The player values the gambit more if they come up with it themselves, meanwhile if assigned a bad gambit they lose no matter what arguements they make.

Remove both the necessity of good gambit production and lack of interest by putting the onus on the player(s) to come up with the gambits in the first place

ora has it right. 49 players. 7 for each country. Game master randomly picks which two or three from each group of 7 gets to pick a gambit. then rotate the countries so the next turn they are on a different country and a different sub group of 2 or 3 from the 7 gets picked. But they get to pick their gambits.

i am in

I'm fine with players picking their own gambits, but in order for debate and voting to take place, the gambits have to be distinct. Having nominations for gambits and assigning them ensures this but I'm open to be persuaded

Then get a list of nominations and let the seven pick their favorites. Then you pick one form each subgroup (if three poeple pick the same gambit, then they are the same subgroup) so the people supporting their gambit choose that gambit as well.

This has to be a 10 day turn or forcibly pause and unpause to run the turn when everything is decided.

@draugnar, I don't fully understand your 2nd post. Are we saying something like....

1 - Nomination process, all players can submit gambits and the GamesMaster (GM) decides on the best three for each country.

2 - Allocation: Players 1-6 are allocated England and must self select and argue for their preferred gambit. They advise the GM of their selection in secret, and can argue for/against none or more in the forum. As the identity of players 1-6 are secret they can also involve themselves in the arguements of other countries. Players 7-12 are allocated France, etc, etc.

3 voting : a ballot paper is produced and players vote for their preferred moves. Every player has 7 votes (one for each country) A time limit is set, people who do not vote cannot receive votes.

4 Resolution: The gambit with the most votes is used. The GM draws lots in the event of a tie.

5 - Nomination process for the next moves.

6 Players 1,7,13, 19, 25 and 31 are allocated England, players 2,8, 14 etc are allocated France etc, and the process of self selection, debate and voting continues.

The idea is that the diplomatic and debating skills are judged more so than the stragagy of movement. Switching countries contantly takes away any bias in country selection.

If the gamemaster who enters orders in pauses as soon as the turn runs then unpauses as soon as he is ready for the next turn to run, the phase length can be anything he likes.

Turn runs
All nations vote pause
nations orders are put in and finalized
All nations unpause
turn runs
all nations pause
...

Oh, I see your question.

1 Nominations of gambits - fine as described

2 GM assigns group of players to nation for the turn. Switch up the groups so that the same seven aren't always competing for a nation (e.g. 1-7 get engladn S01, but 2,9,11,22,31,37, and 49 get Italy on S02). You could find a program for round robin tournaments that would do this for you.

3 Players pick their preferred gambit to defend

4 GM looks over his list and randomly picks from those who selected amongst his list of preferred gambits who will represent that gambit. If one of his gambits isn't picked, he picks an alternative that was.

5 voting - fine as described

6 resolution - fine as described

7, rinse and repeat. :-)

Does gambit simply mean "set of orders"?

Is all discussion prior to and during a vote conducted publicly? If so, wouldn't that drastically change the nature of the game in that you could get a strong feel for what the other side might do? If not, and each country has its own private internal discussions and vote, how inter-country press work? Who speaks for the country?

There is no side. The outcome of the game is actually irrelevant and no omen player or group is always playing the same nation. You may be England in the Spring 01 and Germany in Fall 05.

Gambit does mean set of orders. Draugnar is correct in that the outcome of the game is irrelevant. All debates are conducted publically and anyone can speak in favour, or against, any gambit of any country.

@Draugnar - re 4 above. So if there are three English gambits turn 1; "anti-french", "Secure Norway" and "Yorkshire Pudding". The 6/7 allocated to England get to pick which one they wish to promote, but what if the all pick "Yorkshire Pudding"? There would be no debate and voting would be tactical. Allocating 2 players to each gambit ensures debate and tests a players debating skills.

@Maniac - Debatign skills aren't tested by who won. You coudl assing someone to debate the moon is made of green cheetos and they are *going* to lose that debate. It can't be won.

But you will always find two or three good potential gambits in each situation and someone will always be willing to take the odd ball one because they think it will be unexpected and, therefore, uncountered.

But then, the whole reason I quit debate and failed the final quarter of advanced composition in high school was because the positions and topics were assigned. You can't truly argue a position you don't feel passionate about. And putting a bunch of paper strips in a hat with controversial topics that have *nothing* to do with English and then expecting someone to write a paper supporting one side even if the person disagrees with that side... No, you can't expect and athiest to argue for Christiantity or a Christian to argue for athiesm (just an example). If someone feels anti-french is the way to go, assigning them to defend Yorkshirte Pudding is a guarantee Yorkshire pudding won't get selected.

Points taken draugnar, but the nominations process and GM selection should ensure only defendable gambits are debated and the alternative (self selection) doesn't encourage debate and may result in perverse voting. If it was obvious that all 6 English players wanted anti-french, the voters could select Yorkshire Pudding to reduce their oppenant's vote count.

As long as they are defendable, maybe. But you could easily counter the inherent voter bias against a block by not revealing to anyone who makes up the groups. Use PMs to tell them to select an opening and scramble up the groups each time. No one will know that six players all went anti-french because only the one chosen to defend anti-french would be revealed.

If the outcome of the board game (and hence the action on the board) is irrelevant, what is the point of debating over orders? From the point of view of the Diplo-mocracy game, Yorkshire Pudding would be equivalent to any other opening for England, since, as you are saying, the action on the board is irrelevant and all that matters is how convincingly a player defends a set of orders.

If the objective is to win debates and the outcome of the game is entirely irrelevant, the players involved might as well be debating virtually other topic. It would essentially be debate club by proxy, or perhaps a slight (but trivial) variation on the "Pacifist variant", where herein discussion is allowed, but all orders are inconsequential (even as far as not even effecting the participation of th

OK - let's go with self selection and see how it works. I think the bigger problem we have is (a) doesn't seem like much interest and (b) debates could get difficult to follow if all players are debating 21 potential moves in one thread.

YEah, you have to have threads for each nationality. Then the thread would only debate the moves for that nation.

@yebellz - In the grand scheme, the orders are incosequential, but the motivation behind defending those orders implies the person has some goal in mind. Maybe it's the multicolored map. Maybe it is setting up a massive convoy. Maybe he secretely wants Austria to win. Who knows? The key is there are hidden motivations outside the debate, sort of meta-debating.

@yebellz - I'm assuming most players would want to defend a defensible gambit. A player could pick the yorkshire pudding gambit and try a jokey defense or anti-establishment arguement, and that might work. But i think voters will see through that tactic, but i could be wrong.

I don't agree with Draugnar that there is some secret agenda that players will be advocating.

I didn't say there is a secret agenda, just that there could be. I said there is a motivation. That may not be secret. It may be to get the nation you are playing at that moment the best possible position, which is not a secret. But there could be a different motivation and it *may* be a secret agenda to do something cool or different or just to see a specific nation win the game. Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts and minds of Diplomacy players? The Draugnar does! Bwahahahaha!!!