Win.
If you can't win, draw.
If you can't draw, survive.
If you can't survive, influence the game.

Unless its a "heroic" defeat, going down swinging, versus a cowardly survive. But I don't believe in that shit, so survive is definitely better than a loss, agreed. Draws are even better.

Yes survve is something to work for

One more note...

If you can't influence the game, you suck at Diplomacy. :-)

comparing profiles recently with somone who has played the same number of game as I have i noticed an oddity.

While we've both played 17 and 18 games, and both won 3 and 2 (very few) I have only survived 3, that same number which i have won, compared with 12 survivals out of the 18 games played by the other person i'm looking at.

Is it standard to play for survival among players on this site?
if i combine the two figures for survived and defeated they had 14/18 and i had 10/17
(though apparently i also resigned one game, which i don't actually recall happening...)

So do a lot of people play to survive (and avoid annoying/stopping the leader? Should we make WTA the default and have PPSC as a newb only/available variant?)

i think you'll find that as a result of PPSC, this happens a lot. making WTA default has been discussed a lot, but seems to have little traction. so for now, just seek out others to play WTA games with.

if you survive with 16 that's pretty damn good, i think it deserves to be rewarded on occassion, ppsc should always be an option, not saying that i like it more, but it can be fun and people don't fuck the leader over as much either.

Survival is a last resort. You should always be looking to make yourself useful in stopping a solo if you're a weak nation in the endgame. That will earn you a draw. You take the survival when the other players can't or won't stop the solo.

Win
Small Draw
Draw with lots of others
Survive
Die

I think people who don't stop (and sometimes encourage) solos in WTA because they're going for a survive have really missed the point.
For me, survive=defeat in general and I'd always rather win or draw as my record shows...
I reckon that in WTA, if you "survive" you should get "defeat" on your record

it seems fair to choose our WTA opponents based on the their survival : defeated ratio.
(assuming they don't have a high resigned rate)

The problem, dave, is that a person who encourages a solo, a person who fails to stop a solo, and a person who can't tactically do anything to stop a solo would all get a "defeat" when clearly the last person hasn't done anything "wrong" in failing to do the impossible.

and i agree a 16 SC lose is better than a 0 SC loss, in terms of how you did in the game, but you still lost.

Perhaps a seperate count could occur of the average SC you ended games with, though again this would encourage people to think of their 16 Sc and not stopping the leader... (of course at that point it can become largely irrelevant if they are about to grab the last 3 SC and you can't affect what is happening...)

I prefer to avoid the big draw. That just seems like giving up to me and is a premature end to the game. Drawing with more than 4 left is a copout. Even at 4, I question it, but will accept it if it is a 2 on 2 stalemate, but I've seen 2 on 2 end in a win for the side with more than 17 combined as the bigger nation on the over 17 side will eventually stab the little guy and eat him up, sometimes leaving no time for the other two players to convince the little guy of the inevitable.

CrazyTer and I had a judge game just like that. The little guy made all these demands if we wanted him to stab and decided he wanted a defeat rather than playing to stop the win when we wouldn't let him put an army in behind our line. So we both got survives (not really even considered on the judges, but still), the little guy got a defeat, and the big guy got the victory. At least we knew we had stalemated them and the little guy threw the game to his big guy friend by refusing to defend himself and letting the big guy consume him from behind. He even admitted that he'd rather sacrifice himself to see us lose. Very much against the general spirit of Win, Draw, Survive, or Influence. Had he joined us, we might have pulled off a draw. He definitely would have had a shot at a survive. As it was all he got was the influence by giving his SCs away.

I don't draw any distinction between defeat and survival, but that's just me. Personally, my priority list is
Win
Draw
Destroy the guy who made me lose.

Don Corlene, I agree
@Acosmist
If you're in a position where you can't do anything tactically to stop a defeat, then either you should diplomatically stop it, or you should have acted earlier.
Even if you're right, and there was nothing he could do, he should still get a loss in WTA because he has *lost* the game... everyone has games where it seems there was nothing they could do to stop their defeat, but it shouldn't chance the outcome

"If you're in a position where you can't do anything tactically to stop a defeat, then either you should diplomatically stop it, or you should have acted earlier."

Uh huh, we're talking ex post, and evaluating the position as it is. It's worthless to say, in 1910, that you should have done something different in 1908. In 1910, all you can do is calculate results going forward.

Further, you can't diplomatically force people to stop a solo. You can lay out the circumstances for them, but some people are vindictive, or want to help their friend win, or are cowards and think that if they stab the solo guy he'll take all of their SCs, or they aren't smart enough to understand the necessity of cooperation. "Make everyone agree with you!" is not a reasonable demand.

agree with acosmist

If this is the situation, then you're unlucky and won't be able to stop the solo... you shouldn't be rewarded with survive for trying to stop it and making the right efforts!
So a "defeat" is the most fitting result of not stopping a solo in WTA, and should be awarded

I am sorry that I cannot perceive the brooding omnipresence in the sky that makes a defeat the correct result.

Second Place is just another word for first loser.

3 reasons Acosmist:

Yes, you have technically survived, but you haven't taken any points, and its nothing like getting 14SCs in a PPSC game, and this should be reflected on your record.

It is in the spirit of WTA that a 16SC finish is equal to an elimination, because the winner takes *everything*, there is no second place and no pride in supporting an ally soloing and surviving.
This should also be reflected on your record.

The current system encourages people to support solos if they can survive.
This is wrong.

Noote to self: Don Corleone is a vengeance monger who doesn't see the value in stopping number one just because he is losing...

Don - you are going to get stabbed. It's part of the game, and going all medieval on the stabber reduces your chances of getting the draw.

i don't think it does. one way of stopping a solo is to build up your forces not to blindly rush into a massacre, if things don't work out then a survive is still a survive, shows you were able to defend against all other enemies well. a defeat and a survive are clearly different and deserve to be kept that way, you will argue the same when your survive rating goes up.

With 30% survives otto, I think you are the one who is being influenced by his record, when setting out his beliefs.
I'm only claiming survive=defeat for WTA, because by its definition, there is no distinction except between who wins and who can't win.
If you defend yourself well, then that's great for you, but if you still fail to accomplish the aim of game and *win* or stop someone else winning, then your defense has been for nothing.

in my last 2 games I've survived with 16. Both were bloody wta's- so gutting.

spell of wheels has a survival rating in the 20% range and he's better than both of us, what's your point. there should be something shown for effort at the very least, for wta i get that a not win is a loss, but still. we are all influenced by our personal prejudices, but doesn't mean i'm any less right

I once played an anonymous gunboat WTA that pissed the fuck out of another player (he probably still uses my name as a curse word today). I turned a 2 SC position post stab into a strong second. Did I win? No. Did I get points for it? No. But did I get anything out of it? Absolutley. I got the pride of knowing I damn near turned a certain total death into a victory and might have been able to get the win if we played all the way to the bitter end, not just 18 SCs.

There is a flaw with the idea that someone who has 18 SCs is guaranteed sweeping the board. You can keep getting SCs, but if you have no home SCs to build on, you forces will get stretched thinner and thinner until you start losing and you opponents begin to take back their ground.

That would be another cool variant... Winner Must Take All. The only victory is a 34 SC victory. Hmmm...

"Yes, you have technically survived, but you haven't taken any points, and its nothing like getting 14SCs in a PPSC game, and this should be reflected on your record."

Points are artificial. The game's been around longer than the site; the scoring conventions devised for tournament play (and simply for comparing results) are prior to (in both Aristotelian senses) webdip's point system. The point system is useful for what it was designed for, but it's not an adequate alternative for pure scoring purposes to the win/draw/survival/defeat system.

"It is in the spirit of WTA that a 16SC finish is equal to an elimination, because the winner takes *everything*, there is no second place and no pride in supporting an ally soloing and surviving.
This should also be reflected on your record."

You seem to be describing a variant where WTA means not only that the winner takes all webdip points, but that the winner also takes one "victory unit" and anyone who did not win gets precisely zero "victory units". This is a peculiar variant. It makes people's common-sense judgments (such as that a survival with 16 supply centers is superior to a defeat, or to a survival with 1-15 supply centers) false. I am sure many people would like to play this variant, but I'll stick to Diplomacy.

"The current system encourages people to support solos if they can survive.
This is wrong."

Human nature encourages people to support solos if they can survive. There are many reasons for this. Some people are cowards. Some people truly don't care about winning - ask them! They really don't care much about winning and are perfectly happy just assisting another person to victory. I've met people like this. Although I think that perhaps Diplomacy is not the game for them, they haven't abandoned it, and will continue to influence the metagame (I'm using that term in a different sense than that in which it's usually used on here) as long as they keep playing. Most of us (certainly I) find it annoying that such people can play and ruin our games, but, hey, that sort of behavior's always been around.