The Tired Tortoise Problem

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

We've all become familiar with "Care Bears" - those players with unnaturally low risk tolerance who stab too rarely, maintain coalitions way beyond their strategic usefulness, and pat themselves on the back for being a tiny part of a huge draw.

Recently, I've encountered a new type of dysfunctional WebDip animal: the "Tired Tortoise".

These are players who genuinely feel aggrieved if the game is "taking too long". They may have skillfully used press at the start of the game, but they find it too burdensome to revisit these relationships and adapt their press strategies to the changing strategic balance. They find it incredibly taxing if they ever have to input the same move order for multiple seasons in a row, even if the overall map is still very active. At some point, they push for a draw that has no strategic rationale, forgoing easy-to-get points and neglecting to even try to rearrange coalitions on the basis of "I'm bored, let's end this". Too often, such a draw is indulged by a coalition of other Tired Tortoises and players who by all rights should lose and so are happy to be included in the draw.

I want to be clear: a player with a genuinely poor strategic position who claims to be bored as a last-ditch press strategy is not a "Tired Tortoise", as they are still genuinely trying to maximize their points.

My question for Tired Tortoises is simply, what gives? No one is forcing you to play. If you find entering a turn per day boring, you should take a break from WebDip. And if you are going to play, you should feel some obligation to the other players to keep earnestly trying to maximize your point take.

Thankfully, this seems like a more soluble issue than the Care Bear conundrum - hidden draw votes sap would-be Tired Tortoises of most of their curmudgeonly power.

[Octavious]

An interesting comment...

One thing that's confusing me a little, however, is quite where it is that you've encountered such a thing. Of the 7 classic press games you've played here you have drawn one and been defeated in six. This does not strike me as the record of a player being unduly hampered by an enthusiasm from his fellow players to draw too easily. Indeed, you seem remarkably resistant to draws of any kind.

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

An interesting comment...

One thing that's confusing me a little, however, is quite where it is that you've encountered such a thing. Of the 7 classic press games you've played here you have drawn one and been defeated in six. This does not strike me as the record of a player being unduly hampered by an enthusiasm from his fellow players to draw too easily. Indeed, you seem remarkably resistant to draws of any kind.

Unfortunately, my record reflects that I'm not a very good player. I still have a blast in these games though. I don't know if I've turned down a truly viable draw and that could have prevented my elimination, but if I have it's due to folly and inexperience.

Also, I think every player is somewhere on the continuum between Care Bear and All-in Albatross (i.e., a player willing to take nearly-unlimited risk to get a solo). I don't really know where I'd be on such a scale relative to the average player.

I think you're right to point out that this is probably not a common phenomena. I've only seen it twice.

Maybe I've been unfair too. Both times that I thought I spotted Tired Tortoises were in open positions that could understandably be considered slogs (e.g., tons of civil disorders). Since the games were new to me, I was probably not empathizing with their annoyance enough.

Also, in open positions I'm probably overly optimistic about the potential for big shifts in strategy. The players who had been there longer may have had a well-founded belief that strategic inertia and influence of past relationships would continue to constrain options. It makes sense that press actually does matter. And in that case, "I'm bored" might just be a way of saying, accurately, that nothing much will change even if the game continues.

Moreover, I have no way of knowing whether my WebDip zoological skills are acute enough to accurately identify a true Tired Tortoise in the wild. It could be that I have only actually seen an earnest press strategy meant to hurry along a draw they believe is point maximizing.

I still find the concept interesting though. This is something I love about Diplomacy - I can't think of another game where I'd seriously consider the legitimacy of "I prefer not to play anymore" as a strategy.

[Octavious]

I still find the concept interesting though. This is something I love about Diplomacy - I can't think of another game where I'd seriously consider the legitimacy of "I prefer not to play anymore" as a strategy.

Christmas games of Monopoly spring instantly to mind... and Risk for that matter... And there was a memorable festive season in which someone retrieved an ancient board game from the darkest depths of the loft called simply "Farming", in which each player ran a farm for a year and it genuinely felt like it was playing out in real time....

But I get your point

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

I still find the concept interesting though. This is something I love about Diplomacy - I can't think of another game where I'd seriously consider the legitimacy of "I prefer not to play anymore" as a strategy.

Christmas games of Monopoly spring instantly to mind... and Risk for that matter... And there was a memorable festive season in which someone retrieved an ancient board game from the darkest depths of the loft called simply "Farming", in which each player ran a farm for a year and it genuinely felt like it was playing out in real time....

But I get your point

Nearly every game of Risk that I played as a young lad followed the same format: we would antagonize one friend until they kamikazed and lost, then claim a joint victory among the remaining players because the game had already gone on too long. I get flashbacks to this dynamic anytime a filthy WebDip Care Bear pushes for a 5- or 6-way draw that could easily be avoided.

Of course, the difference is that ending a game of Risk, Monopoly, or "Farming" early is not a legitimate strategy (the rulebook doesn't alllow it), whereas in Diplomacy nearly anything goes.

Another difference is that I expect folks to be a bit more patient online. I have more sympathy for "let's get this over with" if we're four hours into a real life game of Risk, the chips have run out, and eliminated players are bored to death. Entering a turn per day on this website is pretty easy, even in a game that's become a slog.

[CaptainFritz28]

This thread should have been named "The Trouble of the Tired Tortoise."

:D

[rick258]

I think the tired tortoise problem does have legitimacy.
There are people who complete their diplomacy, enter their orders and do not ready them. Delayed readying should only be waiting for a response to make a final decision. There are times players will announce that they have readied and are waiting for other players to move things along.

Not readying when ready is a problem, but I'm finding over several games, and during the same game, there have been players that have decided not to continue to participate in the game. So, they disorder out of the game which drags things along even further, especially if there are multiple excused turns.

So, I am curious, does disordering out of a game cost an individual more ghost points than resigning?
Also, if a player resigns out of a game will the game search for a replacement player the same as one disordering out?

What I am hoping, if it is true, to let players know that resigning is less point costing than dragging the game out with disorders.

[CaptainFritz28]

Since when could you resign a game? I thought the only way out was to disorder.

And no, disordering does not cost ghost rating to drop. It only lowers reliability rating. This means that if you are losing a game, you can drop out to save your ghost rating, at the expense of your reliability rating and everyone else's time. It's a selfish thing to do, and rather annoying, but it is a strategy that some employ.

[GuineaPig]

I think the tired tortoise problem does have legitimacy.
There are people who complete their diplomacy, enter their orders and do not ready them.
[…]

Though I mostly agree with you, I still find that not readying/finalising can at times or under given circumstances be legitimate.
a) who hasn't been through an unplanned phased of high workload or troubles in real life?
b) I know of at least one community where A LOT of decent and experienced players constantly cumulate 3 press and 15 gunboat games at the same time. Those games are mostly played as part of specific tournaments or leagues (e.g. requiring to play 7 simultaneous games, with each power).
If players still wants to preserve their professional goals, family and/or mental health in those two situations, they'd better let use their right to have a life between order submission and adjudication. And I don't find those situations so uncommon.

[rick258]

I agree with you that there are times when you would like to wait to ready your orders.
I suppose my actual problem is when a play decides to leave a game and has no way other than to make other players wait for the excuses to run out to find a replacement player.
Which is why I was suggesting a "resigned".
I actually have a resigned in my stats, so I was thinking it was an option. Perhaps only and option with one on one?

[Aristocrat]

I think “resigned” means the game finished (drew) while a position you dropped out of was left unfilled.

FWIW I think particularly with press the bigger problem identified by OP is a trend by many to play press for the first few turns then revert to gunboat (hence asking everyone to ready ASAP instead of bothering with press and maybe changing their 1901-decided strategies).

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

I think “resigned” means the game finished (drew) while a position you dropped out of was left unfilled.

FWIW I think particularly with press the bigger problem identified by OP is a trend by many to play press for the first few turns then revert to gunboat (hence asking everyone to ready ASAP instead of bothering with press and maybe changing their 1901-decided strategies).

In my opinion, the four big problems of press play on WebDip are, in order:

(i) Carebears pushing for unnecessarily huge draws
(ii) Unexcused missed turns and civil disorders, which are not punished harshly enough by the scoring system
(iii) Tired Tortoises deciding that press only exists until 1902, after which point it's just a means to complain until the game is over
(iv) Unchecked multi-accounting, which I assume is rare but feels very game breaking when it happens

[CaptainFritz28]

I think “resigned” means the game finished (drew) while a position you dropped out of was left unfilled.

FWIW I think particularly with press the bigger problem identified by OP is a trend by many to play press for the first few turns then revert to gunboat (hence asking everyone to ready ASAP instead of bothering with press and maybe changing their 1901-decided strategies).

In my opinion, the four big problems of press play on WebDip are, in order:

(i) Carebears pushing for unnecessarily huge draws
(ii) Unexcused missed turns and civil disorders, which are not punished harshly enough by the scoring system
(iii) Tired Tortoises deciding that press only exists until 1902, after which point it's just a means to complain until the game is over
(iv) Unchecked multi-accounting, which I assume is rare but feels very game breaking when it happens

I would reorder these to the following:
(i) Unchecked multi-accounting, which represents a more broad lack of moderation and addressing reports of cheating
(ii) Unexcused missed turns and civil disorders, especially the fact that leaving a game which you are losing does not affect your Ghost Rating
(iii) Tired Tortoises, since they essentially leave the game and refuse to change their mind
(iv) Carebears, because at least that leaves it up to the democratic process of drawing, and at least they engage with the rest of the players

[Beneficial Insurance]

I'm not the most reliable player--but I understand the tired tortoise problem as mostly a funciton of complexity. At the start of the game you have three units to control. There might be some initial alliances but they also aren't... they're really simple things like "does Russia open North or South" problems for which there are relatively well known playbooks for.

When you control ten units and have a coalition that is trying to push across the stalemate line... everything suddenly requires analysis. Over and over again. It takes a bit of time to do this.

Moreover the situation isn't always dynamic. Sometimes it's a week IRL and you've only captured one more SC. At this point... it's just a bit of a slog.