i AM a hardcore WTA pro-winning person - you have just used a situation you don't find favorable to accuse others of playing against the spirit of the game. if there is a draw just because two allies don't want to fight it out, sure, that is not in the spirit. if there is a stalemate line and no victory is possible, well, should the necessity of a draw, plus the quality of the race to the stalemate line, be denied? or at any rate, the necessity of a draw at that time?

Of course in a draw survivors have to get their bet back, else there is no point stopping the win.

totally agree with last post. draws exist to stop people from winning, which Noodlebug obviously doesn't understand - they have to pay out

Sounds good Noodlebug; it's "winner-takes-all", not "drawers-take-some". If you don't win outright you shouldn't get anything, right? This way there is no way cooperation with the future winner can pay off

I'll add this to the todo list unless anyone has any other thoughts

i dont have any objections to your suggestion that draws only repay the bet in WTA games. sounds fair enough.
but if you want a rational debate about WTA and PPS games then i would suggest you stop loading your language on one side. "Pro Winning Crowd" and the disingenuous "pro profit crowd" frame the debate in a one sided manner. maybe "winning only crowd" and "balanced crowd" .
argue your points away as you please but don't try to frame the debate so blatantly and obviously.

I haven't read the thread but how about this: In case of a WTA draw the player with highest number of SCs gets all the points.

anlari, the worry there is that when a draw starts to become likely, (some) players will tend to play in PPSC mode so as to hang on to the lead...

I am happy to have only the winner taking points from the game.

The significant difference between phpDip and face-to-face with regard to results is that in php, a player can take a reward (points) and use that for further games. In face-to-face, there is no prize other than the win, and nothing is carried forward. So, to quote Bill Shankly, "First is first and second is nowhere."

Kestas, please don't change the system just because a single person share his negative experience with *one* game loudly enough. As I wrote somewhere else, I believe we need more data to make the decision. That's why I vote for waiting until a reasonable number (100-200) of WTA games are completed. Then we can compare percentage of draws in PPS, WTA and pre-point-system games and base our decision on real data, not personal feelings only.

good point marekP. as i said before a poll of one game has a margin of error of one. also if there was more glory in winning - more visible active players top 100 and less visible point system players might try harder for a win. (ive played about 25 games and in only one game has a player asked for a draw when a win is very possible)

What matters is not how many draws there are (every game should end in a stalemate with best play imo- there is never a situation where any nation can force victory from more than a few centres off) but the nature of them. If there is a significant number (and I consider anything greater than 2 or 3% significant) of draws which are not stalemated, then this proposition of Noodlebug's, and indeed others, is the way we should go.

if you incorporate this change Kestas you would have two variants on your site and neither of them would be the way original diplomacy is meant to be. not to mention that a single WTA game isn't finished yet, so your judgement is based solely on Noodlebug's feelings about a single game in which he's playing badly

i ask the question again - if draws don't pay out in WTA games, why would people bother to try to stop the player who is closest to win from winning? instead, they would be played just like PPS games with predictable end-game

How about column inches/posts in the forum tied to win ratio? That would force the Trolls to concentrate more on trying to be successful...

but i would like to hear again why draws are bad in WTA games... i think i missed that

Alamothe, I'm mostly with you in this debate, but I also understand Noodlebug's concerns. There is nothing wrong with draws..., until there are too many of them. A draw is an interesting option that makes the game more interesting (more options=greater complexity), but too many draws could make the game boring as well. That's why I'd prefer to make the decision based on numbers instead of feelings.

but how many would be too many? to repeat what thomas have said, and he showed to know the game theory very well, "every game should end in a stalemate with best play imo- there is never a situation where any nation can force victory from more than a few centres off". meaning, in expert games draws are inevitable just because other players won't let anyone win!

Yes, optimal play of equally strong opponents should statistically results in a draw. However that doesn't mean that too many draws would not be boring.

How many draws are too many? I don't know, but there is an exact method how to calculate it. Compute the likelihood of solo victory, 2-way draw, 3-way draw etc. Then anything above (or below) those likelihoods are caused either by unequal strength of the players (should be eliminated or diminished by sufficient sample size), or the system effects (should grow with the sample size).

"to repeat what thomas have said"- First name terms eh?

I don't think Noodle cares about draws per se, just draws that are not stalemated.

To go down to the basics of diplomacy and find its aims, they are thus:

Avoid being conquered, ie survive, and have nobody win.
Conquer others, ie. take total control of Europe, as indicated by having 18 Centres.

For the latter of the two, a solo victory, you rightly get the whole pot. What we need to decide is what you get for the former. Since when you achieve only the former, you have started and stopped with control over your nation, you should get back what you paid in. You have made no "progress" in the eyes of the game- just as at the start of the game, with best play you will be stalemated, and that is what has happened. Thus, you get back only what you put in.

That is why I support this idea- you have an incentive to draw, albeit a small one, just as in ftf your incentive is to save face, and a very much greater incentive (seven times greater), to win, just as the bragging rights from winning in ftf are very much greater than just saving face.

let's remind ourselves... what issue are we trying to solve here? Noodlebug had a draw proposal. he rejected it, that is his right. if all players don't agree a draw is not put into place. what is the problem here? is it wrong to propose a draw? just because of the sole idea that draw might be proposed we want to make them unprofitable, even though all players have to agree!

for that particular game, if draw is not possible, italy & i would still play to finish off Noodlebug first, because we can't cope with his personal crises. then we would decide the winner between us

p.s. sorry for that, it was not intentional. i will not do that again
andre lamothe :-)

A draw is a valid outcome in Diplomacy.

That's that.

This one?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9_LaMothe

Andre, I don't particularly mind, just commenting :P

We should detach from the game that raised the issue and rather talk about it in abstract terms.

Diplomacy is a simulation of Imperial Europe, one where each nation has the sole goal of taking control of Europe. This being the case, a non-stalemated draw is not a valid outcome. When two players are on 17 Centres, and one could capture the other, in what we are simulating, that one would, no matter what agreements have been made. Thus, in the game, this should also be the case. If there are draws where this is not the case, then it gives players like Noodle and I a disadvantage, because somebody else can make a better offer than us- they can guarantee that they will never stab, and instead have a 17/17 split, after all, would you believe Noodle if he made that offer to you? I think not! Hence limiting the payout of draws.

What if there were a situation where two nations could either be conquered, fighting one another, or fight a common enemy and each survive. Well, once again, in what we are simulating there would be an alliance formed. Hence there being some payout for a draw. And what could be more logical than an average return (ie what you bet) for an average result (ie a draw)?

The only difference between WTA and Points-per-sc games, is, that the non-winning survivors get nothing in WTA games. Everything else is the same.
This is fine with me and, IMHO, does not degrade either the existence of the WTA format, or the differing objectives of Diplomacy espoused by our players.

they can guarantee they will never stab?? are you joking... by making a draw request how do i guarantee this? essentially what italy & i have is an alliance. anyone can stab properly along the way and take the whole prize! that's the point of WTA!

besides, if i was sure that italy is going to stay on my side, would i offer a draw?

Notes about WTA and draws:

I. The rules of diplomacy state (if I remember correctly) that if one player controls 18 supply centers, they win. If the players still in the game unanimously agree, then the game can also end in a draw, which is divided equally among them.

Thus, there are 8 different endings for a country, preferable in this order:

1. Victory
2. 2-country draw
3. 3-country draw
4. 4-country draw
5. 5-country draw
6. 6-country draw
7. 7-country draw
8. Elimination from the game/survival in a won game

As such, any victory conditions that attempt to accurately represent the rules of Diplomacy must never reward players in such a way so that this ranking does not hold.

II. It is not at all obvious that an optimal game of Diplomacy will result in a draw. As a game of imperfect information, Diplomacy inevitably involves some luck; saying that a perfect game of Diplomacy will result in a draw is like saying that a perfect game of Hold 'Em will result in every player having the same-sized stack as when the game began. If, under the current WTA rules, a player believes that they have greater than a 1/3 chance of achieving victory if they abandon any chance of a draw, it is in their best interest to strive for victory. (And this even assumes that if their attempt fails, they will lose - in many cases, a failed attempt at victory will simply result in participation in that same draw.)

III. Making decisions based on theoretical forum-Diplomacy rather than empirical board-Diplomacy is a risky endeavor, as, like in any case which does not involve mathematical certainty, severe theoretical mistakes could be made accidentally. It would be wise to wait until a large number of WTA games are played (and see if they contain an unacceptable number of draws) before changing the scoring rules. Likewise, it is probably a good idea to see exactly what percentage of the userbase here finds an unacceptable rate of draws - if 70% of games end in draws, but 70% of users have no problem with that, then a change is silly.

IV. If, at long last, one wants to change the scoring rules in order to encourage victory over draws, the most straightforward way of doing so is simply to institute a "draw tax," in which less of the pot is paid out in game endings with higher numbers of players, and more of the pot is paid out in game endings with lower numbers of players. The exact percentages could be determined after more empirical data is in (and the exact problems with player behavior are determined). On the other hand, if even a significant minority prefers the current setup, it would be wiser to separate WTA and taxed-WTA. This, of course, increases the complexity of the rating scheme, but I think that's an acceptable cost of maintaining a style that accurately reflects the intentions of the game itself.

V. PPSC sucks :P

A draw is a valid outcome in Diplomacy, yes, and so is a defeat. Defeated players get paid out in PPS (if they have centres left), but don't get paid out in WTA. Why should drawn players get treated differently? A draw is not a win, and if the system is called Winner Takes All and is designed to encourage people to try to win, then why would anyone expect to get anything for not winning?

If you want to argue about changing the name of "Winner Takes All" to something more accurate, or introducing a new category with a different name describing the variant of Diplomacy you want to play, feel free, that's a totally different argument and I don't care about that any more than I care what goes on in PPS. But I think the intention behind WTA and common sense suggest that the name is right, it's just the way it works that is wrong. (I am correct with the intention, am I not Kestas?)

Offer draws, agree draws by all means, it may be preferable to a defeat on your record. But it is not a win, and this is Winner Takes All.

Kestas, I wouldn't be too hasty to change. Personally, I think that with time, players who prefer to draw will find a much less hostile environment for such talk in the PPS games and will profit much greater from their tactics there. The fact that we see these tactics still employed in the WTA games may only reflect the fact that WTA has only very recently been re-introduced, and just like with the points system, much of the community must re-acclimatize itself.

I personally think that in WTA games, players who play for the draw will be ultimately penalized by an overall lack of success, and such playing style will decrease with time. While I am normally right beside Noodlebug in his championing of the WTA spirit, I think this current vocalization of his is a little hasty. His game has not finished, and is in no way reflective of the general tendency of WTA games.

If in the future, we find that Noodlebug is indeed correct, and that the current draw system has some unavoidable flaw of turning out draws without stalemates at a high rate, then perhaps some new legislation is in order, but until then, patience. I think Noodlebug was either using this as a ploy to help him in his game, or he was a little upset that his victory was foiled again by tactics he deems irrational, despite that rationality doesn't necessarily correlate to success.

VI. Noodlebug seems to be assuming that anyone going for the win is doing so for their love of the game, and anyone going for a draw is doing so because they want points. I'm not sure this is true.

VII. The difference between "draw" and "defeat" in that regard is that "draw" is a valid outcome recognized in Diplomacy in having some merit, while "defeat" is just what happens when you lose (the same as "elimination").

VIII. The purpose of the points system is to give incentives to players to play well. Nothing more, and nothing less. (If I'm wrong, Kestas, correct me). As such, the only reason to introduce a new option regarding it is to change the goals of players (as the introduction of WTA over PPSC did, by removing any incentive to "play for second"). If it turns out that the majority of WTA games end in a victory by one party or another, then there is no reason to change the rules.

IX. If my numbering of my thoughts is becoming unbearably pretentious, please, call me out on it :D

there is no such thing as "playing for draw". draws are result of two or more smaller countries allying against the player who is very close to victory. if they manage to stop him they deserve to share the pot equally with him. i personally think this requires more diplomatic and tactical abilities than anything and it's definitely not boring in any way. penalizing this kind of behaviour simply defeats the purpose of WTA games! why wouldn't i let someone else win if i don't get enough from stopping him?