ok, i won't need it, i was just curious :)

o, 1 other question, how do the teachers learn you things??
because you don't learn much if the teacher tells you what would be the best option every time...

The teachers do not actually talk to the other players. A TA can advise a student on their options and what their moves will probably cause/effect in the game but it is still up to the student to decide what to do and to make allies...plus I am sure you have realized there is no "correct" set of moves in most situations.

And hey, you might want to give it a shot, it might help you finally grab a solo win or 2

Additionally, those not playing in the game or assisting one of the players can follow along in the threads and view the maps and ask questions of the professors posting in the forum threads about anything they're curious about and receive a reply from them.

nah, i have read some posts of the professors but i know how it works allready and i learned absolutely nothing from the posts...

if you don't count i know now my strategies are good...

@Steephie22
I disagree with you on this one. There is really lot to learn from the posts, and my opinion is that you are never to good to learn...even if you are on top, and miles up front from the second guy in line, you have to learn, or sooner or later the second guy will catch you, and then the third guy..and so on. :)

no, i'm not to good to learn but i've seen there's practically nothing to learn in there...
i know my strategies and tactics and if 1 of them doesn't seem to work i can always ask why and ask help to find a new 1...

and i don't say it would hurt but even if i learn something from it, i can also learn it if i ask what went wrong in a game (when it has finished)...

I read those posts for a while and I am really enjoying it. If someone would put those posts in one article and sticky it somewhere it would be one hell of a guide. Recently on vdiplomacy i bumped into conversation: how to play successfully as Italy. Great stuff as well.

yes, they are a good guide for when you notice what are the weak dots in your own tactics/strategies/diplomacy, then you search for something good, so if you don't know how to play succesfull as italy you should talk about it...

i don't want to read those "guides" for hours, i want to play, and i'll see what goes wrong...
like now i'm moving to hol with germany (it's anonymous) but i'm still planning to work with england against france while it's gunboat, in those "guides" they say it's bad to do that but i want to see it myself...
i'm just weird :)

You're not weird... you're ignorant... weird can be cool :)

My 10-year old nephew also wants to be very good at chess without reading anything... it's not really working out.

+1 Ivo. No offense steephie but I looked at your profile and the kettle's empty of wins and not exactly brimming with draws. I got where I am today by reading articles on the Pouch, reading Richard Sharpe, studying the games of others, analyzing my own flaws and thinking about why I do what I'm doing. There's an adage that says "you can't see the forest for the trees" and it's often true. I've studied thousands of games and dozens of articles on top of other things and it has changed my perspective on how I see and play the game. Winners are dynamic, not static.

@ivo: actually i ended 6th in a chess championship when i was 10 years old while everybody in the top was 12-13 years old without reading any books about chess, it works for me...
and there are enough people who think i would otherwise be first but i don't believe that, i wouldn't have been going on with it that long if i was reading chess-books...

And while that may have worked for you in chess it is not working here. I'm not trying to be rude, I'm just pointing out that if your strategies were good you would have at least one win by now.

@jmo - Remember, steephie is like 13 years old. In his mind (as is the case with most early teens) he is invincible and has little, if anything, to learn. The idea of learning by studying is foreign to him. He thinks he will learn by doing and doesn't realize that a crucial mistake in the early going will doom him to disaster in the game such that he will never ever learn the middle and late game which is vital to the win.

Chess and Diplomacy are definitely two different games. There is no aspect that both share. But I agree with steephie that there is practically nothing to learn from such posts. The game has simple rules and is easy to get used to. It just helps though to read such articles. It tells us possibilities and better tactics, but again you could just win by negotiation. So, technically, there is nothing to learn.

steephie, I was joking, didn't intend it to get so serious.

12-13 is a bit too young to start thinking you have the basics figured out... on any subject. You may ne smarter now, but if you don't 'invest' you'll lose this advantage with time

I still strongly disagree with Furball that reading the SoW posts is useless. Part of the goal of the thread is to illicit questions from the community at large. Professors post things they see in the coming seasons as well as commentary on what happened last season and why various moves were good or bad. Not everyone will agree with them but the truth is that the Prof's have a better grasp on the game and have a greater capability to read the board, predict the movements of the players and have greater insights into the game itself, hence their part in the SoW.

It's foolish to simply turn down any piece of information without first examining it and most people could learn something from the insights of the various TA's and Professors. After all, they make up a good cropping of the top players on this site.

Furball, I agree that chess was not a good comparison. Let me try something different:

Some people learn from others' mistakes, some from their own mistakes, some don't learn at all. Make your pick :)

i learn from the mistakes, all mistakes, i look why i won or lost and why other people won and lost, such things...

oh, and 8 of the 9 losses were because i couldn't play online for a few months...

@Furball ''Chess and Diplomacy are definitely two different games. There is no aspect that both share.''

I basically agree, but the Chess tactic of ''removing the guard'', has some application I feel (cutting support etc.)

http://www.chessfornovices.com/chessremovingtheguardexercises.html

true, and with both the starting positions are always the same..
but chess is for 2 players, so there is no diplomacy or anything, you can still influence your enemy by saying "in 10 turns you're down!" to get people nervous but that's not very nice...

enemy=opponent, i couldn't get on the word...