Octavious wrote: ↑Sun Apr 28, 2019 4:32 pm
swordsman3003 wrote: ↑Sun Apr 28, 2019 3:23 pm
You should understand what you want to accomplish strategically and tactically each turn before sending out and responding to messages. If you don’t have any idea of what is in your interest, if you don’t have clear goals, you will be manipulated by the other players. Your mastery of strategy and tactics won’t help you if you treat those as secondary.
I couldn't disagree more. How on earth do you go about forming a workable strategy before you have built an understanding of who your opponents are? In gunboats you have no choice but to build your strategy on a foundation of assumptions. In diplomacy playing with that kind of handicap is entirely optional.
I have a feeling that your expression of extreme disagreement with me comes from not understanding my position. Let me elaborate, and let's see if you still think that we disagree.
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I know something about who my opponents are as soon as the match starts because I know which power each player is playing. I also know where my interests lie because I know which power
I am playing.
Each of the 7 powers has inherent capabilities, advantages, and limitations. Those advantages and limitations (and how to exploit or work around them) constrain what is possible and define what strategies/tactics are wise or foolish.
Surely you agree with this? To me, these are undeniable, inherent properties of Diplomacy.
For example:
Your Bored Brother wrote:English Short-term Goals (up through the end of 1902):
- Keep France from opening to English Channel. Whether I open there or not, I don't want France opening there. If France starts off with that opening, my strategic and tactical choices will be severely limited for several turns.
- Discourage as many northern fleet builds as I can. Ideally, I will persuade Germany to build zero fleets, Russia not to build in St. Petersburg (2nd-best-case-scenario would be an army build, 3rd best would be a fleet build on the south coast), and France to build zero fleets (or else build a second fleet in Marseilles).Usually Russia can be encouraged to do this, often Germany, and rarely France.
- Gain a foothold with my army. Usually this means landing the starting army in Norway, but Belgium, Picardy, or Brest is sometimes workable (in that order of likelihood). Any attempt to convoy to Denmark or Holland almost always fails.
- My short-term goals require me to devote my attention to Germany, France, and Russia. Italy, Austria, and Turkey matter to me, but what they do is not an immediate concern.
Before sending or receiving
any messages, I was also able to write extensively about my long-term goals as England, my opening move possibilities, and my alliance options with my neighbors.
ODC Journal R1 Spring 1901
Without this
a priori knowledge of how a Diplomacy match functions, if I solely operated based on what my rivals (who are out to get me!) tell me in their messages, I could be tricked into all kinds of stupid deals and moves. How do I know if my rival's offer is good or not if I don't have a preconceived idea of what constitutes my interests? In this way, lower-case-d "diplomacy" is inseparable from strategy and tactics.
If you're England, and the French player says "let me move into English Channel for my opening move and I'll be your best friend," you should have a reaction of extreme skepticism because your prior experience and theoretical knowledge of Diplomacy will inform you that this is likely a ruse or a bad deal.
Surely, Octavious, we agree to this extent?
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As a mentor, by far the most common question I get is a variation of "What should I say to Russia?" and my answer is invariably another question: "What do you want Russia to
do?" If you can't answer the question of what you might want another player to do, then you don't even have a starting point for your conversations. Your press will be confused, aimless, and you're likely to be tricked into going against your own best interest.
The topic of this thread is "weak press." I believe that the most common mental weakness of inexperienced players is that they let their rivals' press inform their strategy and tactics, instead of using their own strategic and tactical goals as the basis of their press with their rivals.
Diplomacy is not "Mafia, plus a map!" -- but many players think and act like it is. Those players who overly depend on their rivals' press are prey for the predators who understand the objective constraints of the Diplomacy map.
When at all possible, I use emotion, friendship, credibility, and so on to manipulate those players into granting me immense tactical and strategic advantages in return for "I'll be your best friend!"
Therefore, I believe that strong press is not possible without having mastered Diplomacy's strategy and tactics. I agree with David E. Cohen that these things are relatively easy to learn. If you've a newer player and have never played 1v1 matches, try playing twenty of those and I bet your press will improve a lot.