It sounds like perhaps you have been a gullible fool once too often and been played like a cheap hooker by the blatant liars. Sounds like whining to me...otherwise, you would take advantage of these people with your superior intellect and destroy them...

Have you tried playing Risk?

Or "go fish".

It isn't about superior intellect Krell, it is about the lack of class. Let me give you an example. Ever watch a little show called Survivor? Similar in basic concept to diplomacy. In the end of each season of that show, all the folks that got stabbed and picked off one by one come back on and vote for the winner, typically the player that pissed them off the least when backstabbing them. Gives you a reason to have a little class when backstabbing a fellow player.

Hey, I like playing go fish, don't be knocking go fish!

Unlike Survivor, Diplomacy doesn't let you come back and vote for a winner.

More like Highlander, "There can be only one."

good thing winning in this game has nothing to do with a jury. If you want to begrudge someone lying after you are already dead and the deal is done (ie madmax) feel free, but if you are attacking someone for trying to buy some time after a move to burgundy or the Black Sea then obviously you don't understand the game

But this is not Survivor. The people who are out stay out in this game, and do not get to vote on the winner. As for lack of class, when have you ever seen a classy winner complain about a lack of class, that is right they do not they just punish those who cross them and win.

I agree with you franz...

I was in a game not too long ago where the following happened:

He coordinated with another player to get me to move out of my SC, blamed me for it, offers to leave me alone, only to coordinate with that player again against me, then explains it was to help while claiming he has no interest in my centers then threatens me to remove myself from the very territory he tricked me into entering in the first place using the logic that applies to both of us.

I gave him kudos for the initial trickery, but after that he was basically pissing on me and telling me it was raining.

So yeah, there's cleverness and then there's classlessness.

If you don't fall for it and crush people who do that, then you end up proving to the opponent to learn and try a new tactic. This is why End of Game discussions are valuable.

@Darwyn Just because he was trying to manipulate you, it was pissing you off. All you had to do was say NO. How hard is that? Learn to break out the chainsaw. Grow a pair.

Also, in another game, I was down to one unit and was easily defeatable. I pleaded my case to my neighbor to allow me to survive and help him win. He agreed and we made plans to coordinate.

Then he eliminated me.

I didn't have a problem with the elimination...but there was absolutely no need to go through the motions of making a plan if his intent was to eliminate me.

Do people get off on this? I don't get it honestly.

I can accept defeat and I can commend a good stab...but the senseless lying and deceit is annoying.

+1 fortknox. If the lies are so easy to spot, then don't fall for them. If you are falling for the lies....then blatant or not, they achieved a purpose and you are whining because you came out on the short end. I don't know what the difference is between a baltant, one-statement lie and someone that shmoozes you before knifing you in the back. You honestly feel better about losing if I sweet-talk you first? Geesh...Again, mad because you fell for the blattant one-liner lie that dangled the too-good-to-be-true promise.

By the way, I got the sweeeet deal on a bridge...right in your price range. Any takers??

Czech, this of course is very generalized explanation. I did break out the chainsaw.

@Darwyn - sometimes a last unit can be pesky....and sometimes they can be a usable pawn doing ill on your behalf. And then sometimes plans change and you just kill them. Unless you were in the mind of the person manipulating you (key words...) then you really have no idea what the motivation was to string it out...and you didn't have to fall for it, either.

I think OP isn't complaining about the lies that make him lose ground, it's the unnecessary ones (lies with no advantage?) that are pissing him off. I don't necessarily buy it, but that is the claim he's making. More likely the liar in question feels there IS an advantage to lying. Some people fall for obvious shit.

Look ppl, this is a game, not the Republican primary. The point of a game is to enjoy yourself and have fun, right? I've played boardgames for 30 years now and when playing in person people are a lot more respectful to each other. Also, and most importantly people that play in regular groups quickly learn who the classless liars are and that tag follows them around the group in whatever game they are playing. Not sure if that is expressly forbidden here under the category of meta-gaming.

I wanna play a game with you guys ;-)

"If you don't fall for it and crush people who do that"

I agree with you, but in my particular instance, it was 2 v 1 and no one had interest in helping me, they had their own problems. And honestly, they had no reason to back off and not eliminate me (I surely would have acted the same and crushed me)...it was the attempt at blaming me for the action I took that he originally tricked me into doing.

Like someone convincing you to "move to X"...so you do and then next turn they say "you idiot, why'd you move there!?" then they say "I was helping", then they use logic that applies exactly to you.

"and you didn't have to fall for it, either. '

There wasn't really much to fall for...I had one unit.

"it's the unnecessary ones (lies with no advantage?) that are pissing him off." Yes, this.

Darwyn, I too had a similar game where Russia was utterly dominant by spring of 04. Both Turkey and Austria NMR'd and Russia grew by 6 supply in winter of 03. It was on another board where you can propose any winning alliance so i proposed a Russian victory and encouraged remaining players to vote for it. Russia voted no and swore to me for the next 4 turns that he wanted a draw with me because it looked good in his stats. It was obvious that he was lying from his moves but no matter how often i insisted i was ready to concede he would not have it. I understand your frustration.

I don't see the point of these complainy threads. You know very well that the manly men of diplomacy are just going to tell you that there is no such thing as etiquette, right? So why bother.

Why shouldn't there be etiquette Putin? Just about every society, every group, gentleman's club organization, etc in the history of humanity has rules of etiquette and ostracizes those who refuse to follow. Why shouldn't a Diplomacy game group?

The etiquette you want isn't in the rules. You want a new rule that states no lying just for fun. Seems tarded to me.

Uhh yeah, franzjosefi.... Diplomacy already has rules. Backstabbing and lying are part of them.

I would like to see the cross-gaming definition modified so that it isn't a violation of the rules to use previous experience with someone that has proven over time to be completely untrustworthy. In order to be a good backstabber one must occasionally tell the truth.

Play anon games or password you games. Problem solved.

I understand your frustration and I try to avoid pointless lying where I can, but... it's hard to determine if you really need to lie sometimes. I find that players (myself included) tend vastly to underrate the potential damage their one or two pieces can cause, so of course from that perspective you think that it's stupid and rather shitty for people to lead on a player with so little left who has convinced *himself* he can't do anything to hurt the big bad guy. And perhaps, on the other end, people overdo it because they overrate the potential damage the piece(s) can do.

In these situations it helps -- both sides -- to step back and look at what the other's situation is, as best one can, and assess from there. Eliminators, try to use more discretion in the stabs; eliminatees, try to recognize how threatening you can be.

*discretion in the deceit, rather, not the stab.

One of the best things about this game is the freedom it gives you to inject you personality and play as you see fit. Could you imagine how boring it would be if everyone played with the same standards of behaviour? I like to play with a sense of honour, fairness, and high degree of honesty that I have found serves me well. Others enjoy being complete bastards. This is all to the good :)

"I would like to see the cross-gaming definition modified so that it isn't a violation of the rules to use previous experience with someone that has proven over time to be completely untrustworthy. In order to be a good backstabber one must occasionally tell the truth."

Wait, what? Everybody does this. You can't help it. If a certain guy you play with has shown himself to be honorable, cooperative, deceitful, or even predictable in previous games, you're going to adjust your strategy accordingly. That's just common sense, and nobody is going to call that metagaming. Don't like it? Take Czech's advice and anon your games.

for the record, I do not advocate any sort of rule changes or the establishment of an official etiquette...I'm just venting. :)

Those people who I described will be remembered.