Sometimes it feels like the younger we are, the better we know what's good for us.

There's no reasoning with heretics.

This site and the Diplomacy world in general are better places without PPSC in them; however, that's not why I'm happy with the scoring change. I support the change because the site now gives us two methods for scoring draws that actually encourage different styles of play.

PPSC is based on an ignorant folk belief that points matter. I have more points than you, therefore, I am a better Diplomacy player.

I think we should get rid of gunboat. As a diplomacy purist I firmly believe that it is not the way diplomacy ought to be played and for some reason it's existence is offensive to my presence on this website.

I could always, yknow, not play it, but since I'm such a thoughtful and caring individual - and obviously smarter than everyone who plays gunboat - I need to impose my beliefs on the rest of the site to make sure no one else has to engage in that bastardized version of diplomacy!

As a Diplomacy purist as well, I think we should get rid of the entire site. Diplomacy should ONLY be played face to face.

One step at a time, 2WL.

My post was killed by that lock of "PPSC > WTA". Annoying.

"There is an incentive inherent in PPSC to intentionally lose the game."
Bullshit. There is always better incentive to going for the win.

"There is always better incentive to going for the win."

The mere fact that you can convince another player to exchange points for the win means your argument is invalid.

Excuse me, if you get rid of gunboat, people will ACTUALLY riot. Gunboat is incredibly challenging. Diplomacy is the form of the game that is boring: I dont want to sift through a bunch of bullshit posts from people, I just wanna see some damn moves.

Look at the scoring structure:

There is an incentive inherent in PPSC to intentionally lose the game.

If the second place player in the DrawA scenario gives 1 SC to the first place player, you end up with the Winner scenario.

SC count goes down but points awarded goes up!

Please explain why this scoring system makes any sense at all.

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PPSC is tantamount to legitimizing cheating. It encourages one player to intentionally lose the game to attain a reward in the form of more points.

Questions to the PPSC supporters:

1) Do you agree with my calculations?
2) Do you agree with the inference that PPSC provides an incentive to give away SCs?

If so, then why should we keep PPSC?

I was joking.

@JimTheGrey: I looked around for some arguments in favor of SumOfSquares scoring. The best statement was that it encourages the winner to distance themselves from the survivors as much as possible with respect to number of SCs. This means a more dominant win is worth more than a quick stab to victory. I can see where SoS would also be more useful in a tournament scenario because it would likely encourage more variation in scores over multiple games.

Maybe we should get rid of diplomacy all together. It'seems clearly just an inferior version of civ.

*it's clearly

Maybe we should just get rid of Vash.

@2ndWhiteLine: "PPSC is based on an ignorant folk belief that points matter. I have more points than you, therefore, I am a better Diplomacy player."

I think everyone is in full agreement the Webdip points is not a ranking system.

You are asserting with absolutely no supporting evidence and no basis in reality that PPSC players care more about points than WTA players. That is simply untrue. You can make the exact same snide comment about WTA players. How many WTA players are playing so called unranked games because they don't care about points?

Why is PPSC a problem? The only answer given so far, is the admins and mods _believe_ that PPSC undermines the point ranking system on this site. It is because they believe points matter.

dirge, as you are a fan of PPSC, please answer my questions. Thanks.

Kuta, I suggest you try answering questions and not just shoveling your own questions repeatedly into this thread. Everyone here knows how PPSC scoring works vis-a-vis WTA. It is unclear what it is you are trying to get at.

PPSC results in a slightly different play style in-game. So? Why is that a problem? You call it "cheating" because that play style is not rewarded in WTA. If you don't like PPSC, don't play it. Simple.

Mr. Kuta, I answered several of you questions in good faith. This is a dialogue not an inquisition and you are not the inquisitor. This is a reciprocal dialogue, I answered a couple of you questions, now you answer mine.

@CommanderByron gave a nice little summary on the other thread that has since been locked. I don't want to repost it without his (her?) permission, but I have one correction:

I don't think anyone is saying that PPCS encourages draws. Not even Kuta with his repeated pseudo-mathmatical arguments.

In fact WTA tends to result in early draws more often. I suspect that SoS will result in an even higher incentive to draw early rather than risk a solo. This has been discussed above several hundred posts earlier.

I'm talking about the merits of PPSC as a scoring system. In and of itself.

Not vis-a-vis WTA. Not vis-a-via any morals.

The silence is deafening.

Jeff: I said early on in this thread that I think it's pointless to argue about/debate scoring systems. They're all artificial but necessary in competitive play for evaluating games that end in draws.

The site went with SoS simply because that's what Chicago is using at this year's world championship (June 24-26), and the leadership team wanted to give players here the opportunity to give the system a try in advance of the tournament.

All three types of systems -- draw-based, center-based, rank-based -- are equally valid choices for scoring games that end in draws. I happen to like SoS, but even if the site had gone with a different center-based or rank-based system, I would have welcomed the change. The important thing to me is that we now have two different systems, and I think that's going to make it even more fun to play games here. I'm excited about my SoS game that started recently.

I have played a lot of SoS locally in our club. To play it well,you need to forget about draw size. You're trying to win, obviously, but failing that, you're trying to top the board and preferably by four or more centers.

Answer a question, get a question answered. Play or go, your choice.

@Dirge (I think): PPSC didn't incentivize risk-taking. It attempted to solve the problem of the victory condition by eliminating the paradox at the core of the game: everyone's trying to win, you can't win without help, why should someone help you win.

Games end in draws not because of scoring systems but because it's easy to stalemate the board. Scoring systems simply give us a way to evaluate the vast majority of games that end in draws.

Incidentally, can someone give a fuller explanation of how PPSC is good for variant maps compared to WTA systems like DSS/SoS? I've seen the claim over and over again and incorporated it into my own position, but there hasn't been much reasoning presented either for or against the claim on this thread.

@Jim

As to risk taking -- I see your point, but in practice, people are still wanting to solo. And the crucial difference in game play is how someone with a center or two and no realistic way to win chooses their moves.

What we see on this site, and maybe most web based Diplomacy, is a high portion of early draws with only one or two players eliminated. In my experience, this happens more on WTA than on PPSC. The likely reason is that people are afraid to risk a solo. And even worse, it seems to have been institutionalized where ppl play to eliminate one or two, and than everyone wants to draw. We have every reason to predict that SoS will increase this problem.

With SoS, you have someone with a center or two away from a solo, there will be a lot of pressure to draw or face a dog pile. With SoS, if you draw with 17 centers, the points difference compared to a solo is negligible, so the incentive is to draw instead.

Regarding the problem of "thrown games"

This, in fact, more than Diplomacy purism, is what has driven this debate all these years. PPSC is oft criticized for a player helping another player solo. And this is true, but within the logic of PPSC, I don't see that as a "thrown game." It is what it is and it is avoidable by not playing PPSC.

But, this is red herring. People throw games on WTA, too. Why? Not because of points. Not because it is incentivized. The number one reason I've seen people throw WTA games is that it is built into the nature of the game itself. Anger. Diplomacy, apart from gunboat, is not chess. It is a social game. You motivate other players in various ways, including lying and back stabbing. Sometimes people get angry and help someone solo to spite someone else.

Is this against the rules? No. Should it be? Some people act like it is a rule, but I haven't seen any rules against helping someone solo, nor have I seen any rule against spite as a strategy.

My point is, the most common reason why people "throw" games has nothing at all to do with PPSC.

I'm trying to imagine what a webdip riot looks like.

---------BREAKING NEWS---------

A predominantly white male group of protestors between the age of 12 and 45 has taken to the streets in cities around the world. While many cities come off lightly with only one or two protestors, there have been reports of crowds of up to 5 people in some major cities. Their motives are mostly unclear but there has been grumbling about wanting gunboats so they are assumed to be violent. The WDPD spokesperson is not concerned:
"We may take more drastic measures in the future, but for now we just want to silence them."

We recommend staying at home with the door locked unless you have a smartphone with an internet connection.

------------------

i think that dirge, jamiet et al fail to understand our point. i can't speak for everyone, but i'll speak for me:

ppsc is not diplomacy.

it is not a variant of diplomacy like modern, public press or gunboat, it is not diplomacy. if you think like this, it should (hopefully) be obvious why you would rather have unbalanced variants than ppsc on a site that labels itself "the best site for online diplomacy". you may not think like that, but you can't deny that if you would, this would likely be your opinion.

so why do i think ppsc is not diplomacy?

we can all agree that the goal of diplomacy is to win. that's what we're all here for - a solo victory. some may be here for different reasons, but i am talking about those who play the game to win, which should be the majority.

as jim pointed out, this leads to the paradox that you need to work with the very people who you will later have to betray in order to win. this is the core of the game – to win, you have to have everyone against you, at least at some point. this is done through negotiation, and things like develop tensions between your enemies etc.

it is not really important whether or not you do this on the standard map designed by calhamer. even if you change the map, the core of the game remains unchanged.

it gets a bit trickier with public press and gunboat games, but the basic idea is that you still communicate, only in public or without words. but this is a different discussion.

now to the points system – as people have pointed out, there is no ideal scoring system, because there is no description in the rulebook about playing more than one game. the problem with points is that they create a different incentive than described in the rulebook. so what you’re trying to do is keep that incentive as close to the rulebook as possible.

with ppsc, the opposite is the case – this system has incentives that contradict the core, the goal of the game, by rewarding players who help other players win. as i said, to win, you have to have everyone against you at some point. thus, helping another player achieve a solo victory (we’re talking about a conscious decision here, not being convinced that the leader is not a threat etc.) goes against the core of the game.

the ideal option (and as I understand it, the long-term goal for this site) is to not use points at all. and when this happens, I don’t want to play with people who think that surviving while someone else wins is good – if you survive, you’ve lost, because there is only one winner in the game of diplomacy. everything else is fine as well, of course – but it is not diplomacy.