The MLS Cup Playoffs start in October.

Oh, wrong sport.

Orlando City baby

The PDET (2nd round) starts in 9 days or so.

Sounds like Gen Lee just volunteered to be a Tournament Director.

Way to step up old chap, i like the cut of your jib!

Gen Lee, come join the Online Diplomacy Championship (ODC) at PlayDip - also called the PlayDip Elite Tournament (PDET) there.
http://www.playdiplomacy.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=797

After finishing really strong last tournament, WebDip is looking a little worse for wear this year so far. Only wiggy has scored points so far - we could use your help.

There's been a nice infusion of strong FtF players and I've found the level competition pretty great.

@claesar, yes I think I will play that, but finals are not until November I believe, it's quite a long investment of time. Some shorter options would be nice.

@VI, it does seem that way, this was by accident. Is there an algorithm for placing players in separate games with as many non-repetitive opponents as possible. There must be.

Yeah, it's a long investment but it seems like it's paced for very little overlap in games so it's definitely something you can do at the same time as whatever is going on here.

Wouldn't you be at a severe disadvantage if you joined the ODC now?

@yonni, I have signed up, but the interface does make me depressed to be honest. The messaging is confusing, the order submissions are cumbersome , everything seems more difficult to play with. I don't know if I want to get stuck playing for 2 months on that site.

@Tom, solo or bust I reckon.

@Tom, Yeah, you're definitely at a bit of a disadvantage but the tournament waits super heavily towards a solo. There's only been one so far and a whole lot of 3WDs.

@GL, I was also really frustrated at first. There are some things that really annoy me like the order submissions and the separate message topics. But there are some great things too. Being able to send messages to more than one person at a time is amazing. It really adds something that we don't have at WebDip.
I really suggest you give it a chance, the headaches fade a bit over time.

I am in that tournament as vegn and was lucky enough to be part of a 3WD.

The biggest adjustments are having to manually verify moves (it does not check for misorders or show your moves on the board as far as I could tell) and people tend to message multiple players at once because of the ability to group message. You also can't tell who has or hasn't entered moves, so if someone NMRs, it resets the clock for 24 hours but you have no idea who did it.

I agree that the quality of play was very high and the game I was in was enjoyable.

The order entry at PlayDip is point and click which is more cumbersome than the dropdown here at webDip. However, it does create text version of orders that you can show to verify. Personally, I like that you can misorder as it replicates FtF and the "it was a mistake" ploy.

@Tom and others - certainly joining in the second round gives you a disadvantage for making the finals. But, if you solo, there is a good chance still.

While the goal should be to get on the top board, just playing in good competitive games should be reason enough. Two WDC champs played in the first round and I am hoping to get another one or two into the second round.

Length of tournaments has always been an issue. Doesn't matter which one it is. As a TD, you want to give people the ability to pause the game, but that inevitably turns a 2 month game into a 4-5 month game. Phases can't be too short, otherwise NMRs will happen and fewer people will sign up. Too many concurrent games and people get overloaded. Heck, look at the 1v1 tournament, which is going on 4 months old despite the games taking a half hour to resolve if done live, a week if not.

These are all issues that myself and the other TDs have tried to work out, but some of them are just a part of playing in the online format.

Carebear, do you play here or you just beetljuiced everytime someone mentions the ODC?

I'm curious, I am so used to chatting during retreats and builds it has become a part of my game which it is hard to imagine not having access to.

Do other sites and FtF tournaments allow press during these periods? Our games can be unnecessarily extended as a result of people utilizing this period to let their opponent cool down or to negotiate with extra time on the clock before the next phase turnover. It would be interesting to see how length of games might change under rulebook press.

The lower time clock for retreats and builds at PlayDip is a really nice feature.

@mapu - you just had to let everyone know you are a vegan. :P

Don't worry Yonni - we eventually wore Carebear down enough and got him to join a semi-anon game.

They allow chatting during the builds and retreats but you have a shorter time period for them. It's a nice balance.

@Gen Lee - I can't believe somebody named after such a cool car could let me down so devastatingly.

@Yonni - http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=194855

The seven participants are Tom Bombadil, goldfinger0303, The Hanged Man, Socrates Dissatisfied, Hapapop, Kugs, and myself.

@GL - No FtF tournament to my knowledge allows communication during retreats and adjustments.

I too like the ability to have shorter retreat and adjustment phases on playdip. Keeps the game moving.

@Yonni:
Work all night on a drink a'rum
(Daylight come and he wan' go home)
Stack banana till thee morning come
(Daylight come and he wan' go home)

FTF can bog down in the order writing phase. Some tournaments have it separate from the negotiation phase. I like the drop dead clock because it keeps the games moving fast. Does create issues with order writing and NMRs, which is annoying. Rule book press at FTF. No communication during builds and adjustments.

Can you make faces or say something right there at the board, just blurt out "retreat to galicia" or "I would disband if I were you"

No. It's cheating.

You need to cover it during the negotiation phase.

Ahh man, I can't do it Yonni. The adjucation is horrible, I have to go back to the orders page and flip back and forth to see what the heck happened.

Yeah, not being able to scroll through is also a bummer but I have faith in you. WebDip needs your help. Mapu doesn't count, he signed up as a vdipper!

You're not supposed to speak during builds/retreats in FTF tournaments, but I've had plenty of faces pulled at me which speak plenty. The "You *are* doing what you said you would do, right?" and "If you retreat into my supply center you're a dead man" looks are pretty common.

Without fail, no matter what site i go to everybody always has strong opinions about why the site they learned to play on is vastly superior and that the other guys site is so annoyingly unintuitive and ugly.

I remember once upon a time feeling that way about all Mac products, turns out they were only unintuitive to the extent it was different then what i was used to but they actually put a lot of good thought into how they approached things.

Just give it time and get used to it, you'll be fine. A little flexibility is worth it for the sake of playing some high quality and interesting players that you haven't already played a million times before. That's the point of this tournament. Maybe you can even find some takeaways of features or tournament ideas we can later migrate over here. Versatility has it's rewards.

@Gen. Lee, unfortunately VI is right; it just takes a bit of getting used to. Try spending a couple of hours with Yonni, Carebear or VI (or I'll happpily volunteer) fast forwarding through a throw away 2 player game and a man as intelligent as you would soon get the hang of it ;)

You can scroll through orders, you just have to have them open on a different tab or window.

Come on, join the second round (deadline is a week on Friday), we can't have the ODC reigning champs under-represented :D The last round had more FTF players than you guys.

1 point to Tom Bombadil for signing up!

The problem has more to do with difficulty playing on a phone which is how I play 99% of the time.

@VI and Bucky, you guys need to pen your interest on the thread still IIRC.