Limit Hold Em or No Limit Hold Em -- to each his own Zultar - I prefer to play for the rich experience each game offers - no two are alike.

@SD-

I have no problem with you going after me instead of joining a triple, other than it happened to me and made me sad. That's the game. Really, I don't have a problem with you refusing to accept the draw, either. I don't think it was the right choice, but que sera, sera. When I said I was going to stab either you or Germany, I must not have communicated effectively that I meant, I would do so if the triple had happened.

As regards defending Berlin, it wouldn't have mattered anyway, because I attacked Kiel from Denmark, thus cutting that hypothetical support.

Had Russia helped you knock me out in 1908 or 1909, you wouldn't have had to worry about my potential to throw the game to Austria. But they didn't. The only player who decided this wouldn't be a draw was you.

zultar re: why I didn't want a drawfest...

because I wanted a couple other countries (Italy, Russia) to join me in the underworld first. :P

I guess if I played so badly as to be defeated early but my rawness and bad play was PREDICTABLE enough for other Countries to cash in on then my play would have just been terrible and any subsequent WIN would have been a great win. But since my play was unpredictable and/or poor Austria's win is no good I take it?

You guys play a variant of the original game and you play anonymously and you then you complain. LOL.

Bob - in what subject we are dissagreing then? I know I didn't want the 5-way draw,so what? Is a 5-way draw better then lose a game?
Btw - you supported hold Kiel.And you even wouldn't have been in Denmark if we have had a"normal" Russia.

Is a 5 way draw better than a lost game? Yes. There's one subject upon which we disagree.

Ok. To me it isn't,it's the same losing.

A draw is the same as losing?
I'll have to agree with Bob here and disagree with you, SplitDip.
Austria's win is tainted, I would think.
And yes, we complain when we play anon wta gunboat and other people don't understand how it works or what stalemate lines are. Sorry but some of us expect competency in this game.

Of course a 5-way draw is better than a lost game! A lost game means you lost! A draw means you didn't win but you managed to stop anyone else from winning too. I can't believe someone just made that argument!

They say that the best played games of diplomacy always end in draws, because good players realize the danger of a solo and prevent it... unfortunately, that didn't happen here.

SplitDip can blame who he wants for not holding Kiel but at the end of the day he should have drawn once he saw Kiel go down. At that point, he knew that Austria was gonna win at next builds. Regardless of who "should have held kiel" there was no excuse for not drawing once Austria took it...

I'll admit though, that near the end I gave up my position. I got sick of just wasting my time trying to survive in Turkey and decided that my best bet was to show France that if he didn't draw Austria would definitely win. I hoped that by abandoning my position in Turkey and moving to Sev I could at least survive Austria's win rather than be eliminated just before it. And, of course, I thought France would be intelligent about the draw offer once he saw that my position was crumbing. But of course, we know how that turned out...

Not a draw zultar,you haven't payed much attention. A 5-way draw,not any draw.

A five way draw is still a draw, point wise and GR wise better than a loss in WTA.
This is especially true if the game was unbalanced due to CDs or NMRs.
Well, I vote to cancel those games in the early years each time.

What draw after Kiel went down? Once Austria took Kiel there was NO draw offer.Why don't you talk with arguments and not talk just to talk?

When I ordered my A(Sev) to hold at the beginning of Autumn '10 the word "Draw" was next to everyone's name but yours.

zultar - is 7-way draw also a draw? Have you ever seen the original rules for the game of Diplomacy?

moskowitz - ask Austrian player if he has whitdrawn the draw vote in spring '10.

He withdrew the draw in Autumn. Right after the finalization in Spring.

Right after he took Kiel,right?

berlin, but yes.

I started the game by playing with the board and original rules. I think the rules have to be adjusted for the game online because of CDs and NMRs. A five way draw is better than a loss. A seven way draw is sad and should not happen. That should be a cancel.

Ok then,you should know then in the rules it's the 3-way draw max what the autor has predicted,anything beyond that it's not a draw to me.

If I remember correctly, by the original rules, people are allowed to talk to each other, too.

In any case, we should all stop fighting over this. Who really cares when Austria withdrew the offer to draw or who "should have held what when." The fact remains that after Germany CD'd Austria thought it would be fair to draw and SplitDip took the risk that he could eliminate a couple more player before forcing the draw. To me, that itself is kinda ridiculous because he tried to take advantage of Germany leaving the game to put a hurt on some of the rest of us, even though he must have realized that any result after that point was going to be heavily biased in his favor through no merit of his own.

To SplitDip, gambling on a potential loss in a broken game is worth trying to force out a couple more players. Or maybe he was really crazy enough to think he could win, what do I know? Nothing we're gonna say is going to change his mind that he did the right thing.

So lets all just agree that SplitDip has an opinion about how the game should be played. It's an opinion nobody else seems to share, and it's an opinion that involves such stupid assertions as "is a draw really better than a loss?" But it's his stupid opinion, and dammit, he's entitled to it!

Rec'd.

Well, first let me say that I am glad that we are still civil about this though we disagree.
Second, I think there are two issues with the "rules".
1) It's a prediction, and really, it's the author's opinion and the game evolves. Things change; they don't remain static.
2) Part of the 3-way mentality is that there are no records of all the games you've played -the current game is the only game that matters- but since we do keep records now, it does matter to people what their overall records are. So a draw, 4 or 5 way, is better than a loss (survive/defeat) when you take that into account.

I don't think it's unfair that you don't want to draw unless it's a 3 way because it's closer to the creator's original opinion, but if you take into account of how the game has been ported online and how records are kept -the evolution of the game, then I think it would seem a draw (5 or more) is better than a loss. I try to cancel every game where there are CDs, but there are people here that play only for points without understanding/caring for the records or GRs.

Thank you on your kind words,you can be proud of it. It tells me everything what I should know about you. And the funniest thing is that you said "we should all stop fighting over this" and after that you talk like this. Welldone,you are the man!

Who are you talking to there, SplitDip?

To the one above you who wrote right before you said "I am glad that we are still civil...".
I don't know have you classified that message as civil too. Nevermind. You said right everything about the draws but I'm sorry Germany isn't here. In this case only one who has been "punished" by his retirement was France because if he had remained it would have been GER/FRA/AUS 100 %. He was about to finish Russia and France about to finish England when he resigned.
And 5,6,7 way draws are just rewards for the one who needs to lose the game,that's all,wont say anything more.Thanks.

I wasn't trying to be civil. I was pointing out the futility of trying to have a rational discourse with you, since you don't have anything enlightened to say. You've got this crazy argument about a 5-way draw being illegitimate based on your interpretation of the rule book for the original board game. Never mind that Germany would not have CD'd and given you the advantage if we were all sitting in the same room around a board. Never mind that we were playing a gunboat variant that's completely different than the original game anyhow. Never mind that you really had no shot of winning the game and were just trying to knock a few other players out of a broken game. You can't be bothered with any of that. A 50+ year old rulebook says something about a 3-way draw and that's all you know.

You'll forgive me if I'm just a little peeved. I stuck with a losing position for a long time hoping you would do the right thing so we could all have a more just outcome in a broken game. To have you now try to justify your actions with stupid arguments about the game's "original intent" and blame other people for causing Austria's victory is more than a little insulting to my intelligence. Perhaps you can understand me when I say that I find your play and your reasoning just as insulting as you now find my words.

How on earth do you get that you were about to finish me when Germany left, SD?