Diplomacy Academy 6: Improve your tactics

[dancing queen]

New Diplomacy Academy Video: Improve your tactics! https://youtu.be/sPnub0t_0nE

Long one this time.

[dancing queen]

Over on Spark, David Maletsky made this observation:

"To my mind, gunboat is for practicing mechanics, and as has been mentioned, helps with time management. I think a distinction needs to be drawn between “mechanics” and terms like “tactics” and “strategy”, though; tactics is mostly psychology after a point, and strategy is a combination of predictive capacity and apprehension of the butterfly effect on a given board."

And I was like .... dang, I wish I had talked to him before filming, because that's very true. If you don't have a mastery of the mechanics, you constantly trip over your feet when dealing with Tactics and Strategy.

[Condescension]

Love this series. If you started a patreon, I'd fund it.

[mhsmith0]

FWIW I'm quite a bit higher on the value and interest of gunboat compared to that assessment; it's a different game than standard diplomacy, to be sure, but it is also imo a very interesting game, and of course it's kind of NICE not to have to send out 10 billion messages to people just to make sure they're (probably) doing what you want. And I find the challenge of "how do you communicate without talking" to be a pretty interesting one myself :)

[dancing queen]

Love this series. If you started a patreon, I'd fund it.

As it happens, I already have a Patreon! :)

https://www.patreon.com/dancescholar

[David E. Cohen]

Tactically, Dip is easy, Chris. Nothing playing a few thousand games won't improve. Grand strategy in Diplomacy ain't too hard, neither. Now diplomacy (small 'd'), that is 'reading' and manipulating the other players, THAT's the challenging part of the game.

[dancing queen]

Tactically, Dip is easy, Chris. Nothing playing a few thousand games won't improve. Grand strategy in Diplomacy ain't too hard, neither. Now diplomacy (small 'd'), that is 'reading' and manipulating the other players, THAT's the challenging part of the game.

Reading people and manipulating other players is the hardest part to coach, too! And for an audience that is a mix of online/f2f players, difficult to discuss holistically in a 12-18 minute video.

What advice do you have for people who want to be better at the "small d" diplomacy? I typically start with "talk less, listen more."

[Octavious]

Another interesting video.

To me, though, this one doesn't make a huge amount of sense.

You talk about poker players getting a feel for how hands are likely to play out. An instinct based upon repetition, essentially, which gives you a rough guide to the likely routes the game may flow in. The huge problem I see is that gunboat will teach you wrong. Like you say, in a press game there are umpteen ways of making that RA work, and in a gunboat these ways don't really exist. If you play a lot of gunboat your instincts will be telling you the RA ain't gonna work. You come into that game as a gunboater who occasionally plays diplomacy and your gunboat experience will be telling you that certain perfectly good options "feel" wrong.

When I play diplomacy I want to be able to trust my gut. If I consume too much gunboat I don't think that's gonna happen.

A very similar argument can be made for the differences between time limited ftf and online games, in fact. The respective game flows can be very different. But where ftf has the advantage over gunboat is that ftf is actually fun.

[VillageIdiot]

It’s true, diplomacy (small d) is the special sauce to be a good player - but still being very strong at knowing the mechanics of the board is extremely important to master. I’ve seen many a good diplomacy player fail in a showdown because one players tactical Kung-Fu was weaker then another’s. If anybody every followed captainmeme’s YouTube diplomacy puzzle videos you’ll know there’s a separation of the men from the boys in being able to think at a higher level with tactics. It’s a rare skill.

Completely agree with Oct that there is a heavy risk to be weary of when it comes into falling into a gunboat players perspective when it comes to tactics. You don’t want to become robotic about it or you’re really going to limit your game play. I personally benefited a lot from playing 1v1 games (PlayDip format) when I first started playing the game to learn the mechanics and it served me very well, but I mixed that in with a tonne of full press games as well to keep my skill learning very well rounded. If you dive completely into gunboat games in the beginning then you’re just going to specialize in that one variant and put yourself into a mould you’ll have to spend time unlearning if you ever want to swap over to full press.

[ziran]

What advice do you have for people who want to be better at the "small d" diplomacy? I typically start with "talk less, listen more."

i disagree, at least as a universal policy. in online games, if a player doesn't talk back to me, and put some thought into the response, i have no idea if they are even listening. there's no body language to read and often no history with the player if it is anon. i have a particularly egregious example i'd like to talk about, but the game is ongoing.

[dancing queen]

Another interesting video.

Thank you! I hear what you are saying about the apparent conflict in the advice. One shouldn't play a ton of gunboat to get a feel for the game, but rather, play enough gunboat that you are confident you understand how the pieces move, how to support/convoy/dislodge/retreat/self-standoff/disband/beleaguer/etc. all the nit-picky elements that you want to have in pocket when you really play.

Then play a tonne of "real" games.

. But where ftf has the advantage over gunboat is that ftf is actually fun.

Also the advantage over online play! *ducks*

[dancing queen]

What advice do you have for people who want to be better at the "small d" diplomacy? I typically start with "talk less, listen more."

i disagree, at least as a universal policy. in online games, if a player doesn't talk back to me, and put some thought into the response, i have no idea if they are even listening. there's no body language to read and often no history with the player if it is anon. i have a particularly egregious example i'd like to talk about, but the game is ongoing.

All advice is situational, of course. What I was aiming at is if you are more focused on "hearing what they are saying, and what it really means" - considering the board state, what they have said before, what you are hearing from other players etc. - and less focused on "What can I say to persuade them to do what I want" that you will get better results. You still have to negotiate, but your negotiations will be more focused if you tailor them to your audience, and your tactics will be better if you get a better read on your fellow players.

[David E. Cohen]

Well, I have some built-in advantages. I can adjudicate Standard games in my head. This means I can run through dozens of possible combinations of orders for all Powers without the need of a board. Due to my work on the Model House Rules and other rulebook related projects, I have a very thorough knowledge of the rules, which can be helpful in a surprising number of complex tactical situations.

That said, given practice, just about everyone can become a competent to good tactician. But even the best Dip tacticians in the world lose regularly to those competent to good tacticians, because small-d diplomacy is the more important skill.

For me, the way to excel in negotiations is to put yourself in the mind of your opponent and figure out what they want. Once you have that, you need to determine how much of what they want you can plausibly give to them. And you need to put significant effort into it. The plans that you put forward to your enemies should be just as realistic, well thought out and detailed as the plans you make with your allies. This has an added addvantage. Flexibility is a key to victory in Diplomacy. The enemy may end up turning into an ally, in which case those fake plans can be converted into real plans.

[dancing queen]

Well, I have some built-in advantages. I can adjudicate Standard games in my head. This means I can run through dozens of possible combinations of orders for all Powers without the need of a board. Due to my work on the Model House Rules and other rulebook related projects, I have a very thorough knowledge of the rules, which can be helpful in a surprising number of complex tactical situations.>>

I'm here too - it makes Face to Face games a lot easier, since I know what happens as soon as I hear the orders read, and am already thinking about what that means for negotiations. Something approaching this level of skill should be the goal of anyone who wants to do well when time is a factor.

<<For me, the way to excel in negotiations is to put yourself in the mind of your opponent and figure out what they want. Once you have that, you need to determine how much of what they want you can plausibly give to them. And you need to put significant effort into it. The plans that you put forward to your enemies should be just as realistic, well thought out and detailed as the plans you make with your allies. This has an added advantage. Flexibility is a key to victory in Diplomacy. The enemy may end up turning into an ally, in which case those fake plans can be converted into real plans.

That doesn't get said enough - you should be giving your enemies opportunities to become your friend! That definitely requires a lot of work.