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I was fortunate enough to sub in a high pot game for a nation several years from likely victory. Would it violate unwritten rules for me to pilot this nation to a solo that I mostly did not earn? Or would it be expected that I vote for a draw so that the whole pot doesn’t go to a largely undeserving player?

I’m fairly new to online Diplomacy, so I wanted to inquire about what the WebDip community would “expect” from a player in my position.

Thanks much!

Nope, win the game if you're able.

I'd grab that win for sure.

Win one for the Gipper.

Win Win Win

Luck plays a significant part in any diplomacy game, and no one will do you any favours when the Fates are against you. On those rare occasions the cards are dealt in your favour you have to make the most of it. You won't be able to brag about this solo being a glorious victory, but truth be told not many solos are.

Octavious wrote: ↑

Sun Jun 14, 2020 8:41 pm

Luck plays a significant part in any diplomacy game

Please, don't start this again...

For real though, I think you are discrediting many player's achievements when you say that "You won't be able to brag about this solo being a glorious victory, but truth be told not many solos are." I agree that there are many examples of players achieving a solo victory not because their own play was spectacular, but because an opponents play was terrible or unusual. But I think there are still many many scenarios where a player earns a solo victory because their tactics are nearly perfect, their press is persuasive, and their ability to adapt their strategy to the other players is great.
Players that consistently outperform their opponents do not do so because their opponents keep giving them solos. They do so because their play is "glorious".

It's very sweet that you believe that :)

Out of curiosity, though, how many of your victories at diplomacy would you describe as glorious wins you could brag about? Feel free to post examples. It's not often diplomacy players get a chance to brag by invitation

So far, the argument is an unsupported statement vs. a slightly more wordy but still unsupported statement. As we all seem to agree that some victories rely mainly on skill and others on luck, all we need is to collect statistics showing which of those plays the crucial part more often.

The only luck that exists in Diplomacy is when one player takes a coin and uses flipping it to decide their move.

jmo1121109 wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 15, 2020 2:11 am

The only luck that exists in Diplomacy is when one player takes a coin and uses flipping it to decide their move.

I know... here we go again. One COULD consider 'luck' to have a part in the rand selection of what nation you play. IF you prefer, say, Turkey... and get it. The Irish would certainly consider that luck.

Or one could consider luck to be the resultant weight of the elements of the diplomatic equation which aren't you. I have absolutely no interest in another nonsensical discussion where people claim that luck should only be considered in the form of a rolling die. If you wish to believe such things go ahead. I really don't mind, much as I don't mind people believing in fairies or Big Foot. But I have no desire to debate the topic again.

Octavious wrote: ↑

Sun Jun 14, 2020 10:44 pm

Out of curiosity, though, how many of your victories at diplomacy would you describe as glorious wins you could brag about? Feel free to post examples. It's not often diplomacy players get a chance to brag by invitation

Does this invitation extend to me as well?

Claesar wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 15, 2020 5:56 am

Does this invitation extend to me as well?

If you like. You're a Diplomacy player, man. Asking for permission is beneath your station

A few solos i've seen were potential 2-way draws in which one of the partners forgot to take care and protect themselves in end game. So i'm tempted to say that those games would have been "glorious" if they ended up in a 2-way: not because the two allies were so loyal to one another, but because neither gave the other the opportunity for the final stab.

The only ethical thing to do would be to withdraw and give your winning position to me

Yay, the luck discussion!!!

I think that, before anyone enters this discussion, they should be forced to write an essay about the distinctions between 'random', 'unexpected', and 'lucky'.

Octavious wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 15, 2020 5:46 am

Or one could consider luck to be the resultant weight of the elements of the diplomatic equation which aren't you. I have absolutely no interest in another nonsensical discussion where people claim that luck should only be considered in the form of a rolling die. If you wish to believe such things go ahead. I really don't mind, much as I don't mind people believing in fairies or Big Foot. But I have no desire to debate the topic again.

That's a very good definition: a positive outcome of an event that one has little to no impact on.

RoganJosh wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 15, 2020 8:56 am

Yay, the luck discussion!!!

I think that, before anyone enters this discussion, they should be forced to write an essay about the distinctions between 'random', 'unexpected', and 'lucky'.

Randomness = lack of recognizable pattern. You can predict frequency of outcomes over a large number of trials, but not outcome of any individual trial. If you roll two dice, you will get 7 1/6th of all the times and 12 1/36th of all times, but you cannot tell for certain what number you get next time you make the roll*.

Luck = a positive outcome of a random event (or, more broadly, any event one has no direct impact on, or even more broadly, of any event with a considerably high chance of negative outcome). An example can be winning a coin toss four times in a row, or not getting into rain even though you forgot the umbrella at home, or solving all problems on an exam without a single mistake.

Unexpected - an outcome one has not expected, whether due to low probability, not even noticing such a possibility or something else. If I get all heads out of ten coin tosses, the probability is no greater than of any other outcome, such as HTHHTTTTHT, but all heads is a much more notable outcome, and of course P(all ten heads) is much less than P(any other random sequence).

I forgot the footnote:
Coin toss or dice rolls aren't, strictly speaking, random, as they are defined by the forces impacting the object, but human brain is incapable of measuring and calculating them to predict the outcome, especially not in the time between launch and landing of the coin. A computer is theoretically capable of this, but I am not aware if one was ever built for this purpose, so we can still consider these a random event.