I would be very interested in hearing your definition of luck, Redhouse. Taking advantage of a rival's cock-up is certainly skill, but surely that cock-up happening in the first place, and being where you and not someone else can capitalise on it, is mostly down to luck.

Yeah that's true.

There certainly is an element of luck in Diplomacy. Hell, something as simple as what country you get and the placement of your opponents is luck. Unless you have the skill to hack the servers and decide these things on your own, of course. ;)

But YJ addressed the question whether he was lucky in winning this one or not in his OP, so I was curious if that was the case and tried to analyze the game. But England's mistake seems to be luck. Profiting from it surely isn't.

Well yea, profiting from the mistakes of others isn't luck. You control your own moves, so how you move them of course that qualifies as skill. In an extreme example, you may get lucky that a player intentionally moves his units out and away from his centers; it is still your "skill" that allows you to take advantage of it and walk your units into them.

The mistakes others make aren't always luck, either. Sometimes you use your skill to induce those players into making those mistakes. In fact, that's often (always?) your goal. However, there certainly is a factor of luck in games. It is luck, not skill, that you draw opponents that do not realize that hey, maybe they should try and stop the guy who is going to win instead of continuing to fight amongst each other. It's luck to get an Italy who doesn't realize or care that France only needs a couple centers to win and decides to vacate Naples, Rome, and Venice and move east.

I was simply addressing the fact that luck certainly does exist in this game. They are also often intertwined, as well.

Don't want to derail YJ's thread though. Are you jerks taking him seriously yet? I didn't feel like I was being addressed.

Not for the GR bump. I donated quite a bit to it before I had to leave...

Also, what the flying fuck @ Germany in Vienna in 1902. Why would you do that? I would have raged so hard if I were still Austria...

wait, PE, I thought it would be damian's GR that was factored in, not yours. Or both? Or what? Haha if its yours I WILL break top 100.

Agree about Austria. I was sending pro austria press all early game and everybody ignored me to shit all over him.

Well, I think that it works just like points, which means that when I was forced-resigned and damian took over, he added his GR to the pot.

I thought I heard it didn't work like that. I think its whoever finishes. You wont take a GR hit from this game.

I think.

If PE CDed and Damian takes over, then both PE and Damian's GRs are added to the pot.

PE was replaced, not CD. same thing?

Also Redhouse, what do you mean Russia destabalized? When? When he switched from attacking turkey to defending him?

Same thing. Replaced = forced into CD.

dag, well welcome me to the top 100 then.

I'm pretty sure that if someone is replaced then they do not lose any GR from the game.

That was my belief also jmo... but you guys know way more about it than I do :P

From a common sense standpoint, it would make sense that jmo is right, because if you take the extreme example of 7 players starting and each is replaced, the GR gain for the solo would blow up because the expected result is minimized while V increases.

Yeah, that seems weird when not reading all of your press, but also the 1903 move to StP sc (seems like going to Swe would have been better) in combination with what seems the most improductive bounce in the world in Silesia. From a distance I'd say in the destabilizing power - stabilizing power spectrum he tended to the left. But then, I wasn't there.

You can't win, Darth.

If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.

yeah Russia confused all of us in those couple of years. Germany and I were chortling at the confusion in the east.

The reason I think Eden's GR won't be effected is that there is no way to tell he was originally in the game. Once you are replaced any record of you being in the game is gone. Perhaps Ghostie found a way around that but I don't think so, and I know he only collects the data once a month so there shouldn't be a record left over.

Chortling at confusion sure is the mark of the true diplomat. So now you have acquired a Carnivore score of 1 (see my earlier thread), the highest possible (1 WTA win out of 1 total) how would you like to join my tourny in the highest category? (: with me that is)? You can chortle till your tummy hurts!

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There is no luck in Diplomacy. But there is chance.

jmo has it right, as far as the ghost ratings are concerned, PE was never in the game. webdip doesn't keep track of players who are replaced so ghost ratings has no access to that information either.

@zultar - to back up what has been said, only the players of record at the end of the game have their GR adjusted. PE will not take a GR hit nor will YJ get extra GR from PE.

That's weird because I asked one of the mods, fk or abge, about this concerning a CD game, and he said that it does. Strange.

Regardless, good game for you, YJ.
Welcome to WTA.

Only if the player stays in CD (i.e. is the player of record). Are you sure they weren't talkign about points? Points are taken out at the beginning of the game of course and are cummulative. But GR is pulled att he end based on the players in those positions at the end of the game. If someone CDs and the spot is not replaced, then they lose GR, but if the spot is replaced they don't.

@YJ - 3 league solos. I can't find two of my solos to see if they were WTA or not, but 3 of the 4 that I found were WTA. Weird that a search of the phrase "Game won by Draugnar" only found 4 of them in my games pages...

@YJ - I found 'em. 3 WTA and 3 PPSC. So looking forward to your catching me. Of course, when my current set is done, I'm taking a haitus for a while, so you'll probably beat me while I'm away.