People make moves all the time that screw other people, out of strategy, out of spite, out of a desire to take someone down with them. I don't see how you really can constrain them *not* to do this without basically changing the basis of the game and turning it into chess.

Since no one is obligated to keep any agreements, allowing your enemies a free shot at you *has* to be allowed - even if it is a rather weenie-ish move

Agreed...like the other thread, yet another dick move, but completely within his rights unfortunately.

Even in chess you can choose to be a poor or diabolical sport and lose on purpose...

Jerkish but not something that can (or should) be prevented.

The ability and the willingness to throw a game is a key ingredient in the development of a player. Every elite player that I know has thrown a game at one time.

One of the most important reasons for this is that if you have a high predictability that you will always fight against the leader then your neighbors will rarely respect your centers and will nibble you to death abusing the theory that you HAVE TO fight the leader.
If on the other hand the other players know that when pushed you can and have thrown a game then it may act as a deterrent to being treaded on.

General Ireland,

If you are referring to me and to the game Gondolin, let me reassure you that as far as I was concerned we had no alliance.

I hope that makes you feel better.

BW

General_Ireland.
Posting his abondonment on the global, was a very fair way of doing it. And since it will cause the other players to react in a VERY predictable manner, you SHOULD be able to bennefit. Even though not as much!

I realize that it's not against the rules. Otherwise I would have been more outraged, but it doesn't change the fact that it put me in a very compromising situation. And instead of leaving supply centres open on purpose, why not CD and make other people work for supply centres. Not to mention give someone else who might want to take over for you a chance to play.

I'm not trying to insult this player, who shall remain nameless, I am merely suggesting that this was unfair due to the fact that I had no shot at any of those supply centres, and therefore it put me at an immediate disadvantage, even moreso than I was already facing. Now that countries that I am having conflict with have more centres and therefore more builds, it has basically ruined any chance I might have had at being a legitimate threat in the game. As for the alliance, it wasn't so much that I was allied with this person as it was that they were warring with players that I was also having conflicts with, which means that they took some of the focus off of going after me. Now that the distraction is not there for the people who want to wipe me off the face of the map, they will be able to focus on going after me instead.

Regarding EdiBirsan's comment, I can understand the point of your argument, and certainly will not dispute your opinion, being that you are a highly experienced and skilled member of the Diplomacy community. Far be it from me to argue with someone who has far more Diplomacy savvy than I ever could hope to or will have. However, regardless of the strategic merits of doing such a thing, I find it immoral to do something that is not fair to ALL parties involved in the game.

I suppose I do not understand this move because I try to stick it out to the bitter end in games that I am losing, because I enter games to play them and to have fun, not to leave when I feel things are not going my way, and especially not in that manner. I just feel that going CD and letting someone else take over for you is the better thing to do, as it does not put people at so much of a disadvantage.

Perhaps there should be some sort of way that you can voluntarily civil disorder to leave a game, while simultaneously alerting all interested players that there is a new game they can join. That way, someone else can pick up right where they left off, and the game can run it's natural course, instead of there being easily obtainable supply centres available when they normally would not be so.

I know you can CD already, and the games do show up in the "joinable" section, but normally that takes a couple of turns of not entering any orders, I mean perhaps there could be a command to type or a link to click that automatically puts you into CD.

Nope. I don't think any such system should be implemented. Diplomacy is intended for players to play till the end. Such an option would ruin the game mechanics.

General, this is a legitimate strategy, and actually, one I applaud and am in the process of threatening to do in one of my games.

Say you are facing a major two way alliance that have dominated the board - for the sake of argument, a juggernaut (R/T). As England, you have conquered all of France, but cannot possibly hold off both players, who are in the early teens in terms of centre numbers.

Threatening to hand the game to one of the players, and telling both that you will do it as an attempt to break their alliance is a perfectly good strategy. Start to put it into practice, and often you get the other clamouring for you to stop, and you can get some decent terms.

It is very much a strategy of last resort. If you are going to be beaten by overwhelming numbers, what else can you do? Whilst you survive, you can live to fight another turn.

However, if the player is doing it simply because he can't be bothered to play and wants to leave the game, well, that would be frowned on.

You need to make a distinction between the two though.

Nope, nothing wrong with throwing a game, I've had this done to me recently. Of course, I knew that it was going to happen and had already accepted the outcome. It is a perfectly acceptable thing to do. I am a player that believes a player in diplomacy is allowed to employ whatever strategy pleases him. The only restriction in the game is how pieces may move. Everything else is fair game.

As the player in question who did the abandoning, I am coing from the point of view that going CD is not an acceptable thing to do. I hate the time gets wasted and the opportunity for people to bring their second or third multi accounts into a game, which actually would have you in an even more compromising position.

I take your point on board that moving out of position also has it's down sides though.

Hopefully I won;t end up in a game so tedious I prefer to disappear rather than see it through.

"However, regardless of the strategic merits of doing such a thing, I find it immoral to do something that is not fair..."

I always spit milk out my nose. This is diplomacy after all, where the basic premise is to lie, cheat, connive, convince, threaten, cajole, feint and sneak your way to victory. And you want to complain that something is immoral?

almost spit, not always

Something IS immoral...like multi-accounting and metagaming.

I don't think giving up your centers to whoever wants them and multi-accounting can be compared.

I know. But it is immoral, which defeats your above point that you cannot complain about immorality in Diplomacy.

As for the SC-giving, I hate seeing it, and I never use it, but I recognize its legality in Diplomacy.

I think it's a legitimate move. Reputation is important in a community of diplomacy players, and letting people know that you will actually follow through on threats to do things like this can certainly have it's uses.
Also people knowing you're willing to do things out of spite to take someone else down with you, can also be a powerful diplomatic weapon.
It falls under that category of Brinksmanship in my mind, where you make your opponent believe you're just crazy enough to do things that won't benefit you in the long run, just to get at them. It's a real world strategy, and one that works well in Diplomacy.
I can see why you're upset it happened to you, but honestly, no there isn't a punishment for it, and there shouldn't be, it's a legitimate long term strategy.

I suppose that there is truth in all these statements, perhaps I should be a little more understanding. I guess it upset me because i am hard-pressed to gain points in many of my games, and this just puts me in a hole. But I guess them's the breaks. Thanks for all of your opinions and discussion folks :)! Who knows, given the comments in this thread, I may even employ this strategy to test its merits when the appropriate time comes ;).