play WTA games, you'll attract better players.

@ ☺ : are 10/15 minute live games enough to not have to gunboat them?

there are a few three player variants which require less talking now available on olidip! i'm not sure if they are any good, because they havne't been playtested very much... but i think they are different and fun.

@ abge...

I just got finished playing a ton of WTAs. Each involved some shenanigans resulting from CDs which ended up causing the game to be won by the player who benefited most from the CDs and not because of their strategy.

I decided to try a couple PPSCs thinking at least I'd be able to pick up some points even if the game gets screwed up by a CD.

one other thing, the forum works so long as you are in the habit of checking it. For instance, I almost missed the message of two players responding to a different thread saying they were interested in the game I'm putting together.

I think one can fix the purist's problem by having the purists use password protected games and only play each other.
I am a purist, and I should really start doing the password thing.

@ Orth:

No, not really. And the people playing them tend to be new, and don't communicate as much as I would like anyway.