um, yeah, carnage looks good.

Carnage doesn't make much sense as long as we still have points, as the rounding errors get rather problematic. It's cool for tournaments.

I like SoS though. There's something to play for when a solo is off the table, and there's potential for a would be soloist to create tension amongst the others over solo counts.

In Carnage, the players are ranked 1 through 7 by centers and then given points based on their ranking.

Each game is worth 28,034 pts. If you solo, you get them all.
If the game ends in a draw, then the players are ranked by center count, through order of elimination, as necessary. If you top the board, you get 7,000 pts. Second highest center count gets 6,000 pts. Down to 1,000 pts for the lowest center count or the first person eliminated.

In addition, each player gets 1 pts per supply center at the end of the game. These points essentially act as a tiebreaker. So, if you top with 10 centers, that's worth 7,010 pts. Finally, if two players share a rank, they split the points for those two positions. If two guys top the board with 10 centers each, they each score 6,510 pts.

Here are 3 examples of scoring:
[Power: SC, pts]
Russia: 18; 28,034
Turkey: 3; 0
France: 6; 0
Germany: 4; 0
England: 3; 0
Italy: 0(2nd); 0
Austria: 0(1st); 0

[Power: SC, pts]
Russia: 14; 7014
Turkey: 7; 6007
France: 6; 5006
Germany: 4; 4004
England: 3; 3003
Italy: 0(2nd); 2000
Austria: 0(1st); 1000

[Power: SC, pts]
England: 8; 6508
Russia: 8; 6508
France: 7; 5007
Turkey: 6; 4006
Italy: 4; 3004
Austria: 1; 2001
Germany: 0; 1000

To recap: The scoring has a pure WINNER TAKES ALL part. It then rewards you for what rank you are, with the exact amount of SC only mattering for tie breakers. The over-arching idea is that there is little to no reason to just keep bashing on someone who's already down while naturally rewarding being in the lead and being a higher SC count than others. It should not result in any unnatural play, certainly not more than any other scoring system out there. With only three rounds that means a solo automatically beats any combination of non-soloing scores (maximal non-solo score for a single round is obviously 7017 pts, even if you got that all three rounds you would still be far behind a single solo).

The main consequence being that for example, if Italy had 3 and Austria had 2, it wouldn’t change the amount of points they got except for tiebreakers. Also there's no real reason for, say, Turkey to be OK with Italy being eliminated by someone else since it doesn't help his score at all, so minor powers are more likely to be allowed to keep playing rather than cut out.

I realize this is a logical fallacy, but I can't help but point out that in the entire Diplomacy hobby, PPSC "supporters" number around a half dozen.

In fact, I'd be surprised if you could even find enough people who truly thought PPSC was a decent scoring system to play a game of Diplomacy.

I had good experiences with Carnage during the Local tournament. It doesn't work very well with Webdip points, but I like it as a scoring system.

"Carnage doesn't make much sense as long as we still have points, as the rounding errors get rather problematic."

Just always round up. Are points all of a sudden in short supply?

Also, to clarify, I don't think SoS is *bad* in the same sense that PPSC is bad, but I do think it is the worst of the popular F2F scoring systems. If we want to represent F2F, I think we should do so with Carnage. If we just want to have a variety of scoring systems, we should have DSS, SoS, and Carnage.

Any system where taking more centers can cause me to lose points is very flawed in my book, ghug.

Abge, didn't you realize points are an important indicator of skill? :)

The tiebreaker becomes entirely irrelevant unless you're playing a very high pot game, and then you're left with no scoring difference between eliminating and not eliminating players, which in my mind would simply lead to premature draws.

Even the minimum pot of 35 is enough to clearly differentiate your place in Carnage. It's true it would work better for pot sizes of 1000 or so, but that really isn't so much with point inflation. You could have enforce a minimum pot size, but I don't think it would be necessary to get the benefits of Carnage.

I think you missed my point.

PPSCDIAF

Okay weigh in:
Screw PPSC. It was fun to an extent more relax and casual play. But It's not something I'm going to fight over. I respect all the opinions here but PPSC is waste of time and resources. The site needs stuff to pull people in; and PPSC isn't that.

ghug: Way to put words in my mouth.
1. I remember quite clearly that abgemacht was not the only one to misunderstand PPSC. Indeed, we had a lengthy discussion about renaming the scoring systems to ways that made sense, or else letting players customize scoring for win/loss scenarios and draw scenarios separately. The confusion has never lessened.
2. Ignorance of PPSC scoring is of course "not a refutation of the arguments against it." No one was arguing that. My main argument for PPSC scoring is based on encouraging CD takeovers and thus quality of play for new users.
3. I don't necessarily prefer PPSC, but I certainly will never join another game in progress given that PPSC has been removed. This is not a question of a "preferred variant" to us that "enjoyed it." This is a question of encouraging certain behaviors, just as you would have the discussion be. But more to the point, it is a question of whether you want a website exclusively dedicated to the Diplomacy elite or a website that caters both to new players and the "prominent players [that] had abandoned PPSC". Without PPSC as the default scoring system and with the introduction of reliability ratings, new players have to endure games with CD positions that will never be filled and are simultaneously barred by reliability ratings and points from entering games with the esteemed elite. Hell, my first four games on webDip (phpDiplomacy at the time) were games I joined in progress to learn the ropes as small Great Powers in difficult positions where simply surviving was a challenge and the goal was to expand modestly and draw if possible. Without PPSC all this is now impossible.
4. It's incredible to me that the rulebook criticisms of PPSC still come up when SoS is hosted on this same server. The fact of the matter is that PPSC can be reasonably interpreted as in line with the rulebook, while SoS directly contradicts the rulebook.
5. I never accused any particular mod or A_Tin_Can of making the decision unilaterally. Nor do I deny that there was a general dislike of PPSC by enlightened chosen folk like yourself. My complaint is not even that the mods acted without regards to the wishes of the userbase, though this is a cause of concern. No, I find it infuriating that after years of discussion that those in power consistently respond to the concerns of PPSC supporters in a sideways manner that fails to address the arguments we put forth. If you don't want discussion, so be it, but don't patronize us with deaf ears about your motivations for stripping PPSC of its default status and then removing it entirely from the website. Of course, if the decision "remains final", even if you choose to engage for a change, us critics may just lose motivation to engage back in a thoughtful manner.

Well I'd like a scoring system as an option that wasn't a wta scoring system, of you want to say the 9/17 to the winner and 8/17 shared amongst the survivors formula was plucked out of the air,blah blah & so has no merit then the only point you are making is that division is something to be discussed when developing a new non wta scoring system
What's really going on perhaps is the totalitarianism of wta scoring only ? There is no interest in scoring systems that are not wta amongst those running the site.

I personally hate PPSC and am happy to keep it banned, but the mods seem to be deliberately misunderstanding its proponents.

Unranked is a great scoring system if you want points for not winning.

One of the most interesting things about Diplomacy is that Stalemate Lines were built into the game long before they were ever necessary - very few FTF games ever got to that point. It's one of the most brilliant examples of game design out there, because it took the advent of the internet and PBEM games (and, to a lesser extent, PBM games) for them to be widely studied and used, but they were in the game right from the beginning.

Do you really think Allan Calhamer would have designed these 17-center lines if the correct interpretation of the rulebook was that you should allow someone else to reach 18 if you're doing well?

In reality, stalemates are an extremely important part of Diplomacy. The entire endgame revolves around making or breaking them, and that's the way it was designed. PPSC destroys this by making it better for a larger power to allow another power to reach 18 supply centers than to draw, so stalemate lines should never be formed in PPSC - someone behind them will always benefit from throwing the game.

Abge's argument, "It produces bad Diplomacy players", is often thrown around in PPSC debates but never really explained past 'Playing for second place is bad'. That's not a good explanation - playing for second place requires learning how to do well on the board and get a large number of SCs, something encouraged in Diplomacy. A better explanation is to do with what I've said above - PPSC completely changes the dynamic of the endgame and, in doing so, fails to teach new players about one of the most important parts of the game, and something integral to the game's design and balance - Stalemate Lines. Of course, it also teaches players that letting your opponents get to 18 supply centers is fine, but that's something that can be trained out of them fairly easily - learning the ins-and-outs of Stalemate Lines is much harder and should be something players are learning about and getting a feel for as they play more games.

Here is my position.



1. PPSC encourages players to go for the win. A pure WTA style scoring approach actually encourages players to draw rather than taking a risk to go for the win, because the danger of losing your stake prompts you to "settle" for a draw. In PPSC you are encouraged to take risks to try for a solo in endgame situations where two players could potentially solo and there is no stalemate yet - whereas in non-PPSC, those two players will probably try to settle for a draw.

To elaborate:

It's my view that WTA-based scoring encourages shitty play, with many players never seriously attempting to win because of the consequences of losing all your points even if you survive on 16 or 17 SC. PPSC, in my view, is better because it gives people more willingness to risk going for a solo.

If I was going to play four games, I'd rather get a solo, two decent "survives" and a defeat, rather than four draws. However it appears that some of you would vastly prefer the four draw outcome. For me, a draw is a form of defeat - so you guys lost four times, whilst I won one. For some people in WTA-style, a draw that increases your points feels (to them) like a win.


2. After PPSC was removed on an alleged "trial" basis, ATC defended it's permanent removal by saying the following:

"PPSC is not coming back. Let's not go over that again. The stats showed PPSC games had been entirely replaced by SoS and Unranked games, Jamie."

This was, and still is, an utterly fallacious argument and if the site authorities remain swayed by it they need to have a word with themselves. OF COURSE nobody was playing PPSC during the period which ATC "reviewed" - it wasn't available as an option. PPSC has been replaced by other modes only because ATC and others forced that to be the case in a bid to suck up to the FTF community. This is an online site, it is not FTF. Pandering to people on the FTF scene because ATC has a boy-crush on certain high-profile players in that community is sickening.

3. PPSC is encouraging to new players because it gives them a chance to gain some points even if they don't win.

4. People who don't like PPSC can simply choose not to play in PPSC games. We have enough players these days, and the majority of players seem to prefer non-PPSC scoring systems. Don't like PPSC? Fine, don't play it! Why remove PPSC altogether, when some people clearly still want it as an option? How does it harm the site to deny us that option?

@ Leon Walras
Your statement " unranked is a great scoring system if you want points for not winning" ho ho , aren't you witty, but I think Oscar Wilde & Sheridan can rest easy. But it's a non sequitur dearest LW, if there are no points to be won, but I suppose the thing your statement does demonstrate is this superior self congratulatory attitude that wta is all virtuous and good and anyone holding a different opinion can be treated flippantly, disregarded, treated as a joke.

The behaviour that wta encourages is continual deception and backstabbing, I like a scoring system where a "loyal supporter" can have a way to support a winner or conversely a winner can still reward a loyal supporter, with wta, the only reward a winner can give his most loyal supporter is a sword in the back

If you introduce carnage, you would simply have to make the bet sizes in 4-point increments for that variant. That's actually better for most cases I think?

Plus I assume that points are on their way out anyway?

From 1st April points will be replaced with +1's. You will need to earn +1's on the forum which you can then use to buy into games.

What if we brought PPSC back but with a entry block. Something like "PPSC can only be played once X number of non PPSC games have been completed" this would mean by the time a new player got around to playing PPSC they would have been trained in WTA or SoS. This to me seems to solve the issue with having PPSC while bringing it back for casual play.

This also serves the benefit of encouraging long term play since there will be something to "unlock". Humans are odd creatures and love when others dangle carrots for them. Maybe having this one thing would help new players to stay.

Two points that really ought to end this conversation:

LeonWalras: Unranked is a great scoring system if you want points for not winning.

Zybodia: Any system where taking more centers can cause me to lose points is very flawed in my book

Both apply to PPSC. Never bring it back.

@ Jeff: Zybodia was not referring to PPSC when he made that comment.

Please outline a scenario in which, in a PPSC game, gaining an additional SC would cause a player to lose points.

I don't think we should introduce carnage to the site. In draws, in gives players points even for being eliminated. In my opinion, that makes it nearly as bad as PPSC as a scoring system. Carnage works fine in tournaments, when the lower points are basically worthless next to a solo. However, on our site, it doesn't make sense. Do we really want eliminated players getting points or GR simply because the other players managed to draw rather than solo? I definitely don't. If a player is eliminated, it's because their country was DESTROYED. It no longer exists. It makes zero sense for them to get points back as a result. To make matters worse, an eliminated player could even come out with more points than they went in with, if they were last eliminated in a 2WD.
If we only look at the principles behind a scoring system and not the incentive issues, I think rewarding players for surviving makes a lot more sense than rewarding players for being eliminated.