I think the only conclusion you could make regarding correlation that develops looking only at the bottom half of players is that new players are more likely to suck at both :)

Here you go, YJ:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BwH0Gnsrya38dHB6Y2N2U1FFbEE/edit?usp=sharing

Yeah, there's nothing there. No test in the world is gonna give you a correlate.

Maybe I am saying or seeing it wrong. The top chart is the one I am looking at. The players at the left all have a gunboat rating higher than their ghost rating. As the ghost rating increases, it flips. On the far right of the chart only 2 people have higher gunboat ratings than their ghost rating. Does that make sense? Or am I misinterpreting the chart?

@jim

Yes, that's correct, but all that tells us is that getting better at Diplomacy doesn't make you better at gunboat (and vice versa).

@abgemacht: once again, thanks for running this. I appreciate it.

@abgemacht: Hope to play you again soon. Talk to you later.

yeah jim, I see what you are saying. Perhaps that's because many people try press, don't like it (and lose), then stick to (and get good at) gunboat? You are right though that that is dominated by a relatively small subset of players.

Clearly, I've started a bit of a holy war. I didn't realize there was such a divide between the 2 camps. What I've learned from reading all of the well thought out replies is that it turns out I might just be a mediocre player. But my strength is definitely my ability to make friends and press is the only way to do that.

So I still have the question for those who might have felt the way I do during your first GB, that eventually went on to prefer them, what was the appeal? I'm trying to decide whether I should try a few more before giving up on them all together.

aww it's no holy war, I'm just indoctrinating jim into the way we (meaning I) get shit done on the forum. I think there is a prevalent attitude amongst many GB aficionados to not truly recognize the importance of press - namely because it's a skill many of them don't really have. Which is why they play gunboat.

In addition, it explains the contempt, for lack of a better word, that many press players feel for gunboat, vis a vis "gunboat is not real diplomacy," and other such fun statements.

And from that position of supreme arrogance, I will answer your question: the appeal of gunboat is that they aren't any good at the real deal :)

Don't worry phil. I suck at gunboat (especially live gunboat) but am moderately OK at full press and public press. But I won't say gunboat isn't Diplomacy. It is, just with a different means of diploming. That said, what sucks is that you can't talk a person out of their attack and, as has been pointed out already, if you see an opportunity that arises out of apparently nowhere, you can't pounce on it if it needs another player as signaling to them what you want to do may waste a precious turn and leave everyone out of position for trying it the next movement phase.

From a more neutral standpoint, I'd guess that gunboat is faster, requires less emotional energy, and is more appealing to a person who is tactically gifted but no so much diplomatically.

If I ever start to play again, I might give it a shot. Press games are too much stress for your old pal YJ.

I will say I'm not completely satisfied with this data set. It still includes people with vast discrepancies in number of gunboat and classic games played. But, there really aren't enough data to further filter them.

That is true. The camps are truly too well divided to get a real good data set, so you'll see the type of skewing at the extremes that we've noticed.

Abgemacht, is there anyway for you to calculate the live full-press gr for top gunboaters. I know that a number of the top tier gunboaters have played a fair amount of live full-press games, and I have a suspicion that their live- full press gr's will be higher than their gunboat gr's. My live game gr is significantly higher than my gunboat gr and I certainly do not believe that this is due to getting hosed in slow paced gunboats.

For me, I don't have anything against press games. I quite enjoy them. I just don't enjoy lengthy full-press games (have only played one on this site). There are certainly are differences between gunboat and prss, and an aptitude at one certainly does not mean that skill in the other will follow. Still, I have definitely felt that my gunboat experience has positively influenced my press game and even ftf play.

2 cents

@Barn

The only data I have available are here:

https://sites.google.com/site/phpdiplomacytournaments/theghost-ratingslist/ghost-ratings-by-category

We'd have to ask Alderian exactly what each category means. Does Gunboat include Live gunboat games? Does that mean there's an overlap between The Gunboat and the Live categories?

I probably don't have the proper data to answer your question.

Probably right and too much hassle for this anyway.

However, I did notice that the Czech's and Split's live game gr's are higher than their gb gr's (I'd guess gb gr is for all gunboats). So, unless we're all losing a decent amount of gr points on slow paced gbs, something else is bumping them up.