To make things simple, it could be mostly done on www.webdiplomacy.net. But this thread could be used for, er, public announcmenets, and for anyone who wanted to watch it.
Each turn anything from 10 minutes to 1 month - I’m not fussy, I could see almost anthing working.
My only major issue is I do not want my account there linked to my account here so I would have to ask them if I could create a sock account (you can have anonymous games but once they are over the player IDs are revealed) which is not usually permitted. But before worrying about this - anyone else interested in what is the best game ever?
We used to play SDMB Diplomacy on dipbounced. A few of the players around here would run the games and post commentary, and then there’d be lots of analysis. Good times.
In fact, I dug up the thread from my very first game of Diplomacy. Not just on SDMB, but ever. It was a game dedicated to newbies:
From the commentary, I appeared to have been kicking serious ass until school got in the way and I didn’t really have time to devote. Lots of fun, though.
I think I may have been Italy in that one and was eliminated quickly as a result. It was a long time ago, not sure if there was a game more recently. If it’s the same game I recall I stopped paying attention when I got whacked and it sounds like my frantic predictions when requesting help were borne out.
Was there anything about that game that turned people off other than the lack of stabbing and getting steamrolled?
To expand a little bit more, there were a few factors that made it kind of lame.
One was that Germany was brand new and didn’t even make an effort to try to understand basic game mechanics. He was self bouncing in otherwise completely uncontested areas, for example. Not just for one turn, but for several consecutive turns, the same mistakes over and over. Then he just stopped playing. If I remember correctly, we replaced him, but not before a lot of wind was sucked out of the sails.
Two was that England, who had been an active and very effective player all game, stopped playing for real life reasons. I don’t remember if we replaced England or not.
Third is that the other players objected to me (Turkey) and Egypt “playing for a tie” instead of going for a solo victory. Seemed like sour grapes to me (especially considering that most games end in ties split wider than 2 ways), but the other players were pretty unanimous in their disapproval.
I actually had a lot of fun that game, but that might just be because it was the first time that I wasn’t the first player eliminated.
I remember in post game discussion that Egypt hadn’t decided whether to trust me or ally with you against me for quite a few turns. There was a little spat about Libya that I think turned the tide in my favor. I don’t remember exactly how Egypt and Turkey worked out their contested areas, but there was at least one turn where I was seriously dreading the stab from Egypt.
Yeah, sounds like the game I remember. Germany’s actions and silence was particularly destructive for me as Italy. England was the only one who seemed to see the steamroller building as I did and offered what support he could, which wasn’t much due to the early game map.
Interesting to hear how it turned out, I must have stopped paying attention before the unpleasantness started.
Doesn’t matter now, but I agree that playing for a tie is against the spirit of the game. Victory is defined in one way and if you’re not trying to win you might as well not play. I suppose a map that 2 players completely dominate is a fair outcome, but it states in the rules that even a player with 1 center left gets equal share of the victory with 2 other with 20+ centers.
That said the game is kind of built to encourage these types of alliances and ties. Not sure how more active players avoid it. I’d guess people would have been more accepting had it been clear that in the end game it was assumed one of you would stab the other in a push for the magic number of SCs.
Yeah, it was interesting. While trying to get him to ally against you or at least not help you in killing me he proceeded to insist on capturing the one non-home SC I had. Sort of a point of friction there, heh. Didn’t really help convince me of his ambivalence about you.
To answer the question, I’m interested. There might be a few people who won’t play if I’m in the game though, so you won’t hurt my feelings if you’d rather I sit out.
Well I didn’t get steamrolled or stabbed, but it was a bit socially uncomfortable for me.
I kinda like the idea of accounts with different names so we know we’re playing against each other, but not which is which…
This is probably a really good idea. People wouldn’t be able to post white press on here or discuss though, but that’s not a big deal.
I don’t have the time to GM or play this round and my last few outings haven’t gone well due to my lack of focus and tendency to procrastinate so you probably wouldn’t want me. That said Dip is fun to watch and discuss so I’d probably want to be in the peanut gallery.
Ah diplomacy… I remember a few friends arguing late into the night in my room. I think that game ended their friendship. In fact, I think I saw diplomacy end several friendships. Very intense stuff!!!
I love it, but I don’t think I’d enjoy playing it over the dope.
