I'm a little bit confused by your point. The objective of Diplomacy is to get 18 centers, an inherently unbalanced configuration.

The game was designed to be balanced. However, it almost always leads to very imbalanced results. I believe that this is the point that Putin was getting at.

And the objective of international politics is to become the hegemon. But balance of power predicts that when a country approaches hegemonic status, the other powers will unite to stop them, forcing a draw.

Obviously international politics has objectives that are a little more complex than that.

It's the central objective of the most relevant countries in the world. Certainly countries of substantial capabilities have always sought hegemony. Hard to see now because the distribution of power is so unbalanced, but you see it on a regional level.

Oh, I see what you're saying.

I think it's a problem with the Risk/Reward. I think a lot of good players have a stronger desire to win than they do a fear of losing. This causes them to do things that otherwise make little sense. This is why, I suspect, you see fewer solos in tournaments, because the consequences of losing a single game are much higher.

The world at the moment is a strange place to look because it is unipolar, but for the most part international politics is driven by the needs of the domestic.

returning to diplomacy, a balanced start does not mean that you have to have a balanced result, as long as you have a balanced long-run set of results of a significantly sized set of results.

"but for the most part international politics is driven by the needs of the domestic."

Interesting, you must have read Trubowitz's book. I've been meaning to read it.

"a balanced start does not mean that you have to have a balanced result"

If players are rational then you would have to have a balanced result. How could it be otherwise? The only way a player gets to 18 SCs is through some lack of cooperation among his opponents, reflecting a fundamental irrationality in the players.

I take abgemacht's point that the costs of losing are not significant enough for most players to be risk-averse, making cooperation to avoid a loss more difficult.

Good insights Putin! Do you think that a game of Diplomacy with long-surviving players proves that they have more of those 3 qualities?
Also, what would happen if you made AI dip players? Would it always end in a stalemate?

I haven't actually read his book, though I am familiar with the central premise.

A simpler comparison is chess. You can see that although there's a balanced start, the results are not balanced - even between players of equal strength there will be many wins and losses. However, over the long-run, the results will tend towards equality. Basically, the error you're making is one of taking a way too small sample size to draw conclusions from.

"If players are rational then you would have to have a balanced result. How could it be otherwise?"

Skill and understanding of the mechanics of the rules maybe? Rational doesn't mean perfect in logic nor does it mean being able to read when your neighbor is lying to you or being elusive.

Rational in this sense is perfect.

I don't know how you can say Diplomacy is designed in a way for the balance of power to work. From the outset the game has you fighting for outright domination, not the equilibrium the balance of power is supposed to achieve. It's just a faulty analysis to begin with.

Chess is a good comparison to bring up. Because the best players in chess study the game so closely and can anticipate virtually any move, the top players almost always draw.

It is for this reason that Bobby Fischer got fed up with the game and tried to invent a more dynamic variant where anticipation of the opposition's moves was more difficult.

"Also, what would happen if you made AI dip players? Would it always end in a stalemate?"

I would love to see someone run a large number of simulated games and see how many solos occurred.

The fact that each individual player's objective is domination does not imply that the forces are imbalanced in general.

"Almost always" is far too strong to say about draws in chess. For example, Magus Carlsen's draw percentage in internationally rated games is approximately 50%.

"Rational doesn't mean perfect in logic nor does it mean being able to read when your neighbor is lying to you or being elusive."

If players are rational, why would they lie to each other if the consequence of which was an opponent solo's?

Not what I'm saying. I'm saying that the fact that the players' objective is domination means the game isn't setting up conditions for the balance of power to work.

You have 7 players of more or less equal strength, each with the ability to immediately communicate with all other players, easily facilitating balancing against any potential hegemon. The objective of the game is irrelevant. The point is that compared to the real world, where Balance of Power was postulated, the conditions of Diplomacy are optimal for balancing against hegemons.

@Invictus

Other players have the same objective; ergo, they don't want others to achieve domination; ergo, balance of power.

I defer to Edi Birsan:

http://www.diplomacy-archive.com/resources/strategy/articles/odd.htm

Wouldn't a draw be considered a successful balance of powers, and don't most games between skilled & experienced players end in draws instead of solos?

Ah, I remember reading that article a long while ago. Birsan is an expert on game diplomacy dynamics. However, the article begs the question, what or who decides the odd ones out?

"Other players have the same objective; ergo, they don't want others to achieve domination; ergo, balance of power."

But is that translatable to the balance of power on the international stage? Is Pakistan looking to dominate Asia in real life? No, it's looking to have as much power and influence relative to India as possible, and backs China as a counterweight to Indian power on a higher, geostrategic level. In the game Diplomacy even the Italian player's goal when the game starts is to get the requisite number of centers and lay all his rivals low.

This game is just too different from the real world to disprove the idea of a balance of power in international relations.

As a free trader, the Indo-Pak situation should infuriate you. Here we have a potential trade bonanza between two countries that have historic ties, and instead we have minimal trade because they're bogged down in a local conflict, which the global hegemon has exploited to its own advantage.

South Asia could have a seat on the UNSC, if it cooperated, and could veto anything the US put forward. Instead they fight wars with each other with the US being the arms salesmen to both sides, and each side falling over the other trying to buddy up to the United States for more hardware. A perfect example of why BoP fails, and why bandwagoning prevails. The two countries are too emotionally invested in the rivalry to extricate themselves from it in order to advance their mutual interests.

Ugh....and this guy is an "educator"

It's a game, Putin, the object of which is to conquer the world.

Please tell me in realistic terms where this *actually* applies in real life.

And no, it does not apply to the relations between civil nations in the modern age.

You are, yet again, a babbling fool.

It was just an example to show how all states don't have the same goals in the way that all Diplomacy players have the same goal. Pakistan is never going to march through Siberia in real life the way Italy can march through Scandinavia in Diplomacy.

Even if everything you say about the balance of power is true, that doesn't mean the game Diplomacy disproves the balance of power. That's what we're talking about here.