We're all premium members here :-)

You can choose powers, just let a mod know that everyone wants to and we'll swap you round. Perhaps it will be added to the pregame some time, but I'm not sure.

Ah, Ghost beat me to it.
But yes, this place is much better (said the completely unbiased Figlesquidge)
How did you find out about play and webDip in the first place?

Welcome Eagle,

I'm another playdiplomacy convert (I found it with a few guys from Conquer Club). I was a little frustrated by the confirmation system before a game could start. It always seemed that the guy, who got Italy, never confirmed & everything would start over. It doesn't sound like things have changed much. I like the random assignment of nations as it forces you to consider the board from different angles. Nothing like playing Italy to teach you exactly how to destroy them :-)

All in all I've been very happy with the Kestas' site by comparison. It's a great community with top notch mods and admin.

I found out about phpDiplomacy here: http://www.freewaregenius.com/2008/05/15/an-overview-of-free-turn-based-strategy-and-war-games/.
I didn't find out about Playdip and the others until I stumbled upon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Diplomacy.

"top notch mods" - Thanks CA, your cheque is in the post :P

Eagle, Do you think there are many people on playDip who don't know this exists?

I used to play at ludomaniac.de, not much only like three games per year, cause it take ages(pbem). Great site though.

Do not have the rules here atm. But in the original rules, I think, you are not allowed to communicate when retreating and doing builds. Probably cause of time problems. But I prefer the rules used here.

I belive you're right Sendler. This communication is allowed here because by nature of the internet system, it can be hard to have a conversation with another player - particularly if they live on the other side of the planet. Therefore, you can communicate in all phases, giving time to have your conversations without needing much longer phases. You could argue that changing the ratio of phase lengths would solve this and indeed it would, but then you'd also have to be on far more frequently incase the game switched to the retreat or build phases whilst you weren't paying attention.

Yes, in my opinion the inventor made this rule so that live games dont take ages. Cause its seems logical that you can always do diplomacy in rl.

But I guess its sort of a variant, what we play. But u gotta think more ahead of time if u cant talk. And retreating can become a real problem, since u cant tell the other guy where to retreat. Building shouldnt be a big problem, since u can talk about tactic ahead of time. I guess u could also talk about retreating ahead of time, but sometimes u retreat unexpected.

*ftf games i mean of course, not live games ;)

well, tactically, and diplomatically there is a major difference, especially if you want to stab, since builds are decided before Autumn, you can build more effectively, and less stabs.

Armies fleeing the field of battle have no ability to communicate with their allies! The game dynamics are changed. I mentioned this in threadID=463373. Honestly, I think there is a solution. I can imagine a system where messages are sent but cannot be read until after the retreat an the disbanding phases. How difficult would that be to implement?

Lol I love the rivalry-like relationship we have with playDip. It's like two different high schools or something. I've never actually even been over there though.

It would be easier to just disable the chat boxes if the pase wasn't a movement phase. That should be an easy one to implement. Also, check on the post back what the phase is and ignore any postings in the message box field, assuming it means somebody went hacking and tried to sneak one through. It's about an hours worth of coding to put it in place, less if you are intimately familiar with the code, as kestas obviously is (he wrote it).

@JECE: why should retreating armys not be able to communicate, even back then, it should have been possible normally i think (maybe sometimes not like depending how fast u retreat etc)

Draugnar: You're not asking me to touch the code myself, are you? I'd have no idea how. But are you suggesting just disabling the chat option during those phases? The thing with that is that the others have a point. Communication should not be impeded too much.

Thucydides: I was going to say it reminds me of Oxford vs. Cambridge, because one is decended from the other, but then I remembered that Cambridge was founded by people from Oxford. PLAYdiplomacy certainly was not founded by people leaving phpDiplomacy, as far as I know.

Sendler: The retreats phase is not for tactical retreats. In the retreats phase your armies have already been crushed and are scampering off into the distance. Tactical retreats are just regular moves.

I expect it was: how else would he know of using this code? Saying that obviously I'm not sure, so he might not be.

JECE: your idea's arent hard to implement, but finding someone prepared to do it for you, with a server to host, and players to play might be harder.

@JECE: well not all armys/fleets are "crushed", of course in this game we simulate they all retreat at the same time, but in rl armys arent always crushed
I mean I have no idea about rl retreats from back then, but i doubt they were all so fast and u not being able to communicate with allys/enemies at all. Just making slower retreats doesnt make sense I guess so all are immediate retreats.

figlesquidge: It requires extra server space?

Sendler: The units were routed. You must understand that when a unit is routed it might not even be able to communicate with its own commanding officer, let alone with its country's high command or with foreign powers.

What figle means is that Kestas won't run it on this server, so you'd have to take the code from this site and create a mirror site with the changes you want.

JECE: as Xapi says.
I disagree to your routing comment. diplomacy units retreat, there is a difference. Units that rout are ones that can't move. If they retreat then they would be able to talk to other people, because whilst moving the wrong way they're still in control of their actions.

The rules of the boardgame are that no diplomacy takes place during retreat and build phases. I'm just suggesting that, if we want to match the boardgame rules, we block the chat during those phases.

But I don't care either way. I was just suggesting how the requested enhancement could be implemented.

Agreed, it wouldn't be hard to implement. However, I think that with the format in use [internet] it is a bad idea as it reduces the amount of diplomacy that can be conducted

But the rules of the game say that diplomacy *should* be reduced. The boardgame says no diplomacy is to take place during retreats and builds. However, that doesn't mean people couldn't chat in public aroudn the table. So maybe make the chat box inactive when on a private tab, but active on the global chat.

Just bouncing ideas off y'all.

Draugnar, i think that rule in the boardgame is so that it moves along more quickly. since that's not as much of an issue here, it makes sense to have more, not less.

As I said, I don't care either way. But I know of at least one person here who told me, in game, that they don't like to talk during retreats and builds. I respect their wishes in that regard and just thought it could make a cool variant. Call it "boardgame strict" and add it as one of the game types (Gunboat, Public, Boardgame Strict, Full Press).

yeah, that's a nice idea. it's generally been the case in live games that i have played.

Sounds good to me: add 'strict' as a press type.

<Draugnar is getting ideas of enhancements he could easily add next year and run on a test site>