ok, I'm better at the tactics

Both but I get very mean

and tactics includes predicting what others are going to do

Its mostly just because I'm vulgar not cause I care

I consider myself better at tactics.

I would go so far as to say you can only be as good at the diplomacy as you can with the tactics.

"you can with the tactics" should be "you *are*..."

I'm WAY better at diplomacy, and would adamantly disagree with abgemacht. Just finished up a game where mapleleaf consumed five of my units with only two of his own for several seasons, but by keeping good (enough) relations with others, I could afford to be not as good at tactics and still get the job done.

i'm good at lookign atthe forum and talkin on it. but i suck at diplomacy. i think i'm my own group

I have got to play you sometime MM. I'm better with tactics generally speaking which is why I hate playing as Germany.

Thinking it over, I may have to rescind my last statement.

If you're a very good diplomat, you can get by being not as good of a tactician. However, the better the tactician your opponent, the harder it is to rely purely on diplomacy.

But a diplomat who sways a tactician to his side...

I'm better at diplomacy than tactics. I agree with MadMarx that with good diplomacy you can make up for some tactical lapses. I have been playing some gunboats to try to drive up my tactical play some.

I think I'm probably better at tactics but that's not to say I'm not still a diplomatic genius :P

lol but seriously I've pulled off some conversions that I'm pretty proud of, but I find that it's a lot easier to convince someone to back off of you if you can tactically get inside their head and block their moves three turns in a row, know what I mean?

So it works both ways with the two skills supplementing each other.

http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=35369
I'd consider myself pretty good at making stalemates

Someone should uh figure out everyone's average game messages per game to see who likes to diplome the most. Out of the people on this thread anyway no need to go overboard.

for instance madmarx has 23,000 messages for 85-odd games.

i have like... 6,000 for 70. I think that says something.

I noticed that ava has like 4,000 for about 150 games. lol.

so there are different approaches i suppose.

but it is telling that madmarx sends that many fucking messages lol

high pot
http://www.webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=35612

Well, it's on our homepage, so someone *cough*Ghost*cough* could just harvest that number and subtract gunboat games and give it real easily.

Ava mainly plays gunboats, I play a mix of games. I have 6000 for over 100 games, but nearly all were live so not as many messages between players because it's a rush to get orders in to some players.

Untrue. This past month I've played gunboats, regular, public press, both WTA and PPSC, low bet and high bet. Basically a mixture.

iirc, I can't have played more than 10 gunboat games, so that gives me an average of around 150 posts per game.

I play high numbers of live games so my numbers reflect that. The statistic is flawed

Plus, it depends on how you talk. I probably don't write as many messages, but mine can be quite lenghthy.

sometimes I get bored with organizing a stalemate or something and just talk to a player about sports or something else.

We had a thread about messages before, djbent was the queen of messaging, she has 27,427 messages for 63 games. It's not really apples to apples when comparing how much she talks compared to me since I'm a guy, but whatever, suppose I must bow down to her supremacy. ;-)

Bullshit trumps all. You have to have enough tactics to be able to effectively take advantage of your mojo, though.

Tactics. I give myself a B on Tactics and a D on Diplomacy.

I think I'm more of a diplomat. I can't, and can't be arsed, to think too many moves ahead. I rely on playing the balance of power longer-term, which is probably why I draw fairly often but basically never win - my one win on here was handed to me and was probably going to be a draw. On the flipside I joined a 10000 pt game on facebook, taking over a 1 unit CD england, and managed to inveigle myself into a three-way draw by attempting to play powers off against each other. Proudest moment of my dip career

Not that I think I'm that great at either...but I definitely don't rely on my tactical thinking..

This thread is based on an excessively dichotomous view.

There is more to diplomacy than "diplomacy and tactics"

The best categorisation I can come up with is:

Diplomacy - building trust
Diplomacy - convincing
Anticipation
Tactics
Strategy

Though I'm sure I'm missing something there. The usefulness of the skills depends on who you are playing. Against weaker players in tactics and strategy, being convincing is more important, but against strong players, who tend to be immune to persuasion, it borders on irrelevant, for instance.

I used to be heavily dependent on my tactical ability, and then use that to be more convincing arguing for a particular course of action, but over the past couple of years I've evened out a lot, and am now oftentimes sloppy about tactics, having done all the groundwork.

I can remember playing against MarekP when he was at his prime in 2008. His ability in the anticipation, strategy and building trust was legendary. He didn't really try to convince you of anything, and his tactical skills were just ordinary-good, but being brilliant in those 3 areas, he managed to win games without stabbing anyone. It was freaky.

I will humbly say that, tactically and strategically (everything related to unit movement, reading the map balance and the respective decision-making) I'm as good as it gets :P

However, I am really not a good diplomat. Not only due to being lazy (I have the same amount of messages as MM or DJ, having played 4-5 times more games), but because it is not really in my nature to be nice to people when they piss me off :)

I guess my strategy (on a meta-gaming level) is to make others work with me by being too hard to kill. I explained this to my wife once and she said "so, you're role-playing a cockroach"...

Ivo's wife +1

I think I can say that I have more or less the same level as diplomat as a tactician and
I am not on the top on any of them, but I am not at the bottom too. But the name of this game is diplomacy and not tactics, so in the end (unless on gunboats) usually the best diplomat wind (or draws).
I really admire some players here for their diplomatic skills like MM, MarekP, djbent, Babak, Crazyter, BigZombieDude and others that I forgot now and I try to do my best to copy some of them, but I lack the capacity of being so convincing and also the finesse to make someone move in the way you want, but thinking it was his own decision.

My rankings for Ghosts categories

Diplomacy - building trust: C
Diplomacy - convincing: D
Anticipation: C
Tactics: B+
Strategy: B-

For an overall of: C+

My problem is that I fear trying to get one player to stab another, because he might go and tell the other and then join the other to attack me.
Any suggestions? My problem mainly happens when the player I'm talking to is not in an alliance with me.

My ranking in Ghost's system:

Diplomacy-building trust: C+
Diplomacy-convincing: D+
Anticipation: B+
Tactics: A
Strategy: B

Aticipation of moves is B+.
My anticipation of diplomatic changes is B-.

@baumhauer
Accept the risks and try anyway. Worst case scenario, you provoke what was probably going to happen anyway.

Diplomacy-building trust: D-
Diplomacy-convincing: A-
Anticipation: B+
Tactics: A+
Strategy: C

lol

@baumhaeuer - First suggestion is keep talking with everybody, the friends and the enemies during all the game. This make a lot easier to change the alliances when needed.