@mr brown --- I was a face to face, board game diplomer for 30 years, and frankly while I do play WTA games here, I prefer PPSC somewhat, though it's not a big deal. My point to people that ask, is that WTA is just as much of a variant as PPSC. In real board Diplomacy, there are no points to "take all" of. Further, the vast, vast majority of all of the FTF board Diplomacy games I have ever played did not end in a winner but a draw whether due to people being tired after 6 hours or just a genuine stalemate ... in trying to come up with a system for a website to guage how players are doing, the points and PPSC are not perfect by any means, but really that terrible. I don't really see the PPSC issue as being one for beginners either, as beginners get replenished to 100

anyway when they lose. Anyway, I will continue to play both variants here (WTA and PPSC), I just like to chime in whenever it seems to be suggested (maybe you weren't intending this) that WTA is the "real" game, because it is not