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Pea posted:Diplomacy - Come for the backstabs, stay for the critical joke analysis. The game has no actual concept of alliances and ends either when one person has 18 stars with that person being the sole winner or when all remaining players agree to a draw. If things continue as they are, Germany will reach 18 provinces by taking all those yellow land provinces and England will be equally as much of a loser as France. England's motivation for attacking Germany is therefore to avoid losing in a year or two. Germany can probably get to 18 this year if they attack England, so their motivation is winning - it doesn't matter if England can react next year because the game will be over.
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May 14, 2020 07:49
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forget 
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I still think it's practically impossible for Germany and England to eliminate Turkey without one of them losing the game. Almost certainly England losing to Germany at this point. Overall I consider Turkey's position to be about equal to England right now: neither has any realistic chance at a solo left, but they also can't realistically be eliminated. I guess an AEG tie is possible but it's now very unlikely and would by be extremely hard to engineer without giving Germany the win. It'd be more than a dozen turns worth of potentially game-losing effort on England's part just for not having Turkey in their 3-way tie so I don't see why they'd do it, but maybe possibly they can if they want to. I am reasonably sure that an EG 2-way is impossible unless one of them intentionally concedes: for a 2-way they must split evenly on a 17 SC stalemate line, and I believe they all go through the Mediterranean and require Germany to get fleets in positions similar to what Turkey have right now. Germany can't possibly do that, so any 17/17 SC split they end up with after AT are eliminated is unstable and will become an 18/16 SC split where one of them wins. Of course, I also thought the game had 35 SCs total until 5 pages ago so I might be full of poo poo here, but I honestly don't think a 2-way can be done if both Germany and England are playing to win. Obviously Turkey doesn't feel that their position is as strong as England's, however much I might think it is. And, sure, they're currently getting crumpled. What should they do in this position? I think the inevitable conclusion to this line of play is that Germany wins and England loses. If I was playing Turkey in this position, I would consider the goal of all my moves to be convincing England to agree with me on that. I'd try to do this by pointing out the current EG power imbalance and the lack of any reasonable ways for him to reach a 17 SC tie. If that didn't work, I'd try to intentionally throw that EG imbalance further towards Germany by sacrificing SCs to them. That's a little hard to do safely right now since Germany is so close to an outright win -- a fact that should make England even more keen on helping you stop Germany -- but you can do things like F ADR S ven to make your willingness to force their hand clear. Ultimately the goal is to force England to help you keep Anatolia and ideally the Balkans. Note that it's impossible for Germany (or anyone) to take Anatolia without fleet support. Units in arm and con cannot be dislodged with armies alone. Likewise the alb - ser - bul line can't be taken without fleet support. To me this is a "good" illustration of one of the "fun" quirks of Diplomacy that makes it divisive: to enjoy the game you kind of have to enjoy playing out positions like this where you're furiously maneuvering against superior force for a part in the draw, because this is most games. Assuming you're playing equal strength players then you manage a solo in maybe 5% of your games, probably less. In the other 95% you'll either be eliminated, have your offense ground to a halt against a superior alliance, or have to desperately defend for placement against a superior alliance. If you don't find playing through those things fun then almost all of your games will suck. [Late edit:] Actually, looking at the board I'm not sure that it's possible to stop Germany from taking par, bud, tri and sev for a win this year even if everyone cooperates. It's been a strange ending, in a lot of ways. Xerophyte fucked around with this message at 08:11 on May 14, 2020 |
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May 14, 2020 07:56
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Have people tried scoring variants like 'your score is the number of territories you control at the end divided by the number of turns the game went on for' and comparing player scores against an absolute ranking rather than just the other people sitting at the table?
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May 14, 2020 08:07
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1920 Those of you concerned that this will be a long, drawn-out process: Have no fear! This is the final update. This is also where the thread controversy coincides with the game: League of Nations Chat posted:<Germany> So, ah, breaking character for a second: England =/= Germany. That was a joke England and I plotted around the 1914 turn. Spring 1920   The Ottoman Empire's leader is merciful and saves the thread a lot of time by formally surrendering. Britain and Germany rapidly move in. United Kingdom F Edi - Yor F Gol H A Nap H F Nrg - Nat A Pie S Ven F Rom S Nap A Spa H F Tun - Ion A Tus S Ven F Tyn S Tun - Ion F Wes - Tun Germany F Bel - Eng A Ber - Mun A Boh - Vie A Fin - Stp A Gal S Vie - Bud A Mos H A Mun - Bur F Nwy - Nth A Rum S Vie - Bud A Sil - Boh A Tyr - Tri A Ven S Tyr - Tri A Vie - Bud A War - Ukr Ottoman Empire No orders given; all units hold  Austria-Hungary, too. Austria-Hungary A Sev - Arm  The burnt units.  Germany moves into undefended British territory and secures the win. Austria-Hungary A Arm - Ank United Kingdom F Gol H F Ion H A Nap H F Nat H A Pie H F Rom H A Spa H F Tun H A Tus S Rom F Tyn S Nap F Yor H Germany A Boh - Tyr A Bud H A Bur - Par F Eng - Bre A Gal S Bud A Mos - Sev (failed) A Mun - Bur F Nth - Edi A Rum S Bud A Stp - Lvn A Tri H A Ukr - Sev (failed) A Ven S Tri A Vie S Tri Ottoman Empire No orders given; all units hold The final map:  And the final stats:  With everything wrapped up, all identities are now revealed and there can be no more confusion about which player is which country:   aka Blind Sally aka Dash Rendar   Also, while this LP was going on, Conspiracy received an update that lets you make a video of any game you play in. So, what the heck, if you'd like to relive the game moves in animated form over a 3-minute video, then this is link for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewLLMPqhKWg League of Nations Chat posted:<Austria-Hungary> AUSTRIA WINS AGAIN That all said, I know what the people want... Out there somewhere is an alternate history where this was the result: 
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May 14, 2020 08:18
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Danaru, ProfFrink, Enchanted Hat--if you can, please, please, please give your post-mortem. I have loved seeing players' takes on the match. I have my own that I will be putting together. I'll admit this victory feels hollow given how everything turned out. My own post-mortem will perhaps put things in a different light. Perhaps exonerate my choice of moves in the eyes of the other players. Perhaps condemn me further? All I can say at the moment is that I had to sling a lot of bullshit to get where I got. Regardless, thank you oldskool, CirclMastr, Dr. Snark, Danaru, Enchanted Hat, and ProfFrink for what is probably the most intense game of Diplomacy I've ever played. You all rock and I genuinely appreciate it! And thank you to everyone who posted and lurked this thread as well. You were essentially an eighth player. But for now I am exhausted and need a break. I'll be back with juicy post-morten write-ups! (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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May 14, 2020 08:25
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Whybird posted:Have people tried scoring variants like 'your score is the number of territories you control at the end divided by the number of turns the game went on for' and comparing player scores against an absolute ranking rather than just the other people sitting at the table? There are two common scoring variants, to my knowledge. - Draw-Size Scoring or DSS. Your score is proportional to the size of the draw. E.g. if a win is 1, a 3-way is 1/3 for everyone. - Sum-of-Squares Scoring or SoS. Your score is proportional to the square of your number of SCs at the end of the game. E.g. if a win is 1 and that 3-way split the SCs as 14, 12 and 8 then the player with 14 SCs gets 14² / (14² + 12² + 8²) = 0.485, while the player with 8 SCs gets 8² / (14² + 12² + 8²) = 0.158. For online play it's apparently common nowadays that everyone entering the game bets some ranking points to a common pot, and the surviving players gets their share of the pot added to their ranking. SoS used to be a thing mainly for offline tournaments where each game is time-limited and not usually played to conclusion so unlike normal games it's common for a player to end the game in the state of "not yet eliminated". Apparently it's a thing online now too. I think SoS is mostly garbage because it means that doing well when playing out a losing position is rewarded very poorly, which is a bad thing in a game where you almost always end up playing out a losing position and your final SC count is more a quirk of alliances and your starting position than an indication of how well you played. SCs are not score, at least in my world.
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May 14, 2020 08:25
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Congratulations, Dash! In the end, Turkey lost because England wanted to lose. Good on Germany for recognizing that this was their winning year. I still don't know why Hat rolled over like that though. Eager to hear why. =================== In terms of rankings, I have some vague ideas. My goal is to make the games more fun, rather than a race to be in the final draw. (I don't know if I've succeeded; this is just what I have so far.) - Game Outcome: Your status at the end of the game. You should endeavor to win alone or end up in a small-sized draw. If your draw pool is too big, then you did worse than simply being eliminated. For example, solo wins > 2-way draws > 3-way draws > elimination > 4+ draws - Expansion: The maximium SC size you obtained. The more you got the better you did. This will often be different from your final SC count, especially for eliminated players. - Quick Play: A penalty based on the # of turns you were active in the game. The longer you're playing this game, the less time you have to do other things (or play more Diplomacy). Those who drag things out should be punished! Note: Quick Play doesn't mean you should aim to be eliminated instantly. Due to the Expansion rating, you still have to make a modicum of effort to play the game. (Though this does have a problem; if you think you're going to lose, you're incentivized to lose as fast as you can, which is not quite what I'm hoping for. Hm.) - Successful Actions: Successful attacks and defenses add to your final rank in some way. (Adding this in the hopes that it can counter the incentive to instantly give up.) NeoRonTheNeuron fucked around with this message at 08:29 on May 14, 2020 |
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May 14, 2020 08:26
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Xelkelvos posted:This is my first time seeing one of their LPs so how would I know? NeoRonTheNeuron posted:Same. But duly noted. We probate one another all the time, the reigning apex of which remains the Ace Combat 6 LP, where nearly 250 6-hour probations were handed out in service of an in-game meme. E: My mistake, it was close to 350 probations. In one LP thread. nine-gear crow fucked around with this message at 08:40 on May 14, 2020 |
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May 14, 2020 08:31
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Speaking of which, Dash self-banned. That's one way to maintain SA-life balance.
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May 14, 2020 08:39
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Well, things went quick at the end! Well played, Dash! That was a fun back-and-forth game, with both Germany and Turkey making some nice comeback moves. I admit I am a little sad that we got a solo again, they only happen when someone makes a mistake which you kinda hope wont happen too much in a semi-public showgame. I guess my hopes for a nice draw in an SA Diplomacy LP will have to wait a few years more. So, some of the stuff I've been wondering about over the course of the game:
I'm fine with all those remaining mysteries if anyone doesn't want to get into it. Thanks again to all the players!
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May 14, 2020 09:38
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What a fun thread! I was playing England, making me one of the losers of this game. I had planned to keep up the ruse of being Dash Rendar’s alt account right until the end, but that joke has already been revealed. With that out of the way, I thought I’d do a retrospective of England’s role in the great war of 1901. And since I’m stuck at home, it’s going to be a long one! England - From Desperation to Greatness, Greatness to Servility It’s the spring of 1901. Everyone is hoping for peace, but everyone knows what is coming: war will engulf Europe once again. As the England player, I was faced with the choice facing everyone who plays England at the start of the game: ally with France against Germany, or ally with Germany against France? This was my first time playing England, in fact I had only played one game of Diplomacy before this one, so I didn’t have much of a feel for the meta. I looked up some Diplomacy resources which discussed the two main England strategies, pro-France and anti-France. The anti-France strategy seemed to me like a very dangerous and aggressive gamble right at the beginning of the game, whereas the pro-France strategy where you go and pick up a guaranteed SC in Norway seemed like a much safer and more cautious approach. I went pro-France.  This, it turned out, was a huge mistake. I had counted on Germany bouncing France in Belgium in autumn 1901, keeping France at a powerful but manageable 5 SCs. Germany, for some unknown reason, did not do so, and allowed France to reach a frightening 6 SCs in the very first build phase.  As England, this was a massively frightening position to be in. I looked at France and thought “if I were France, what would I do now?” and the answer was a clear and unequivocal “stab England”. I started withdrawing from the north to protect against a French offensive that I knew was coming. Sure enough, France moved into ENG and MID as I had predicted, and the war was on. By going with a pro-French opening, I had delayed the war against France to a point where France was very strong and I was weak, rather than starting the war immediately when we were both weak.  Based on my experience of this game, I would now never, ever recommend an England player to go with a pro-French strategy. England is France’s natural prey, and the longer you delay the war, the worse it’s going to get. At this point, I was desperately trying to get Germany and Italy to come and help me fight France. If France had been allowed to destroy me, he would have had nine SCs and a very strong and defensible position on the board—the same one that I would occupy later in the game. Fortunately, at the same time as France’s stab against me, he was also making aggressive moves against Germany, making a supported move into Burgundy and a mostly pointless attack on Holland. Germany joined my war against France, marking the beginning of a very strong and fruitful alliance between me and Germany which lasted almost the entire game. Unfortunately, France had grown so powerful from his conquests in Iberia and in the Low Countries that even with Germany’s help, all we could do was lock the three of us in a stalemate. Germany was keeping a lot of his units on the east front, so France had local superiority. Things only changed in 1904, when finally my prayers were answered: Italy had joined the game.  Moving into Marseilles, France was suddenly outnumbered, surrounded and in a very precarious situation. Now things moved quickly. France was falling apart, and the objective of the war shifted from survival to looting as many of the French SCs as possible before my allies did. In the autumn of 1906, mighty France had fallen.  I had done quite well in the war, picking up Belgium, Brest and Portugal. Italy got Paris, Spain and Marseilles, and Germany got to live. At this point, you do what is always done in Diplomacy, which is tell one of your allies that you’re preparing to attack your other ally, and tell your other ally that you’re preparing to attack your first ally. In this case, there was no choice in my mind: I had cooperated successfully for a long time with Germany, and all of Germany’s SCs were well-defended. I only had a brief working relationship with Italy, and all his new French possessions were completely exposed. Italy was going down. I started discussing my plans for an attack on Russia and Germany with Italy and sharpened my knife. My backstab against Italy was phenomenally successful.  Italy was in a very awkward position on the board, having an army in Galicia and a fleet in the Aegean. In one year, I stole all three of his French conquests, and changed from being a plucky minor power to an 8-SC great power tied with Russia for first place.  Where to now? I had a useful alliance with Germany and, through him, with Russia going. Italy was probably mad at me for stealing his SCs, and his home regions were poorly defended. Let’s go south. Unfortunately, this is where Russia suddenly became very aggressive and confrontational. Our diplomatic correspondence became terse, and through Germany I learned that he was urgently pushing for a coalition against me (by the way, Germany was leaking like a sieve to everyone for this entire game. Don’t ever send anything sensitive to Dash Rendar, he has all correspondence set to auto-forward). I couldn’t just make peace with Italy to focus entirely on Russia, especially since I really wanted those Italian SCs, so now I was faced with a two-front war in the Mediterranean and in the North Sea. Russia’s north wasn’t extremely well-defended, so I was fairly confident that I could hold him off at worst, or at best take some of his Scandinavian SCs. But if Germany’s two fleets got involved and sided with Russia, I would have a big problem. The primary objective of my diplomacy became to keep Germany on my side, or at least to convince him not to help Russia against me. Fortunately, I had one big advantage in this: Denmark. Apparently, for many turns, Germany and Russia had had an agreement where Russia would hand over Denmark to Germany in exchange for Germany’s continued support. This was a total lie, and Russia never followed through on this, but kept offering increasingly implausible excuses for not doing it. Meanwhile, Germany and I were on very friendly terms, and I had happily handed over Belgium to Germany without resistance on a previous turn. Now, Dash Rendar, playing Germany, had claimed throughout the game that he was just playing the game as a sort of trickster character, and that he just wanted to keep things entertaining for the thread with lots of reversals of fortune and betrayals. But I’m going to challenge that narrative a bit, because I think that Dash Rendar was genuinely getting a bit annoyed with Russia at this point. I, of course, tried to nurture this by suggesting that Russia was playing aggressively and selfishly while simultaneously I accommodated Germany as much as possible. When the cold war in the North turned into a hot war, I had no doubt that Germany would side with me. Unfortunately, although Russia was having trouble on the diplomatic front, Dr. Snark is a very good player in terms of unit tactics, and was able to stymie our offensive for a very long time despite having fewer units in the region. Meanwhile, my offensive against Italy was progressing slowly, while Turkey was just gobbling up SCs like crazy. Turkey, once the sick man of Europe, was becoming very scary. Then came tun-WES.  Oh dear. Turkey’s fleet in Tunis was in the western Mediterranean, and could easily start taking my undefended rear SCs. Meanwhile, Turkey had gone completely dark diplomatically and wasn’t responding to my messages. This was bad. Now it was England and Germany against Turkey and Russia. The classic Diplomacy Juggernaut alliance had been formed, and now it was only a matter of time before—  Wait, what? Oh. Turkey did not go for my exposed SCs, and was now attacking Russia in Romania. Meanwhile, Russia had taken Ankara. I was very confused at this point. I didn’t know what was going on, but it was very good for me. Now it was England and Germany against Russia, England against Turkey and Russia against Turkey. This was much more manageable!  A few turns passed. The war in the Mediterranean against Turkey had ground to a halt, and the frontline in Italy was firm. However, in the north, Germany and I had made great progress against Russia, seizing all of Scandinavia. Germany finally got Denmark as he was promised—not from Russian hands, but English. This is where things turned weird. Things were generally going well for me. I had made great gains, and my ally Germany was also growing. I was considering where to expand after we destroyed Russia. Naturally, looking at the board, the most obvious thing to do was to invade Germany. But our alliance had worked so well until now that I would prefer to find some other way of expanding. Maybe I could make a breakthrough in the Mediterranean? Maybe convoy armies to Russia? But Dash Rendar had other plans. quote:<Germany> Ok, so remember when Russia was all like, “The lines are being drawn! Pick a side: Russia or UK!”? To make a long story short, Germany kindly informed me in advance that he was going to stab me in the back. But, however, he claimed that this was part of some sort of super sneaky double-betrayal false flag attack to ultimately betray Turkey and Austria later! He suggested that we should start a fake war, pretending to fight each other while we used diplomatic channels to convince Austria and Turkey to fight each other. Then we would turn on them together and wipe the board. This was a terrible idea. Naturally, I said that it was a fantastic plan, and that I was down. But in reality, this meant that Germany had forced my hand: I would have to destroy Germany. I could have said no to the plan, but that would almost certainly just have meant that Germany would carry on with Operation Decline of Britain with Turkey and Austria. Much better to have Germany thinking that we were in a fake war, when really we were in a really real war.  Britannia giveth, and Britannia taketh away. I took Denmark and moved in all my units against Germany’s very poorly defended core territories. quote:<Germany> What’s the plan with Hel and Ska? You’ve got me on the backfoot there though obvs I dont want to lose more SCs. We were in a real shooting war, and it was going pretty well. I was on thirteen SCs at this point, five away from victory. Germany was falling apart fast and was in a really awkward defensive position. If I could take all of Germany’s SCs alone, I would win the game outright, contradicting the thread’s armchair generals suggesting that such a thing was very unlikely. Dash Rendar was trying to convince me that I didn’t really want to win, and that it’d be much funnier and better if I would stop killing him, but I was having none of it. Germany was done, and I was going to win this. But then Dash Rendar __________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________REDACTED______________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ From that point on, I was completely in Germany’s pocket. The game had one objective now, and one objective only: carry Germany to victory.  We opted not to make it subtle at all. I immediately withdrew from all of the gains I had made in Germany and let Dash Rendar take them back without a fight. My entire army and navy was moving down towards the stalemate in the Mediterranean. The sole attack against Munich was coordinated with Germany to make sure we’d bounce, in order to protect against Austria. To underline the complete 180 in the war strategy, I also changed my communications strategy in the in-game UN thread from self-righteous British imperialism to something else. quote:<United Kingdom> I am saddened that Europe has once again been plunged into war by the aggressive warmongering of Germany and their unprovoked attack on the people of Britain. I hope that this war can be brought to a speedy resolution once British expeditionary forces have pacified Berlin. For the next few turns, things progressed pretty predictably. Austria was mostly eaten up by Germany and Turkey. I had withdrawn all my troops from Germany’s periphery, so Dash Rendar was free to devote absolutely all his forces to the Turkish front. Surprisingly, I managed to pick up some extra SCs in Italy from Turkey.  Then Dash Rendar had another idea: quote:<Germany> Thread messing with update: Is it funny to pretend you’ve been an alt of mine for years? This was the start of the I-am-an-alt-account prank that we pulled on the thread. We didn’t actually carry it out for a few turns, and by the time we actually changed my avatar, the game was basically already over. Once we had been “caught” in the thread and probated, we decided to just seal the victory by handing over some of my SCs to Germany undefended so he could cross the 18 SC victory threshold. At the same time, Turkey had surrendered and was not submitting aggressive orders, so Dash Rendar could also take some of Turkey’s SCs. And that was the final map! I thought it was a really fun game. I really like Diplomacy, although since it takes a lot of time and attention, I haven’t actually played it much. My main impression of this game is that people are liable to underestimate the usefulness of having a really strong, trusting alliance. Austria and Italy dominated the early game because they had an unbreakable alliance, and they only started to decline when literally everyone else on the board ganged up on them. Meanwhile, my alliance with Germany lasted almost the entire game, and helped both of us grow relative to the rest of the board. If you have a neighbour that you are absolutely sure will not betray you, you can project so much more force against your enemies because you don’t have to keep units in reserve to guard against backstabs. The two early solo superpowers were France and Russia, and both of them ended up getting ganged up on in the end. If France had been able to really rely on loyalty from Italy, or if Russia had been able to really rely on loyalty from Turkey, things would probably have been very different. I really relied on Germany’s loyalty, and it totally paid off. In the end, when war did finally break out between me and Germany, Dash Rendar was kind enough to warn me a couple of turns in advance that he was about to betray me. That’s a really good alliance, right there. Betrayal is the fun part of Diplomacy, but trust, alliances and diplomacy are what really win you the game. It’s right there in the title. Also I’m not Dash Rendar’s alt; I’m actually crow’s alt.
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May 14, 2020 12:25
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Enchanted Hat posted:But then Dash Rendar __________________________________________________
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May 14, 2020 12:42
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nine-gear crow posted:We probate one another all the time, the reigning apex of which remains the Ace Combat 6 LP, where nearly 250 6-hour probations were handed out in service of an in-game meme. There are no angels to dance with here.
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May 14, 2020 13:53
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As an observer I really enjoyed the thread right up to the point where England sucked up to Germany and pretty much threw the game away. Regardless of the actual winner from this to me Turkey is the real winner. As for the alt account joke I was less angry/annoyed about it and more confused and felt it took way too much attention away from the game itself.
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May 14, 2020 13:55
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Xerophyte posted:I think the inevitable conclusion to this line of play is that Germany wins and England loses. If I was playing Turkey in this position, I would consider the goal of all my moves to be convincing England to agree with me on that. I'd try to do this by pointing out the current EG power imbalance and the lack of any reasonable ways for him to reach a 17 SC tie. If that didn't work, I'd try to intentionally throw that EG imbalance further towards Germany by sacrificing SCs to them. That's a little hard to do safely right now since Germany is so close to an outright win -- a fact that should make England even more keen on helping you stop Germany -- but you can do things like F ADR S ven to make your willingness to force their hand clear. I'll write up a summary a bit later, although Hat already covered a lot of it. But I do want to point out that I think this shows one of the weaknesses of online/play-by-email. It does offer a lot of advantages (mostly being able to find 7 people willing to play this monster, especially more than once), the games can seriously drag on. I probably could have worked a little harder (or at all tbh) toward the end to break up the EG alliance, although given Hat's summary it probably wouldn't have worked, but I was getting pretty burnt out. Between E&G working so closely together and Germany supporting Austria it seemed like the only thing I could do would be to delay the inevitable, which I'd enjoy doing in the first 10-15 turns of the game, but which lost its appeal after two months or whatever. If this was an in person game at this point I could just sulk by the snack table and write quick fortress Turkey orders while chatting with the eliminated players and stuffing my face.
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May 14, 2020 14:53
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Even while writing all that -- even after Germany won -- I still thought that the reason England let Germany recover was because they were hoping to engineer a specific tie or stab opportunity, and that was just a plan that slid from a little strange to fully suicidal for some reason. I never considered that the actual reason was because they stopped playing Diplomacy a dozen turns ago. Under normal circumstances I'd say there was nothing inevitable at all about your situation as Turkey for the last few turns of the game and you were in one of the stronger positions on the board to claim a part of the tie, but there aren't any real moves when Germany in fact had 24 SCs since 1914. It's not that useful to spend a ton of effort on convincing England that they're accidentally throwing the game to Germany in a situation where they are consciously and intentionally throwing the game to Germany.
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May 14, 2020 16:20
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At this point I will only be satisfied if Dash enacts one final betrayal and drops whatever actual real-life blackmail he used to steal the game in the thread.
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May 14, 2020 18:24
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Yeah, I agree 100%. If it looked like they were even wary of each other I'd have felt differently, but as it stood the game just seemed like a foregone conclusion.
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May 14, 2020 18:26
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So, in summation, my gut feeling that: Turkey: 2005/2006 Dallas Mavericks Germany: 2005/2006 Miami Heat Is somewhat justified?
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May 14, 2020 18:41
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So yeah, I hate playing diplomacy and am really glad I didn't play this! Fun to watch until the last few updates.
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May 14, 2020 19:04
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Any plans to do another game, perhaps on a variant map? Never got much exposure to variants, would be interesting to see
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May 14, 2020 19:42
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The real round 2 would be to play Imperial which is literally the same map, but instead of playing the nations, you're playing the arms manufacturers for the war and investing in countries such that the largest investor has control of a country and as a consequence, one player could control multiple countries, while another player controls none. Of course, neither of them might be winning as the goal is the most cash.
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May 14, 2020 20:44
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I'm game for it if there are enough people who aren't soured on the idea of playing against me! I'd be really interested in trying the 11-player crowded Europe map. These are the maps available in Conspiracy:
I would also be up for adding a ranking point system as well, but I've never done that before and would have to defer to the thread.
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May 14, 2020 20:46
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Veryslightlymad posted:So, in summation, my gut feeling that: I don't follow basketball. I don't know the analogy 
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May 14, 2020 20:47
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Xelkelvos posted:The real round 2 would be to play Imperial which is literally the same map, but instead of playing the nations, you're playing the arms manufacturers for the war and investing in countries such that the largest investor has control of a country and as a consequence, one player could control multiple countries, while another player controls none. Of course, neither of them might be winning as the goal is the most cash. I love Imperial. I have 2030, which I think is a little more fair for the nations themselves. The best strategy we've found is to control 0 nations, but be #2 in as many as possible. Lots of fun mechanics in that one with 1000% fewer friendships ended because of it.
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May 14, 2020 21:11
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I still have to play imperial; I've played Gerdts' most popular game Concordia but have heard imperial is great.
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May 14, 2020 21:12
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Dash Rendar posted:I don't follow basketball. I don't know the analogy It's a devastating comment. You are devastated. edit Don't follow basketball. Like falling in love, you'll only ever learn pain and misery.
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May 14, 2020 21:14
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Veryslightlymad posted:It's a devastating comment. You are devastated. I appreciate this post.
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May 14, 2020 21:14
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Kind of interested in playing a fall of 'murrica, but if I'm being honest I wouldn't be able to commit the time. Still might get a kick of getting to watch others play.
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May 14, 2020 21:35
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The only real issue with Imperial is that it's properly turn based so it wouldn't be as fast this. With all of those map variants though, you could hold a proper tournament where it starts with 10 players and the top X players move to the next smaller map until you hit a 3p map. Highest scoring player on each map would get to pick when they chose a country (ie pick first or third or w/e) in order to game who their neighbor is.
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May 14, 2020 21:39
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Dash Rendar posted:[*]Fall of the American Empire IV - A 10-player North America map featuring a fragmented Canada and USA--goes as far south to include Colombia. (This one is a lot of fun and I've replayed it a few times). this one
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May 14, 2020 21:56
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 Final discussion of bets! Overall winner: Eeepies was the only person who correctly called Germany as a winner! Partial credit to the following 9 people whose picks didn't win, but whose countries at least live on as vassal states of the mighty Kaiser. Austria-Hungary (5): Cythereal, Jesenjin, Mirrors, Namtab, Old Grey Guy Britain (2): biosterous, Rocket Baby Dolls Turkey (2): Akratic Method, silvergoose Shame to the following goons who unwisely threw their support behind countries that are forgotten in the dustbin of history. France (1): wologar Italy (4): anilEhilated, Gamerofthegame, HisMajestyBOB, Jobbo_Fett Russia (4): Coward, Dav, MagusofStars, Tevery Best Joint France/UK (1): bunnyofdoom Next country to get eliminated: silvergoose wins the category with 2 points! Round 4 completed! Congratulations to...again, nobody. Partial credit to Eeepies, MagusofStars, and ZiegeDame for calling that the game would end before another elimination, but all said it would be a draw rather than a victory. Round 3 completed! Congratulations to...well, partial credit to Tulip for making the correct guess a few updates late, but the collapse of the Russian bear was unexpected indeed! Round 2 completed! Congratulations to bunnyofdoom, Eeepies, koolkevz666, silvergoose (2), Tevery Best for correctly predicting Italy's boot would trip and fall into oblivion. Round 1 completed! Congratulations to silvergoose, Jobbo_Fett, Namtab, Old Grey Guy for correctly betting on France to get wiped off the map. Final elimination scores: 2 points: silvergoose 1.5 points: Eeepies 1 point: bunnyofdoom, Jobbo_Fett, koolkevz666, Namtab, Old Grey Guy, Tevery Best 0.5 point "partial credit": MagusofStars, Tulip, ZiegeDame So in conclusion, I think we can all agree that Eeepies is the best diplomacy prediction machine on the forums, both for correctly picking the winner and finishing in second place in the elimination bracket! Secondary shout-outs to silvergoose, who won the elimination bracket while also backing a country which survived the game. MagusofStars fucked around with this message at 22:08 on May 14, 2020 |
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May 14, 2020 21:59
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Dash Rendar posted:
So I've played a crap ton of Diplomacy and this was my general breakdown of some of these variants that I've played. Classic - Crowded - This map is absolutely fantastic and I think you could make a case that it actually might be even better than the Classic, 7 player map. The only real problem spot, in my opinion, is Spain, which seems like its practically designed to just piss off its neighbors and then be easily murdered by them, while at the same time having a very hard time making gains. Canton I haven't actually played this one, but its sort of notorious in my group for being sort of busted. Turkey/Ottomans in particular. South America Supremacy - This map is just bad. Like you said, its got some terrible choke points, and Argentina and Columbia tend to blow out the game extraordinarily often. You guys don't seem to have this variant on your platform, but there is another variant map based on Africa (called "Africa"), which plays similar to South America Supremacy (riverboat travel) and is much better balanced. Cold War - Like you said, it's a great map, but probably not a great LP. Might be fun as a side show or an intermission thing. Ancient Mediterranean - This one is one of my favorites. Fairly well balanced and allows for a relatively wide amount of strategy in terms of which units you want to build and how you're going to use them. Additionally, with only 5 players, you get to the end game quick enough that fighting it out for awhile to maybe sneak a solo doesn't fill you with existential dread at the sheer amount of tedium it will involve. Also, I'm not sure I'd be interested in a differing "point" system, but it might be cool to setup some of "thread objective" system. So you have the person who wins the game and then maybe a meta win of the person who met the most thread objectives? Examples: 1. Have the most SCs at Game End 2. Widest swing in SC count 3. Rat Bastard of the Game (Popularity Award?) More would, of course, be better and it maybe creates some stupid in-game drama that could be fun?
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May 14, 2020 22:01
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I feel like in the end, I'm the winner of the only category that matters, including the game itself.
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May 14, 2020 22:19
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Given that Britain basically became an auxiliary Germany it counts as being eliminated, and thus I picked it correctly as next elimination. Also since Britain is now Germany and Germany won I also picked it correctly as being overall winner. I award myself all the points 
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May 14, 2020 23:00
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I haven't posted in the thread much but I've been following it with interest. I've never played Diplomacy before but I'd like to, if another game opens up!
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May 14, 2020 23:00
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Too bad they don't have this variant.
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May 14, 2020 23:03
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If we're talking about other fun variants: The Classic Economic Variant is a lot of fun too. There's no link between the economic and political grids, but you can build on either if you gain SCs on either. Had some interesting maps where someone would go all in on one or the other. I'm not sure I'm a fan of all the wall placements on the economic grid, since Turkey seems to be hard to displace because of it, but other than that, it's super enjoyable.
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May 14, 2020 23:27
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Man, I need more after action reports for this. The drama! The style! Also the clear winner was Austria-Hungary. I don't think I need to explain further.
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May 14, 2020 23:36
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| # ? May 17, 2024 09:06 |
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ProfFrink posted:Too bad they don't have this variant. The Mediterranean map is like an inverted version of this.
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May 15, 2020 01:23
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