I usually start a game with a plan to get me into mid-game as strong as possible. When that is going well you can look for ways to solo. If that's not possible you take a draw with as few people as possible, without risking a solo, and if possible without risking a defeat.

That said, sometimes a solo seems very unlikely, but you don't have to fear getting destroyed at all. At such a point I would still try for a solo. If you fail you still get a draw.

Lol! The odds are stacked against you from day one. Even if all games ended in a win your average player could only expect to get one in every seven games. Including draws you can realistically hope for one win in 30 or so. The best thing to do with the odds is ignore them :).

I think Octavious is making it sound better than it is - if all games ended in a win I think your average player would win less than 1 in every 7 games (the best players on this site are much better at soloing than your average player and i reckon it would stop a normal distribution..). That said I think a win rate of 10%+ (if the person plays against coop competition) is very respectable, and a combined win/draw of 35/40%+ is the sign of a decent player

As far as trying for a draw from the start goes, I'm sure it does happen but only from weak players. Maybe a new chap who just wants to get a feel of the game, or some poor sod with an abysmal record with a certain country who is desperate for some kind of result...

@ SD

Oh, I don't know. The best players of this site may pick up a lot more than their fair share, but I think you're underestimating the truly dire performances of the worst, who not only never win but can regularly manage to tilt the odds in favour of an average player over a good player by virtue of starting next to them. Will it be normal distribution at the end of the day? Probably not... But I doubt it will be too far from it.

Still, the basic message that the odds say you ain't gonna win is solid. Now bugger off before people start looking at your win rate and lose the will to live :p.

I aim for draw alot out of the gates right now. But like Octavious said being new give me more time in each game to learn the ropes. I see alot of games with players in near death situations. The winning players often call for draw before killing them off. I can understand a mid level power agreeing to not be wiped out by supper power alliance for not playing ball. Obviously the near death player will agree. But they supper power. Really why not play for a extra round and kill the litle guy?

To be fair you're probably right, in fact Octavious I reckon that is the entire reason for my win rate - a few lucky games against the worst people on the site when I first joined! And with your combined rate of 72% I think it's you that should bugger off :P

@duckofspades: some players like to 'reward' good play or a good ally and let them live, and others don't care too much about draw size. unfortunately also some players just want a game to end before the endgame has said so!

> Really why not play for a extra round and kill the litle guy?

Sometimes it's a matter of reputation. gameID=119589 was spoiled when Quebec went into civil disorder. California and Texas wanted me to eliminate the 1 center Heartland so we could have a three-way draw. Heartland was my vassal, and had followed my orders, so I refused to do it. I want small powers to be willing to work with me in the future.

Once you can't solo your mission becomes stop anyone else from getting a solo; and contrary to what Stephie says i don't think it matters how many players are in a draw, usually i will not try to wipe out players unless they have really earned my ire; a lot is about the personal diplomatic situation/relationship, because really i'm playing for fun (but setting difficult goals is fun, so a 7-way draw in 1901 is one of the hardest things to achieve, but only if nobody else wants to do it... It would be easy and pointless if everyone had intended it from the begining)

So yeah, draws happen when everyone is trying to stop a solo; at least if you're playing to the spirit of WTA, it is the second highest goal. I might even risk being eliminated as part of an alliance to stop a solo, if i actually liked the alliance members and thought it was important... My 2 cent.

Once I feel that my ability to solo is completely gone, I have no qualms with voting draw. That could mean that I'm small and dying, reaching a stalemate position, or merely at a point where there a few other powers of similar size unwilling to play draw and open themselves up to the possibility of victory, thereby giving everyone a chance. When you play with top players, people are usually too smart to let each other get into soloing positions, so most solos either result from a bad egg skewing the game in favor of the players he interacts with most or loss of logical reasoning due to clashes of the massive egos that are sure to accompany most people who are good at a game such as this one. It's really hard to win a game of diplomacy, and that's why it's so much fun.

That said, there are some players who completely destroy such an argument (see TheHangedMan, he's magic) with their amazing soloing abilities, and others who do lack the proper drive to solo and lead to boring games. And then there's Octavious, who knows how to settle for a draw in style. That is, by utterly humiliating me first: gameID=79328.

All good stuff. Quickly becoming addicted to the game. Thanks for the feedback!

Why addicted? (not that i'm not addicted, just that i forget why i became addicted)

I think some of this comes down to why people are playing, Ghug your example of Octavious looks like he was having fun (couldn't manage the solo, so had to draw right after his stab, but couldn't resist the stab, because it was so awesome) And i think there is a difference in attitude between playing WTA vs PPSC... (arguably it is easier to solo in PPSC because the second largest player can get more points surviving a solo than holding out for a draw, which is why i don't play PPSC)

But i also think that having fun means a clash of personalities, and it is more fun to know who you are clashing with; hence my preference for non-anon. The downside is that really good players get ganked, but they are really good players and they deserve this extra challenge! Plus so long as they keep getting ganked enough it will be hard to tell who the really good players are! (that said, i seem like i'm a minority of players who share this opinion)

@Gavilrop - what's the difference between reputation in that sense and metagaming? I had believed that letting the actions of previous games affect current games was against the laws?

Haha, the laws...

This discussion comes up every once in a while. Most people try to eliminate as many as possible from a draw. Sometimes a key player feels a minor has "earned" his place even though he could be removed.

@mendax it is metagaming. But it's the kind of metagaming that is hard to police and possibly shouldn't be. Anon games are a nice way (to a degree) of avoiding the problem

In my view, unless it's a league game where league points are involved, a draw is a draw. That said, I don't like agreements to draw at four or whatever even if a stalemate line is met as that means the four aren't trying for the solo. But I will agree to the four way then try to stab for the solo when the time is right and I would *hope* the others players will too (although I *hope* they are too late in seeing the time and I get the jump on them :-) ).

I typically have a three-way draw in mind from the beginning. Actually, scratch that: I usually have SEVERAL three-way draws in mind from the beginning, and I claim membership in at least two alliances, depending on what power I'm playing.

Early on, my top concern is Not Dying. I don't even start thinking about routes to a solo until much later in the game, and I'm typically more concerned about preventing someone on the opposite side of the board from soloing than I am about soloing myself.

Of course, one of my goals right now is to get my number of games drawn up above my Defeats plus Survivals, so there's that. But I usually aim for membership in SOME three-way draw at the beginning of the game.

I rarely draw (or play PPSC) and certainly don't plan to draw at the start of a game, but I do draw when there's no other option. Note too that if everybody else votes to draw and you don't, you'll probably find yourself attacked by all of them, without mercy - so you'd better be planning to go for a solo if you don't take the draw.

I would keep a wounded ally alive for the draw and even keep (indeed, have kept) a very spirited enemy alive too.

still sorta new to this game, but being as diplomacy is the name of the game, the draw is one of the few bargaining chips you have when seeking cooperation or compliance from other players. so it seems to me.

mendax: threadID=1028217
In Kafkaesque fashion, what the mods mean by "unacceptable metagaming" is only tenuously related to the written rules.

Saith jmo: "The type of metagaming that is unacceptable is allowing or using outside information that is not available to all the players in the game to affect in game actions or decisions." "Past game are public, and one can determine what alliances were made/broken by looking at the board."

In gameID=119589, my promise to Heartland is even recorded in the public press.

(What about when the mods' pronouncements are technically public, but difficult to ferret out on the forums?)

Cool, thanks for that. I'd been very conscious of trying to avoid doing this when playing people I'd played before, though I tend to be more aware of standard of play rather than stabbing tendency.

duckofspades: Voting to draw is not necessarily the best way to survive. It can make you a target by betraying your weakness.

If I can't win, I'd rather survive by helping somebody win than be eliminated. Others can have different preferences.

Lots of players draw irrationally early, or rather they shift strategies from a strategy designed to produce a win to a strategy that favors a draw.

It is because players seem to have an irrational disdain for "Survives." This, in my opinion, makes victories rarer because, right around the time that the two dominant players should be putting knives in people's back in preparation for the show-down, players instead jockey to achieve a game-ending gridlock.

The other funny effect of our gaming culture here is player impatience. Obviously, I have a moderate amount of sympathy for younger players or people who are not "hardcore gamers" and are not ready for a game to spill much longer than two hours. This impatience drives players to make gaming choices merely for purposes of expediency. Players tend to irrationally back-stab small countries, when attacking bigger countries may better suit tactical considerations.

"Players tend to irrationally back-stab small countries, when attacking bigger countries may better suit tactical considerations." -Al Swearenen.

I can see that why should I smack the big guy when I can absorb the small guy first to do so later. But the small guy could offer you help now 4 more armies vs 2 for me and 2 for future enemy. Minor power may just want to survive and be willing to help you win for that. In which case you would be +4 over you other opponent, that is if you feel the minor power can be brought to your side. But the other guy may ally with him to. In which case you should of just taken the minor power over.
I guess it all comes down to how the two other players have acted in that game.

duckofspades: It's also worth noting that minor 'great powers' are usually on the front-line, which is a great asset. A 4-SC power is probably a little to large to ensure the loyalty of, though.

The order of diplomacy:

Win. Play to win. Strive to win. Steal a win. Do whatever it takes, but win.
If you can't win, be part of a draw. Keep the other guy from winning.
If you can't do that, screw over the guus that screwed you over by seeing to it someone else wins. @I prefer eliminations over survives but anything that isn't a win or draw is a loss and onlyba win is a win (a draw is neither).

But this above all else... Have fun!

Even a draw is a loss, it is just a loss where you force everyone else to lose with you! Which is better than letting someone win.

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