Communicating with draw & cancel button in gunboat

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Expand view Topic review: Communicating with draw & cancel button in gunboat

Re: Communicating with draw & cancel button in gunboat

by Wusti » Thu Apr 08, 2021 6:47 am

Claesar wrote:
Thu Apr 08, 2021 6:26 am
Wusti wrote:
Thu Apr 08, 2021 1:40 am
Why I think that's about the nicest thing you've ever called me Claesar.

...
I don't recall calling you anything (in public) before, so it would simultaneously be the nicest and the worst thing.
Haha we both know you've called me much worse!!!

Re: Communicating with draw & cancel button in gunboat

by Claesar » Thu Apr 08, 2021 6:26 am

Wusti wrote:
Thu Apr 08, 2021 1:40 am
Why I think that's about the nicest thing you've ever called me Claesar.

...
I don't recall calling you anything (in public) before, so it would simultaneously be the nicest and the worst thing.

Re: Communicating with draw & cancel button in gunboat

by Claesar » Thu Apr 08, 2021 6:23 am

Thanks, I was partly wrong!

Re: Communicating with draw & cancel button in gunboat

by jmo1121109 » Thu Apr 08, 2021 4:51 am

Using the Pause or Cancel buttons as signals to other players is violating the press rules. For example, voting pause to signal the desire for a smaller draw is not allowed. If you need a pause in a gunboat game contact the moderators (see below for the contact details) and explain why.
Nothing about Draw vote, hence, no rule against it. Vote draw whenever you want, and if you don't want to worry about what it means, join hidden draw games.

Hope this clears it up!

Re: Communicating with draw & cancel button in gunboat

by Wusti » Thu Apr 08, 2021 1:40 am

Claesar wrote:
Wed Apr 07, 2021 5:22 pm
Wusti wrote:
Wed Apr 07, 2021 12:42 pm
That's about as ridiculous a thing as I've ever seen a mod post. Re-read what you just typed.

If people don't want it to be used as a tool - then they'll make HDV games.
Just because it's possible, doesn't mean it's allowed. Like murder, mr. Anarchist.
Why I think that's about the nicest thing you've ever called me Claesar. :lol:

However you haven't addressed the core of the issue here: why is using a Draw vote, and how is it distinguished from a support hold for example, dastardly cheating behavior to be outlawed?

CStein's straw men are hilarious, but also easily coded to prevent if the use of them for this method was widespread.

Also Big Brother, there are laws which state Murder is illegal - but by your own admission there is no rule surrounding the specific use or misuse of the Draw button. So you analogy fails. A for effort though :-D

Re: Communicating with draw & cancel button in gunboat

by dargorygel » Thu Apr 08, 2021 12:29 am

jasnah wrote:
Wed Apr 07, 2021 3:40 pm
CSteinhardt wrote:
Wed Apr 07, 2021 3:15 pm
jasnah wrote:
Wed Apr 07, 2021 1:04 pm
You are incorrectly identifying what is problematic about your example; it's not the use of the draw vote but the intentional and prior arrangement of several players outside of game to collaborate. It would be equally problematic were you to make this agreement with several others that a particular fake convoy pattern through enemy fleets signals you should work together, that doesn't mean convoying through enemy fleets should be banned. If you cared about making a coherent post instead of just writing lazy fallacies you assume people are too stupid to see, you would have thought of this.
OK. So, what you're saying is that the real problem would be that this group of people would have a common prior understanding and be able to communicate using draw votes in future games. Sounds reasonable.

So, if, for example, somebody decided to start a forum discussion which would encourage regular gunboat players on this website to come to agreements about what a draw vote should "mean", in your view that would be an attempt to cheat, correct? How would you recommend punishing participants in such a discussion?
That happens frequently and is called establishing a meta. For example, generally players in this website take writing support hold another player's units to mean asking for an alliance. Maybe we should ban all the players who use this, clearly, it's an outside game influence of gunboat mechanics.

In normal circumstances I would agree to disagree but you somehow manage to write in a miserable and pedantic way filling up several paragraphs despite having little to no substance to your argument.
It's like bridge (which oddly is the second bridge reference I've made on this site today, even though I haven't 'bridged' in decades...) In bridge, communicating to your partner (or your opponents) about what exactly is in your hand is illegal, bad form, bad cricket, and icky. But there are well established ways to hint. Hints, of course, are just that... hints. It takes deduction, guessing, induction, and often reading such hints end up with people being wrong.

That's not cheating. It's also why I am not an avid gunboater. I don't know the conventions. Gunboat with people is, of course, different than gunboat with bots. As it should be.

Re: Communicating with draw & cancel button in gunboat

by Chaqa » Wed Apr 07, 2021 8:26 pm

nesdunk14 wrote:
Thu Apr 01, 2021 12:27 am
Using the votes to communicate in gunboat is against site rules.
This isn't actually true I think. The pause vote isn't to be used that way, but it is very normal in Gunboat for those with draw votes entered to team up to stop the holdouts. I don't think it's strictly against the rules, and if it is, it's never been enforced/policed, in my many hundreds of games of experience.

Re: Communicating with draw & cancel button in gunboat

by Claesar » Wed Apr 07, 2021 5:22 pm

Wusti wrote:
Wed Apr 07, 2021 12:42 pm
That's about as ridiculous a thing as I've ever seen a mod post. Re-read what you just typed.

If people don't want it to be used as a tool - then they'll make HDV games.
Just because it's possible, doesn't mean it's allowed. Like murder, mr. Anarchist.

Re: Communicating with draw & cancel button in gunboat

by jasnah » Wed Apr 07, 2021 3:40 pm

CSteinhardt wrote:
Wed Apr 07, 2021 3:15 pm
jasnah wrote:
Wed Apr 07, 2021 1:04 pm
You are incorrectly identifying what is problematic about your example; it's not the use of the draw vote but the intentional and prior arrangement of several players outside of game to collaborate. It would be equally problematic were you to make this agreement with several others that a particular fake convoy pattern through enemy fleets signals you should work together, that doesn't mean convoying through enemy fleets should be banned. If you cared about making a coherent post instead of just writing lazy fallacies you assume people are too stupid to see, you would have thought of this.
OK. So, what you're saying is that the real problem would be that this group of people would have a common prior understanding and be able to communicate using draw votes in future games. Sounds reasonable.

So, if, for example, somebody decided to start a forum discussion which would encourage regular gunboat players on this website to come to agreements about what a draw vote should "mean", in your view that would be an attempt to cheat, correct? How would you recommend punishing participants in such a discussion?
That happens frequently and is called establishing a meta. For example, generally players in this website take writing support hold another player's units to mean asking for an alliance. Maybe we should ban all the players who use this, clearly, it's an outside game influence of gunboat mechanics.

In normal circumstances I would agree to disagree but you somehow manage to write in a miserable and pedantic way filling up several paragraphs despite having little to no substance to your argument.

Re: Communicating with draw & cancel button in gunboat

by RoganJosh » Wed Apr 07, 2021 3:19 pm

There's a quite clear distinction between a public discussion that anyone can partake in, and a private agreement between a few players. But keep building straw mans, if that makes you happy. Or you could just go start a few gunboat games with hidden draw votes.

Re: Communicating with draw & cancel button in gunboat

by CSteinhardt » Wed Apr 07, 2021 3:15 pm

jasnah wrote:
Wed Apr 07, 2021 1:04 pm
You are incorrectly identifying what is problematic about your example; it's not the use of the draw vote but the intentional and prior arrangement of several players outside of game to collaborate. It would be equally problematic were you to make this agreement with several others that a particular fake convoy pattern through enemy fleets signals you should work together, that doesn't mean convoying through enemy fleets should be banned. If you cared about making a coherent post instead of just writing lazy fallacies you assume people are too stupid to see, you would have thought of this.
OK. So, what you're saying is that the real problem would be that this group of people would have a common prior understanding and be able to communicate using draw votes in future games. Sounds reasonable.

So, if, for example, somebody decided to start a forum discussion which would encourage regular gunboat players on this website to come to agreements about what a draw vote should "mean", in your view that would be an attempt to cheat, correct? How would you recommend punishing participants in such a discussion?

Re: Communicating with draw & cancel button in gunboat

by teccles » Wed Apr 07, 2021 3:04 pm

One fun issue with "any kind of communication is not OK" is that it makes voting draw a very powerful communication tool. If it's illegal to vote draw for any other reason than wanting a draw now, then voting draw tells people your intentions in a way that's guaranteed to be truthful.

Re: Communicating with draw & cancel button in gunboat

by Wintogreen » Wed Apr 07, 2021 1:24 pm

Yeah, if you're gonna criticize the argument don't tear down a straw man. I personally don't see what's wrong with using the draw with certain subtext. Firstly, in gunboat its so difficult to discern the context and meaning that most of the time it probably won't even matter. Secondly there is a way to make draw votes hidden! So if this strategy of kind of communicating some intent maybe becomes game breaking, you can just turn it off. Frankly, in gunboat, every action I take has subtext.

Re: Communicating with draw & cancel button in gunboat

by Wusti » Wed Apr 07, 2021 1:14 pm

CSteinhardt wrote:
Wed Apr 07, 2021 12:53 pm
Wusti wrote:
Wed Apr 07, 2021 12:42 pm
That's about as ridiculous a thing as I've ever seen a mod post. Re-read what you just typed.

If people don't want it to be used as a tool - then they'll make HDV games.
So, in your view it would be fine for me to use the draw button to communicate a full press message in morse code? ​Would it also be okay if I had an agreement with some high-volume players to use the draw button to help us recognize each other in anonymous games, so that we could then ally, with some sort of private handshake?

The reason that a draw button exists is because the site didn't instead implement a way of polling the individual players for a draw vote. If you're using the draw button as press, then you're adding a form of communication which is not intended to exist in gunboat.

For what it's worth, I can add my own standard interpretation of the draw button. I interpret anything which looks like a non-draw offer use of the draw button as an implied invitation for me to drop everything I'm doing and attack that power, even at the cost of my own position in that particular game. And, I have a strong tendency to accept that invitation in game I'm playing in, since I think the long-term benefit to driving cheaters out of the hobby is worth more than my result in any individual game.
I'll say it again - since its an actual feature on this site:

If you don't want intentional, non-intentional, assumed intentional, oh i just fucked up intentional, or any other kind of publicly visible use of the Draw or Cancel buttons - then rather than bitch and whine about it - try just not playing games where this is possible.

Alternatively you can rage about it on forums, and throw games about it as well if that's what floats your boat.

Personally, I've never used it in this fashion, but if you go into a game where rules allow it (see Claesar's post above to which I referred), then just deal with it - because you went in eyes wide open.

Using it as morse code is pretty funny though eh? That's some top grade desperado shit right there, and falls into metagaming rather than "alleged mis-use" doesn't it?

Re: Communicating with draw & cancel button in gunboat

by jasnah » Wed Apr 07, 2021 1:04 pm

CSteinhardt wrote:
Wed Apr 07, 2021 12:53 pm
Wusti wrote:
Wed Apr 07, 2021 12:42 pm
That's about as ridiculous a thing as I've ever seen a mod post. Re-read what you just typed.

If people don't want it to be used as a tool - then they'll make HDV games.
So, in your view it would be fine for me to use the draw button to communicate a full press message in morse code? ​Would it also be okay if I had an agreement with some high-volume players to use the draw button to help us recognize each other in anonymous games, so that we could then ally, with some sort of private handshake?

The reason that a draw button exists is because the site didn't instead implement a way of polling the individual players for a draw vote. If you're using the draw button as press, then you're adding a form of communication which is not intended to exist in gunboat.

For what it's worth, I can add my own standard interpretation of the draw button. I interpret anything which looks like a non-draw offer use of the draw button as an implied invitation for me to drop everything I'm doing and attack that power, even at the cost of my own position in that particular game. And, I have a strong tendency to accept that invitation in game I'm playing in, since I think the long-term benefit to driving cheaters out of the hobby is worth more than my result in any individual game.
You are incorrectly identifying what is problematic about your example; it's not the use of the draw vote but the intentional and prior arrangement of several players outside of game to collaborate. It would be equally problematic were you to make this agreement with several others that a particular fake convoy pattern through enemy fleets signals you should work together, that doesn't mean convoying through enemy fleets should be banned. If you cared about making a coherent post instead of just writing lazy fallacies you assume people are too stupid to see, you would have thought of this.

Re: Communicating with draw & cancel button in gunboat

by CSteinhardt » Wed Apr 07, 2021 12:53 pm

Wusti wrote:
Wed Apr 07, 2021 12:42 pm
That's about as ridiculous a thing as I've ever seen a mod post. Re-read what you just typed.

If people don't want it to be used as a tool - then they'll make HDV games.
So, in your view it would be fine for me to use the draw button to communicate a full press message in morse code? ​Would it also be okay if I had an agreement with some high-volume players to use the draw button to help us recognize each other in anonymous games, so that we could then ally, with some sort of private handshake?

The reason that a draw button exists is because the site didn't instead implement a way of polling the individual players for a draw vote. If you're using the draw button as press, then you're adding a form of communication which is not intended to exist in gunboat.

For what it's worth, I can add my own standard interpretation of the draw button. I interpret anything which looks like a non-draw offer use of the draw button as an implied invitation for me to drop everything I'm doing and attack that power, even at the cost of my own position in that particular game. And, I have a strong tendency to accept that invitation in game I'm playing in, since I think the long-term benefit to driving cheaters out of the hobby is worth more than my result in any individual game.

Re: Communicating with draw & cancel button in gunboat

by Wusti » Wed Apr 07, 2021 12:42 pm

Claesar wrote:
Thu Apr 01, 2021 1:58 pm
You are correct; there's no specific rule (yet) against using the Draw button in weird ways. Perhaps we weren't creative enough. Still, the general rule applies: Do not break game messaging/press rules.
That's about as ridiculous a thing as I've ever seen a mod post. Re-read what you just typed.

If people don't want it to be used as a tool - then they'll make HDV games.

Re: Communicating with draw & cancel button in gunboat

by lawful neutral » Wed Apr 07, 2021 12:16 pm

Thank you all for your many answers. I agree with the people promoting permissive uses of the draw vote any time the draw votes are not hidden.

There is a lot of communication going on in gunboat:
- Ordering impossible convoy moves to point out a given territory.
- Poking a friend's unit that I want moved aside.
- Supporting hold or supporting move an opponent unit that obviously doesn't need me to.
- Well, also supporting hold or supporting move an opponent unit that obviously does need me to.
- Not attacking an empty center or leaving one of my centers empty, in order to establish trust with a neighbor.
- Any other movements that are obviously tactically suboptimal for me but are obviously more avantageous to the neighbor I want to become friend with.
- ...

Many of those actions are used to communicate a implicit subtex very distant from the immediate meaning of the material action carried on explicitly. They carry hope that the opponent will infer very uncertain hypothesis about what this action meant. I do not see why it would be less legitimate to want my opponent to infer some implicit meaning about why in a given context where there is no de facto draw, I choose nevertheless to express the wish that the game would draw.

As there is the possibility to hide draw votes, games choosing not to hide the draw votes is a choice to allow on purpose to communicate with those buttons. I.e. visible draw votes are not meant only to enact a situation already drawn, but are meant to also communicate a will to draw BEFORE the game being already drawn de facto.

To return to my original question, I find very interesting this interpretation of @teccles : "This fight is bad for both of us, and I'm ready to stop." This is a non-threatenning use of draw vote for asking "peace", involving only two parties (whereas a true draw involves every one), that does not carry the usual connotation of urge, of distress, of agony, of begging from an inferior, downhill position. Thanks @teccles, now on I will try that too! And thanks to everyone for taking time answering my question.

Re: Communicating with draw & cancel button in gunboat

by MerryBBuck » Thu Apr 01, 2021 7:46 pm

I agree that the draw vote is often used as a signal. OP and @teccles interpretations match mine, so there is consensus on how to interpret that signal in certain situations. Plus, new players searching the Forum for "what does a draw vote mean in gunboat" will find this thread, making those interpretations canonical.

Re: Communicating with draw & cancel button in gunboat

by jasnah » Thu Apr 01, 2021 5:58 pm

Extremely stupid. 'Can't use draw vote unless you genuinely want to draw' is declaring a thought crime that can never be proved or disproved. I vote draw all the time in HDV or PDV, I vote draw whenever I like, whether the position is drawn or not, because I want to draw. Draw votes exist to be used.

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