Why do you want to retire TMW?
a. Bored with diplomacy
b. Too busy in real-life
c. Don't like this site anymore
d. other reason (please specify)

good question spyman, only time i think i will ever retire would be b (except for this summer when i go to work and wont have access to the internet, then i will have to stop but im off thursdays and can come home then so i might be able to play a live game or 2 on thursdays then.)

I say we need a new map! Where can we go?

Tons of variants can be found at vdiplomacy.net

i just stick with this site, i never went to the others but im happy with this one so if they want to add variants to this one thats fine but im not going anywhere else to play =)

@mal

vdip is a child site of webdip. It uses the same code, but that's where all of the variants are tried out.

Will new variants ever be added here?

I retired because of B/D: not enough free time and unreliable internet. Both of those have been fixed for me.

Perhaps one or two, but it's not that likely. As far as I know, Kestas wants to leave this site as vanilla as possible. This is partially so that it's stable and partially so that this site is an active version of what is available to all developers.

A and B. Mostly B. Diplomacy is fun, but, honestly, I'm not too good at it. I could probably be decent if I put some serious time into it, but I don't have time. I only play 36 hour turns or longer, and even then I have trouble getting my orders in on time.

And, obviously, mixing it up with liberals on the Forum is pretty damned fun. Even if I do get beat, just by sheer numbers.

At least he admits to being defeated. lol.

TMW: Being "not too good at" something is a perfect reason to continue to improve your skills.

Not if the amount of effort and time it would take to see significant returns is too much to sacrifice. I know a couple of friends who for that very reason decided to retire from the hobby (or at least go on hiatus). If you have the time and energy, then sure, by all means, stay and improve! But if you don't have the resources to get to the level you want to achieve, then it is better not to waste them trying.

If I had the time, I would play some live games, just to get better. I also fliryed with the idea of doing some SoW games, but I decided not to.

*flirted*

Playing live games doesn't really help you improve imo. The majority of people playing them aren't the best on the site. I haven't checked, but I'm sure my record in live games is considerably better than in other games. Personally I took a hiatus over the summer and fall, but Diplomacy is a lot of fun, and now that I have a little more time, I'm back. And the forums are always interesting

@patizcool
Im going to have to disagree with you about live games for a few reasons.

live games are how i learned how to play this game (i never heard of the game before joining this site) and if you check out my record i've gotten alot better because of those live games.

Live games are not always easier than long phase games, it completely depends on what type of players you have in the game. If you want to play a challenging live game then make it passworded and only send passwords to higher ranked players and if you dont want to do that then dont password it but advertise it in the forum on the appropriate thread and you usually get a mix of decent players and noobs with a few good players thrown in.

and last of all, just because you and some other players have good win rates for live games compared to your long phase games doesnt mean its that way for everybody. some people cant think fast enough and put moves in that will work and end up losing or surviving the majority of their live games which is why from your point of view they look like their not a very good player. they could have an amazing record with long phase games and just choke when the game is progressing so fast in the live games.

@ patizcool

I wasn't speculating on the difficulty of live games versus normal games. If you played live games, you would complete more games in a shorter amount of time, which would make you gain experience faster than just sticking to normal or long-phased games.

But, frankly, I don't have the time (or interest) to tie myself to a computer for a couple hours. I'm content with checking in once a day, putting in orders, and getting on with my life.