appalling typing above on mobile device...

If you play PPSC, the best thing to do is to just accept the premise...
If that strikes you as distasteful then play WTA instead.

I don't see how accepting a survive would increase GR. That's the whole point of the GR, to reward wins and draws. And I do feel that anything less than a draw is a loss even in PPSC, but I try to avoid those games.

I've been under the impression that a draw is better than a survive in terms of GR.

Points are nothing more than a way for people to choose the relative level of skill of their opponents.

GhostRatings rate games based on the type of game. For PPSC, a 1/3 survive is better than a 1/4 draw; just like with points. GR is not intended to convince people to play one way or another, it rewards you for playing well based on the type of game.

Personally I would think I'd take a 1/3 survive over a 1/4 draw in PPSC, except the last PPSC game I played I decided against a similar situation and helped put together a grand alliance even though I could have been eating up weaker countries. In the end a country on the other side of the board messed up and all was for naught.

Wow, I could have sworn it wouldn't work that way, but I just looked it up. Personally I don't like it, but in a way it makes sense.

I agree with spyman, IF you play PPSC accept that it is not a WTA game.

HOWEVER, i believe IF is the important things here. I do not play PPSC.

That said, i'd like to see a time-limited PPSC variant, where you get points per supply center in a draw. (and the time-limit means that a solo is unlikely)

Time limited PPSC? That is a pretty cool idea. It would awesome to play 1 hour or 2 hour games.

.... In such a variant, true 18 SC victories would be rare, but you could still declare the winner as the player with the most SCs once time runs out. It wouldn't be classic WTA diplomacy but it would still be a fun game.

Don't get me wrong, in PPSC if I think I even have a prayer of winning, I'll risk losing more SC's if I have the slightest chance of mobilizing the others to stop somebody else's solo and give myself a chance at the win. Only when it is impossible to stop the solo will I look to maximize my own survive.

It's really never theoretically impossible to stop a solo. Never in the game does the solo have more units than the defense. You can see it coming long before he can jump you for the 18th center, and there's usually enough time to organize a defense if everyone wants to.

I stop solos when I can, simply because it's more fun.

Santosh, in my last completed game (ancient med) Egypt had a guaranteed win that fall, regardless of my actions or Greeces... realizing this I snaked a few SCs from Greece on the way out. That's all I was trying to say.

Sure. I was just saying that it's possible to prevent that situation from happening, and this choice happens a few years before the end.

This is exactly why I'm never joining a PPSC game again. It's not diplomacy to me; it's just "more dots: the game"

Survive is the same as defeat, so I would always go for draw rather than survive with many points.

I guess my point is that how you define an optimal non-win result in a PPSC game seems rather fluid, depending on the player. A guy like Dejan will be pissed trying to stop a solo with a guy who is perfectly content to take a 9 SC survive.

It seems to me though, that Dejan's attitude is a WTA one, and I don't understand why so many people try to apply it to PPSC, especially when the reward system isn't structured that way.

I believe the prevailing ideology is that a draw is better than a survive. If you end in a draw, regardless of the game, you can claim to be a winner in that game along with 2 or 3 or however many other people. If you gain a survive, though, you did not win. You may have come in second or w/e, but you will not have won. I like WTA more, but if there is an interesting PPSC game going on, I'll join, and I'll apply the ideology that a survive is a loss, regardless of how it affects my GR or points.

That's a very good explanation pat, and I think it mirrors what others believe as well. However, doesn't that put you at a disadvantage in PPSC? If you are playing for a draw when others play for a survive, your chances of obtaining that goal decrease.

true it does, but if I am playing for a draw (and have not been defeated yet), I often have enough influence in the game to get at least another power or two in line. It is easy to see who will go for the survive, rather than the draw, and if the solo attempt is spotted in time, convincing them by way of taking their SC's is often possible.

That's a very good explanation pat, and I think it mirrors what others believe as well. However, doesn't that put you at a disadvantage in PPSC? If you are playing for a draw when others play for a survive, your chances of obtaining that goal decrease.

Survive is the *worse* outcome you can have. It means you weren't just crushed and are partly to blame for not stopping the solo. Win then draw, then be eliminated, then survive is my personal order of acceptable outcomes.

@Draug: Not sure how you come to that conclusion. Surely a defeated player has failed to stop the win as much as a survived player? Whether you have a unit left that's been valiantly trying to hold the line in Munich or you were wiped out in the first few turns doesn't change the fact that you have failed utterly in organising a decent allied defence. At least a survived player has been attempting to influence the game til the bitter end.

win
draw
survive
defeat
resign

This is how I see it, WTA or PPSC (I prefer WTA)

Dejan0707 I think you should cross resign off that list, or at least drop it down below suicide by ritual disembowelment.

Personally I find some draws boring. Kick the weakest two out and agree to a 5-way draw? And I have seen this, proposed or happening. Such a draw I would consider to be lower than a survive.
Of course, a good 3-way draw after a decent fight? Almost nothing better than the feeling after such a game.

am I the only pro-PPSC out there?

No, I also prefer PPSC. But that is not the opic.

topic

Survival is a lesser form of defeat.

Drawing is a lesser form of victory.

I generally see a survive as more shameful than a defeat. I've seen plenty of games where a player about to be defeated begged and explained to other players how his defeat would result in another player's win. Sure enough, somebody gets enough momentum from the defeat to roll into a win. The surviving players contributed more to that solo win than the defeated player.

I like PPSC too, but WTA is also fun because the dynamics are al changed.

The reason WTA is better imo is because everyone is looking to solo where as in PPSC, I feel people are looking to rack up as many SCs as they can get, and if that means someone else is allowed to solo, so be it

patiz hits the nail on the head. My only complaint is people like Draugnar (nothing personal, lots of people feel as you do) who insist that the WTA attitude MUST apply to PPSC, in that a survive is ALWAYS worse than a draw.

I don't agree, for reasons previously stated.

what about a second best player?
not draw but survived helping the winer