Yes Carnage is explicitly designed for a 3-round tournament.

The reason that a game of diplomacy ends when a power reaches 18 centers us that it is implied that they could then conquer the rest of Europe and everyone else would die (obviously this isn't always true with smaller than 17 stalemates but that's a quirk). If someone solos, all of Europe has been captured and everyone else has died. Getting points for a survive is crazy.

me, i have no opinion.

So carnage will never be added to WebDip for regular games, then? It's great for tournaments, but not the long-term stats of the site.

I always enjoyed ppsc as an option on the site. It didn't play as "true" diplomacy, but it did encourage wilder gameplay and more experimental strategies. It always seemed to be more of a sandbox style to me, rewarding people who were willing to try weird new alliances or strategies if they didn't quite work out right, but still had some success. As a way to grow players and have a bit less serious game of diplomacy, but with at least some incentive unlike unranked. Always enjoyed it as a middle ground and was disappointed when it was removed.

That said, I always viewed it as more of a variant and would rather see some of the top rated variants brought on the site. In my mind, getting something like FoG eventually, or click and drag orders would be a better investment of time then in spending more time on ppsc.

@ jmo: Thank you for your support and your intelligent observations. I would say that putting PPSC back should not require very much administrative time or effort, surely? It was already here.

@JMO

Just playing unranked seems like it would accomplish that without the risk of accidentally tricking people into becoming terrible at Diplomacy.

I really don't know how much work it would be, but at this point it's more time then I have. There seems to be a bug with order logs for KnownWorld that I need to hunt down. And ultimately adding it back isn't a decision I can make.

For known world, is it at all possible to have a smaller map? The scrolling makes it hard to see the big picture.

On firefox the map is smaller to start, and you can click to zoom in. I've noticed it's always zoomed in on Chrome and I'm not entirely sure why.

From PPSC is flawed ( according to it's opponents ) and not winner takes all, so WebDiplomacy cannot use it, to jump seamlessly to, therefore webdip cannot have any non wta scoring system is quite a leap and not necessarily logically consistent.
I do not demand that a non wta type scoring system be introduced ASAP. However if I felt that there would never be available a non wta scoring system as an option, well then, though that might not be a deal breaker ( ie I would leave WebDiplomacy ) in it's own right, but it might get me more than half way there.
Then all that's needed are the pull of another site and a triggering event.

I am quite serious when I say webDip already has a non WTA scoring system available. Unranked has almost all of the advantages people are claiming PPSC had, without any of the undesirable distortions.

Unranked has a huge psychological disadvantage going against it. Why even try if nothing is on the line?

On a different note, I have seen (and been forced into) far more "bad" play from SoS than I ever saw from PPSC. I don't know that I'm upset about losing PPSC (though I don't see the point), but I'm certainly miffed that we were given such a terrible - albeit highly touted - replacement.

I don't usually like unranked games either, but they are useful for introducing somebody to the game. I have introduced a number of friends to the game of diplomacy and this site, and I have found unranked very helpful as a way to sort of handhold them through their first game as they get a hang of how to handle press and stuff.

kind of like the "open hand round" when you learn a card game.

"Unranked has a huge psychological disadvantage going against it. Why even try if nothing is on the line?"
"kind of like the "open hand round" when you learn a card game."


I'm confused, when you guys play games irl with friends do you just fuck around and not try to win because there are no points?

no, not usually, but when it's their first game, I want to make sure they really understand how to play.

I am a bit of an achievement/point addict, but realistically speaking, my friend group is much smaller than this site. I am satisfied knowing where I rank among my friend group. Honestly, it's not so much the lack of points in unranked games (though that does play a role), but rather the lack of ranking.

abgemacht: Simply the word 'unranked' leads to it not to be taken seriously.

LeonWalras: What advantages of PPSC do you believe are reflected in unranked games? How are these advantages relevant given the non-competitive nature of unranked games?

Hi guys,

I was going to stay out of this altogether, but I'll give my two cents anyway. Similar to jmo, I've played a fair number of PPSC games. I've played my fair share of live, Anc Med, and gunboat games as well. I like variants. I've been able to use PPSC to my advantage the vast majority of the time that I've played and I enjoy it well enough, but here is the rub.

The language of the original game does not support PPSC, as is reflected by how it is played FtF. PPSC was something Kestas and the old mods/developers created because they couldn't think of another method/reason to use points, which was all we had at the beginning. Moreover, it does teach you to play the game poorly; it is entirely too easy to convince someone to play for second best, but there isn't such a thing as second best in Diplomacy. Points aren't meaningful and neither is getting second place. You either win/draw/lose. That's it. If you blame WTA for the draws, I think that's on you because the top players I know don't settle for draws. They go for the win, or in the rare times, for the 2-way draw b/c those are damn rare, but WTA doesn't make you draw. WTA/DSS incentives you to win because you win the whole thing, not just some parts of it or some points of the whole pot. If you don't win more, it's not necessarily the game format that makes it so; your own skill and predilection probably play a key role in that. PPSC incentives many people to settle for second best and then they carry that over to WTA/DSS, which is problematic. It is probably true that the way we made PPSC go away was not the best way. I think we should have given the forum warnings and then a few months to play with it before it was taken away altogether, but for years now, the majority of the players and mods and developers have talked about doing away with PPSC as it is a variant of the original game (as is SoS arguably).

Zultar keeps Saying he played or plays games. Bullshit. As site owner, he padded his own stats. It 2017 Big Z. Come out of the closet. This is a show Me game site

How do I even pad my own stats if I don't play? :)
Fine, I'll play a couple of 1 v 1 games just so people would shut up about it. There's also the top 6 donor game that I'll play in the summer.

do i make the game @$50

captainmeme: Thanks for your contribution regarding stalemate lines. Unfortunately, I don't believe the nuance in your interpretation of PPSC is different from those who claim that PPSC produces bad Diplomacy players.

Much like other critics, you paint us as saying that "the correct interpretation of the rulebook was that you should allow someone else to reach 18 if you're doing well" even though no supporter of PPSC agrees with that misreading of both the rulebook and PPSC.

On the contrary, we maintain that PPSC encourages solo play for reasons Jamiet99uk outlined in point 1. of his position. I strongly dislike drawing unless the game reaches a stalemate line or the game is so fluid that more than one player can within within a year. In my most recent game (gameID=187811), I almost brought my opponents to mental breakdown when I failed to draw prematurely as is now the norm. I only got away with not getting ganged up on by the new hidden draw votes feature.

Perhaps you are reacting to comments like the one MajorMitchell made about rewarding so-called 'loyal supporters' of a solo push. The reality, however, is that only Great Powers who would otherwise face certain elimination have a points incentive in PPSC to jump on the solo bandwagon (because eliminated players receive nothing). Because of this, the most 'loyal supports' of a solo push are almost invariably microstates reduced to a handful of SC's, which of course means that these microstates actually lose points since they end up with less than their initial bet.

"one player can within within a" --> 'one player can win within a'

captainmeme: To be exact with my final sentence, any player who loses the game but survives with 4 or fewer supply centers will lose webDiplomacy points under PPSC (unless you survive the game with 4 SC's and for some ungodly reason there are still six or more neutrals on the board).

"Perhaps you are reacting to comments like the one MajorMitchell made about rewarding so-called 'loyal supporters' of a solo push. The reality, however, is that only Great Powers who would otherwise face certain elimination have a points incentive in PPSC to jump on the solo bandwagon (because eliminated players receive nothing). Because of this, the most 'loyal supports' of a solo push are almost invariably microstates reduced to a handful of SC's, which of course means that these microstates actually lose points since they end up with less than their initial bet."

This has already been proven wrong. Why do you keep saying it?

@JECE, it's only possible to arrive at that conclusion if you don't know what PPSC is. I have no idea how you managed to get there.

"only Great Powers who would otherwise face certain elimination have a points incentive in PPSC to jump on the solo bandwagon (because eliminated players receive nothing)."

Take out the 'only' in this sentence and you have a true statement. If a player is going to get eliminated if the game were to continue, they benefit from another player's solo. Including the 'only', however, makes it completely false.

Clearly, anyone who gains more from the enemy solo than from a draw has an incentive to throw, since it gives them more points.

Imagine you are Italy in this game: gameID=146096. The correct play here in WTA is to hold the stalemate and prevent a French solo. The correct play in PPSC is to take Vienna & Budapest while supporting France into Munich and working towards a French solo, because if the Frenchman solos (with you having taken those two centers) you receive 8921 points, whereas with a three way draw you receive 7777.

Since 34/3 = 11.33, any player with >=12 supply centers gains more in PPSC from letting another player solo than from anything other than a 2-way draw. It's not hard to find situations where that's the case, especially since if someone else is holding a stalemate it is not hard to get to 12 supply centers with a stab on them - the only downside is that that allows the player they were stalemating to solo, but that's not a downside in PPSC - it's a benefit for you!

You say that "the most 'loyal supports' of a solo push are almost invariably microstates reduced to a handful of SC's". I honestly hope that is how you play, only supporting a solo push if you would be eliminated otherwise. However, if you were playing this way in PPSC - holding a stalemate instead of letting another player solo when you had a chance to get >=12 SCs - you were playing contrary to the variant's point reward system and getting a lower reward than you would have gotten if you had thrown the game.

If you believe that the only players who should support a solo should be players who would get eliminated otherwise - I have some great news for you! There's a variant that has precisely that incentive, called WTA. You should try it some time.