webdiplomacy.net

Call it a cheap trick or a legitimate tactic, but I occasionally like to issue fake orders in apparent error. However, the Webdiplomacy game interface doesn’t seem to allow this.

To demonstrate my point: in a recent game on a different website, I had arranged with an ally to move a fleet from ENG to MAO. I did not actually want to give that order, but wanted to remain on good relations if at all possible. So, I ordered the impossible ENG to NAO. I was then able to plead clumsy fingers as opposed to deliberate malfeasance. My plan worked, my fleet stayed where I needed it and my ally was very understanding.

As I say, I can’t use this tactic on Webdiplomacy (unless there is some functionality I am missing?). This seems like an artificial constraint on the game.I don’t know if it would be difficult to introduce an option to order, well whatever you want.

Interested to know if this topic has come up before.
Thanks, Mako.

Have to disagree Mako. You shouldn’t be able to submit an order that is impossible ...

It's an interesting subject. In Face to Face it's common to have intentional misorders, but the web interface makes it more prone to incidental misorders. webDip has decided to lower the chance of unintentional errors at the expense of many intentional ones. It also works a lot better with the drop-down menus.

It would've been easier to allow all orders (programming-wise), but a conscious choice was made to prevent them.

It was an honest mistake, bladerunners. Truly!
;0)

While you are denied by interface to use this specific trick, there are plenty of other tricks you could use.

You are limited only by your imagination to think of as many tricks as you may need for any given situation.

Besides, miss-clicked order is one of the oldest tricks in the book so it would probably work only with beginners if even there.

If I remember correctly the only well known platform which allows for impossible orders is BackStabbr, and no one but the devs knows if it was an intentional choice or a bug that they chose not to fix.
That said a few people thinks impossible orders can be useful in gunboat as a way to signal intentions to possible allies - but again, this seems to me more like taking advantage of a weakness of the system rather than adopting a legitimate tactic.

Sometimes people in face to face read other players order pads before they're submitted. But webdiplomacy doesn't support this either.

There are still ways to issue orders that don't make sense in webdiplomacy.

I have successfully blamed, "whoops sorry bro, didn't mean to do that" multiple times, even multiple times in the same game against the same player. The order interface can be confusing and it's reasonable to make mistakes, you just need to adjust the way you approach these "misorders" as opposed to F2F.

A_Tin_Can wrote: ↑

Sat Jul 17, 2021 3:29 am

Sometimes people in face to face read other players order pads before they're submitted. But webdiplomacy doesn't support this either.

That would be a super interesting development, especially so if it was limited to a few selected players... the perfect cheat... just don't let jmo, bo, pw and all the owners/admins/mods know

just don't let jmo, bo, pw and all the owners/admins/mods know

Logic would suggest they already know.

So anyway, a serious technical answer: The way the webdip adjudicator works means it's not possible to issue some of the orders that you can in FtF / other sites (not just because the interface won't let you put them in). You can see some of this in the webdip DATC page, where some of the test cases are not tested, because they don't make sense in a webdip context.

I *think* arbitrary moves are only restricted at the interface level, so maybe it would be a small change to allow this. However, so much of the site code assumes that you can't do this - there might be some unexpected results if it were changed. Given that the webdip developer todo list includes things that would improve the site in more significant ways, I suspect this would be unlikely to be a priority (but I don't know, I don't work here any more).

Of course, the practical answer is to improve your play such that you don't need to use these tricks to win

For those playing along at home, in an ideal world my preferences are:

By default webdip would allow any order at all.

There would be a "check my orders" button where it would warn you if your orders were inconsistent or illegal.

Part of the reason I never built this is that the adjudicator isn't well-separated from the base assumptions in the site, so it would be a substantial amount of work to bring in.

I don’t know about that ATC; order generation always happens on the client side in javascript, order validation always happens on the server in the order/ code, and order processing always happens on the server in the adjudicator code.

It would be hard to go the other way; if the order validation was tied into the adjudicator it might be hard to extract it out (if it was badly written), but this would be merging two pieces of already separate code to run at the same time.


That having been said .. I think it’s better to only show valid orders. I think you can make a case for it being an option for more experienced players, but as a default I do think generating valid orders is best. (And for new players I’m pretty much positive it’s best, it’s definitely a better way to learn than trial and error)

I agree, I am strongly against allowing new players to enter invalid orders. There is a very simple and useful placeholder move called a "hold" that allows you to not do something with a unit, and it is much less confusing than allowing Smyrna to move to Liverpool by land.

Agreed, I think the majority of our new players are not necessarily familiar with the game, and if they messed up orders shortly into using the site we'd likely lose them retention wise. Having an opt IN to allowing incorrect orders seems reasonable though.

6.D.31 of the DATC is particularly telling because it goes out of its way to point out an impossible order that you would rarely see in real life:
http://web.inter.nl.net/users/L.B.Kruijswijk/#6.D.31

When order judges allow any such impossible orders, they should warn users that they are partially non-compliant with the DATC, as this order judge does (see the red asterisks):
http://GamesByEmail.com/Games/Politics/ ... 06062S3703

The DATC caters to order judges that are written to "show only the possible orders."

There was a discussion on a channel on Nexus about ordering support to Switzerland. I might misremember but, basically, one user (i.e., their gunboat champ) had first played the game on some site where it was possible to move to Switzerland. And, ordering a move to Switzerland had become the gunboat in-game method of proposing a draw.

Which kinda circles back to the old discussion on hidden vs. open draw votes for gunboat games.

It's an interesting observation. That some technicalities about how a specific platform works, can drastically change what kind of communication that is possible in gunboat.

As someone who's played the most on webDip, I definitely prefer it if it's not possible to submit illegal orders. It's just too easy to communicate, in gunboat, with illegals. You might just as well play public press.

But gunboat communication is not what the original post was about. It was about deliberately giving an illegal order, and later claiming it was an accident.

If that's what we're talking about, then it might defeat the purpose to have an opt in for allowing illegals. Like, if I played a game with experienced players, that had to explicitly opt in to allow illegal orders... good luck convincing me your illegal order was not on purpose.

Entering wrong orders with the current interface is just as useful of a tactic as entering illegal orders with a sandbox interface (read: not very useful at all).

I know writing down correct orders during the time crunch of live games is a skill for FtF games but I like that WebDip takes care of that part of you. In the same vein, I really like the "preview orders" feature that was added not too long ago (good job devs!). It's much more fun to have to worry about the meat and potatoes of Diplomacy than have to worry about entering in the orders correctly.

Italy bots screwing up orders in way too many games. Programmers having them
Hit austria at unbelievable proportion compared to real life games. Both lose. Oh well